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We often hear of how places like Phoenix, Houston, or Miami were sparsely populated before the advent of air conditioning. But why doesn't anyone say that Toronto, Montreal, or Minneapolis were hardly inhabitable before the advent of modern heating?
Wood stoves and furnaces were very inefficient, contributed to filthy indoor air quality, and it was very hard to stockpile any amount of wood, often, on the windswept praries.
And let's face it: you'll die far faster if exposed to the elements during a winter in the upper Midwest than exposed to the elements during a Florida summer.
Has to be heating. Humans evolved in hot climates and have lived in them since we split off from apes. Polar climates were the last zones of the Earth to be inhabited because they were difficult for prehistoric people to live in. If Antarctica had been a continent of extreme heat not extreme cold humans would have reached the South Pole much earlier than they did. Perhaps it would even have been settled before the European Age of discovery, perhaps by the Polynesians.
The main difference of course is that heating requires a lot less technology than cooling.
With an adequate source of hydration and some precaution, heat is manageable in most cases. When the heat is combined with humid air and no reliable source of water on the other hand... that's trouble. In Florida for example, you can collect rainwater and have a lot to drink.
Heating is more useful because one can survive without A/C in tropical lowland climates. Surviving with a wood fire in a continental climate's winter is possible but more difficult. In temperate and even some subtropical climates in the past, winter has always been described as the season with more hardships.
However, I have to say that living in continental climates without modern heating is entirely possible. Harbin has been settled without modern heating before. Manchuria has actually been very valuable farmland with rich soil. I just think that living in tropical/subtropical climates without A/C is easier.
Heating and there is absolutely no question about it.
Most climates north of 45N would kill a lot of people in winter without heating. Heat doesn’t kill you if you’re in the shade and have access to water. Cold will kill you quickly
Heating and there is absolutely no question about it.
Most climates north of 45N would kill a lot of people in winter without heating. Heat doesn’t kill you if you’re in the shade and have access to water. Cold will kill you quickly
I disagree, I'd rather have air con than heating here in the UK.
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