4 ms·

If climate change doesn’t bless Europe with a warmer winter this year I see no way that a bunch of people won’t freeze to death.

• MandieD 4y ago
  At least in Germany, not everyone uses gas heating - lots of domestic and institutional oil furnaces and tanks still around, like the recently-filled one in our basement that holds two bad winters’ worth of luxurious (21-22 C) warmth, or four normal winters’ worth of careful (18-19 C) usage. If needed, we can clamp down even further, closing off some rooms. My husband’s parents switched to gas two years ago when their old oil furnace finally became irreparable, so my husband set them up with a diesel heater in their bedroom with enough fuel for two or three days, and the intention of bringing them down here in the worst case. I’m sure that families and friends all over Germany and the rest of the EU have similar plans.
• EiZei 4y ago
  Why?
• Aachen 4y ago
  Aside from maybe the coldest two weeks, the climate is not even uncomfortable if you are inside (no wind or precipitation), wear thick clothing, and move a little. If you do physical labor, you're going to be sweating. Nobody is going to die from cold in western Europe's semi-oceanic climate, even without any gas at all. For the vulnerable, there's plenty of alternative fuels. But we do have gas and lots of it, so this seems entirely baseless.
  • xwdv 4y ago
    So I guess the talk of Europe having a hard winter coming up is entirely overblown.
    • MandieD 4y ago
      Economic disruption and having to keep our homes and offices a few degrees cooler than we’re used to will make this a “hard winter” for the two or three generations of western Europeans largely used to staying as warm as they like and general prosperity. But not “hard winter” in terms of people freezing to death. Even if all gas were cut off (and it isn’t, Norway is still exporting) too many of us still have oil heating and/or wood-burning stoves, and are not completely anti-social. Plus, as another commenter said, it’s not that cold in a lot of Europe all winter long. And the places that are? Why, they’re the ones most motivated not to let Putin have his way with their countries and were the angriest with Germany over Nordstream - the Baltics and Poland.
    • 1ris 4y ago
      As somebody who lives there and knows what's it like to be in a unheated apartment: Rest assured, yes it is. And the fearmongering serves the interests of some people, of course.
• mlang79 4y ago
• 1ris 4y ago
  My heater was broken one winter, so I had a completely unheated apartment for quite a while in germany. It's not cosy, but far, far from freezing to death. Countries further north do not use gas for heating, countries further south do need it even less to stay above something tolerable.