It's simply not possible to change the infrastructure that fast. Gas is used for heating, that's not optional in winter. Europe needs to build more LNG terminals (which they decided to do) and order gas from other countries that have the ability to greatly increase their output. This all takes time, but in the long run Europe will stop being as dependen on Russian gas and oil as they are now, Putin made sure of that.
Surely not possible everywhere, but I have turned off the heater and am wearing 3 sweater instead, as a symbolic act and also to find out how realistic it is. We have temperatures around 5 deg C here, I think. So far I am doing fine.
Western Europeans willingly made themselves dependent on gas. It was supposed to be an intermediate step for "ecological" transition away from coal. But unlike coal, which is widely available in Europe and from other countries (the coal mines may have closed in many countries, but the coal is still there), gas is hard to obtain in Europe and need to rely on a few gas countries.
When Trump criticized German dependency on gas and was slowing the construction Nord Stream 2 he was criticized and laughed at.
This is true, especially Germany and Italy, and Germany in particular. Even now they're in the process of shutting down more nuclear power, to become even more dependent on Russian gas. It's idiotic and pathetic, really. I hope Scholz has more of a brain than Merkel.
