Temperatures that kill people in Europe are a welcome relief in Las Vegas.
Europe is currently experiencing a heat wave, and it’s causing major disruption to daily life. Thousands of schools closed or students sent home early. Rail companies in Britain and France urged people to cut back on their travel plans. Paris officials opened up the Canal Saint-Martin to swimmers looking to cool off.
“Thirty-six degrees is going to be disgusting,” data scientist Lewis Jennings said as he walked in central London.
That’s 36 degrees Celsius, which is 97 degrees Fahrenheit.
“Millions of people across France woke up drenched in sweat on June 23 after another night of scorching heat,” France 24 reported.
Sounds miserable. But on Tuesday, the high in many parts of France hit or topped only 104 degrees Fahrenheit. To be clear, that’s a daytime high of 104. Lows were in the upper 70s.
To Las Vegas residents, this reads like a parody. Last year, the temperature hit 112 degrees in both July and August. That was a cool summer. In July 2024, Las Vegas hit 120 degrees. The temperature hit 115 degrees for seven consecutive days. For 13 days that month, the morning low was at least 90 degrees.
If there weren’t so many lives at stake, this contrast would be amusing. But in 2025, Europe had more than 24,000 heat-related deaths. In 2024, that number topped 62,000.
Climate Chicken Littles blame this on carbon emissions boosting temperatures. They argue that countries need to cut back on fossil fuel usage. What they don’t mention is that the European Union already has. In 2024, the EU had lower carbon emissions than those EU countries did in 1964.
Doing this cost the EU trillions of dollars.
As it turns out, the weather didn’t care. That money would have been better spent on something Las Vegas residents take for granted — air conditioning. But many European leftists are opposed to it.
“Air-conditioning is what you’d call a maladaptation,” Dan Lert, deputy mayor in charge of green transition policies in Paris, said in 2025. “To fix a real problem, you make it worse.”
Las Vegas shows the absurdity of that statement. In 1970, Clark County had fewer than 275,000 residents. Today, it has more than 2.4 million. Air conditioning made it possible despite the supposed scourge of global warming.
The key wasn’t futilely trying to control the weather, but using human ingenuity to adapt to an ever-changing climate.
Look at the difference this makes. While much of France was shutting down over 104-degree temperatures, the forecasted Tuesday high for Las Vegas was 109 degrees. It was a normal day, not a regional crisis. My wife even took my kids to a movie. Two of my kids wore jeans because they didn’t want to be cold as they watched the film.
“It’s like 2 degrees in the theater,” my teenage daughter said — in a perfectly respectful, no hint of “dad is completely clueless” tone of voice, of course.
People in France could only dream of that — if they could get cool enough to be able to sleep.
Victor Joecks’ column appears in the Opinion section each Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow
@victorjoecks on X.
