The first heating bill I got
was for October, and it jumped from summer levels right up to what
I was paying mid-winter last year. Mind you, I didn’t even light
the furnace pilot light until Oct.10, and because the weather was
nice, we only kicked in the thermostat on a handful of days, less
than six, I’d say.
Almost the same day I opened the
newspaper to stories covering the whopping, multibillion dollar
quarterly profits that major oil companies have reaped. They made
billions of dollars over a three-month period. Pure profit!
There were some quotes in there from industry
representatives answering tough questioning from members of
Congress. Weasely rationalizations on the theme of the “ebb and
flow nature of the business.” I tried to recall the last “ebb” I
got on my power bill. Seems like there has been a pretty consistent
history of “flow” on my end of the business. All the ebbing has
been happening in my bank account.
Still, I’m trying to
draw lessons from this experience. One of my conclusions is that I
have to apply my camping practices to life at home.
When
I’m camping, I dress for conditions. Layers, insulation, heavy
socks, a wool cap. What am I thinking wearing a short-sleeved shirt
at home when it’s winter outside? Put on a sweater, for crying out
loud! Wear some socks.
I’m always amazed, as the season
progresses, by how I acclimatize to the weather. Pretty soon the
same temperature that felt pretty chilly at the start of winter
feels absolutely balmy come January. Heck, people who live in
igloos strip down and exist quite comfortably in 40 degrees. Why
should I require 65 or 70? Get used to it!
When I’m
camping, I pay attention to conditions. Where’s the wind coming
from? Where will morning sunlight hit? What are the clouds doing?
Does it look like rain? Then I make decisions about campsite
location, tent orientation, using trees for shelter from wind.
At home, I’m starting to apply the same frame of
reference. When the morning sun hits my east-facing windows, for
example, I open the drapes wide. As the sun moves into the south, I
open those drapes. The amount of solar heat generated through a
pane of glass is staggering. When the sunlight goes, I pull them
closed and trap that heat inside.
In camp, I light a fire
first thing in the morning, boil up some water for hot drinks. Same
at home. I kick in the furnace for an hour while everyone gets
ready for the day. We all drink our coffee and cocoa and hot tea.
Then, off it goes, just like the campfire. If we bake something in
the oven, I leave the door open after the food comes out and the
kitchen warms right up. That basement room we never use,
we’ve put foam blocks into the windows and shut the door
tight. Little things like that.
After bedtime, the heat
never comes on. We go to bed early and snuggle under the weight of
blankets and quilts, just like burrowing into sleeping bags in a
tent. It feels nice and cozy that way.
Now, in Montana,
we got what I’ve been worried about, the big freeze.
Temperatures down to -20 degrees at night. It’s the kind of
weather that, if I were camping, I’d just have to hunker by
the fire and wait it out. At home, that hunkering in for a couple
of days may require getting a part-time job. It’s enough to
make me live in fear of the mailman.
In the big picture,
though, these shocking power bills are a good wake-up call. For too
long I’ve been able to ignore the weather, living scantily clad in
my thermostatically warmed shelter, driving in my cheaply-powered,
temperature-controlled vehicle, as if I had immunity from the
seasons.
I do wonder, from time to time, what sort of
campers those oil-industry executives would make. I’d enjoy the
opportunity to invite them over for a weekend campout at my place.
We could sit around in our bulky clothes, sip some hot chocolate,
and talk about the ebb and flow of climate.
Alan Kesselheim is a contributor to Writers on the Range,
a service of High Country News (hcn.org). He is
a writer in Bozeman, Montana.
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