Heat Deaths in Europe Aren’t About “Climate Change.” They’re About Bad Policy.
The New York Times is out with yet another scare headline: “Climate Change’s Toll in Europe This Summer: Thousands of Extra Deaths.” They breathlessly claim that 24,400 people died in European cities this summer because of climate change.
But here’s the part they won’t say out loud: heat deaths are preventable. Every single one of them.
The real tragedy isn’t “global warming.” It’s the political obsession with “efficiency” and “sustainability” that has left entire populations without reliable, affordable access to the single most effective life-saving tool against heat: air conditioning.
Think about it. In 2025, in some of the wealthiest societies in the world, people are still told to ration electricity, skip A/C, and “adapt” to unbearable heat waves. Governments push bans on fossil fuels, utilities impose conservation rules, and politicians demonize the very energy sources that make cooling possible. And then, when people die, the eco-left has the audacity to claim the culprit is “climate change.”
No, it’s policy failure.
The Times admits their study isn’t based on actual death records but on “models” and “estimates.” The truth? Europe has seen heat waves for centuries. What’s new is the refusal to let people use modern technology to survive them.
When people are denied affordable energy, they suffer. When families are told to “conserve” instead of cool their homes, lives are lost. That isn’t caused by a few degrees of warming, it’s caused by decades of elite climate ideology that treats reliable fossil fuels as the enemy.
The irony is painful: the same crowd that bans coal and gas plants, blocks nuclear power, and drives up energy prices now pretends to mourn the deaths their own policies helped cause.
Heat doesn’t kill… lack of access to modern energy does. And the more Europe ties itself to “green” mandates and unreliable renewables, the more preventable tragedies we’ll see.
Climate activists can run as many models as they want. The reality is simple: air conditioning, powered by affordable, reliable energy, will always save more lives than their climate dogma.
September 24, 2025