Why Can’t Modern Europeans treat this winter like medieval Europeans?

Question

Why Can’t Modern Europeans treat this winter like medieval Europeans?

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Answer 1

You can if you live on a farm and have a fireplace or a wood-buring stove. However,

* there are more people today than in medieval times;
* they are packed into cities;
* those dwellings do not typically permit the burning of coal or wood for heat (they use modern gas-fired forced air and steam heating systems, most of which also require electricity to operate);
* the wood consumption for the population would require significant deforestation, even if everyone had a wood-buring stove (which they do not);

So, you can’t use medieval heating methods (burning wood) in densly packed cities whose dwellings aren’t designed to burn wood for heat.