There is substantial evidence that the February power crisis could have been less devastating if Texas had properly prepared and was not so reliant on natural gas. While ERCOT argues that the temperatures were unprecedented, more extreme weather events are continuing to occur all across the world.
Many said that Hurricane Harvey was also unprecedented and the extreme flooding events following that were unprecedented. How many more extreme weather events must occur for the Texas government to wake up and understand that the climate crisis is happening now? We cannot continue to say these are “100-year floods” when the floods are now occurring every year.
While ‘unprecedented’ weather events will continue to happen it is time the Texas government starts to work towards doing something about it. It is time for Texas to start to mitigate the climate crisis by supporting carbon pricing and green energy!
Olivia Vong is a recent graduate of the University of Houston.