Summary: Iceland has long thrived through innovation and freedom. Its history is one of transforming scarcity into strength and discovery. Joining the European Union could trade entrepreneurial vitality for bureaucratic constraint and regulation. Iceland’s story proves that wealth flows not from the ground, but from the boundless resource of human imagination.

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I recently had the pleasure of visiting Iceland, a country of about 390,000 people. The place feels like a mash-up of Hawaii and Alaska, with a land area roughly the size of Kentucky. Iceland has around 130 volcanoes, with about 30 considered active. Along with the volcanoes there are around 500 earthquakes per week. Many of these are microquakes (below a magnitude of 2.0) that go unnoticed, but about 44 a year register a magnitude of 4.0 or higher within 180 miles of the island.

The International Monetary Fund projects Iceland’s GDP per capita to reach $81,220 in 2025, adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). This compares to $89,110 for the US and $64,550 for the European Union (EU).

The purpose of my visit was to talk about why Iceland should or should not join the EU. The event was hosted by Students for Liberty Europe and RSE, the Icelandic Centre for Social and Economic Research. What does this topic have to do with our book, Superabundance?

In our book we argue that we’re experiencing a period of superabundance, where personal resource abundance is increasing faster than population growth. This period started about 200 years ago after millennia of stagnation. We attribute this in large part to people recognizing that the freedom to innovate lifts humanity out of poverty. Innovation is the discovering and sharing of valuable new knowledge in markets. Around 1820, the planet’s dormant entrepreneurs began to blossom and bear fruit. But Iceland has been innovating much longer than 200 years.

Iceland can be considered a creation of entrepreneurs. It was first settled around 874 CE by Norse explorers, primarily from Norway, led by Ingólfr Arnarson, who is traditionally recognized as the island’s first permanent settler. He established his homestead in what is now Reykjavík (“Smoky Bay”), named after the steam rising from nearby hot springs.

Throughout history, the creators have fled the takers—escaping oppression to found new realms of freedom where ideas could multiply and wealth could grow. This is the ancient rhythm of renewal that gave birth to America. The settlers of Iceland were largely Vikings, along with some Celtic slaves (it was typical of the times to enslave defeated peoples) and settlers from the British Isles. Drawn by the island’s fish and grazing land, they sought independence from Norway’s consolidating monarchy.

By 930 CE, the settlers established the Althing, one of the world’s oldest parliaments, at Þingvellir, creating a system of governance where chieftains met annually to settle disputes and make laws. This marked the start of the Icelandic Commonwealth, a decentralized society without a king.

The population grew to around 50,000 by the 11th century, sustained by farming, fishing, and trade. The Commonwealth lasted 332 years, until 1262, when internal conflicts and external pressure from Norway led Iceland to pledge allegiance to the Norwegian crown, ending its independence. This set the stage for centuries of foreign rule, first by Norway and later Denmark. Iceland finally achieved full independence 682 years later, in 1944, establishing the modern Republic of Iceland.

Wealth Is Knowledge and Growth Is Learning

Superabundance is based on the ideas of Julian Simon and George Gilder. Two of the book’s key principles are that wealth is knowledge and growth is learning. These apply directly to Iceland—a nation that turned scarcity into strength and desolation into discovery. With little arable land and few natural endowments, Icelanders learned that the ultimate resource was not in the soil or the waters but in the capacity to imagine and create.

When oil shocks hit in the 1970s, Iceland had little domestic energy. Rather than surrender to scarcity, Icelanders turned to what they had in superabundance. They drilled not for fossil fuels but for fire beneath the earth, turning volcanic fury into light and heat. Today, nearly all of Iceland’s power flows from geothermal and hydroelectric abundance—proof that energy, like wealth, begins not with matter but with knowledge.

And from this same well of ingenuity emerged a national symbol—the Blue Lagoon. The world-famous pools and spa were born from the overflow of the Svartsengi geothermal power station, where geothermal brine spilled into a lava field and transformed an industrial by-product into a national treasure. What began as an accident became an emblem of Icelandic creativity—a living harmony of mind and matter, fire and water.

The Blue Lagoon reminds us that wealth is not drawn from the ground but flows from the fountain of human imagination, where even the castoffs of creation can shimmer with new light. In Iceland, energy is not merely harnessed—it is redeemed.

