Europe will deploy more air-conditioning units and renewables before the US ever fixes its gun death problem (highest firearm ownership per capita globally, little to no mental health services at scale [suicide is half of all gun violence deaths in the US], etc). Europe can’t control climate change in the near term, but the US could absolutely provide mental health services and more aggressively regulate firearm ownership. It is an active choice not to.
I don't think suicides will be materially helped by "mental health services". The source of suicides is not a few people falling through cracks, it's many different fundamentally inhumane aspects of society itself. A therapist can not fix that.
toomuchtodo · 10h ago
If we attribute the suicides to economic circumstances, certainly, I agree even more it’s something the US is unwilling to change.
Brian_K_White · 7h ago
Not just economic. Lots of different things. Gender relations. Interactions with the government.
solace_silence · 12h ago
Seems like all the euro death data comes from one WHO article from 2024. Large claims require large support and all that...
Booktrope · 7h ago
Yeah, and there seem to be at least two ways to measure heat death. One is to measure "excess deaths" meaning, increase in death rate as temperature increases or exceeds some statistical measure of base death rate. The other is to count deaths medically identified as heat-related (such as heat stroke or heat exhaustion, etc) So just by searching the web, you can also easily find studies that listed the EU death rate recently as much lower.
gregjor · 10h ago
Population of Europe almost double that of USA.
siddbudd · 1h ago
the source is talking about deaths per 100K population. Still an utterly ridiculous comparison.
"The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it."
jmclnx · 12h ago
No AC is the issue, this does not look good for people trying to help with energy consumption vs Climate Change. It is like we are in a loosing race. I know better things are coming, but will it arrive in time and be cheap enough for people to afford ?
FWIW, I never had an AC until about 5 or so years ago. These days it is required as people age. And compared to when I was young, summers are far more brutal. I think about 40 years ago I started using a window fan at night, before that an open window was good enough.
https://www.ehpa.org/market-data/
https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/european-electricit...
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/05/what-the-...
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/05/24/suicides-...
"The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it."
FWIW, I never had an AC until about 5 or so years ago. These days it is required as people age. And compared to when I was young, summers are far more brutal. I think about 40 years ago I started using a window fan at night, before that an open window was good enough.