Throughout 2013, Adding Light will take a look at practical decisions that everyone can take to contribute to making our communities more ecologically and economically resilient. Everything in this Daily Decisions comes from experience or research applied directly by our family or people we know directly.
As a kid, my father - like most parents - forced my brother and me to shovel snow. In Chicago in the 1980s, that usually meant around once every two weeks from Thanksgiving to Valentine's Day we would trudge out in jeans, jacket, coat and gloves to spend an hour clearing our sidewalk and driveway, then another hour helping at least one if not both of our neighbors. Over the years, and especially as I have been a homeowner (or home mortgager as the case may be), shoveling snow has been one of the welcome rituals of winter to me. Like Bruce and God mopping floors in Bruce Almighty, performing a simple, manual task with a clear end result does wonders for both the body and mind. Even during the occasional heavy snow (like the winter of 2010-2011), no scope of the task tamps my enjoyment.
So, after all these years, why have I not purchased a snow-blower to make the job that much easier? Outside of the personal gratification I get from shoveling, there is a larger issue that has to do with capacity and consumerism. There is little question that a snow blower makes most snow removal a less strenuous task. I say most, because during heavy snowfalls, if one does not keep up with their snow blower, working through deep snow becomes much more difficult than with a shovel. The question becomes, does the easing of effort outweigh the waste that would come with everyone making the same decision I make. If I purchase a snow blower, then I should reasonably assume everyone who has the same task would purchase one, and then every block would have 20-30 snow blowers. Given the limited runtime for each, would that constitute the best use of resources.
When I talk about the capacity of a given piece of equipment, that represents the total amount of usage of the equipment relative to its total life. For example, if you drive a car for about 2 hours per day (or 730 hours per year), but the car is "available" for 8,760 hours per year, the remaining capacity of the car is 8,030 hours per year (or about 92%). In the case of a car, we consider the utility it brings us to be well worth the waste (more on this later), but for a snow blower that has an unused capacity of about 99% (on average 10 hours of usage per year over 8,760 total hours per year and 2,160 hours of potential snow season in Chicago) the utility would appear to come short of making up for the waste. If every one of my neighbors, or on even a greater scale, everyone in my neighborhood, made the same choice, we would have a significant amount of metal, plastic, and energy allocated to no purpose for 99% of the time. That presents a completely unsustainable option.
I have not even factored cost or environmental damage into the equation, but the quality snow blower that will last 20 years costs in the neighborhood of $500, while a quality shovel can be had for $50 - and at less than a tenth of the raw material. Even with replacing a shovel every 5 years, I come out $250 ahead, not counting the cost of regular maintenance and fuel (about $25 a season minimum for 10 snow events). As far as emissions, although small compared to cars and boilers, the emissions of snow blowers far exceed those of snow shoveling, and unlike boilers or factories, the emissions are directly experienced by the operator.
An argument can be made that a segment of the population cannot afford physically to shovel due to health reasons. I recognize this, and understand that some may choose to hire a service that uses snow blowers in order to work efficiently. That segment of the population has greater health concerns, and to them, the only thing I would recommend is to find a neighbor like my dad who is willing to give of his time - and the time of his teenage sons - to help out someone. Shovels have just a bit less wasted capacity than snow blowers (as they can be used year-round), and that spare capacity can be put to good use taking care of those who live near you...and if you wanted to throw a couple of bucks to a neighbor kid instead of buying a snow blower, you could afford about $50 a year without losing a dime. That kid is also more likely to spend that money in the neighborhood, or saving for school, both of which add value to the community; decidedly more value that the purchase of the snow blower and fuel.
Now, when someone invents the solar-charged battery that can power a snow melting machine that rolls along the sidewalk like a shopping cart melting and evaporating snow in minutes.....
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