We've been experiencing heat in Utrecht, but nothing like that. Our thoughts have been with you folks down south. There were some good articles in Le Monde this morning, but one thing that people have been pointing out is that in addition to mitigation, we need to take serious steps to stop making it worse. At least France has a lot of non-carbon-emitting generation.
The Seine water thing can actually work for both heating and cooling. The Seine is a giant heat sink, so you can dump heat into it in the summer, and you can also draw heat from it in winter. Here in Utrecht we are on district heating, and while it doesn't do cooling at the moment, it certainly can, just as it does in Paris for the Louvre. What that will do to the river ecosystem is of course another question.
Anyway, I know there are still a few more days of this to endure, but I really hope things get better for you. Regarding the air conditioning, your french engineer is correct, but also incorrect: warm air rises, and cool air sinks. So the thermodynamics of your in-window AC are not quite as simple as is being suggested, and you should let go of that guilt! :)
I feel like I've spent the whole week trying to create a general thesis to understand the "wtf" of this heat wave, and you really helped me wrap my head around it. I don't like using our portable AC unit for the same reason you mention. The French version of me is thinking about the neighbors who share our courtyard. But on these 100F days, I'm leaning into the idea of it as one of many tools we can use responsibly.
This is exactly it. At some point, people run out of options. What’s worse, a super El Niño was predicted monthsssssssss ago. Where was the preparedness? The lack of action is putting everyone at risk. And frankly, there are so many countries we can look to for examples and solutions.
When I rented my current apartment in Paris in early 2025, I hadn't thought much about the fact that it actually has built-in AC; I hadn't had AC in Berkeley or previously in Santa Monica. It's a basic 16th century building on Ile St. Louis that my landlord's family had owned and a few years ago totally renovated (interior spaces), breaking it into multiple apartments. A few of them were fitted with AC that vents out through very long but hidden tubes into the far side of an interior courtyard where no other apartments or windows get hit with the exhaust and where the architecture police don't see it.
Now I feel like I can't ever move from this apartment! I feel a bit guilty (and friends have escaped here to work), but not so guilty that I don't set that thermostat at 23 degrees.
It's really no longer livable in Paris without cooling, and I agree that AC can't be the only solution unless we want the underlying problem to get even worse. It's like taking a strong drug to try to banish an illness rather than treating the actual causes and the whole patient.
I lived on the Île Saint Louis in my twenties, a million years ago, or at least before climate crisis, and when it got quite hot my roomate and I would climb out onto the roof at night from an attic window to cool down. I am older now and I do put on the AC when it reaches 30 C inside.
“…I agree that AC can't be the only solution unless we want the underlying problem to get even worse. It's like taking a strong drug to try to banish an illness rather than treating the actual causes and the whole patient.”
If you “agree” with that claim, then why don’t you eliminate your heating system? Or at least limit it to warming your apartment to no higher than 15 degrees C?
The logic is identical after all.
Degrowth is not the solution. And for those few who think it is, feel free to live like that.
But about 95% of electricity in France is generated by nuclear power plus renewables, so incredibly low carbon.
I’m a retired architect and my wife and I live in a small town in southern France, where hot summers are an accepted part of life. This summer and late spring have been abnormally hot even for us. So many of our friends and neighbors are suffering in houses not equipped to deal with a heat wave lasting so long, where inside temperatures are reaching 32 or 33 degrees.
Our town has embarked on a beatification scheme and has involved the Architect de France in the policy making. External AC units are a distinct no-no. If your building didn’t have a proven history of having shutters, you can’t install them. If you replace your old leaking, single pane windows, they must exactly match the original ones… often at immense cost.
People are suffering and will continue to do so until the powers that be gather a bit of backbone and begin finding adequate solutions. The French are great designers and engineers. I just hope they can rise to the challenge.
Eric, I so appreciate your comment because it’s important to have these firsthand anecdotes of Bâtiments de France rigidity and how dangerous it is given our circumstances. You must find it particularly maddening as an architect !
Woo hoo we are also in the 5th floor 31.5° club! Our 6th floor cdb is even hotter.
After last night, my wife demanded we move into a hotel down the block the next few nights. We are planning to contact our architect and see what AC can legally install in the fall, we have avoided AC for 4 summers, but even if we only use it occasionally - it will be worth it. From one engineer husband to another, tell him he has a fellow engineer's support to keep his wife happy!
Perhaps les Architectes des Bâtiments de France should be relocated from their elite bastions to those top floor chambres to reconsider their point of view? When “insufferable” becomes literal…
For what it’s worth, in Polynesia and other areas, the air conditioners are flat devices installed on the interior of a room, up by the ceiling. I’ve seen even smaller ones advertised that look like a sound bar, but do not know the extent of their effectiveness.
