Texas is Exhibit A for Adaptation
A changing climate brings with it a variance of impacts of all sorts of potential threats and required action that will be unique to each region and community.
Seemingly regarded as an invisible issue, climate change poses a set of very real and very grave circumstances for global communities in a variety of ways that, in turn, desperately require foresight, organization, and funding. It is, in fact, not an invisible problem at all, but rather an omnipresent one since the effects have incrementally imposed themselves upon us all, and it's something that will continue to progress with time in severity and frequency.
As such, understanding the threats, both big and small, and remaining vigilant in the adaptation and response going forward is half the battle. A changing climate brings with it a variance of impacts of all sorts of potential threats and required action, all of which will be unique to each region and community. However, the underlying challenge of large-scale coordination to modify, move, and protect vital infrastructure is critical and universal.
This meticulous effort to prepare for, adapt to, and mitigate these risks is needed today if there's hope for tomorrow. Proper precautions are vital to counter the subtle hooks and jabs that climate change will throw at us, whether those threats seem immanent or not.
As we saw in Texas last week, the erratic shifts in weather can come out of nowhere and hit you with a heavy fist. Winter storm Uri inflicted a meteorological nightmare for the Lone Star state. Through the storm, a ripple effect of ensuing crises stretched far and wide. More than 4 million Texans lost power and about 80 Americans have lost their lives so far, including an 11 year-old who died from hypothermia. In addition to hypothermia, carbon monoxide poisoning was another big cause of death which included a mother and daughter who sought charging capabilities and additional warmth in their vehicle which was parked in an attached garage. The death toll will likely rise in the coming weeks and months.Ā
Power was eventually restored to most by Friday, but there has never been a shortage of finger pointing.
The massive storm and deep freeze was considered a once-in-120-year phenomenon by Texas' standards, but the realities it outlined regarding the need to be prepared is applicable to everyone. The people of Texas should never have been expected to see something like this coming, and that kind of befuddled shock is likely a sentiment that will become ubiquitous as time goes on along with climate-related impacts both short and long term, both acute and chronic.Ā
There should be a massive sense of sympathy for Texans and a lesson should be learned by all that any of us may wake up one day to experience a storm and its resulting complications that flip our world upside down. Understanding this is what mobilizes action and preparedness, it's what encourages the realistic use of foresight to cultivate ideas and possible solutions that are imperative for this increasingly precarious reality.
The challenges are in place, so it's time to prepare.
The abysmal chill that made all of Texas shudder had never been felt before, at least not to that degree.Ā
It was the first time ever that all 254 of Texas' counties were put under a winter storm warning, and it also happened to be the first time the state ever issued a wind chill warning.
According to Dr. Josh Rhodes, a research associate at The University of Texas at Austin, Texas is a summer-peaking system. This means their power infrastructure is tested for situations of high heat that plagues the state every summer. It is built to sustain the demands of summer peaks where, in the clutches of blistering afternoon heat, seemingly everyone is cranking up their air-conditioners at once.Ā
However, in extreme cold scenarios, let alone ones with temperatures never felt before, Texas' heavy reliance on natural gas creates problems when gas lines and gas wells fail due to the unprecedented frigidity while the demand keeps rising.Ā
As Dr. Rhodes notes, there is competition for natural gas in winter. About 40% of Texans heat their houses with natural gas, and the other 60% do so with electricity. Since the combinging factors of natural gas lines across the state and gas wells in West Texas freezing, coal being too cold to burn, nuclear power units going offline, and wind turbines failing because they weren't properly winternized, sufficient supply was not going into the system amidst the record demand, and thus more was required of electrical grids. But that demand proved too much to meet, and the Energy Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) found that a third of their thermal fleet was offline on February 15, and as a result, was forced to utilize rotational blackouts.
Rotational blackouts are meant to be a utilitarian method of conserving overall energy consumption so as to avoid complete blackouts and keep the power on for as many as possible. This was a state's complete power infrastructure being brought to its knees, and the state was "seconds and minutes" away from a total and complete blackout that would have produced months of complications.Ā
The use of rotational blackouts are actually ERCOT's last resort in such a predicament. Their first option is to borrow energy from other grids. Despite being a separate grid (that "electrical island"), there are partial connections to the Eastern U.S. and Mexico grids. But seeing how the winter storm was so crippling, there was never going to be enough help.
