Texas: What Went Wrong?

 On Wednesday, February 17, Texas Senator Ted Cruz flew out of his home state for Cancun. It was also on February 17th that millions of Texans were suffering from statewide power outages and nonoperational water systems. Those hit hardest were not those who had the resources to, say, book an overnight flight to Mexico. In fact, those most affected were in quite the opposite position. 

Although people all across the state were without utilities, it was those who were already suffering that got hit the hardest during the storm, as are they the ones who are still reeling from it today. An article from The Guardian states that “critical infrastructure was exempt from the long-term blackouts, benefitting residents in the denser, more affluent areas that usually house those services, and disadvantaging underprivileged communities forced into neighborhoods where those resources are scarce.” This tells us that at the very least that this is a social justice issue, but how do we know it’s a climate issue as well?

Meteorologist and Professor James Marshall Shepherd, in an interview with NPR, brings up the term “polar vortex” when discussing the North American winter storm that helped to bring about Texas's devastation. Although Professor Marshall hesitates to tie this one singular event directly to climate change, he concedes that events like this will most likely become more frequent in the future due to global warming disrupting the natural path of the polar vortex. 

In terms of response, Texas communities came together immediately, rising up to the task of caring for one another in such widespread hardship. HEB, a Texas grocery store chain, just simply started giving away goods to Austin locals and those in surrounding towns. And although local Texan nonprofits, churches, and community centers pulled through, the state legislators failed to show the same support of solidarity. I’ve already mentioned the pretty shameless lack of support from Senator Cruz, but an example I find to be even more egregious was the response from Governor Greg Abbott blaming renewable energy sources for the power failure across the state, whilst simultaneously denouncing the Green New Deal. In reality, not only does the state run on predominantly fossil fuels, but it was the gas power that took the largest hit during the storm (not renewable energy): 

Essentially, the response from Republican government officials blaming the Green New Deal- a plan that could have helped to save them from the widespread disaster that overtook the state -was an act of selfish self-destruction. I wasn’t able to go into detail about the privatized and deregulated nature of the Texas power grid in this post, but death and destruction that occurred in Texas was born of the government’s fear of change, as well as a blatant disregard for the lives of its citizens as it routinely favored the companies and corporations that actually held those citizens' lives in their hands. Change and togetherness is necessary in guaranteeing not only the safety of Earth, but the people living on it.