Yes, all units consume power, which could be readily at hand with solar panels on top of those sizzling zinc roofs; might even shade some of that heat.
This is a perpetual issue as well. Even if the weakest, homeless and sick are allowed to die off, there is a steady stream of citizens entering the elderly demographic. The government may stick their head in the sand on this, but their behind is going to be well-roasted.
I’m sorry you are suffering so much from the gruesome heat wave and sincerely hope you feel much better immediately. 💐
Lindsey, I appreciate your insights on this significant topic. You have addressed many of the essential aspects related to the heat issue: aesthetics, engineering, environmental concerns, and public spaces, among others. France has demonstrated remarkable engineering capabilities in times of necessity; for instance, consider the innovative measures many restaurants implemented during COVID for take-out services (the concept of leftovers from a restaurant was virtually nonexistent in France). Numerous establishments developed the most creative packaging solutions.
If I may offer my modest suggestions, we here in New England are currently experiencing our own heatwave, with temperatures reaching 97°F (36°C) and higher. I always keep a few damp face cloths in the refrigerator to apply to my face and particularly my neck to help lower my body temperature. Likewise, it is crucial to cool pets' bellies during such heat. Brushing the fur and fibers on pets' bellies is beneficial, and providing cool water for dogs under their bellies is essential. While beaches have traditionally served as a refuge on hot days, we have recently received a warning regarding sewage spills, resulting in the closure of our beaches. C'est la vie.
Yes the cool / cold cloths (and ice packs!) were crucial! I love your optimism regarding France’s ability to innovate. I hope they do it faster than they have been!
As they say in the movies, we’re not in northern Europe anymore. I don’t think you’re even in Kansas. Look at all the things that are affected this week because they will have to change. The rails of railroads. Not simply air-conditioning the cars on the track. The rails themselves are not built for this sustained temperature. Next to dealing with that entire network , putting together cooling systems for public buildings, such as schools and homes for the elderly and hospitals is a walk in the park. And you will not be going back to the old days. That is gone. You can only hope and pray that everybody starts to work together on the Climate so that things don’t become worse. Do you think that’s going to happen? I wouldn’t hold my breath. Once this is over, I expect it will be forgotten until the next time it happens. That is the way of the world pretty much.
I hope you get a break soon and that you’re feeling better. It’s no fun for sure.
We must not get distracted by the cross sectional picture. This moment in time. Rather, we must look at the longitudinal picture. It shows a progressively elevating temperature. Can we expect that to stop? No, we cannot. If every person, organisation and government on the planet immediately did everything they could to reduce their carbon footprint, it would hardly have an impact. We are cooked. We forgot that everything has a price. Fossil fuels made life so much easier, so much more fun. Now we are paying the bill.
I remember when my summer visits to France were the break I needed from NYC and Boston heat and humidity (i didn’t have AC in either place). That hasn’t been the case in quite sometime. I don’t have a solution to your problem except to stop vilifying AC so much. There are ecological and economic reasons to avoid AC of course. But there’s also the myth that AC makes you sick, or the fear of the very dangerous “courant d’air” 🤨 that I grew up with. May this heatwave end soon for you.
Here in Belgium, today and tomorrow we have 35 degrees Celsius. And I live in a bakery in a huge house that is absorbing the heat of the ginormous oven as well. Three years ago we caved and bought AC for all the rooms, the shop, our atelier. It was just inhumane to live in these conditions in the summer. Many of the old buildings also don’t have dubbel glass windows. We changed almost all them as well in the last 15 years and let me tell you- it costs a fortune. We added shutters that were non existent or broken, AND installed solar panels on the roof (which only provides half of our electricity because of the bakery machines).
Days like today are a hit to our health and bank account.
I don’t see how any government will take responsibility. They even cancelled the benefits for those who want to install solar panels.
This is INSANITY! I don’t even know what to say other than Western Europe’s resistance to tackling this crisis with a handful of solutions instead of vilifying one of said solutions is going to be its future, ongoing suffering. what a waste.
We've been experiencing heat in Utrecht, but nothing like that. Our thoughts have been with you folks down south. There were some good articles in Le Monde this morning, but one thing that people have been pointing out is that in addition to mitigation, we need to take serious steps to stop making it worse. At least France has a lot of non-carbon-emitting generation.
The Seine water thing can actually work for both heating and cooling. The Seine is a giant heat sink, so you can dump heat into it in the summer, and you can also draw heat from it in winter. Here in Utrecht we are on district heating, and while it doesn't do cooling at the moment, it certainly can, just as it does in Paris for the Louvre. What that will do to the river ecosystem is of course another question.
