And there’s nothing wrong with me
This is how I’m supposed to be
In a land of make-believe
That don’t believe in me

Thermochauvinism is the (often unconscious) assumption that it’s reasonable to live in cold places but unreasonable to live in hot ones. Thermochauvinism doesn’t blink at the massive infrastructure investments required to keep much of the Global North functioning through the coldest months of the year: gas heating, snow removal, salting of roads and sidewalks, winter clothes for every citizen, hand warmers, engine warmers, antifreeze, snow days, etc. etc. And yet similar investments in cooling somehow constitute a moral failing.

There is something Eurocentric, colonialist, even quasi-racist about thermochauvinism. Brown and Black people live in warmer places, and are then depicted as lazy or uncivilized for the ways they adapt to the heat. White people live in cooler place and are thought to be industrious for adapting to the cold. A siesta or a dip in the river is a primal throwback, while hygge is advanced cultural technology. People who head north to escape hot summers are labeled ‘climate refugees’, while people who head south to escape cold winters are ‘snowbirds.’