I live in Eastern Europe (Romania) and it's crazy how most of Western Europe doesn't practically allow residential AC units for esthetic purposes only. That explains why what I regard as normal summer-time temperatures (there have been 36 degrees today in my city) are seen as basically a new apocalypse in places like Germany or Northern France (it surprised me that a news item from a couple of days ago wanted to mention that there were 34 degrees in Paris, like that would have been an abnormally high temperature). Maybe it's time for the city authorities from Western Europe to put the health and well-being of their citizens above a so-called esthetic sense.
To be fair, all-time-record-breaking temperatures are (the start of) "basically a new apocalypse." The fact that Western Europe's temperatures are commonplace in other places on earth does not diminish the fact that these temperatures are abnormal and dangerous to the populations experiencing them, and are a harbinger of things to come. Summers will on average only get hotter from this, and not just for Europe.
