alt Hacker NewsI’ll take your word on the other points but this one:
> Many European countries have draconian laws about air conditioning that are killing people this summer.
Needs some debunking. In fact, I think you may have been fed lies because the UK government felt the need to specifically call this out:
https://mhclgmedia.blog.gov.uk/2026/06/25/air-conditioning-r...
In short: AC in the home is legal in the UK subject to following regulations, both national and local. Councils are generally happy to tell you how to comply, in my experience with building control.
Reading that sort of thing is kind of amusing, e.g.:
> In most cases, planning permission is not required to install it for a small home if it would not materially affect the appearance of the building from outside.
Substantially all air conditioning units affect the appearance of the building from the outside because they require a coil or vent somewhere on the exterior of the building to expel heat.
> Building regulations already require new residential buildings, including houses, flats, student accommodation, residential care homes and children's homes, to be designed to minimise overheating.
If planning permission for aircon was denied, worry not, because the building code now requires measures that will keep some new buildings to a temperature ten or twenty degrees cooler than the older buildings (planning permission for aircon likewise denied), which is quite a difference when even the newer buildings are over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
They wouldn't need to spin it like this if there weren't actually buildings where people want to install air conditioning and are prohibited from it, because if that was the case they would have said that.