Heat makes people sick and can even kill them. Lack of sleep or poor sleep quality due to the heat can have serious consequences for your health and life. For example, excessive irritability at work or at home can have serious consequences.
Telling people not to use air conditioning is criminal. Most people didn’t choose where they live. They’re limited by their budget and by what’s available on the market.
Suggesting that they use fans shows a clear lack of empathy. Furthermore, beyond 35°C, fans are ineffective.
Air conditioning doesn’t create heat. It moves hot air outside because it’s essentially a heat pump. There are reversible units available that keep the heat inside in winter and the cool air inside in summer.
Yet the French government subsidizes the installation of heat pumps while condemning the use of air conditioning. Refrigerators are also heat pumps, and no one thinks to ban them. How does that make sense?
Of course, for those lucky enough to have a well-designed housing, it’s better to use fans, which consume three times less electricity than air conditioning. Moreover, it makes sense to prioritize homes that regulate temperature effectively. But that depends on how the homes are designed.
The work can only be carried out by the property owners. Property owners can implement simple, cost-effective solutions, such as building sloped roofs, installing shutters or blinds, and cladding exterior concrete walls with wood siding, etc.
Building permits should no longer be issued for homes that overheat during the hot seasons.
The primary purpose of housing is to provide shelter and protect us from the outside environment. In the long term, we need to design homes that protect equally from both heat and cold. For example, consider an interior courtyard with a water feature, create cross-ventilation, use bio-sourced materials (hemp, wood, earth, lime, etc.), and integrate green spaces. Architects can design these types of buildings while adapting to local constraints.
Rénover les passoires thermiques : un chantier laborieux dans les Hauts-de-France – France Culture: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/grand-reportage/renover-les-passoires-thermiques-un-chantier-laborieux-dans-les-hauts-de-france-4814357
There are many homes in rural areas that would require very little renovation to be comfortable, yet they are currently abandoned. People are forced to crowd into cities to work. With remote work or a universal basic income, people would have the opportunity to move back into these homes.
Translated with DeepL and Ollama translateGemma.
