"Willingness"? Interesting spin on that.
In 2003, over 70,000 died in Europe's heat wave. I guess they were "willing" to die.
In 2006 and 2012, two of the worst North American heat waves of the last century... including 500,000 without power for extended periods... 252 total dead. I guess the extra 69,748 Americans who lived were not "willing" to contribute.
In 2006, over 1000 dead in July alone, in the Netherlands alone. (Same population as VA and NJ combined) They clearly were "willing", too. If only we stupid Americans would wake up and be more dead like Europeans.
I lived in Europe for 7 years, 3 in Southern Italy, 4 in Germany.
Many Italians had air conditioning if they where middle class or above. For those poorer, the houses were constructed with big, tall windows, and being a peninsula, Italy gets a lot of breezes from the sea. However, if you could afford it, you got it. For poorer people saving up, it was one of the first expensive things they would buy and be very proud of it.
In Germany, it can get hot for a few days in the summer, but not enough to warrant the cost, and A/C is expensive in Germany, and almost all houses are made of cinder blocks, and are not constructed with duct work in mind. Every house has central heating, but it’s almost always steam radiator, modern style. When building houses they’re very careful to route all the hot water pipes as they lay the blocks. They could put in duct work at that time, and some of the more modern houses were starting to do that, but a very small percentage still. Practically no houses are built with stick frames like the USA. The Germans consider them flimsy and tacky. I defended out choice building style, as I told them, wood is abundant and CHEAP in the US and Canada, and the wood joints, if properly framed and connected, are surprisingly strong. They’re just prejudiced to their ways.
Most of the buildings on the American bases have A/C, but it looks ugly as most of the duct work hangs exposed from the ceiling. Before I left Germany we were planning some new construction on Ramstein AB which included a HUGE mall, Armed Forces hotel, transportation hub mega structure, and had trouble getting German contractors who could plan inside A/C.
BTW, before they built the huge complex, the area was the base garden. You could rent a 1/4 acre from MWR for 15 bucks a year and grow your own food. While I lived off base, me and a couple of my troops got a couple of plots so we could grow AMERCAN vegetables, like sweet corn, hot peppers, winter squash and pumpkins for the kids. We were pretty dang good at it, and we gave away tons of good food to people. Go a lot of Germans liking corn on the cob, which they thought was only fit for hogs and cattle!
In the summer of 1995, Western Germany had a huge heat wave, with almost two weeks of 95+ weather, some days over 100, and yes, many people, especially pensioners on fixed incomes died. My house didn’t have A/C, and was hot, but my bedroom had a full door and windows on an upstairs balcony, and I had several big American box fans I bought at the BX sitting there. AND the humidity was fairly low, and every night got down to the high 60s. You could sleep ok with fans.
I left Germany for Alabama in 1997. I could NOT live here without A/C.