Surviving the French heatwave with frozen plastic bottles

The other day, I heard from my mother.

"I heard there are many deaths due to the heatwave in France, are you okay?"

I replied that, thankfully, we are doing fine.
The heat this year is so abnormal that even in Japan, the French heatwave is making the news.

I feel that the number of heatwave days in France is increasing year by year.

Until a few years ago, there were times when temperatures would exceed 30 degrees for about a week.
But back then, it wasn't enough to justify buying an air conditioner.

That's because if we left the windows open at night, the indoor temperature would drop to around 19 degrees by the next morning.

Even around 2:00 PM during the day, the indoor temperature was only about 25 degrees.
We could manage with just a fan.

I feel like after 6:00 PM in the evening, even if the temperature was high, the air was relatively comfortable.

But it's different lately.

There are days when it hits 37 degrees, and while I used to have the impression that only the south of France was exceptionally hot, this year there are days when temperatures approach 40 degrees all over France.

We can no longer gracefully say, "European summers are easy to live in because there's no humidity."

Hot is hot, and what's more, it's genuinely dangerous.

The news reported that during this heatwave, at least 1,000, and according to some reports over 2,000, additional deaths were confirmed in France.

There was even news that at a major supermarket, there was a scramble for fans and portable air conditioners, and the police had to intervene.

Police intervention for fans.
Good grief... France.

It sounds a bit surreal just reading the words, but I think the situation was actually that desperate.

They say home renovations are better than air conditioning, but...

On the evening news, an ecology expert said, "Air conditioners make the temperature rise even further, so try not to use them."

Instead, they proposed home renovations as a countermeasure against the heat.

That is certainly understandable as an ideal.

Insulate walls and roofs, replace windows, plan for airflow, and make the building itself more resistant to heat.
In the long run, that is surely better.

But, I thought to myself in front of the TV.

"Do you think that money just falls from the sky?"

Of course, France also has subsidy programs for home renovations.
However, when you try to fully renovate an old building, including the walls, roof, and windows, the out-of-pocket cost isn't necessarily low, even with subsidies.

It's no longer a matter of "shall we change the windows?" but rather "shall we change our life plans?"

It's no wonder that some people would choose air conditioning over home renovation first.

Besides, while I understand the concern about rising temperatures caused by air conditioner exhaust, if more people actually fall ill, the burden on the medical system will also increase.

By the way, I was shocked to hear that many general hospital wards in France do not have air conditioning.

In hospitals, windows are often designed so they cannot be opened fully to prevent accidents like falls.

They only open about 10cm.

It's more of an alibi for ventilation, just wide enough to say, "Look, it opened!"

……Can you really bring in any cool air with that?

Certainly, from an eco-friendly perspective, using too much air conditioning might not be good.

But with heatwaves becoming this serious, it's unreasonable to just say, "Let's get used to the heat without using air conditioning."

Of course, that doesn't mean we should use it without restraint.
But heatwaves are no longer something you can just power through with sheer willpower.

My home's heat countermeasures are basically Showa-era style

With that said, I'd like to introduce my home's very Showa-era style heat countermeasures.

In our house, we open all the windows in the rooms at night to let in as much cool air as possible.

In the morning, I finish walking the dog around 5 o'clock when it's still cool.

After about an hour of throwing balls and running around together, we head home.
Even though it's cool, I'm drenched in sweat by the time I get back.

When I get home, I take a cold shower and freeze for a moment.

People often say, 'Don't let your body get cold' when trying to conceive, but at this time of year, I can't afford to worry about that.

I wear a cool neck ring I bought in Japan around my neck.

After 7 a.m., I close the windows and shutters. From then on, I live in a mostly dim room to keep the cool air from escaping.

I feel like a mole now.

It's dim inside the house even though it's daytime.

But the moment I open the shutters, the sun comes in saying 'BONJOUR!!!' and rapidly raises the room temperature, so I'm desperate too.

I turn on the electric fan, hang ice packs on it, and place a frozen plastic bottle in front of it.

It's quite a Showa-era technique.

By the way, it seems my neighbor sleeps on their terrace on extremely hot days.

It's home camping.

It's true that it's cooler outside at night. But I haven't reached that level yet.

In the first place, sleeping with the windows wide open in the middle of the night is like telling a burglar, 'Please come in.'

I can do this because our neighborhood has a relatively low crime rate, but I think it would take a lot of courage if this were a big city.

Even so, this strategy only works up to about 33 degrees Celsius.

On days when it exceeds 35 degrees and the sun is blazing, I give up. From afternoon to evening, I turn on the air conditioner.

Because you need to be alive to be eco-friendly.

A small construction site called a portable air conditioner

By the way, our air conditioner is a portable one.

It makes quite a loud noise. It's so noisy that it feels more like a corner of the room is under renovation than a home appliance.

In France, it is often difficult to install wall-mounted air conditioning due to building aesthetics and management regulations.
Sometimes, resident consent or city permits are required.

Because of this, many households use portable air conditioners.

Portable air conditioners require a hose to be placed out of a window to vent hot air.
Then, a removable sheet is applied to seal the window gaps so that outside air does not get in.

To cool down, we open the window slightly, vent the hot air out, and desperately try to seal the gaps.

It feels like a combination of contradiction and ingenuity.

The idea that air conditioning is evil

However, since our neighbor is an environmentalist, I feel a bit self-conscious about using air conditioning.

The other day, my husband apparently had a conversation with our neighbor where they said something like, "Air conditioning is evil, so you should use other methods."

If it were me, my brain would be melting from the heat, so my face might have twitched a little.

But my husband didn't pay it much mind.

"Everyone has their own way of thinking, after all."

That's what he said.
Perhaps he has insulation in his own mental state as well.

However, according to my husband, the neighbor didn't say it to blame us.
He said he could tell it came from a genuine desire to protect the environment.

I think this aspect is quite French.

Everyone has their own opinions, and they talk about them normally in daily life.
Politics, the environment, and lifestyle all come up in conversations with neighbors.

When I was in Japan, I never imagined a future where I would be discussing ideology with a neighbor over whether or not to turn on the air conditioner.

But now, I find myself thinking about environmental issues while closing the windows, lowering the shutters, and placing frozen plastic bottles in front of a fan in a dim room.

I think protecting the environment is important.
It is also necessary to transform our cities and homes to be more heat-resistant.

But simply telling people who are in the middle of this transition to "just get used to it" or "just endure it" is not enough.

Isn't it a bit too much to ask this frozen plastic bottle to carry the weight of the Earth's future?