Five myths, cold
The AC myths Europe keeps repeating.
Every excuse for not cooling a room, answered with the public record. None of them outweigh 62,775 dead in a single summer.
AC is not a crime.
Colds are viruses. A thermostat does not carry one. A filthy, unmaintained system can harbour microbes, so you clean it, the same as you clean a kitchen. Working AC is what keeps a 75-year-old alive through a 40°C night. Heat does not give you a sore throat. It gives you an autopsy.
It is a heat pump running in reverse, the exact machine Europe pays you thousands to install for heating. On a grid that keeps cleaning, its emissions keep falling. The alternative, 62,775 dead in one summer and 0.5% of GDP lost to the heat, is not the green option.
Up to a point, then it reverses. The UK government says above roughly 35°C a fan stops helping an older body and just blows hot air at them. Madrid, Athens, Rome and Bucharest clear 35°C most summers now.
The human body has a hard ceiling. Past a wet-bulb temperature around 35°C, sweat stops evaporating and core temperature climbs no matter how tough you are. You do not train your way out of physics. You cool the room.
Europe wrote a 30°C legal limit for transporting cattle, and nothing for a child in a classroom or a patient on a ward. Cooling that keeps vulnerable people alive in a heatwave is health infrastructure, not a treat.