Staying cool enough to save your life in this heat is what the thread is about. Steve lives in a house that is thick stone and no additional cooling needed so feels entitled to nag everyone else about the housing where they find themselves. If he lived in a city in a house that has heating and air, that would be different.

We do what we can for now. Don't lower the thermostat below the level that you can tolerate (so the house is always fairly warm, it just isn't 111^o like outside.) The other things to make a small difference around here? The vehicle I drive was calculated to be large enough to move things I want to move but it isn't a truck because they're too expensive now. It's an SUV and I can move people or stuff. I put gas in it on average one time a month. Any time I make a trip I make sure I have several stops and can make that trip as efficiently as possible (making a loop, not darting too and fro and using more gas.) If I lived somewhere that had trains and buses with any reliability I would use those instead. I don't. That's one thing I loved about New York City. Trains are more efficient.

I don't buy new things if I can buy something used, so I visit thrift stores. And if you consider that many people simply put what they don't need at the curb to go to the dump, there could be a much better system of reusing things in place. I repair things when I can so the resources don't have to be used to make a new device or object. I don't maintain a lawn, I garden vegetables in the front yard and water deeply and infrequently in that garden while the rest of the yard scorches because it isn't essential. The next air conditioner will be more efficient than the last, and it will be the newest and hopefully most benign coolant in use for now. I would like to put solar panels on the roof, but need to pace myself and pay for that when I can. There are companies that will do it and charge you a monthly fee equivalent to your current electric bill, but that enables them to take advantage of all of the rest of the power you're not using (they sell it back to the dominant power company on the local grid.) I'd prefer to do that myself.

It sounds like the heat and flames are moving east through the European continent, and like here in the US, homes are being lost to fire and lives are being lost to heat. The heat is what this thread is about. Sandman's posts were deleted when he tried to change the subject, I suggest Steve also try to stay on the subject. How about offering suggestions to all of those homeless who are sleeping rough in urban areas? Those tents don't keep out the heat. I saw a man at the edge of a parking lot yesterday in a car that was as close to junk yard quality as I've seen in a long time. His driver's door was propped open and he was leaning back against a pile of stuff in the passenger seat and was asleep. Except for the fact that I was alone, I considered what could be offered to this guy to keep him alive in the heat if he is reduced to sleeping in his car? For the time being I decided not to bother him, but if he had been awake or moving around I would have at least handed him a bottle of water and some cash to help with what was obviously a cashflow problem. Invite him home? No, I'm not that brave. Look up city and county services to see what is available? I can do that and maybe have a better answer next time.