In the early 20th century, Iceland was a country primarily reliant on imported coal to meet its energy needs. The first hydropower station was built in 1904, and today there are 15 stations producing 73 percent of the nation’s electricity. Geothermal represents the other 27 percent.

Abundant, affordable, and reliable energy is one of the fountainheads of modern civilization, turning ingenuity into prosperity. Yet Europe’s leaders, in their zeal to perfect nature, have turned against the very forces that sustain it. By dismantling coal, nuclear, and gas in favor of windmills and solar panels, they are not advancing progress but reversing it, replacing mastery with dependence and innovation with austerity. The continent that once ignited the Industrial Revolution now flirts with a new age of scarcity—an empire of entropy cloaked in virtue. The great tragedy is the belief that prosperity can be preserved by suppressing the freedom that created it. Prosperity follows those who dare to learn from the world, not those who try to silence it.

For Iceland to thrive, it must continue to unleash its creative energy—to innovate, to speak, and to let knowledge flow as freely as its geothermal springs. Iceland is proof that wealth is not in the ground but in the mind. When faced with the scarcity of matter, Icelanders discovered the infinite power of knowledge.

That same spirit of redemption drives Iceland’s modern economy. From deCODE genetics, which unlocked the secrets of the Icelandic genome, to Össur, whose prosthetics restore mobility with grace and precision, Iceland exports ideas more than goods. Its renewable energy now powers data centers and digital frontiers, where bits replace barrels and imagination fuels growth. And in the northern village of Ísafjörður, Kerecis has turned the skin of cod—once discarded as waste—into a life-giving biomaterial that heals human wounds across the world.

Iceland reminds us that every economy is a learning system, and every act of enterprise a revelation. Growth is not a race for resources but a search for truth—the discovery of new knowledge that multiplies as it is shared. In this sense, Iceland has learned its way into wealth, proving that in the long dialogue between man and nature, the mind is the great multiplier.

The story of Iceland is the story of civilization itself. Every act of creation is an act of learning, a small echo of the divine mind that made the world intelligible. Wealth in its truest form is not measured in metals or markets but in moments of revelation—when knowledge transforms scarcities into abundances. Iceland proved the eternal law of creativity: that human learning, illuminated by faith and freedom, can turn even the coldest rock—or the humblest fish—into a beacon of light.

Choose Wisely

So why would a nation of entrepreneurs and innovators want to be subject to a union of regulators and bureaucrats? As of 2024, the number of staff working for the European Commission is over 80,000 across all 76 EU bodies. That would be one regulator for every 4.8 Icelanders. The future of Iceland lies with leaders like Thor Jensen, Björgólfur Thor Björgólfsson, Fertram Sigurjonsson, Heiðar Guðjónsson, and Bala Kamallakharan, not armies of Brussels bureaucrats.

To secure its future, Iceland must remain a beacon of open inquiry and energy creativity. It should champion innovation over ideology—embracing every technology that multiplies human capability rather than constrains it. By coupling free markets with free minds, Iceland can continue to illuminate a path from scarcity to superabundance, showing the world that the greatest renewable resource is human creativity itself.

Choose wisely, Iceland. Your history is watching.

Find more of Gale’s work at his Substack, Gale Winds.

Summary: Fearing job losses and loss of control, some politicians are calling to halt technologies like driverless cars and artificial intelligence. Yet history shows that efforts to “protect” people from innovation only delay progress and raise costs. Automation inevitably disrupts, but it also saves lives, boosts efficiency, and expands opportunity.

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Some US conservatives want to slam the brakes on progress, quite literally. At the recent US National Conservatism conference, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri declared: “Only humans ought to drive cars and trucks.”

His techno‑scepticism runs deeper than opposing driverless vehicles. “Every so‑called innovation the tech class has delivered in recent decades operates as a power transfer … from us to them,” he warned. “Us” meaning the honest “common man”. “Them” being Silicon Valley transhumanist elites and their job-killing code.

We must take this urge to ban driverless cars and smother AI seriously. Not because Hawley is right, but because his anxieties are commonly held here. A recent survey by the Schwartz Reisman Institute found just 8 per cent of Britons are strongly positive about artificial intelligence, putting us last except for Australia. Only France and the US had higher negative sentiment than the UK too (33 per cent). On driverless cars, just 22 per cent of us say we’d feel safe in one. This is fertile ground for populists looking to appeal to displaced workers in our own politics.

