Dot Earth Blog: Blizzards as Teachers

Watching the snowfall forecasts from the potent blizzard sweeping into the Northeast (we?re at the western edge of the robin?s egg 12-24 inches zone), I can?t help but think back to March, 2010, when we lost power for five days after the Hudson Valley and other regions were paralyzed by several feet of snow. Here?s a look back at my ridiculously inefficient effort to keep the toilets flushing by melting heaps of snow on the propane stove:

A Blizzard Survival Guide

After the remains of Hurricane Irene blasted our community in 2011, I began moving a plastic 55-gallon trash can into the upstairs bathroom ahead of big storms. That allowed us to keep flushing through several powerless days following Sandy?s blast.

I?ll be filling the trash can shortly.

Learn and adjust.

In the days following the 201o blizzard, as we shivered in 48-degree temperatures in the living room despite the fire in the fireplace, I regretted not following the path taken by my friend Tom Zeller, who?d blogged four months earlier on the energy savings from his fireplace insert. We installed an insert ? essentially a wood stove that fits in a fireplace ? not long after the blackout, and it has served us well ever since.

When we first bought our 1930 house, a little snowdrift would form in the attic during winter northeasters as winds found an entry through some crevice that was unremarkable at any other time. A thorough insulating effort eliminated that problem.

As for electricity, we haven?t yet bought a generator. My cost-benefit analysis doesn?t yet justify it. But I have my eyes on one!

At the level of a household or humanity writ large, our species has a well-worn habit of learning through failure, incrementally getting things a little bit less wrong each time. The key, of course, is not to fail too badly. This is the art of ?falling forward,? as I?ve written many times, ever since the population scientist Joel Cohen explained to me once that walking is the process of falling forward without falling down.

Have a safe weekend, wherever you may be.

4:45 p.m. | Addendum |

I won?t be joining the burst of blogging on the relationship of greenhouse-driven climate change to snowstorms, although I have in the past, describing an embarrassing bit of British snow analysis and ?wintry weather and global warming.?

Source: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/blizzards-as-teacher/?partner=rss&emc=rss

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