With extreme winter weather wreaking havoc on much of the United States, the conspiracy theorists will have a field day bashing global warming. The facts point out their continual misunderstanding of factual information.
Global warming is an established fact. I’m not going to waste time defending that. Global warming directly and indirectly affects severe types of weather in several ways. Again, this is a scientific fact with pages of documentary evidence, if not our own eyes the past few years.
What I would like to point out is what happens to public policy when those in charge of such policy believe the conspiracies. Public policy directly impacts people’s lives. Texas is a case in point.
People in Texas are dying, are risking greater exposure to COVID-19 as they gather to stay warm, are losing much-needed income as they cannot get to work, especially those in low-paying jobs. All the ramifications may never become clear as this unusual weather system spreads its wrath across Texas. So what does the governor do? He claims it’s all the fault of using some wind power. Sorry, wrong answer. Engineering, energy, and scientific experts have shown that is NOT the case.
Interestingly, all Republicans please take note, the problems in Texas primarily result from a strong resentment and avoidance of federal government regulation as well as a refusal to consider climate change in infrastructure planning.
South Austin, 2/15/21, courtesy of Miguel Gutierrez Jr./The Texas Tribune
I quote from Heather Cox Richardson in her Letters from an American, February 16, 2021.
First up is the deep freeze in Texas, which overwhelmed the power grid and knocked out electricity for more than 3.5 million people, leaving them without heat. It has taken the lives of at least 23 people.
Most of Texas is on its own power grid, a decision made in the 1930s to keep it clear of federal regulation. This means both that it avoids federal regulation and that it cannot import more electricity during periods of high demand. Apparently, as temperatures began to drop, people turned up electric heaters and needed more power than engineers had been told to design for, just as the ice shut down gas-fired plants and wind turbines froze. Demand for natural gas spiked and created a shortage.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) told Sean Hannity that the disaster “shows how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal” for the United States, but Dan Woodfin, a senior director for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the organization in charge of the state’s power grid, told Bloomberg that the frozen wind turbines were the smallest factor in the crisis. They supply only about 10% of the state’s power in the winter.
Frozen instruments at gas, coal, and nuclear plants, as well as shortages of natural gas, were the major culprits. To keep electricity prices low, ERCOT had not prepared for such a crisis. El Paso, which is not part of ERCOT but is instead linked to a larger grid that includes other states and thus is regulated, did, in fact, weatherize their equipment. Its customers lost power only briefly.
(Reposted)