France is in the midst of a heat wave, with temperatures higher than at any point in the past 80 years. (Climate change?) But the country is being paralyzed because of something distinctly French: a national aversion to a technology that’s existed for about a century: air conditioning.

Unbelievably, only about one-quarter of homes in France have AC, reports the BBC. That compares with an estimated 88% of homes in the U.S.

One reason why AC is so rare is that the French have been indoctrinated to believe that AC is bad for the environment – 80 percent of them think so.

During heat waves, people die if they don’t have access to modern conveniences like AC.  In 2003, a heatwave in France killed nearly 15,000 people.

But it’s not just France.  It’s nearly the whole European continent. Consider this famous chart from Financial Times comparing several countries in Europe to their US counterparts.

There is not doubt that the climate of the earth has slightly warmed in recent decades. That’s the reason God and human ingenuity gave us air conditioning. The climate change luddites would rather curse the heat than turn on the AC.