Under the Influence with Bernard O'Shea: going carbon-neutral in lockdown

The Bridget and Eamon star looks at his carbon footprint, keeping the heat in, and the simple wisdom of keeping a jumper on to stay warm indoors.

Bernard O'Shea. Photograph Moya Nolan

On December 24, 2020, I wrote in my note pad: “go carbon-neutral for a week”. 

In hindsight, I might as well have written “go back in time, start working out, get a six pack, get a medical degree, become a brilliant surgeon, and give yourself the world first personality transplant and a Don Draper jawline”. 

Unfortunately that’s impossible to do within a week (even with the help of time travel).

During lockdown, my car is more or less permanently parked outside my house. Sometimes I just sit in it. It’s my secret quiet room. I have taken far too many Zoom calls while adjusting the lumbar support.

I do walk more now, instead of guzzling fuel, and like most people I haven’t been on an airplane in over a year and a half. Although none of this was by choice, it hopefully has reduced my carbon footprint.

Nonetheless, I have nightmares about the amount of Amazon-ian cardboard that I’m stuffing in the green bin. Prior to contemplating my carbon footprint, my only contribution to bringing down CO2 emissions was to jump up and down on the recyclable wheelie bin every Monday evening. Full disclosure: I would track it on my smartwatch. A packed green bin, stomped for a good five minutes, could burn up to 100 calories.

So I recycle, I walk as much as I can, and I’ve started to spend less time in the shower. But a quick online search revealed that one of the best ways to bring down your carbon coun,t and save money, as well was to look at how we were heating our house.

MINDING THE PUMP

The catchphrase in my house growing up in the 80s was, ‘Close the door’ followed by, ‘YOU ARE LETTING THE HEAT OUT.’

This was repeated in nearly every house on our road. The heat was treated like an elusive spy who would cunningly try to escape out of a room any way possible and head off to London to buy forbidden things, like condoms, or mint Kit-Kats. I always remember one viciously cold night counting how many times my parents said, ‘Close that f**king door’. The final tally was close to 300.

As if the danger of leaving a door open wasn’t petrifying enough, we had a heating system in our house called ‘The Pump’. 

Most houses on our road didn’t have oil or gas heating. They were heated with solid fuel instead: mostly coal, wood, and turf. There was one house, about 30 miles away, that had a thermostat. We went there on our school tour once instead of the sugar-beet factory in Carlow. 

For “The Pump” to work and heat your water, you would have to wait until your heard the pipes rattle. Then in unison, my entire family would shout “The Pump!”. If you didn’t get to switch it on in time your house could EXPLODE.

Back then our primary insulation was pebbledash, and hope. In the mornings I would constantly complain to my mother, whose hair was always singed by trying to light a Super Ser heater with an Olympic torch made of newspaper (those black plastic flint buttons never worked), “I’m freezing”, to which she always gave me the same reply: “Well, put a jumper on”.

Bernard O'Shea. Photograph Moya Nolan

Not wanting to have our children growing up in fear of leaving the immersion on, or blowing up the house, I invested in a smart thermostat. My wife warned me: “You're not installing it yourself, Bernard, you're still the only person I know who put up shelves and told me not to put anything on them”.

When sanctions were lifted in December we got a smart heating system professionally installed by a man. My wife uses the phrase “a man” a lot especially when we need to get anything done in the house. I know she looks at handymen, and thinks “I should have married him… mmmm... I’ve still time”. 

Our heating bills were reduced within the first month, and it also gave the kids something to constantly play with. They wrecked my head by constantly changing the temperature. One morning during the cold snap Olivia my six-year-old roared at me: “Dad, I’m freezing, turn up the heat!”. It was a cold morning, but she was only wearing a t-shirt. 

So I said to her: “If you’re cold, put on a jumper” and there it was: the circle of life. “What, are you kidding me? She said, “Why would I wear a jumper... inside?” I told her “It’s the quickest way to get warm and it’s better for the environment”. She ran upstairs in a huff. She reappeared within a few minutes still wearing a t-shirt. I found out later she got her mother’s phone and brought up the temperature on the heating system's mobile app. Girls, not thermostats, are smart, very, very smart.

FIRESIDE CHATS

Rewind almost seven years ago, to a very cozy pub on Dublin’s Wexford Street. I had a similar argument with my friend Brian, a sharp, dry-witted Corkonian. He was home from Canada for Christmas. The more we drank, the more the Cork accent oozed out of him, in gushes, like fresh superglue from a once fully hardened cap.

I rented a house with him and another friend of mine when we were in college in Dundalk IT. He would also complain about the cold whilst wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and I would always say: “put a jumper on”. As we both looked on into a blazing fire and supped away on Arthur's finest, he said: “Ah, home is where the hearth is”, to which I said “You mean... home is where the heart is”. Thus followed (pardon the awful pun) a heated debate.

Were we less inebriated, we would have possibly had a conversation about something he pointed out the next day lying hungover on my couch “You know it won’t be long before — you won’t be allowed have an open fire in a pub”?

Little did we know that seven years later you wouldn’t be allowed to drink a pint in a pub, much less stare longingly at a warm fire. He said it with such lament, almost like he was mourning the loss of a friend. I could have cheered him up but I told him: “Brian, all you have to do is put a jumper on”.