I completely agree. Historically AC has not been necessary for the one to two days a year it was needed, but that world is gone now and the situation has changed and the widespread adoption of AC is now necessary.

Its going to be a huge challenge because the buildings are not designed with that in mind, many buildings are hundreds of years old making these sorts of renovations notoriously difficult and expensive, but it has to start because climate change is only going to get worse and worse.

Some buildings in Southern Europe have thick as hell walls which isolate from both heat and cold (the North can be really chilly near the Atlantic, and freezing away from the Mediterranean).

Americans don’t get scolded enough for their abuse of AC. In terms of accounting for preventable waste of energy, US guzzles more electricity on cooling than most countries do on everything else.

Humidity makes a big difference in how stressful the temperature is (wet bulb temperature accounts for this somewhat). The age of the attendees and the tendency of the building to heat would also be factors.

How does the humidity in rural New South Wales compare to London?

We need a humidity comparison to go with temperature.

I grew up in a humid city and summers were unbearable. Now I live in a dry climate and 30°C is pretty comfortable.

Euro buildings are built to keep heat in. Aus buildings are leaky tents.

40C in the Atlantic Spain with the Foehn effect (weather for today and tomorrow) would make 30C in Australia a joke.

The humidity here it's hell. You feel 35C like ~42C in dry climates.

the British are notoriously sensitive to heat. They'll call 30 Celsius weather a heat wave.

A fire side chat does not mean there will be an actual fire

It's corpo speak for "a more casual discussion"

> At first I thought it was just virtue signaling.

Maybe examine the reflex to dismiss out of hand without evidence?

Uni is just preparing the students for the realities of the real world =[