Fears of job loss from new technology aren’t irrational. But trying to resist the tide can smother the benefits of new tech while making any eventual adjustment harder. Still, politicians can’t help themselves. Last year, in opposition, Labour’s Louise Haigh warned that automated vehicles could repeat “the ravages of deindustrialisation”. That’s Labour-speak for “government intervention required”. The tool of choice, of course, is typically “safety” regulation.

This instinct isn’t new. In 1865, parliament passed the Locomotive Act, capping self-propelled vehicle speeds at 2mph in towns and 4mph in the countryside, while requiring each be preceded by a man waving a red flag. Branded as a safety measure, it was backed by the horse-drawn carriage and rail lobbies. Maybe it spared a few pedestrians, but it certainly stunted any early car industry. Innovation was sacrificed to protect incumbents, with safety the excuse.

The US mis-stepped too. For decades, cities required human lift operators even after automatic elevators became safer and cheaper. A few thousand jobs were saved, with higher costs for building owners and slower productivity in sectors based in tall buildings. Like red flag laws, the aim of this safety regulation was really to preserve jobs in aspic.

The Hawley instinct would repeat this error. Trials of autonomous vehicle systems like Waymo in the US show 70–90 per cent reductions in crash rates compared with human drivers. In the UK, where human error is a factor in 88 per cent of collisions, industry modelling suggests autonomous vehicles could save 3,900 lives and prevent 60,000 serious injuries by 2040, with just 20-24 per cent market penetration. Studies predict less congestion, lower fuel use, and cheaper deliveries and logistics. And then there’s time freed. The average Brit spends over 120 hours per year behind the wheel, which is ripe for reclaiming for work or leisure. All these efficiencies would boost downstream sectors.

Yet the public isn’t sold. Polls show most Britons still consider driverless cars unsafe. That gives our own Hawleys an opening. Regulation to slow innovation always attracts both well-meaning safety worriers and affected workers with political allies. Labour has passed enabling legislation for automated vehicles, but seems to be dragging its feet on rollout. Meanwhile, the diffuse benefits of improved safety and efficiency get downplayed and delayed.

As AI spreads through the economy, such political battles will proliferate. Someone will always stand ready to highlight the freak accident, the displaced worker or the imperfect chatbot. And certain politicians will promise to protect workers affected.

That’s why it falls to those not wedded to the status quo to state the obvious: yes, automation is disruptive. But it’s also the path to safer roads, cheaper goods, and higher productivity. Hiding behind a modern red flag is no answer.

Progress that is delayed amounts to progress denied.

This article was originally published by The Times on 9/17/2025.

Summary: The International Court of Justice has suggested nations could be held liable for historic greenhouse gas emissions, opening the door to lawsuits over centuries of industrial activity. Yet this approach risks punishing the very innovations that lifted billions out of poverty and advanced human health and flourishing. Lasting progress on climate challenges will come not from courtroom battles, but from technological solutions and continued economic development.

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The International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion purporting to establish legal grounds that would allow nations to sue one another over climate damages represents judicial overreach that ignores economic history and threatens global development. While the opinion was undeniably legally adventurous, the framework it envisages would be practically unworkable as well as economically destructive.

The ICJ’s ruling suggests countries can be held liable for historical emissions of planet-warming gases. That creates an accounting nightmare that no legal system can resolve. How does one calculate damages from coal burned in Manchester in 1825 versus emissions from a Beijing power plant in 2025? How does one stack up the harm caused by a warming world against the benefits of industrialization?

Britain began large-scale coal combustion during the Industrial Revolution, when atmospheric CO₂ concentrations were 280 parts per million and climate science did not exist. Holding Britain liable for actions taken without knowledge of consequences violates basic principles of jurisprudence. The same applies to the United States, whose early industrialization occurred during an era when maximizing economic output was considered unambiguously beneficial to human welfare.

Critics of historical emissions ignore what those emissions purchased. British coal combustion powered textile mills that clothed much of the world, steam engines that revolutionized transportation, and factories that mass-produced goods previously available only to elites. American industrialization followed, creating assembly lines, electrical grids, and chemical processes that form the backbone of modern civilization.

