Sunday, March 4, 2012

Winter themes - March 4, 2012

I took Anya around for a walk this morning, and for a visit to the dog park this afternoon... both happy, uneventful romps. It's not especially warm thermometer-wise, but the ever-higher sun makes a huge difference. I'm realizing there's a much more complicated dance going on than I had realized, amongst air temperature, wind, ground temperature and cover, and solar heating.

This blog is meant to be a kind of notebook in developing a book-length project. Originally I had thought the themes might develop chronologically—I was thinking about the year laid out in Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma. But it's been a lot more scattershot. So even though I have a couple weeks to go before I switch over to a new season, I want to gather my thoughts.

I see three broad themes:

1. Winter clothing. I want to trace the piecemeal bits I have now into a history of modern winterwear. In particular, the slow adoption of the Inuit anoraaq and parka as standard Western forms.

2. Winter driving. How has our increasing reliance on individual wheeled transport changed how we treat winter roads? Trace the development both of winter vehicles and winter road- and street-clearing. Also work in the increase in home-like features of the car, as people spend more of their lives in them—this latter theme will, I think, carry into later sections.

3. Winter fuel and insulation. I still want to work up those US census stats on changing home heating fuel since 1940, but since similar shifts happened in the UK, I'd love to get a more global perspective on this. How about Russia? Sweden? Central Europe? China (especially northern China)? Related, I would like to know more about home insulation.

I think that about covers things. Probably the piece I've left least covered in my reading so far is the bit about insulation. Maybe I can get some energy into that over the next couple weeks.

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