339. The Cooling

Germany's public broadcaster launched a campaign this month warning citizens about the dangers of air conditioning. The campaign recommended alternatives: close your blinds during the day, open windows at night, use a fan, drink cold water. This is advice that works in Germany, which is in northern Europe and has a climate that historically has not required much cooling. Germany does not have a lot of air conditioning. The campaign was consistent with this.

Then Berlin hit 41 degrees Celsius.

That is the highest temperature recorded in the German capital. Berlin, which had been encouraged to manage summer heat through blind management and cold beverages, reached a temperature at which these methods are no longer primarily useful. The city deployed water trucks. The trucks drove through the major parks, spraying mist across the paths and trees and anyone sitting under them, which was everyone, because at 41 degrees Celsius the parks are where people go when their buildings do not have air conditioning, and their buildings do not have air conditioning because Germany's public broadcaster had been characterizing this as the correct state of affairs.

The broadcaster did not update the campaign.

This is technically consistent. The campaign was about principles. The campaign did not promise to expire when Berlin exceeded its historical temperature record. The principles remain valid. The fact that the city had to spray water on its own parks at a scale normally associated with agricultural irrigation does not necessarily invalidate the underlying message about energy use and the risks of refrigerant-based cooling systems, which are real risks, and the campaign was correct to note them. (I want to be clear that I am not disputing the risks. I am noting the sequence.)

The trucks are helping. The parks are cooler than the surrounding streets, which are also hot but do not have water trucks because the water trucks are in the parks. The people in the streets are using the methods the campaign recommended. The people in the parks are being sprayed by the city. Both groups are managing.

Germany's public broadcaster has not addressed the trucks. This is possible because the trucks are a local government matter and the campaign concerned individual choices. The trucks are not an individual choice. The trucks are an institutional choice. The distinction is real and important and also, at 41 degrees, increasingly technical.

The city expects temperatures to remain elevated for several days. The trucks will continue. The windows, at night, may be opened for cross-ventilation.

This is the plan.