These developments were not zero-sum exercises in resource extraction. They created knowledge, infrastructure, and institutions that benefited everyone. The steam engine led to internal combustion engines, which enabled mechanized agriculture that now feeds 8 billion people. Coal-powered steel production made possible skyscrapers, bridges, and the infrastructure that supports modern cities, where most humans now live longer, healthier lives than their ancestors.

The data on human welfare improvements since industrialization began are explicit. Global life expectancy increased from approximately 29 years in 1800 to 73 years today. Infant mortality rates fell from over 40 percent to under 3 percent. Extreme poverty, defined as living on less than $2.15 per day in purchasing power parity terms, declined from over 80 percent of the global population in 1800 to under 10 percent today.

Nutrition improved dramatically. Caloric availability per person has increased by roughly 40 percent since 1960 alone, while food prices relative to wages fell consistently. Height, a reliable indicator of childhood nutrition, increased significantly across all regions. Educational attainment expanded from literacy rates below 10 percent globally in 1800 to over 85 percent today.

These improvements correlate directly with energy consumption and industrial development. Countries that industrialized earliest experienced these welfare gains first, then transmitted the knowledge and technology globally. The antibiotics developed in American and European laboratories now save lives worldwide. The agricultural techniques pioneered in industrialized nations now feed populations that would otherwise face starvation.

The International Court of Justice’s liability framework threatens to undermine the very mechanisms that created these welfare improvements. Innovation requires investment, which requires confidence in property rights and legal stability. If successful economic development subjects countries to retroactive liability, the incentive structure tilts away from growth and toward stagnation.

Consider current developing nations. Under this legal framework, should India or Nigeria limit their industrial development to avoid future liability? Should they forgo the coal and natural gas that powered Western development? That creates a perverse situation where the legal system penalizes the exact processes that lifted billions from poverty.

The framework also ignores technological solutions. The same innovative capacity that created the Industrial Revolution is now producing renewable energy technologies, carbon capture systems, and efficiency improvements that address climate concerns without sacrificing development. Market incentives and technological progress offer more promise than legal blame assignment.

Which emissions count as legally actionable? All anthropogenic CO₂ remains in the atmosphere for centuries, making every emission since 1750 potentially relevant. Should liability begin with James Watt’s steam engine improvements in 1769? With the first coal-fired power plant? With Henry Ford’s assembly line? The temporal boundaries are arbitrary and politically motivated rather than scientifically determined.

Similarly, which countries qualify as defendants? The largest current emitters include China and India, whose recent emissions dwarf historical American and British totals. China alone now produces more CO₂ annually than the United States and Europe combined. Any coherent liability framework must address current emissions, not just historical ones.

And where would the money go? This aspect of the case was brought up by Vanuatu. If the island nation receives compensation from the UK and the US, should it not be obliged to pay the British and the Americans for a plethora of life-enhancing Western discoveries, including electricity, vaccines, the telephone, radio, aviation, internet, refrigeration, and navigation systems?

Climate adaptation and mitigation require technological innovation and economic growth, not legal warfare between nations. The countries that industrialized first possess the technological capacity and institutional knowledge to develop solutions to today’s problems. Channeling resources toward litigation rather than innovation represents a misallocation that benefits lawyers while harming global welfare.

The ICJ opinion reflects wishful thinking rather than practical policy. Legal frameworks cannot repeal economic reality or reverse the historical processes that created modern prosperity. Instead of seeking retroactive justice for emissions that enabled human flourishing, policymakers should focus on technologies and institutions that sustain development while addressing environmental concerns. The alternative is a world where legal systems punish success and innovation while offering nothing constructive in return.

The original version of this article was published in National Review on 8/12/2025.

Summary: Recent deaths from heat waves have fueled fears that climate change will make the problem far worse. Yet history shows that humans are not helpless in the face of rising temperatures. Through innovation and adaptation such as widespread air conditioning, societies have already dramatically reduced heat-related mortality in many regions. Far from being doomed, people have the tools and ingenuity to meet the challenge of hotter climates and protect human welfare.

