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Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of storm

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Re: Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of storm

#101

Post by wpietri »

neither_color wrote: post #88
eternalban wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly wonder if the native Americans were (destined to be) screwed even before Europeans set foot in Americas. They were behind a formidable technology curve and I truly wonder would they have fared better if Japanese or Russian (or possibly even Chinese) colonists (the closest geographic candidate colonists) showed up. Consider it as a thought experiment - something that's been popping in my head lately: under…

The Russians did explore Alaska and interact with natives, but all they did was set up some missionary and trade posts. China explored Africa and then became isolationist. Japan was always isolationist until forced to open up by the US.

And not just Alaska, but California as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_colonization_of_North_...

Re: Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of storm

#102

Post by CWuestefeld »

nottorp wrote: post #57
zdragnar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, the community has stockpiled resources, but their plows and skidsteers are all out of commission. They literally cannot get to the firewood, and every time they clear some snow out more blows in. Some people have been completely isolated in their homes for 8 days. I'd say most people, even in rural areas, don't have a supply that'll last longer than that, except for some hardcore preppers.

How's the winter in that area normally ? Because i've lived my first ~16 years of life in a home heated with firewood (and coal but it's irellevant now) and by the end of september all the fuel needed for 3 months of winter was neatly piled up within easy reach of the house. All you needed was to shovel like 20 meters of path and maybe a wheelbarrow. Why would you need something motorized to get to your firewood? Doe…

That matches my experience. We'd typically have enough for the winter stacked at the edge of the woods behind the house, but maybe 1-2 weeks worth actually on the porch under cover to ensure it was dry by the time it was needed.

(This was back in the late 70s to very early 80s, on account of fuel costs, inflation, etc.)

Re: Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of storm

#103

Post by [deleted] »

ilyt wrote: post #72
pigsty wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not asking this to be condescending, but have you ever felt cold? My hands lose all dexterity entirely in winter. With sufficiently cold weather my hands are either cold, stiff, and in pain, or I’m wearing gloves that are too bulky to be useful for anything other than crudely gripping large objects or swatting things away. These people are experiencing cold beyond what I’ve ever experienced, so I can’t even begin…

well the article cites -20 I assume based on area F so ~ -7C ...really -7C is cold beyond what you ever experienced ? It's not too bad. I'd imagine the main problem is if those temperatures are rare just nobody have proper clothes to handle it

[deleted]

Re: Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of storm

#104

Post by mindslight »

survirtual wrote: post #59
zdragnar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, the community has stockpiled resources, but their plows and skidsteers are all out of commission. They literally cannot get to the firewood, and every time they clear some snow out more blows in. Some people have been completely isolated in their homes for 8 days. I'd say most people, even in rural areas, don't have a supply that'll last longer than that, except for some hardcore preppers.

Most people in rural areas have some kind of food store with canned goods. With things like Soylent and Huel, those can also be used. I had 6 months of Soylent back in the day. 2 bags of Huel can last about 6 days and fits in a small bag — it is one of my hacks for backpacking. If you haven’t already, I recommend having a supply of canned beans, canned tuna, canned meats to preference, canned sardines, bulk rice (you…

> 3 day reserve battery for the house ... All my heating and cooling would be electrical

I don't think you've run the numbers here, at all. Battery storage that can provide off-grid heat-pump heating for a single dead-of-winter design night is bordering on impractical. Creating a buffer that could last 3 whole days (4-5x the size) would be blatantly prohibitive.

Batteries only make sense for daily cycling to deal with the dark. It's much less expensive and most likely less environmentally destructive to supply longer term backup electricity needs from a traditional generator and dino juice than to manufacture batteries just to have them sitting around basically unused.

The sensible way to spend capital investment is on more insulation to make your heating load quite low to begin with (eg PassivHaus). Perhaps this dovetails into your thinking, but if so you should lead with and focus on that, as talking about supplying heating loads with batteries is just insane.

edit: Also, how is it even possible to opt out of the housing market? The only ways I can think of:

1. Bundle up with warm clothing and sleep rough (moving on when needed)

2. Squat, in an unoccupied structure or even an occupied one without the knowledge of the other residents.

3. Build your own house and claim that you're at least not part of the economic market. But you would still need land to do that, which is the main problem with the housing market.

