
Summer heat killed nearly 1,500 in France, officials say - elorant
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49628275
======
zadkey
I live in Texas. The heat wave that France is experienced this summer is like
maybe 1 or 2 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than a normal summer for us.

Preparedness for summer is deeply ingrained in everyone's minds here. Many
Apartment complexes treat issues with AC units as emergency situations, reach
out to on-call handymen and give high priority to their fix.

In the city of Dallas, city code requires that property owners provide
refrigerated air to tenants from April 1 to Nov. 1.

"According to state law, landlords must fix any condition that threatens a
tenant's health or safety. In Texas, that condition can include a sweltering
day in a stuffy apartment with no air conditioning."

It is my hope that people in France look for ways to prepare and better
safeguard the health and well-being of their citizens against the heat.

Some information taken from
[https://www.dallasnews.com/news/investigations/2009/10/07/dm...](https://www.dallasnews.com/news/investigations/2009/10/07/dmn-
problem-solver-renters-have-options-when-the-air-conditioner-doesn-t-get-
fixed/)

~~~
dalore
It doesn't make sense to have AC preparedness when it's only used for 1 week
out of a year.

Also the environmental impact of everyone having an AC, that's not good.

In France and the UK hardly any has an AC because it's not really needed. Your
suggestion is that they spend billions of dollars for this? Who buys everyone
the AC?

I lived in PNG which is near the equator and hot. It's not the temperature
that's the true problem, but humidity. We stayed cool by using the fan,
resting, removing clothing, swimming.

~~~
Someone
By that logic, it doesn’t make sense to fit a building with a sprinkler system
when it’s only used for one hour out of a century.

The question should be whether AC would be used much, but whether it has a net
benefit. And yes, the environmental impact should be taken into account.

To me, that depends (a.o.) on whether those 1,500 excess deaths get
‘compensated’ by lower death rates just after the heat wave (which would mean
many of those who died lost ‘only’ a few weeks)

~~~
deftnerd
Many areas around the world have storm shelters or bomb shelters.

Perhaps laws requiring community centers also function as temperature extreme
shelters could be instated.

The laws would have to also provide funding to install and maintain AC and
Heating systems suitable for the population around that area.

Additionally, if a business doesn't have AC or heating during extreme
temperature alerts, it should close for the safety of the workers.

------
tlb
There's a big penumbra of people who were sort-of killed by heat. For example,
I was biking through Europe this August during the heat wave, and one of our
group suffered a heart attack. He'll recover, but the paramedics told us that
they'd responded to two fatal motorcycle accidents that day, probably caused
by the riders getting heatstroke and losing control.

When you include cases like that, and you should if you're trying to figure
out how important it is to avoid global heating, the death toll goes way up.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
While I agree that extreme temperatures certainly contribute to the death of
people who would not have otherwise died I don't think it's that cut and
clear. In many cases of heat death there is shared responsibility. To lump
them all together as heat deaths is sensationalist.

If it's 100deg out then you shouldn't be doing things that require massive
amounts of PPE. If someone dies because they were improperly clothed for the
cold we wouldn't allocate all the blame the cold. If someone decides to swim
in 8ft surf we wouldn't allocate all the blame to the wind. Obviously there's
specific situations where the ambient temperature is more to blame than not
(elderly people without air conditioning being the example that comes to mind)
but you can't just lump every death that could have possibly been prevented if
it were cooler in as a heat death though. Sure some of them are more heat than
personal responsibility but a non-negligible amount of them are more personal
responsibility than heat. People need to start thinking about heat the way
they think about other severe weather (people in tropical countries already do
this) because at this point the climate is going to change a substantial
amount whether we like it or not. If there's gonna be a hurricane you cancel
your outdoor activity unless you're fine with the risk. The same applies to a
heat wave.

I know that this comment combines two things a large subset of people here
generally hate but it's my opinion and I stand by it.

~~~
tlb
I grew up in the Canadian prairies where people frequently did die from the
cold. If your car broke down on a lonely road in midwinter, there was a real
prospect of freezing to death. People there carried extra parkas, blankets,
and thermal candles, but those could only keep you warm for several hours.

If you freeze to death in -10C weather, you were improperly clothed. But if
you freeze in -50C weather, there's no amount of clothing in which you can
both move around and stay warm for a long time. Here's a short story by Jack
London with a realistic portrayal of that kind of cold:
[https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/to...](https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/to-
build-a-fire.pdf). It gave me nightmares when I read it in grade school.

