Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

I actually agree with the line that we are becoming an island of strangers....
Though it has fuck all to do with immigration.
More the hollowing out of local government, the decline of high streets and pubs, car centricity, economic inequality, and all manner of other things.

I do like a lot of what Burnham says when I see him. The work with Manchester sorting it's transport out is great. I wouldn't be surprised if he is next labour leader too.

Though Manchester desirable?...

[garbon]

With the online safety act coming into force, will vpn use go up in the UK?

[Sheilbh]

I was going to update the general AC chat - but this is so typically and specifically British I feel it had to go here. With a fabulously on brand comment piece on AC in the Guardian

How do I feel about air conditioning? On the one hand, I'm extremely hot. On the other, it's destroying the planet
Emma Beddington

Yes, temperatures are rising. But more and more AC means more and more CO2 – and then more and more global heating. Let's have some long-term thinking instead
Sun 13 Jul 2025 14.00 BST

It's way too hot. I'm cowering inside, curtains drawn, pale limbs clammily exposed, the sound of my overheated laptop fan drowning out the sound of an ancient, feeble desk fan. If it gets any hotter, I'll stagger to my air-conditioned car and drive to the air-conditioned supermarket to stand in its chilly aisles, shamelessly fanning myself over the ravaged ice-cream cabinet in the freezer aisle. I've even become nostalgic for the summer when I shared an office with a man who insisted on having the AC set to 17C, meaning I had to wear a cardigan to work in August.

Ah, air conditioning, the dream. Or the nightmare? Welcome to appliance culture wars, 2025 edition. You may recall, in 2023, the US debated whether induction hobs were a communist plot; then last year Republicans tried, in all apparent seriousness, to pass the Liberty in Laundry and Refrigerator Freedom acts. This year has already featured Donald Trump pledging to "make America's showers great again" (low water pressure means it takes 15 minutes to wet his "beautiful hair") and now France is grappling with Marine Le Pen declaring herself its AC champion.

As the country suffered through an early summer heatwave, with temperatures reaching the 40s, schools closing and, according to modelling, an estimated 235 deaths, Le Pen pledged, if elected, to launch a "grand plan" to cool France. Her ally, Éric Ciotti, called for AC to be obligatory in schools, hospitals and care homes to "protect the most vulnerable".

With even higher temperatures predicted, this might prove a popular promise. It would certainly please the many Americans holidaying in Europe, expressing their sweaty astonishment at how we manage here without the chilly kiss of refrigerant-gas-cooled air. But the French AC debate rapidly heated up: Le Pen faced scathing criticism from the Greens and ecological transition minister Agnès Pannier-Runacher, who noted Le Pen's party voted against plans to develop more sustainable "cooling networks". The environment agency president called AC "an alibi for inaction". Accused of hypocrisy by right-wing commentators after reporting on environmental concerns around AC, Libération even published a follow-up confirming its offices were not air conditioned (though conceding a few "air coolers" had taken the temperature down to 32C – ugh – in the hottest spots).

Because climate control is a climate problem. In the US, where AC is ubiquitous and its necessity not up for debate, the Department of Energy says it accounts for about 12% of energy consumption in homes and "contributes significantly to carbon dioxide emissions, releasing over 100m metric tons annually". In 2019, the International Energy Authority predicted that, as the rest of the world catches up, AC will produce 2bn tonnes of CO2 annually. Relying on it to cope with an ever-hotter planet contributes to global heating, making us need it more. That's not a solution; in Pannier-Runacher's words, it's a "maladaptive" coping mechanism.

AC is quantifiably bad, but I think it's also philosophically problematic. Cooling offers comfort, making the unbearable bearable, at least for now. That happens at a community level (no one is really disputing we should keep the very old, the very young and the vulnerable cool), but also individually. When you can buy a personal bubble of coolness and not truly feel the heat, the screaming urgency to tackle the collective issue of a world on fire can recede slightly.

And this is where I have to fess up. I actually have AC – a little freestanding unit we use only in the evenings, maybe 10 times a year. We also have solar panels and a battery, which helps me sleep at night, but the cool helps more. If the government came for my AC, I wouldn't demand they "pry it out of my cold, dead hands", as one Republican said of his gas stove, but at times like these, I'm deeply, guiltily glad of it.

Air conditioning isn't the answer. We need more ambitious plans but, without them, many more people – not just rampant individualists, climate deniers, laundry liberators and fridge freedom fighters, but hot furtive hypocrites like me and anyone desperate to get some sleep – will be tempted by the easy, cool, breezy solution.

Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist

I remember articles/podcasts taking a similar approach early in the pandemic condemning the hope for a "technological" solution like vaccines or treatment (as opposed to "social" approaches of dealing with disease). The Guardian has also run literally hundreds of articles on the problems with those weight loss drugs (while also running lots of articles on how obesity is causing huge costs to individuals, society and the NHS). And as I say if you read any of David Kynaston's books on post-war austerity Britain every there are what we would today call "culture wars" over the adoption of new technologies like vacuum cleaners, fridges, microwaves with a consistent drumbeat in the (Manchester) Guardian suggesting there is something morally suspect and American in "ease" or "comfort". I'm not sure but I couldn't help but suspect that many of those writers perhaps had paid help so were less personally exposed to the discomfort involved. So plus ca change

Edit: Also I get the heating argument from AC and urban heat islands - but I really don't get the carbon point. Surely it is just downstream of your ability to decarbonise the grid? So from a UK perspective the more wind and nuclear we build and get connected to the grid the less carbon impact there'll be from AC (and if we were to have HVAC units that heat and cool it would also allow replacing fossil fuel powered boilers etc).

[Tamas]

 

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally in the same paper on the same day

Ed Miliband would let a turbine farm destroy Brontë country. We need net zero, but at what cost?
Simon Jenkins

Of course the climate crisis must be confronted, but history, tranquility and beauty must also count for something

This is where I think the right-wing papers support the right while the left-wing papers criticise is also maybe a bit of a misdiagnosis.

Because I think the Guardian is the most small-c conservative/opposed to change paper in the country - it's always framed as wanting profound, radical, systemic change across society but absolutely opposing anything short of that. While I think a lot of the right-wing press (especially the Mail) are basically pretty radical.

[crazy canuck]

Cooking is quantifiably bad, but I think it's also philosophically problematic. Cooking offers comfort, making the consumption of food both more palatable and safer to eat, at least for now. No one is really disputing we should keep cooking meals. When you can cook your meals and not truly feel hunger, the screaming urgency to tackle the collective issue of a world on fire can recede slightly.

And this is where I have to fess up. I actually cooked and, I must also confess, I have even eaten at a restaurant where food is cooked, maybe 10 times a year. If the government came for my kitchen, I wouldn't demand they "pry it out of my cold, dead hands", as one Republican said of his gas stove, but at times like these, I'm deeply, guiltily glad of it.

Cooking isn't the answer. We need more ambitious plans but, without them, many more people – not just rampant individualists, climate deniers, laundry liberators and fridge freedom fighters, but hot furtive hypocrites like me and anyone desperate to get a good meal – will be tempted by the easy, filling, tasty solution.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - exactly.

I've yet to see an argument against AC that doesn't also apply to central heating, but one is obviously necessary. The other "philosophically problematic".

[Richard Hakluyt]

If we decarbonise the national grid and heat our houses with heat pumps then we are going to have a very large electricity production. So there will be a shortfall in electricity demand in the summer unless we embrace air-conditioning.

[Josquius]

A majority of houses with solar panels as well as heat pumps?