Re: Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of storm

#105

Post by [deleted] »

xyzelement wrote: post #22

This triggered two thoughts for me. First, how much of a killer the cold is. We've moved on from "global warming" to "climate change" language but there are a lot of places in the world that would be grateful for a few degree temperature rise (such as Latvia where I am from). Today, cold kills hundreds of thousands of people a year, while "heat deaths" are limited to geriatrics in the "first world." Second, preparedn…

[deleted]

Re: Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of storm

#106

Post by Scoundreller »

AngryData wrote: post #58
tw98521358 wrote: post #2

Seems like it would be the last thing I’d burn for warmth…

Depends on how much they have. Bulk used clothes can be had for incredibly cheap, to the point where it can be cheaper than wood. And after decades of people building up old worn out clothes you will have a lot of relatively worthless cloth material. There are places in the world where burning clothes isn't uncommon at all because they receive so much clothing waste from the rest of the world attempting and failing t…

Sadly it’s increasingly polyester/nylon/spandex and such. Cotton would be pretty clean to burn, but would burn very quickly.

Re: Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of storm

#107

Post by ISL »

survirtual wrote: post #59
zdragnar wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article, the community has stockpiled resources, but their plows and skidsteers are all out of commission. They literally cannot get to the firewood, and every time they clear some snow out more blows in. Some people have been completely isolated in their homes for 8 days. I'd say most people, even in rural areas, don't have a supply that'll last longer than that, except for some hardcore preppers.

Most people in rural areas have some kind of food store with canned goods. With things like Soylent and Huel, those can also be used. I had 6 months of Soylent back in the day. 2 bags of Huel can last about 6 days and fits in a small bag — it is one of my hacks for backpacking. If you haven’t already, I recommend having a supply of canned beans, canned tuna, canned meats to preference, canned sardines, bulk rice (you…

No one in the US, for instance, has any excuse because it is all very very affordable

More than half of people in the United States may not be able to cover a $1k emergency expense from savings.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2022/01/19/56p...

While some of that effect is due to economic choices, much of it is not. It is difficult to prepare for a long-tail disaster when you're facing oodles of short-term needs.

Re: Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of storm

#108

Post by eternalban »

mynameishere wrote: post #78
eternalban wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly wonder if the native Americans were (destined to be) screwed even before Europeans set foot in Americas. They were behind a formidable technology curve and I truly wonder would they have fared better if Japanese or Russian (or possibly even Chinese) colonists (the closest geographic candidate colonists) showed up. Consider it as a thought experiment - something that's been popping in my head lately: under…

If migration from Europe (and I suppose Africa) hadn't been unrelenting, then the natives would have gradually built up a modern-ish, defendable civilization. Maybe. It would have required some centralization of government as well, to prevent the divide-and-conquer tactics used against them.

Right, the question is precisely this: who would leave the juicy morsel of Americas on the table in the 15th-20th century historic range. The means and processes may possibly vary.

Just to be clear, even today in 21st you will note there are many global actors that deny the very notion of a "universal human rights". I'm not European myself and definitely not defending what happened. But it seems to me that what happened is an (inevitable) accident of history: two worlds that evolved in effective isolation for thousands of years. And I wonder: which of the relatively advanced societies would have left them in peace so they could catch up and integrate as you propose?

Re: Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of storm

#109

Post by postalrat »

Klathmon wrote: post #90
nottorp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How's the winter in that area normally ? Because i've lived my first ~16 years of life in a home heated with firewood (and coal but it's irellevant now) and by the end of september all the fuel needed for 3 months of winter was neatly piled up within easy reach of the house. All you needed was to shovel like 20 meters of path and maybe a wheelbarrow. Why would you need something motorized to get to your firewood? Doe…

>All you needed was to shovel like 20 meters of path and maybe a wheelbarrow. According to the article some of the areas are getting 30 inches of snow and ice! With drifts easily doubling that, I could see how 20 meters could quickly become near impossible to clear by hand, especially while it's still coming down.

Snow drifts can go 20 feet or higher with no place to shovel the snow to

Re: Thousands trapped on Pine Ridge burn clothes for warmth in wake of storm

#110

Post by xyzelement »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #60
MonkeyMalarky wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, why aren't these people self sufficient after we took away all their means of self sufficiency? It's a real big mystery isn't it.

>Yes, why aren't these people self sufficient after we took away all their means of self sufficiency? This sounds very much like "racism of low expectations". "These people" are just as self-sufficient as any other group of modern people of similar socioeconomic background. It's been 100+ years since they were mistreated in any serious fashion. I come from eastern Europe and 150 years ago most of my ancestors were se…

This is exactly it. Many peoples suffered extremely bad histories (Jews, Armenians, Chinese under Communism etc) and rise to overcome it in modern day.

History is not fair but your actions yesterday determine your life today and your actions today determine your future. It is extremely damaging to sustain this culture of of course your life is shit because of what happened hundreds of years ago, nothing you can do

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