Britain urgently needs to shift away from using natural gas for heating, hot water, and cooking. Gas is mostly methane, a fossil fuel, and its price fluctuates hugely on international markets, while there is an increasing understanding of the health risks associated with open gas flames in the home.
Yet the burning of gas in the home is a deeply ingrained aspect of people’s everyday lives, something I’ve discovered as part of ongoing research into the role of marketing and advertising in the 20th century in shaping perceptions of natural gas.
Shifting away from gas is therefore more than just a technical problem – it will also require an understanding of emotional and cultural relationships with this fuel. To persuade people to embrace the new technologies and ways of life which will help to decarbonise domestic energy, we’ll have to reverse-engineer the relationship between gas and modern life.
