(Host) The Climate Change Conference in Qatar – coming as it does in the
destructive wake of Hurricane Sandy – has gotten writer and commentator Stephanie
Greene thinking about our dependence on electricity.
(Greene)
The late folk singer Dave Van Ronk once described to an audience how his
uncle dragged the family piano out to the curb and took an axe to it.
The reason? He thought they didn’t need it anymore: they had just bought
a radio. The story elicited groans from the audience.
Of course
fifty years of retrospection makes it easy for us to parse the
different roles the instrument and the radio play. The joys of making
music, however imperfect, are different from those of listening to
professional recordings on the radio.
But we’re going through similar debates now about books vs ebooks. Hard copy back-up vs. the Cloud. Even trucking vs trains.
Those
of us clinging to the old ways often claim a sort of aesthetic and
nostalgic high ground that annoys the embracers of new technology. And
the techie position sounds a trifle too optimistic to us.
Buddhism
teaches detachment, reminding us to imagine each new gadget we lust
after as already broken. But no one wants to picture an incapacitated
Cloud.
Attending the eVermont conference at Champlain college
last year, I timidly raised my hand during a seminar on the Cloud and
asked about power outages. The presenters were too polite to scoff at
this Luddite, and explained that of course there would be generators
ready to stave off disaster.
On our hilltop we lose power fairly
often. We always have. If it’s not an ice storm, it’s a driver without
snow tires skidding into a utility pole, a hurricane, or some
combination of the above.
We have friends who are off the grid,
with both solar panels and a windmill. But even they are not completely
immune to the ravages of extreme weather. My friend describes the dismay
she felt during one storm as she watched her windmill blade
cartwheeling merrily through her meadow.
When Superstorm Sandy
ripped out power in metro NY, it forced people out of subways and cars.
It shut off local gas pumps, people’s cell phones and computers, their
lights, even their heat. Their elevators stopped working and most people
had no water. It’s easy to forget how many systems depend on
electricity.
Those without power or water gathered at locations
that did have those luxuries to power up or wash. People got water from
fire hydrants.
The storm put Manhattanites, most albeit
fleetingly, back into the 19 th century. Articles appeared in newspapers
(those quaint holdovers) about urban children and teenagers
rediscovering the charms of board games and face to face get-togethers.
Those in the hardest hit areas got a taste of what life in a war torn country might be like.
So
Sandy might serve as a reminder to diversify our skill sets. Fifty-
somethings may feel idiotic asking their children how to navigate
Twitter. But it might not be a bad idea to teach those kids how to split
kindling and use a hurricane lamp safely.
Perhaps we shouldn’t take an axe to the piano just yet.