Nobody blamed the cold, because cold isn't a moral agent. But if you ask
people living in the North "how bad would it be if winters got 5 degrees
colder?", they would certainly expect more deaths.

~~~
war1025
That's a powerful story... dang.

------
paulsutter
France population is 67 million and life expectancy is 82 years, so about 2000
people die every day.

Over the 20 days of high heat, that’s about 70 extra people per day, or about
3 percent, just to put it in perspective. What percent of ordinary deaths
would we expect to get attributed to high heat? Especially among the elderly?

Disappointed in the 0% effort journalists make to put things in perspective.

~~~
skohan
I would consider a 3% increase in mortality rate to be quite alarming.

~~~
paulsutter
No information is provided whether the rate changed, only that the deaths were
attributed to heat. This is the sort of homework I would expect of the
journalist

EDIT: regarding CNN, 9% doesn’t add up and the quote is vague. I know I’m
crazy to expect journalists to care about numbers but it just bugs me

~~~
Steven_Vellon
CNN's reporting was better: [https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/08/europe/france-
heat-wave-death...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/08/europe/france-heat-wave-
deaths-intl-hnk-scli/index.html)

They report that the mortality rate was 9% higher than baseline during the
heat wave.

------
HenryBemis
> half of those who died were aged over 75

France/Paris has a deeper problem that comes out in these heatwaves. Older
people that live alone, with little or no relatives caring for them, and
living in flats without air-conditioning, or have low income/pension that they
cannot afford an extended heatwave, happen to pass every summer there is a
heatwave in Central Europe (which lately is more frequent). I remember
hearing/reading about this every couple of years about France, and apparently
not much is being done to make this stop.

~~~
yardie
Every year for 10 years, for 1 day, I would work for free and donate my salary
to the French state. They had set up a fund to purchase and install air
conditioning into the homes of the elderly due to the 2003 heatwave that
affected 15,000.

And that is literally all I know. The money I earned goes somewhere to do
something, supposedly. I'm really starting to feel like I've been defrauded
because I also feel not a whole lot has been done.

~~~
thecleaner
I believe that this is a noble sentiment. But the bigger issue here is
shouldnt just not stealing money on taxes be enough ? I cannot fathom why a
lot of people have to act like heroes to get things done. EU in general doesnt
seem to have a corruption problem or a moeny problem and yet the
infrastructure feels lacking.

~~~
balfirevic
Parts of EU have enormous corruption and (partly as a consequence of
corruption) money problems.

------
cf141q5325
For comparison last winter 13,000 died of influenza in France

[https://www.connexionfrance.com/Practical/Health/Flu-
killed-...](https://www.connexionfrance.com/Practical/Health/Flu-
killed-13-000-this-winter)

------
Scoundreller
This is a vast improvement over previous heat waves where 15k died in 2003
France.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave)

At least it’s taken seriously rather than “it doesn’t get hot here and it will
pass”.

------
lprd
As an American expat that has been living in Paris for the last 7 years,
France could really use some AC upgrades. I couldn't survive the summers
without mine.

~~~
joshuaheard
When I lived there, I was surprised nearly none of the buildings had AC. I
guess because the buildings are so old, and it is only very hot for a short
time every year when most people are away on vacation, and, because it's
France.

------
noonespecial
I'd just like to take a moment (in light of some of the comments here) to say
that air-conditioning is neither a moral failure nor an ecological disaster.

An incentive to replace aging gas and electric heat with high efficiency
modern heat-pumps that can both heat _and_ cool is a clear ecological win.

The question is (as ever) how can we fairly deploy this society changing tech
so that those who need it most don't get it last.

------
trothamel
Note that according to
[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150520193831.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150520193831.htm)
, which describes a study in The Lancet, "cold weather kills more than 20
times as many people as hot weather". So it kind of makes you wonder if this
is something like the trolley problem - if raising the temperature sacrifices
1,500 lives to save 30,000, is it worth it?

~~~
PhasmaFelis
If global warming continues on a worst-case trajectory, then large swathes of
equatorial land may be uninhabitable to humans in 50 or 100 years. More than a
billion people will be forced to migrate or die. If it comes to that, the
death toll will be _much_ worse than a few bad winters.

------
lprd
Not nearly as much as the 2003 heat wave; which took almost fifteen thousand
lives in France alone.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_European_heat_wave)

~~~
rjsw
The 2006 heatwave was as bad as 2003 but people were better prepared so not as
many died.

------
Scoundreller
My experience with a lot of French people isn’t just “we don’t need air
conditioning”.

It’s that “air conditioning makes you sick”.

