I like this better than your "poll" which remdinds me of push polling.

These are very real issues and buildings can be made much more efficiently. Plus we have considerable untapped, local resources we can and should draw on.

Some of the issues you bring up already exist. Rolling black outs and frequent "brown outs" in NYC during peak times are already ways in which utilities regulate our usage. And it sucks, of course. It is symptomatic of the whole energy problem. I advocate local, renewable energy solutions because they create local jobs, cut down on the transportation costs for energy (e.g. why bring coal to Nevada from West Virginia when they have their own geothermal and wind generating capabilities that are underutilized?). Building efficiency is another excellent approach. There are many pieces of the solution that America needs to be put into practice to avoid increasing climate-related problems. A combining of good environmental and good economic policy is what I have long recommended. I think it can be done and will make a difference.

As to the right to regulate your own living space, New Yorkers and anyone else with steam heat in a large building have never had that right, by and large. This applies to the winter, not summer AC use which each unit tends to deal with independently. Invariably in winter I swelter in over-heated buildings. Though the sitution improved in my building when we realized our managing agent was lame and we fired them and turned to self-managing. They had never recalibrated our boiler! Recalibration improved the situation. That one simple action, a low tech version of what you are discussing, saved us money and increased our comfort.

Good to have an engineering point of view on these things, even if we are set to disagree on other things.