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As summer heat waves rolled across Europe in recent years, many areas saw devastating spikes in deaths due to extreme heat. Research estimated that heat-related causes were responsible for more than 61,000 excess deaths across Europe during the summer of 2022 and more than 47,000 excess deaths in 2023, while the World Health Organization elsewhere stated that “heat claims more than 175,000 lives annually” in Europe.

These unfortunate events have been fodder for environmental activists and public health authorities, who warn that climate change will necessarily increase death tolls from extreme heat. With some climate scientists viewing the “increasing threat to human life from excess heat” as “almost inevitable,” a picture of humanity’s helpless march toward a climate apocalypse is being painted.

But there’s a critical flaw in this grim overheating narrative. The dire predictions presume a direct mechanical relationship between rising temperatures and human mortality that does not exist.

To be sure, extremely hot weather poses numerous serious health hazards. High temperatures can cause acute conditions, such as heat exhaustion, heatstroke, and dehydration, while exacerbating cardiovascular and kidney diseases. Negative mental health impacts and adverse pregnancy outcomes also increase with heat exposure. Chronic exposure to sustained hot weather can result in a progressive loss of physical and cognitive capacity, worsening of chronic diseases, and cumulative impacts on well-being and productivity. These effects lead to increased morbidity and mortality, especially among vulnerable populations such as the elderly and outdoor workers.

Yet the outcome we care about—morbidity and mortality from extreme heat—depends not only on weather patterns but also on people’s adaptations—behavioral, social, and technological—to high temperatures. The reality is that people are creative problem-solvers who learn and adapt to changing conditions.

The Power of Air Conditioning

Research shows that human adaptation to rising temperatures has considerably weakened, if not broken, the link between high temperatures and mortality over time. A landmark study by economists showed that the mortality impact of extremely hot days fell by 75 percent in the United States between 1960 and 2004, driven primarily by the adoption of residential air conditioning (AC). Another study found that the number of deaths per 1,000 deaths attributable to each 10°F increase in same-day temperature decreased from 51 in 1987 to just 19 in 2005.

Comparing heat-wave impacts between regions with different levels of technological adaptation highlights the effectiveness of AC. The contrast between recent European heat waves and similar temperatures in the United States is striking. The summer of 2024 was Arizona’s hottest on record, with an average daily temperature of 99°F, with Phoenix experiencing 113 consecutive days above 100°F. In Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, 464 residents died of heat-related causes out of a population of 4.49 million over the entirety of 2024, at a rate of 10.3 per 100,000. In contrast, the 2022 summer heat wave in Europe resulted in more than 61,000 heat-related deaths, about 11.4 per 100,000, even though the average daily temperature was only around 69°F. The hardest-hit countries, including Italy, Spain, and Greece, experienced maximum daily temperatures close to the average temperatures seen in Arizona, albeit with mortality rates two to three times higher. The difference? The widespread adoption of air conditioning.

In the United States, the residential air conditioning rate of adoption exceeds 90 percent nationally, with rates exceeding 95 percent in hot-climate states such as Arizona, Texas, and Florida. In contrast, air conditioning use in European countries remains around 19 percent overall, with much lower rates in specific countries—only about 5 percent of homes in the UK have cooling systems, and just 3 percent in Germany.

While various explanations of this gap have been offered—including supposed differences in culture—the most plausible seems to be simply a matter of weather and geography. Most European cities sit at latitudes comparable to Canada (London is north of Calgary), and historical weather patterns provided naturally mild summers. Research shows that human populations have continuously adapted to local climates, with the “minimum mortality temperature” closely tracking local temperature patterns. As conditions change, so do people’s investments and behaviors, as we can already see in the increasing rate of AC adoption across Europe—where AC unit sales have doubled since 1990 and continue to accelerate.

The market forces driving AC adoption deserve special attention. As markets for cooling technologies expand, economies of scale drive down costs and improve performance. The same window air conditioner that cost thousands of dollars (inflation-adjusted) in the 1950s now costs a few hundred dollars, while using half the energy. The same competitive forces that reduced computer and smartphone costs are making air conditioning increasingly affordable—the International Energy Agency expects the number of air conditioning units globally to triple by 2050, increasing from 2 billion to 5.6 billion, with two-thirds of the world’s households having AC.

