As I stared out of my office window on February 2nd 2021 I was bewildered. My neighbors were pulling their kids on sleds through the streets with their Jeeps. They were just trying to make the best of a bad situation We had electricity but no water. It was the winter storm of the century.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. One of the reasons we moved from Central Ohio to South Texas was to get away from wheather like this. Snow, ice and wind chills down into single digits.
Many people went almost two weeks without power and running water. Roads and bridges were closed. Supply trucks couldn’t get in due to the road conditions, and consequently food, and especially water was scarce. We were totally taken off guard. Unlike Ohio, there were no plows and salt trucks to melt the ice and clear the roads. People were in a state of panic. Some lost their lives.
When a few of the roads did open there was a mad rush on all the grocery stores. The little water they had was sold in rations. Milk, eggs, and meat soon sold completely out. How could this happen? Why were so many without electricity? By God this is Texas! There were copious supplies of oil, coal and gas. At least there was supposed to be. I found out later that Texas had their own power grid. And one third of that grid was supported by wind and solar power. However the sun wasn’t shinning and even when it did the solar panels were covered in ice and snow. And the windmills all were frozen up. All the governmental grants for clean renewable energy that Texas received didn’t mean a thing now. The fact of the matter was people died because of environmentalist’s ideology. There push to “go green” had taken it’s toll.
Hey, I’m all for being responsible and making an effort to conserve the environment, but the reality is we haven’t as yet been able to figure out how to replace coal and oil. Solar and wind farms, and electric cars, are not the all to end all. And there are problems. For example, what’s to be done with all the spent batteries? They’re environmentally toxic. You can’t even throw out old cell phones, PCs, tablets and a host of other electronic devices in the regular garbage.
Yes, green let me down, and until we find a viable replacement for coal, gas and oil, it will continue to do so. Don’t be fooled by all these climate change alarmists. Many are just, earth worshipping, tree hugging, wackos. They will choose “Mother Earth” over you any day.