This is why I don't want to hear from Europeans about air conditioning TOM KNIGHTON

A lot of the people who blast us for our AC are europhiles and Europeans themselves. They don’t think much of our air conditioning and argue that we shouldn’t rely on it

This is why I don't want to hear from Europeans about air conditioning

TOM KNIGHTON

JUN 17

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Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

The attacks on air conditioning are persistent, but they aren’t really going anywhere. That may not continue indefinitely, but if they’re going to keep trying to tell me I shouldn’t use it, then they’ll continue being disappointed.

A lot of the people who blast us for our AC are europhiles and Europeans themselves. They don’t think much of our air conditioning and argue that we shouldn’t rely on it.

Yet here’s why I will never take those opinions seriously.

From the Mirror:

Forecast maps for the UK indicate when the current cold spell could possibly end, promising a 48-hour blast of sun with temperatures reaching up to 26C. A heatwave is predicted to encase the UK at the month's end, as June finally warms up. The mercury, which currently lays low, is expected to at last climb towards the 30C mark by the end of June.

According to weather maps from WX Charts, utilising Met Desk data, the temperature will likely peak around 26C in certain intervals. Cities that will be the hottest include Birmingham, Cardiff, London, Manchester, and Newcastle. This warm spell is anticipated to sweep across Britain from June 26th to the 28th.

26 degrees Celsius is 78.8 Fahrenheit.

That’s fall weather here, and these dipsticks are calling it a heat wave? Seriously?

Now, the comments on that piece have a number of people who are apparently in the UK taking issue with calling that a heat wave themselves, so not everyone there is a pansy, but the fact that the Mirror felt comfortable enough publishing this suggests that enough of them do think that temperatures around 79 or so are hot.

That’s a nice Fall day here.

See, the differences are stark, which is why the opinions of people at that particular latitude about whether we need air conditioning or not don’t matter one bit to me.

I live in Southwest Georgia. It’s a region I’ve jokingly said was never meant to be inhabited my man. It’s hot, humid, pollen-filled, and bug-infested. You don’t want to live outdoors if you can help it because of the bugs—bug sprays only help so much, after all, and the same for other things meant to keep them away—and the humidity also means even in the shade, it feels nasty.

So, we go indoors.

Without air conditioning, though, you just bring all of those outside problems inside. A screen on an open window might keep the bugs out, but it does nothing for the humidity. Plus, unless there’s a breeze blowing, it doesn’t help.

Fans are only so useful. I’ve had precisely one fan that can deal with the heat to any degree, and it’s this one. Not practical for inside the house, but on the patio while I’m trying to workout or complete some projects? Oh, it’s glorious enough.

It’s just too loud to do much of anything else with it running.

Inside, it’s impractical and smaller fans just make you wish you had air conditioning.

There’s a reason it was invented in the first place.

But there are people who think we should skip it entirely. They find they don’t need it so no one else should, either.

Well, when someone in Maine tries to claim I don’t need AC because they don’t need AC, I like to point out that their average highs in August don’t get above 80. Or someone in Boston griping about my AC when their August high is around 81. Or Manhattan with their whopping 84.

The temperature when I got up this morning, a June morning around 4:30 AM, was 76. I’ll probably be working out with the temp in the 90s.

And June is cooler than the August temperatures I noted above.

At 80 degrees, a fan probably works. Maybe a window unit for when it’s really, really hot.

Here, it’s really, really hot a lot of the time. Needing the air conditioner in December isn’t exactly rare, and that’s because it’s uncomfortably hot if you don’t.

I don’t have an issue with people making a personal decision about not having AC. Hell, there are times I wish I could get away with not running it because of how much it causes my electric bill to rise. The reality, though, is that heat down this way would be fatal for a lot of people, especially with how houses are built today.

You can complain about a heat wave that won’t necessarily break the 80-degree mark if you want to.

I’m going to run my air conditioning for every minute of our average summer and not even blink.