Anyway, I know there are still a few more days of this to endure, but I really hope things get better for you. Regarding the air conditioning, your french engineer is correct, but also incorrect: warm air rises, and cool air sinks. So the thermodynamics of your in-window AC are not quite as simple as is being suggested, and you should let go of that guilt! :)
I feel like I've spent the whole week trying to create a general thesis to understand the "wtf" of this heat wave, and you really helped me wrap my head around it. I don't like using our portable AC unit for the same reason you mention. The French version of me is thinking about the neighbors who share our courtyard. But on these 100F days, I'm leaning into the idea of it as one of many tools we can use responsibly.
This is exactly it. At some point, people run out of options. What’s worse, a super El Niño was predicted monthsssssssss ago. Where was the preparedness? The lack of action is putting everyone at risk. And frankly, there are so many countries we can look to for examples and solutions.
It’s way too brutal out there!
This topic makes me, um, blood boil. For decades, the French government has discouraged A/C-- mostly at the behest of the Greens.
I grew up on an organic farm, with my mother's beloved copy of Silent Spring on the bookshelf. I get that people care about the environment.
Coupled with green spaces, awnings, etc, A/C is a relatively simple solution to make France's summers more tolerable.
When I rented my current apartment in Paris in early 2025, I hadn't thought much about the fact that it actually has built-in AC; I hadn't had AC in Berkeley or previously in Santa Monica. It's a basic 16th century building on Ile St. Louis that my landlord's family had owned and a few years ago totally renovated (interior spaces), breaking it into multiple apartments. A few of them were fitted with AC that vents out through very long but hidden tubes into the far side of an interior courtyard where no other apartments or windows get hit with the exhaust and where the architecture police don't see it.
Now I feel like I can't ever move from this apartment! I feel a bit guilty (and friends have escaped here to work), but not so guilty that I don't set that thermostat at 23 degrees.
It's really no longer livable in Paris without cooling, and I agree that AC can't be the only solution unless we want the underlying problem to get even worse. It's like taking a strong drug to try to banish an illness rather than treating the actual causes and the whole patient.
I lived on the Île Saint Louis in my twenties, a million years ago, or at least before climate crisis, and when it got quite hot my roomate and I would climb out onto the roof at night from an attic window to cool down. I am older now and I do put on the AC when it reaches 30 C inside.
“…I agree that AC can't be the only solution unless we want the underlying problem to get even worse. It's like taking a strong drug to try to banish an illness rather than treating the actual causes and the whole patient.”
If you “agree” with that claim, then why don’t you eliminate your heating system? Or at least limit it to warming your apartment to no higher than 15 degrees C?
The logic is identical after all.
Degrowth is not the solution. And for those few who think it is, feel free to live like that.
But about 95% of electricity in France is generated by nuclear power plus renewables, so incredibly low carbon.
Well this AC apartment that I bizarrely landed has become a friends hotel! This is insane... and check out this extraordinary Substack post for a survey of the horrors including the breakdown of Metro line 8: https://sarahwilson.substack.com/p/notes-from-a-burning-paris?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=7bc5x&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
I’m a retired architect and my wife and I live in a small town in southern France, where hot summers are an accepted part of life. This summer and late spring have been abnormally hot even for us. So many of our friends and neighbors are suffering in houses not equipped to deal with a heat wave lasting so long, where inside temperatures are reaching 32 or 33 degrees.
Our town has embarked on a beatification scheme and has involved the Architect de France in the policy making. External AC units are a distinct no-no. If your building didn’t have a proven history of having shutters, you can’t install them. If you replace your old leaking, single pane windows, they must exactly match the original ones… often at immense cost.
People are suffering and will continue to do so until the powers that be gather a bit of backbone and begin finding adequate solutions. The French are great designers and engineers. I just hope they can rise to the challenge.
Eric, I so appreciate your comment because it’s important to have these firsthand anecdotes of Bâtiments de France rigidity and how dangerous it is given our circumstances. You must find it particularly maddening as an architect !
Woo hoo we are also in the 5th floor 31.5° club! Our 6th floor cdb is even hotter.
After last night, my wife demanded we move into a hotel down the block the next few nights. We are planning to contact our architect and see what AC can legally install in the fall, we have avoided AC for 4 summers, but even if we only use it occasionally - it will be worth it. From one engineer husband to another, tell him he has a fellow engineer's support to keep his wife happy!
Ha !! 5th floor is really rough. Maybe if trees were *right* outside our windows it would help? 🫠 I hope you find some relief.
Perhaps les Architectes des Bâtiments de France should be relocated from their elite bastions to those top floor chambres to reconsider their point of view? When “insufferable” becomes literal…
For what it’s worth, in Polynesia and other areas, the air conditioners are flat devices installed on the interior of a room, up by the ceiling. I’ve seen even smaller ones advertised that look like a sound bar, but do not know the extent of their effectiveness.
