What Europe’s Lack of Air Conditioning Says About Its Civilizational Direction

Locked into a Marxist worldview and committed to preventing the world’s climate from changing, Europe’s elites are deliberately hurting their citizens.

Ruel Domi | July 31, 2026

As the North American FIFA World Cup unfolded, many online videos posted on social media platforms featured Europeans overwhelmed by the wonders of American air-conditioning. Outside of a few especially temperate regions, almost every American household owns an A/C, doing homeowners a favor in periods of rising temperatures and extreme heat. In the meantime, most homes in Europe do not have air conditioning.

Europe’s lack of A/C reflects how elites in Brussels have, over the past decade, increasingly prioritized climate alarmism, civilizational self-pity, and economic regulation over abundance, competitiveness, and technological progress. In other words, A/C—or the lack of it—symbolizes a continent with a governing philosophy that has shifted away from growth and prosperity.

While A/C doesn’t define the fate of civilizations, its absence in Europe is one of the clearest everyday examples of a broader political and economic philosophy that increasingly favors regulation over production, restraint over abundance, and adaptation to decline over renewed growth. It is through that broader lens that Europe’s current trajectory should be understood.

For some time now, the European Union has made the ‘net zero’ fantasy a core pillar of its economic policy strategy moving forward. That has led to decarbonization policies in the name of reducing CO2 emissions as well as phasing out nuclear power plants (which increases energy dependence on foreign suppliers such as Russia).........

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