, Columnist
Air Conditioning Is the World's Next Big Threat
With temperatures in Europe and everywhere else soaring, demand for air con is booming. The extra power demand may cause a vicious circle on warming.
Air con job.
Photographer: VCG/Visual China GroupThis article is for subscribers only.
The vast majority of Americans have air conditioning but in Germany almost nobody does. At least not yet.2
So when temperatures in Berlin rose to an uncomfortable 37 Celsius (99 Fahrenheit) this week – a record for the month of June – I was uncommonly delighted to go to the Bloomberg office, where it’s artificially and blissfully cool.