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Comment by tluyben2 | Hacker News Reader

It is not comfortable but inside houses you do not freeze to death like that. Sleep in your clothes, buy an electric heater next to your bed, get an electric blanket etc. I slept for quite a long time like that in the Netherlands because my mates squat building had no heat. That was during one of the coldest winters where all canals in Amsterdam were frozen enough to skate on. So yeah, not comfortable but freezing to death is not happening if you just take some care.

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Living can be intolerable real fast. It does not have to be death. I think the OP was not saying literally.

Also, if the majority of the population is losing heating and need to do your suggested preparation, I wouldn't bet my luck on successfully getting a heater and a electric blanket. There was a freaking toilet paper shortage in covid because of panic buying. These and whatnot will be gone in minutes.

How's the electric heater and the electric blanket work without power?

The issue isn't electricity, it's the fact that German municipal heat plants run on natural gas. Replacing all of that with electrically-powered equipment (centralized or at the endpoints) takes time.

Also, heating energy consumption is among the top usages. So switching from gas would require large increase in electric generating capacity.

It's not clear that the majority of Germans are willing to do that, especially since it wouldn't just end the war right away. I've also heard a politician on German news quote the estimated "few percent GDP decline" as a result of banning gas imports from Russia, which apparantly implies that it's "not possible" ("nicht machbar"). They make it sound like it's on par with breaking the laws of physics and our of their hands...

"if you just take some care". Now there's the problem. Some people are unable to suddenly migrate to igloo living.

How to set up Germans for a bloody revolution and make them pro-Russian in three easy steps.

1) Make fuel extremely expensive. 2) Quickly massively lower standard of living, e.g. by turning off heating in winter/early spring 3) Purposefully crash the economy, leading to mass unemployment.

Setting up a tent inside will work in a pinch.

What about frozen pipes?

Keeping a house warmed to 5°C is probably enough to keep the pipes from bursting, but uses much less gas than heating it to 21°C

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