Blizzard of 2013

Nemo looks to be a potentially record setting blizzard that is hitting the Northeast as I write. Governor Patrick has ordered everyone but emergency services and plows off all state roads. And the wind and snow is becoming fierce. It is absolutely beautiful! And a reminder that the power of nature far exceeds our own, whatever amount of anthropocentric hubris we bring to the table.

But there is snow shovelling to do, and power may go out, so I will not be writing much today. I will however post some photos of the aftermath here.

Stay safe all.

PS. We came through the storm relatively unscathed. The winds were scary, and the snow seemed like it would never let up. Yet as quickly as it came, it was gone, and we started the process of digging ourselves out.

Our community was, for once, not badly hit. Over the last five years every ice storm, blizzard and hurricane has hit our local communities quite hard. Some of this was the bad luck of being in the path of so many storms. Much of it was the poor maintenance of the infrastructure by National Grid, along with it’s failure to make adequate plans for emergencies. The political scrutiny this engendered finally forced the corporation to do a better job this time around.

Even so, southern New England and the east coast were badly battered with freezing, rain, ice, and heavy snow that left hundreds of thousands without power for many days. Nemo also generated significant storm surges that flooded residences on places like Newbury and Salisbury, much like what happened in New Jersey and New York during Hurricane Sandy.

All this is but a small taste of the challenges of adapting our way of life to live sustainably in an era of unprecedented change in global, regional and local environments. Sandy and Nemo remind us that global warming’s impact on storm frequency and severity, as well as rising sea levels, makes both weather and climate change an urgent matter of public policy. Indeed, the Government Accountability Office recently released a report detailing the financial and infrastructure exposure of the U.S. federal government to global warming.

How we help people cope, move into new areas, harden infrastructure, retreat from the coasts, restore natural habitats along the coast, adapt to or mitigate or reverse the impact of global warming, is one of the key ethical challenges of our time.

A beautiful video posted on YouTube. Brian Maffitt films the effect of a projector shining out into Nemo.