cupera1 pinkunicorns
3 hours ago
For those that want to return to a world that runs totally on green, like it was centuries ago, be careful about what you wish for. Wood was used for heating and cooking; charcoal for smelting and blacksmithing; wind or waterpower for pumps, mills, and sail ships for transport; and whale oil for lamps. People and soldiers walked or rode horses and the manure that dropped on the streets dried and blew into people’s lungs and was a lot more harmful than asbestoses ever was. The smoke from open fires choked and blackened cities. This smoke from wood and dried manure would make the smog of LA look like a clear day after a rain. The forests were stripped of trees; most of the crops went to feed draft animals.

For 99.999% of the people, life was nasty, brutish and short. You would be old and worn out at 40 and dead by 50. People would be laboring 18 hours a day from before the snow starts to melt to well after snow starts to build up in the fields, then you hope you have wood to make it through the winter and enough food to last until the next harvest.