Insulating Ourselves Against Energy Crises

The UK has Europe's oldest housing stock. More than 50% of its homes were built before 1965. UK houses are also Europe's least energy efficient. Britain is particularly exposed in the current energy crisis, as 80% of the UK's leaky homes are currently heated by gas boilers. A rapid improvement in home insulation seems to be a 'no-brainer' (https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/sep/11/britain-insulate-homes-energy-crisis-2023-heat-loss-houses-subsidising-bills). The current government's enthusiasms for 'solutions' (fracking, increased extraction of North Sea oil and building more nuclear power stations) are all totally inadequate and/or too slow. The country needs to use less gas. This could be quickly achieved by drives to improve the insulation of the housing stock (and small businesses?) and (more gradually) by replacing gas boilers. Whilst the government are at it, they might want to reconsider legislation enforcing improved insulating properties on new-build homes. This has been resisted by house builders, who prefer 'cheap (?) and cheerful'. These changes (and others, like increasing land-based wind turbines and solar farms) would also help reduce the UK's 'greenhouse gas' emissions. Otherwise, it will be one energy crisis followed by another!