If you build a home that costs money to heat and cool, that’s a choice, not a given. People have built homes that do not require furnaces or air conditioning to maintain a comfortable temperature (55 to 57 Fahrenheit) for thousands of years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_sheltering
There are US builders even today who specialize in them.
http://www.daviscaves.com/index.shtml
Try living in a house with that temp before you opine. One size does not fit all. Yes, those temps are survivable - for most. But little kids, who live in the first 2-3 feet off the floor, will be in the coldest part and the elderly, who are vulnerable to hypothermia, will suffer to the point of expiring.
That said: I grew up with my grandparents on a farm built in 1848 by my great grandfather. We still had no electricity. We heated with our own wood and lighted with kerosene lamps. Our water came from our hand dug well through a pump at the end of the soapstone sink. We had a good life. And our little house was a hellava lot warmer than a cave.
People who did live - for thousands of years - in these temps, died like flies from pneumonia, flu, etc...
Of course, you could advise us all how to live comfortably under these temps - obviously, you are practicing what you preach for others - unlike the Marxists who just have all the answers and rules for everyone else to live by while they don't have to confront those same conditions themselves.
Seriously, MrEdd, what you write: People have built homes that do not require furnaces or air conditioning to maintain a comfortable temperature (55 to 57 Fahrenheit) for thousands of years.
- yep. That's the solution. Go back to living like the primitives. That'll solve it.
.