I still think that the biggest problem we face in the UK is the expectation that, when it is 0C outside, every room in our house will be over 21C.
Why?
I am getting so so so so so fucking pissed off with people thinking we shouldn't be warm. It's 2021 and we have both the means and the technology such that we can sit in our homes at 21+°C when it's -20°C outside, and with zero emissions.
It is simply criminal that house builders have not been building better quality housing in the last four decades. We've known about high quality insulation, sealing, and the rest of the Passivhaus standard since as far back as the 80's. With such a building I should be able to be my comfortable 23°C with just the input of a single candle.
It's gross negligence on behalf of the government that more is not being done to make zero emission heating possible for more people. it's gross incompetence that efforts to improve insulation have failed to reach the levels we need through poor design of the bureaucracy behind it.
But, in all this, we should not be shaming people for wanting to be warm and comfortable. If you wanna turn the heating off and wrap up in a blanket, go for it. But don't go trying to shame others.
Yes space heating is approx 17% of emissions. But the only thing stopping this being fixed is capitalism. The technology is there. It's just not evenly distributed. And the only thing stopping that is ideological belief in the scarcity of money. There's no excuse for it.
J
Houses not being insulated decently is a separate issue from people having unrealistic temperature expectations.
Bodies adapt - when I lived in australia my body was used to the heat. every year, summer started, there would be a day when I *felt* the change, and then the heat was less suffocating afterwards.
I've been living up in the Hebrides for a good few months now and my body is used to the generally cooler conditions, partly because we don't heat our house all the time. MrsC has also adapted.
Sure we have better technology. Saying that we should always be keeping houses at 21C 'because we have the technology' isn't much different from saying we should all the time use motorised transport 'because we have the technology'.
Both acts (heating and using cars) have an environmental cost. People (in the west) have become accustomed to using technology to adapt the environment rather than letting bodies do some of the adaption.