The people in charge of the summer Olympics (in Paris) are getting a charge out of an Olympic village with NO Air conditioners. They installed a series of cooling pipes under the floors, but the US Olympic Team, Germany, Australia, Italy, Canada, and Britain have their own ideas.
The Germans are probably just excited to be someplace with enough electricity to run an air conditioner, but according to the AP, AC is not very common in France or the EU.
According to the International Energy Agency, fewer than 1 in 10 households in Europe has air conditioning, and the numbers in Paris are lower than that. The study said that of the 1.6 billion AC units in use across the globe in 2016, more than half were in China (570 million) and the United States (375 million). The entire European Union had around 100 million.
China is the place to go for AC and Dirty coal. Good to know.
U.S. Olympic and Paralympic CEO Sarah Hirshland said Friday that while the U.S. team appreciates efforts aimed at sustainability, the federation would be supplying AC units for what is typically the largest contingent of athletes at the Summer Games.
“As you can imagine, this is a period of time in which consistency and predictability is critical for Team USA’s performance,” Hirshland said. “In our conversations with athletes, this was a very high priority and something that the athletes felt was a critical component in their performance capability.”
I wonder if anyone else will join the parade of Western nations telling the French to piss off with their paltry efforts at comfort?
And how amusing would it be if half or more of the competing nations decided to bring AC with them? Talk about increasing the carbon footprint, which brings up another point. Aren’t the Olympics, even without the BYO AC, just a massive waste of emissions we could probably do without?
I’ll let you decide, but if this helps, breaking (breakdancing) is now an official Olympic sport.
