Speaking to a guy today, must have been in his early 60's. Him and his wife just got central heating this year. I quote "We always said we would get central heating when we were old, then I said to her "Hang on, we are old!", so we had it put in. It's nice not having to shiver when you go into a room."

I don't begrudge this guy and his wife his central heating, they've earnt it, but it brought home to me as a younger person that, in the West, we have got used to a level of home heating which would be considered luxurious to previous generations and still much of the world today.

Should we be spending a fortune on (largely) imported "green" technologies (GSHPs, MVHR, UFH, triple glazing etc) for our homes or should we just do the basics (like insulation, draft proofing that get you most of energy savings), just heat the living room whilst we're in it, wear warm clothes and toughen up a bit? Does it matter that your house whole house it not thermostatically controlled to a constant 19degreesC?

I think one could argue that the same goes for many aspects of modern life. I remember my father spending inordinate amounts of time fiddling with the car/s to keep them running when I was a lad whereas modern cars seem to behave well for years on end and certainly are immeasurably improved in terms of bodywork (no rust) and safety. My father's generation may consider people of my generation to be spoiled but would not our grandfather's generation have taken the same line regarding the improvements in quality of life made in my father's time? And so on back into the mists of time.

As for "toughening up" I am curious as to whether other nations display the tendency of the British (particularly the English) to regard physical discomfort as a good thing in and of itself. Certainly I don't see it in the US, Japan, or Spain but I haven't lived in Europe so I don't know if the Scandinavians, French, Italians, Swiss, Germans et alia take the same line. Many would say that there is a thread of self-denial running through the English psyche that makes English people feel that discomfort, poor food and lack of affection should be borne without complaint and even with a certain grim pleasure. Historically that may have been the case but I thought over the past few decades we had moved on from that...

Yes, I understand that the flip side of the coin is that if people use resources without thought then they become (on a per capita basis) wasteful energy-gobblers like the average US person - as Chris asks, do we really need to have the entire house at 19C even when most rooms are unoccupied. On the other hand, once we start down this road it's difficult to see an end to it. Nick says 16C is about average in his house. As his post indicates, he has survived this so far. But why not cut the temperature to 12C? He'd have to wear a few more clothes, but 12C is a small step down. And why not 8C? With the aid of thermal underwear, gloves and headgear plus plenty of food to fuel his body I have no doubt he would be able to live in a house at 8C and probably would feel warm most of the time. How far can we push it? If we exclude comfort and take as important only what is survivable then the scenarios quickly become absurd.

Rather than relying on the central heating alone I think people should wear a jumper or some kind of top over a shirt or similar in the house but this is my personal opinion. I know people who believe that they have central heating exactly because they want to prance around in their undies and not feel cold. Emerging from the shower on a winter's day I have a lot more sympathy for that view.

Dan

I've been living in my motorhome all winter, and it's interesting comparing the temperature to my comfort. I have quite a lot of draughts, and it's those that cause the discomfort. It can be 20 degrees or more inside but I feel cold if there's a cold wind blowing, or 12 degrees with no draughts and it feels fine. I'm watching the temperature at seat level and about shoulder height. At the moment it's bright sunshine outside, but with a cold wind, and with no heating it's 19 degrees at seat height and 22.5 degrees at shoulder height. I can feel a strong draught and parts of me are a bit cold. When the wind dropped the other day I had the door wide open, it was down to about 12 degrees and I was quite comfortable. I must admit I've got very soft, and am sitting here messing about on my laptop, rather than being outside doing something!

i grew up in a flint farmhouse without central heating

coal fired rayburn in the kitchen heating kitchen and one bedroom and bathroom and wood burning stove to living room. that was it

as a result, i have central heating, but it is never set above 17 degrees and used on a periodic basis rather than constant thermostat, and never more than 16 in bedrooms for one hour a night. Window open all night regardless of weather - cant sleep with windows closed.

wood burning stove keeps the living room toasty, but it is wooly

socks and jumpers elsewhere.

people who grow up in stuffy houses carry on as they think they need 21 degrees to sleep at night. real shame.

went to look at a guys house who wanted a new roof a year ago. It was February, the house was heated to 22-23+ degrees and his whole family were trotting round in vests and shorts with sleet coming down outside. daft



fortunately, the wife grew up in similar circumstances, so we do not play open / close the window games all night!

"....tungsten carbide drills...! when I were a lad..." etc etc.

J

We find that the higher the thermostat indoors the more runny noses we get.
Worst colds I ever had were while working in the middle east and having to go in and out of air conditioned accomodation.

Morning Dan

Your examples are more to do with humans playing at politics where, with enough goodwill on both sides the issues were sorted out or we resorted to throwing massive resources (energy, materials, human lives etc) into a war effort to decide who won the day. ie there were options

What Chris is talking about is, I think, more about humans having backed ourselves into a corner with rapidly diminishing options. The only way out is to completely change tack and that is going to be painful.
The softer we are the more difficult it will be to adapt.
IMO, the more we separate ourselves from the natural world the softer we become and the harder it is to adapt to the changes we will be forced to make as nature adapts to our influence (another debate) and we have less resources to maintain our separation.