Beyond Air Conditioning: The Full Spectrum of Adaptation

While AC is one of the most effective technological responses to heat challenges implemented thus far, it represents just one solution among many. Human ingenuity operates across multiple levels, from individual behavioral changes to planet-wide interventions. This multilevel approach also helps to illuminate how technological adaptations depend on economics and institutional context, not simply on technical factors alone.

A Note About Conventional Behavioral and Social Adaptations

Before examining technological solutions, it’s worth considering conventional social and behavioral adaptations to extreme heat: increased hydration, appropriate clothing, avoiding outdoor activity during peak temperatures, and adjusting work schedules. Social solutions predominate at higher levels, from community wellness checks to early warning systems and public education campaigns.

While these nontechnological adaptations have their place as first-line responses, they have limitations. Beyond requiring consistent vigilance and behavioral modification, social and behavioral adaptations cannot directly address the core problem of dangerously hot ambient temperatures.

Micro Level: Individual and Building-Level Solutions

At the micro level, personal technological solutions are emerging rapidly. Wearable neck fans provide portable cooling, while phase-change materials integrated into clothing can absorb and release body heat to maintain comfortable body temperatures. Cooling vests used by outdoor workers can significantly reduce heat stress during physical labor.

At the building level, property rights and market competition create especially strong incentives for innovation. When people own their buildings, they internalize both the benefits and costs of cooling investments, with competition driving responsiveness to changing preferences, spurring adaptation without government mandates.

Many innovations use passive cooling techniques in countless forms. Modern wind-catchers, or badgirs, inspired by Persian architecture, can reduce indoor temperatures by 8–20°F without any energy input. Double-skin facades act as insulation while channeling air flows to cool buildings. Companies such as Pirta have developed specialized coatings that reflect more than 99 percent of solar radiation, enabling cool roofs that reduce indoor temperatures. Radiative cooling materials from companies such as SkyCool Systems dissipate heat to space even during daytime, achieving subambient cooling without energy input. Green walls provide natural cooling through evapotranspiration, while phase-change materials integrated into building materials create structures that use day-night temperature fluctuations for natural temperature regulation. Together, these innovations in various combinations have further potential in mitigating urban heat island effects.

Meso Level: Community and Urban-Scale Solutions

Moving beyond individual buildings, large indoor complexes represent an intermediate scale of adaptation. The West Edmonton Mall in Canada, spanning 5.3 million square feet, maintains year-round climate control for shopping, entertainment, and even indoor beaches. Dubai plans to build a 4,000-mile network of air-conditioned walkways connecting major buildings and city-areas. These massive climate-controlled environments—enabled by technological innovations, effective property rights, and economies of scale—provide refuge and maintain economic activity during extreme heat.

At the city scale, density contributes to urban heat island effects but can also work to the advantage of heat-mitigation solutions. District cooling systems such as those in Singapore can be 40 percent more efficient than individual building systems, leveraging massive economies of scale. These systems work by concentrating all cooling production in one or more large optimized plants that chill water to near-freezing temperatures, then pumping this cold water through insulated underground pipes to multiple buildings across a district, where heat exchangers in each building transfer the cooling to internal air systems—thus eliminating the need for individual air conditioning units in every structure. Time-of-use electricity pricing naturally spreads cooling demand throughout the day, reducing peak loads and infrastructure requirements.

Los Angeles’ cool pavement program that employs reflective pavement coatings has shown surface temperature reductions of 10–12°F on treated streets and ambient air temperature reductions of 0.5–3.5°F. Singapore’s comprehensive greening program has helped moderate urban temperatures despite rapid development.

Macro Level: Regional and Global Solutions

At the macro level, technologies are being developed that could modulate the planet’s temperature directly. Solar geoengineering proposals could provide regional or global cooling. Stratospheric aerosol injection, mimicking volcanic eruptions’ cooling effects, could reduce global temperatures within months. Marine cloud brightening could provide targeted regional cooling for especially vulnerable areas such as coral reefs. The massive scale of these interventions could potentially protect billions of people simultaneously.

These mega-solutions highlight important economic factors that come with increasing scale. At planetary scales, property rights can’t feasibly be defined or enforced, hindering the internalization of benefits and costs. However, the potential economies of scale are enormous. An organization might undertake such projects if it expects sufficient benefits to justify the costs, even without capturing all benefits—similar to how philanthropists fund various activities for the public interest today.

