I think the question should be 'could we survive' by turning up the thermostat... I'm miserable if it falls below 72 (I used to be hot all the time, had surgery

I think the question should be 'could we survive' by turning up the thermostat... I'm miserable if it falls below 72 (I used to be hot all the time, had surgery in 2012 and now I'm always cold), but in the winter I set the heater to 64 and just bundle up. In the summer so far we've had the furnace off all summer except when my wife was baking up a storm for a birthday party and needed to keep the atmosphere cool for the cakes and because she raised the indoor temp 20 degrees. We live by the mountains and luckily face the sun in a way that our indoor temp runs about 10 degrees less than outdoor w/ the windows up. If we started getting 90+ inside I might decide to turn on A/C, but so far it only gets to 84 this summer, and it's not so bad in the basement where it's closer to 74, or in front of the window fan in the living area. If society as a whole could just choose collectively to set a minimum thermostat threshold of 78 for summer and 64 for winter, I think that alone could have a drastic effect on climate change. Freeze or sweat a little and be a little uncomfortable? So what deal with it. It's life, but we don't need to go to extremes and freeze/heat a lot or past what is bearable. If we can't mentally function as a result and do our jobs then we need to alter things. We might even find ourselves and bodies get 'used' to the new temperatures. People in phoenix wear parka's when it drops below 70, because they're accustomed to a different temp and it feels unbearably cold to them.