Even though most EU cars now come standard with AC, my experience is that the
French would rather open the windows on the autoroute than turn hit the AC.

------
investologia
France is rich country and AC might be considered in people from certain age

It's not the first heat wave and from the speed the global warning is heading,
we might see many more heat waves in the near future

~~~
algaeontoast
Why worry when according to alarmist politicians in the U.S. we only have “12
years left”.

I find these claims, and those similar from “activists” like Greta Thunberg,
wholly unproductive both to steps taken to actually curb climate change and
legitimate science.

Society isn’t going to cease growing and moving forward just because of
climate change. It is unfortunately a reality that must be dealt with by
creation and not regression.

Even as someone who supports the idea that climate change is a very real
challenge for humanity.

~~~
onion2k
_Society isn’t going to cease growing and moving forward just because of
climate change._

I don't think that's really what anyone is suggesting, but if the change
impacts enough people society as a whole will focus on fixing the problem
rather than doing other things.

~~~
zdragnar
> I don't think that's really what anyone is suggesting

The sibling comment to yours suggesting exactly that wasn't the first, not by
a long shot. US politicians have suggested everything from ending entire
industries to massive increases in abortion to stop population growth. Others
have suggested massive taxes to pay for health insurance and UBI so that
people who don't feel like working don't have to.

"Stop moving forward" might not a common phrase, but only because their
version of "forward" is fundamentally different from the current one. Stopping
growth is certainly a goal of many far-left thinkers out there.

------
mpalczewski
That's certainly many people, and it sucks if someone you know died because of
the head. However, I can't tell for a population like France if this is a
large number. Would love to see something like, how many people die from cold
in France each year, or other environmental effects.

~~~
cryptoz
> However, I can't tell for a population like France if this is a large
> number.

Sure you can. The number should be 0 for any country regardless of size, and
1500 is a huge number compared to 0. There's no reason in our modern society,
with our ability to build iPhones and measure the weather with satellites,
that a single person should die from a heat wave.

~~~
mpalczewski
No I can't.

That was unconvincing to me.

It makes sense to me that in France a society (which by the way doesn't make
iPhones, not sure how that applies here anyway) that has some sort of strange
hang up about air conditioning would have people die of heat.

------
wtdata
We need to stop with this ancient idea that AC is problematic against the
environment. There are quite a few uninformed comments on this thread.

Just by using their AC also in the winter to heat their houses instead of
traditional heating systems, these people are already having a lower CO2
footprint (even when using the AC to cool down a few weeks in the year) than
people that don't use an AC.

Modern AC systems work with in inverter heat pump and are extremely efficient
at cooling down and heating up a house since all they do is to move heat from
one place to the other.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_conditioning](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_conditioning)

------
PauloManrique
Funny thing is, the record high temperatures on France were LOWER than regular
temperatures in several cities in Brazil.

------
papito
Europe needs to get into the culture of air conditioning, cooling centers, and
LARGE iced drinks.

------
egdod
> Why is it so hot and is climate change to blame?

No. No more than a cold day in winter means that climate change isn’t real.

~~~
ainiriand
No, and yes. Heatwaves like the one experienced in Spain have been
extraordinarily long. We experience heat waves all summers and they usually
last 2-3 days. This one lasted 1 week. And last year we had 2 heat waves 5
days each. I am talking about ~40 degrees every day. At night barely 28. You
can compare historical data here (es)
[http://www.aemet.es/es/idi/clima/registros_climaticos](http://www.aemet.es/es/idi/clima/registros_climaticos)

You can look at the median yearly temperature and see how it is steadily
increasing
[http://www.aemet.es/imagenes_gcd/idi/clima/registros_climati...](http://www.aemet.es/imagenes_gcd/idi/clima/registros_climaticos/Clima_registrosclimaticos_fig5.jpg)

~~~
geomark
Would people be able to physically adapt to longer periods of higer
temperatures? I mean, it is around 40 degrees every day for most of the two
months of hot season where I live. And a lot of people don't have air
conditioning. On the hottest days they sit around in the village in the shade,
drinking a lot and not moving much. Lots of complaining but we don't hear much
about heat related deaths.

~~~
roywiggins
Adaptation works until the wet bulb temperature is above human body
temperature, at which point you'll just slowly broil since you can't lose
energy by sweating. Not very likely to get there in Europe, but other (hotter,
wetter) countries may.

~~~
skohan
I was in Doah recently, and people live almost their entire lives indoors. We
even went to the main street market after dark and it was too hot to stand
without sweating. It's hard to imagine what would happen there if the
temperature were to increase by even a few degrees.