That said, we are still going to 'build tight and ventilate right ' (cue biff on living in plastic bags )

Posted By: Terrythe more we separate ourselves from the natural world ..... the changes we will be forced to make as nature adapts to our influence

Interesting that the emphasis of the environmental 'crisis' has moved beyond "how can we prevent or reverse it" to "how can we adapt to its inevitability". So far it's all been about technical things we 'must' do (when we've become reliant on 'the market' to drive that - so far uncooperative), and how to create public/political consent for lifestyle-change (without which politicians can't move). The old chicken and egg.

Maybe the real significance of the whole environmental 'crisis' is as unignorable shock treatment, to awake humans from the 3000-year dream that we are separate from nature. If there's widespread understanding that we live or die according to the health of nature, which is what we are, then 'solutions' will I think come naturally and quickly and possibly less painfully than presently dreaded. It is 'only' a 3000-year-long delusion - it wasn't so before, and it's not inevitable that the trance will continue forever. It could change quite quickly - that's the mark of these end-days - the exponentially-increasing pace of opportunity and change.

Hi Chris,

Great post, I agree entirely.

Have you read Jared Diamond 'Collapse'?

All previous civilisations have declined as a result of 'soiling their own nest'.
But, some, who have found a way to acknowledge the problem, and act, have been able to salvage the situation. The difference is, this time it's global. Therefore more important that we do something, and more difficult to achieve the necessary consensus.

Peter

Posted By: fostertomAny bets which UK will do?!

Gosh,

I couldn't say, I hope its not neither.

A bit of both?

Posted By: fostertom

Posted By: Peter ClarkHave you read Jared Diamond 'Collapse'?

Half way thro it - haven't got to the salvation bit yet. I understand he studies two approaches. Japan did 'top down' - in the 1920s severely deforested, the Emperor decreed tree planting, and Japan is now heavily forested, for its size and population (both comparable to UK).

Allow me to modify that a little... Japan is not comparable to the UK in size, being about half as big again as the UK. To give you a little perspective if Japan were plonked down in Western Europe it would be the second largest country, behind France but ahead of Germany. Japan is not comparable to the UK in terms of population as Japan's population is more than twice the size of that of the UK and considerably larger than that of any European country.

The reforestation issue is interesting, because most of the commercial forestry in Japan was planted I think in the late 1940s to meet the expected surge in demand for wood for reconstruction. Whether that demand materialised or not I do not know, but imports of wood turned out to be so much cheaper that Japan now has vast cedar forests that are not harvested because it is not economical to do so. Japan's native forests are mixed broadleaf with evergreen further north, but the cedar plantations are monocultures, similar to the UK forestry commission connifer plantations. The cover in cedar forests is not as oppressively thick as that of a forestry commission plantation but if you go hiking you will see that there usually is little life on the forest floor except where there has been thinning.

If my memory serves, about half of Japan's forests are planted and slightly less than half of Japan's planted forests are cedar (cypress is the other popular tree). The problem with cedar is that the trees produce tremendous quantities of pollen starting from an age of about 25-30 years and continue to do so for several decades. The pollen causes an allergic reaction in many humans. As a result, hay fever is rife in Japan (it did not use to be) and makes life quite unpleasant at around this time of year. I never got hay fever in the UK, but I do when I'm in Japan.

Did the Japanese authorities reforest the country? Yes. Was it a success? In ecological terms, no - the forests are monocultures that do not attempt to reproduce native forest patterns. In economic terms, no - the investment has been unproductive and probably has had a negative return. In terms of social impact, no - pollinosis has become a major problem. Like many supposed Japanese achievements, reforestation doesn't hold up to careful scrutiny. Reforesting parts of the UK might or might be sensible - it's certainly an emotive idea - but let's not follow Japan's particular example without a great deal of thought.

Dan

All gd info Dan - I look forward to the rest of the book.

What do our forestry guys think of Viktor Schauberger?

This is the discussion that i think we need. Some of the technology that cliams to be green is good and some probably isn't. But these things can only be sustianable if the world can afford to provide it for all its citizens In an era where resources are becoming more scares that mean a shock for the pampered rich in the developed world who have had a lifestyle of pampered privilidge for a long time now. I would suggest the priority should be to make sure that everyone has what they need to survive. The other option is to surround our island with barbed wire and watch towers with machine guns mounted and send the poor from our country to plunder the resources we need in the name of democracy so we can sit in our underwear in front of the telly in winter Congratulating ourselves that our homes are greener than those of the worlds poor because twe can afford more insulation and dont produce smoke from our fires.
i dont want to live in that world i for one would trade a hefty cut in the consumption in this country to live in a more secure and sustainable world. but then again it probably wouldn't mean that much of a cut for me as i'm trying to build a home for my family of six on a budget of £25k, dont have central heating, swimming pool (even solar heated one) or air conditioning other than windows.
Carbon is probably the criticallly limiting resourse (obviously in the amount we can afford to use rather than in availability), but there are many others that are limmited. In the developed world we have used nearly all of the carbon so far and most of the other resources. it isn't sustainable to go on doing this even if we do it a bit more efficiently.