17 degrees might _feel_ cold, but it's definitely not cold at a level that's problematic to the human body. If it's a choice between wearing your coat inside or Russia taking over Ukraine, I think we should seriously opt for the former.
Yeah, this is the right place to fight about who has better tolerance for either extremes of heat without recognizing that people grow up in and adapt to very different climates.
My apartment gets to 17C all the time, I live in SF and never use heating. I do wear a sweater or hoodie during the day and use a thick comforter at night, but it's not bad (the cold air temp actually is really good for my sleep). You do need to make sure not to drink large amounts of cold liquid at once though.
I could see someone living their whole life in a tropical climate not being able to tolerate these temps, but in almost all of Europe this is a normal outdoor temperature. In the parts of Europe that actually get cold enough to need active heating, it's nothing. You would get used to it pretty quickly.
As a Canadian myself, 17°C would be very cold for an indoor space. The standard recommendations (for offices at least) are much higher than that.
> Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and ASHRAE standards are used for thermal comfort and ventilation in indoor offices [....] These standards are a good resource to use when considering the thermal conditions in indoor office space.
> According to CSA standards Z1004-12 – Work place Ergonomics – the comfort level at work is determined by temperature, humidity, wind and work-rest cycle. The optimal temperature range for office comfort should be 23 to 26 °C with 50% relative humidity in summers and 20 to 23.5°C at 50% relative humidity in winter.
17 is a bit on the chilly side indoors, but 23-25 in the winter (sweater season) sounds like a sweaty, awful, and, even before current events, expensive time.
21 is cozy, 20 is absolutely fine, 19 during the day is where we’re at now because toddler (who seems to be adapting better than me). We’ve been 18 at night for years - a big ol’ down comforter from my in-laws makes that ideal.