The Heating Debate

I can see that it's tough managing a country the size of China and at the rapid / crazy growth seen in China. Before you can clear 1 issue, you find another 1 cropping up.

The "heating" debate which got heated up (pun unintended) right before the haze / pollution index stole the limelight was about the indoor heating facilities in the country. Currently, only the "North" (normally the line would be drawn based on the great Yangtze river - provinces North of the river are Northern China) have heating facilities indoors for all Public areas and central hot air / water supply to all neighbourhoods. While the South are without such "luxuries". As a result, the Southern cities i.e. Guangdong, Fujian, Hunan etc etc typically have very cold winters - not due to nature but because the buildings in these provinces were not heated. I was told that you need to be equally bundled up indoors as well as outdoors in the South. In comparison to the North where the winter can get very cold especially coupled with the infamous Northern-wind, the people tend to get nice and toasty as soon as they rush in-doors (e.g. mua in T-shirts & shorts at home in Beijing).

Hence the national debate sparked - shouldn't heating system be introduced to the Southern provinces as well? While there were many facts and fiction... oops! figures ;-p being tossed about, 2 statements caught my attention and I remember it as clearly today as when I first read it a couple of months back. One for all the wrong reasons aka it is ludicrous and one for being very thought provoking and not just applicable for this scenario. Though I can't quote back by verbatim, but I'm sharing both statements based on my memory of the gist of the message.

Silly version: The Southern folks are used to the cold and the natural environment of South winters. If we introduce something like heating systems available in the North; the Southerners will fall sick because they'll not be able to acclimatise to the environment created by the heaters. So they'll not want nor need such facilities.
My Remarks: The fact that this statement came from an educated representative of the people is just mind boggling. Heating system in the North is not something aged-old. The age of heating system in China is probably equivalent to an infant when compared to the long history of the population in this country. So considering it is a "modern" introduction - how is it possible that the Northerners are able to acclimatise and not folks from the South? I'm still baffled by the logic of the statement. Then again, such silly statements in my opinion doesn't deserve further utilisation of brain cells.

Thought provoking rebuttal: Is it right to say that when a person is poor, the person should remain poor and will not have any wants beyond that of a poor person? Does it also mean if a person currently feeling cold, should remain feeling cold because the person is used to it and hence will not want to have a warm home?
My Remarks: Bravo! Though I recall he went on to explain further but I felt that his analogy was just perfect with no further explanation required. In just 2 sentences, I felt that the whole debate didn't need to be debated further. And in just 2 sentences, the imagery was so stark obvious / vivid that it strikes a chord. It also brought the national debate down to the most common citizen where the decision matters him / her the most.

While I'm sure there are many other considerations to be made (e.g. electricity supply availability, cost to operate central heating facilities for the cities, cost to the environment etc etc) and hence it's not fair to judge a debate only based on these 2 statements; I just can't help sharing and appreciating a good rebuttal when I see one (nostalgic over my high school debating days).   :-)