Yes, all units consume power, which could be readily at hand with solar panels on top of those sizzling zinc roofs; might even shade some of that heat.
This is a perpetual issue as well. Even if the weakest, homeless and sick are allowed to die off, there is a steady stream of citizens entering the elderly demographic. The government may stick their head in the sand on this, but their behind is going to be well-roasted.
I’m sorry you are suffering so much from the gruesome heat wave and sincerely hope you feel much better immediately. 💐
any PR email that begins with "Paris heatwave story idea" is instant delete. the tone deafness of it....
It’s so awful! Reminds me of the Covid emails… 🙅🏻♀️🙅🏻♀️
Lindsey, I appreciate your insights on this significant topic. You have addressed many of the essential aspects related to the heat issue: aesthetics, engineering, environmental concerns, and public spaces, among others. France has demonstrated remarkable engineering capabilities in times of necessity; for instance, consider the innovative measures many restaurants implemented during COVID for take-out services (the concept of leftovers from a restaurant was virtually nonexistent in France). Numerous establishments developed the most creative packaging solutions.
If I may offer my modest suggestions, we here in New England are currently experiencing our own heatwave, with temperatures reaching 97°F (36°C) and higher. I always keep a few damp face cloths in the refrigerator to apply to my face and particularly my neck to help lower my body temperature. Likewise, it is crucial to cool pets' bellies during such heat. Brushing the fur and fibers on pets' bellies is beneficial, and providing cool water for dogs under their bellies is essential. While beaches have traditionally served as a refuge on hot days, we have recently received a warning regarding sewage spills, resulting in the closure of our beaches. C'est la vie.
Yes the cool / cold cloths (and ice packs!) were crucial! I love your optimism regarding France’s ability to innovate. I hope they do it faster than they have been!
Of interest https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/fr/arretez_les_subventions_aux_energies_fossiles_sm/?copy&utm_source=copy&utm_medium=social_share&utm_campaign=58449&share_location=post_action&referer_id=019f0a8e-9c89-710d-a85b-f6c238a86d10
As they say in the movies, we’re not in northern Europe anymore. I don’t think you’re even in Kansas. Look at all the things that are affected this week because they will have to change. The rails of railroads. Not simply air-conditioning the cars on the track. The rails themselves are not built for this sustained temperature. Next to dealing with that entire network , putting together cooling systems for public buildings, such as schools and homes for the elderly and hospitals is a walk in the park. And you will not be going back to the old days. That is gone. You can only hope and pray that everybody starts to work together on the Climate so that things don’t become worse. Do you think that’s going to happen? I wouldn’t hold my breath. Once this is over, I expect it will be forgotten until the next time it happens. That is the way of the world pretty much.
I hope you get a break soon and that you’re feeling better. It’s no fun for sure.
Hear, hear!
This heat is something else. Stay safe and hydrated out there! It’s so bad.
We must not get distracted by the cross sectional picture. This moment in time. Rather, we must look at the longitudinal picture. It shows a progressively elevating temperature. Can we expect that to stop? No, we cannot. If every person, organisation and government on the planet immediately did everything they could to reduce their carbon footprint, it would hardly have an impact. We are cooked. We forgot that everything has a price. Fossil fuels made life so much easier, so much more fun. Now we are paying the bill.
I remember when my summer visits to France were the break I needed from NYC and Boston heat and humidity (i didn’t have AC in either place). That hasn’t been the case in quite sometime. I don’t have a solution to your problem except to stop vilifying AC so much. There are ecological and economic reasons to avoid AC of course. But there’s also the myth that AC makes you sick, or the fear of the very dangerous “courant d’air” 🤨 that I grew up with. May this heatwave end soon for you.
Here in Belgium, today and tomorrow we have 35 degrees Celsius. And I live in a bakery in a huge house that is absorbing the heat of the ginormous oven as well. Three years ago we caved and bought AC for all the rooms, the shop, our atelier. It was just inhumane to live in these conditions in the summer. Many of the old buildings also don’t have dubbel glass windows. We changed almost all them as well in the last 15 years and let me tell you- it costs a fortune. We added shutters that were non existent or broken, AND installed solar panels on the roof (which only provides half of our electricity because of the bakery machines).
Days like today are a hit to our health and bank account.
I don’t see how any government will take responsibility. They even cancelled the benefits for those who want to install solar panels.
This is INSANITY! I don’t even know what to say other than Western Europe’s resistance to tackling this crisis with a handful of solutions instead of vilifying one of said solutions is going to be its future, ongoing suffering. what a waste.