Looking further ahead, the prospect of energy abundance through fusion power could fundamentally transform our cooling capabilities. With essentially unlimited clean energy at near-zero marginal cost, we could deploy massive atmospheric cooling systems, power continent-spanning networks of air conditioning, or even implement science-fiction-scale projects like orbital sunshades—effectively refrigerating vulnerable regions or the entire planet. What seems economically impossible today becomes feasible when energy scarcity no longer constrains our adaptive capacity.

Institutional Flexibility Enables Diverse Solutions

There isn’t one big solution to the challenge of extreme heat. Instead, myriad solutions—each partial and imperfect—work together without being planned or necessarily designed as such. It’s beyond human abilities to design the complex tapestries of adaptations that solve big problems. Instead, we can cultivate robust institutional arrangements that support their emergence.

Institutional flexibility enables diverse approaches to coexist and compete, allowing different regions to experiment and adapt solutions to their specific conditions. This experimentation generates knowledge that benefits adaptation efforts globally, as successful innovations spread through market mechanisms and technology transfers.

The Path Forward

The evidence is clear: Humans don’t have to passively accept increased heat-related mortality. Through technological innovation supported by appropriate institutions, we can adapt to rising temperatures while maintaining and improving quality of life.

Climate change presents real challenges, but human ingenuity—when supported by property rights, market mechanisms, and institutional flexibility—has consistently overcome environmental obstacles throughout history. The same innovative capacity that enabled survival in harsh climates from the Arctic tundra to desert regions can address the challenges of a warming world.

Yet frustratingly, even as evidence mounts that technological adaptation saves lives, many environmental organizations and public health institutions actively resist or ignore AC as a solution. The World Health Organization’s “Heat and Health” fact sheet from May 2024 mentions AC once, buried in a list of recommendations, and even then conditionally: “If using air conditioning…”. In an August statement about 175,000 annual heat deaths in Europe, the organization omitted any mention of AC at all, focusing instead on demonstrably less effective behavioral changes. Its published guidance for Europe begrudgingly admits to AC’s effectiveness in a few places, followed immediately by emphasized caveats. Indeed, the single full-page focused on AC’s benefits, out of roughly 200 pages, is followed immediately by two and a half pages about its drawbacks.

This ideological opposition to technological solutions—rooted in eco-puritanism rather than concern for human welfare—prioritizes energy conservation over human lives. When organizations claim to care about heat deaths while ignoring an incredibly effective existing technological solution, they reveal a troubling willingness to sacrifice human welfare on the altar of environmental orthodoxy.

In many European countries, byzantine regulations govern exterior modifications to buildings, including air conditioning installations. In France, installing an AC unit that alters a building’s external appearance can require a multistep process and approval from multiple agencies, or even a majority vote of property co-owners for co-op residents. In Germany, strict noise regulations often prohibit AC installation in residential areas. These restrictions increase costs and complexity, reducing adoption rates and leaving residents vulnerable—a deadly form of aesthetic preservation that values architectural purity over human life.

For those concerned about absolute living standards and human welfare, the implications are clear. Markets and property rights have already enabled dramatic reductions in heat mortality where they’ve been allowed to function. Extending these benefits globally doesn’t require complex international agreements or massive wealth transfers—it simply requires allowing people the freedom to invest in their own comfort and survival. As incomes rise and technology advances, cooling solutions will become accessible to ever-broader populations, continuing the remarkable decline in heat-related mortality that markets have already delivered in developed nations.

Finally, while heat-related deaths capture headlines, research consistently shows that cold weather kills more people globally than hot weather. A comprehensive 2021 study in The Lancet Planetary Health found that 8.52 percent of global deaths were linked to cold temperatures, while less than 1 percent were linked to hot temperatures—roughly a 9:1 ratio. That doesn’t diminish concerns about heat-related mortality, but it provides important context about the relative scale of temperature-related health risks.

Doomsday predictions about inevitable heat mortality are pessimistic as well as condescending, viewing humans as passive, hapless creatures who will plod along to their doom—rather like frogs basking in a pot of water on a stove. A realist would recognize humans’ capacity for institutional and technological innovations that have characterized our species throughout history. The path forward requires institutional arrangements that foster and guide humans’ creative energies toward continual adaptation and problem-solving.