Their second option is interrupting power services to large corporate/industrial customers that had previously agreed to the conservation measure. However, since this was such an unforeseen event, that aid, too, was never going to be enough to sustain the demand that resulted from the freeze.
Their third and final option is rotational blackouts. In those situations, the blackouts are supposed to be capped at a maximum of 45 minutes. But even that last resort falls short just like the first two as those supposed rotational blackouts were lasting several days. This was because power continued tripping offline, thus disrupting the ability to roll out those blackouts equally.Ā
This beatdown from winter storm Uri forced millions of everyday Texans to wait it out.
While the exact reason for this storm has yet to be precisely pinpointed by climate scientists at this point, they already have an idea as to what meteorological factors contributed to this cold wave.Ā
Winter storm Uri is the result of two symptoms of global warming.Ā
The polar vortex of cold Arctic winds is typically contained there by the the stable barrier of 250 mile an hour winds spinning about five to nine miles above the ground. This barrier is known as the jet stream.Ā
But the stability of that barrier is diminished when the a portion of the air in the polar vortex begins to warm. This is known as a sudden stratospheric warming, and it happens roughly six times a year. In fact, traces of this particular warming were seen back at the start of the year. When this warming occurs, the warmth makes the air less dense and more active, thus it is easier for it to push beyond the jet stream.
Add to it the Arctic oscillation and the root of winter storm Uri becomes apparent. The Arctic oscillation is the shift in jet stream winds, and it's currently in its negative phase where the air currents are slower and the jet stream weakens. This results in a change in the usual west-to-east movement of the barrier winds so that it becomes wobbly.
The combination of a sudden stratospheric warming and the negative phase of the Arctic oscillation has created a dipping pocket of Arctic air over the United Staes, protruding down to Texas and surrounding states. Of course, this pocket of freezing air brings with it winter storms, sometimes of unimaginable magnitudes.
The complexity of warming temperatures adds to the imperative nature of adaptability and weatherization. Though the common expectation is that the planet will ultimately make winters warmer (as those of you in California may be familiar with), it does not mean the cold is going anywhere. In fact, cold air can exist right alongside warm air. And the occurrence of stratospheric warming may very well become more common than usual with a warming planet.
The exact prediction for what climate change will do in the years to come is impossible to compose, but this much is clear: things are getting more and more erratic and extreme. And with the unstable timetables of certain weather phenomenon, the alignment of two or more of them could create scenarios in different regions that its inhabitants could never imagine in a million years.
As the epigraph states: "later is over." The effects of climate change have been here for a while, and preparedness is key. With it, harsh realities will arise and they will have to be faced.
A mutual challenge for the many different nations and for the wide variety of particular regions and communities across the planet is the need to adapt and weatherize (and even physically move) infrastructure based on the applicable risks that threaten functionality.
A recent report from McKinsey Global Institute found that climate change will "disrupt critical systems" with increased operating costs that will exacerbate the existing funding gaps for infrastructure, resulting in rippling effects on various regions and economies.
The storm in Texas is not only an example of why regions need to look into resiliency tactics to adapt and preserve vital infrastructure, but it's also an example of what happens if regions don't do so.
Back in 2011, Texas was hit with a similar winter snow storm. Though it was a little less severe than the one last week, it packed a punch and resulted in various challenges to all of the state's energy resources. Frustration arose when people were reminded of a 1990 report, written in response to a 1989 winter storm, that urged the notion of weatherization if these kinds of complications are to be avoided in future storms.
The calls to weatherize could never advance anywhere beyond that 1990 report because there was no way to make them requirements. Instead, the report was shelved for two decades-plus until the chills of the 2011 storm arrived and proved all too familiar.
Following the 2011 storm, power company executives were questioned at the state capitol in a hearing. There they rationalized that the causes were mainly the failure to insulate and weatherize their power infrastructure, and so they promised to do so in hopes of avoiding a similar situation. There was also legislation proposed to push the envelope.
Well, here we are again in 2021, going in the same circle with Texas Governor Greg Abbott calling on his state's power companies and law makers to "winternize," as if the concept had never been thrown out there before.
Abbott has urged lawmakers to mandate weatherization requirements for the state's power infrastructure. As was seen last week, this is the primary item on the agenda: adaptation. The frequency of extreme weather events is testing the capabilities and durability of some of society's most important infrastructure.
The electrical island that Texas resides in is a deregulated haven of standalone wholesale energy. They use a wholesale electricity market: energy prices are low when supply is high, and prices are high when supply is low.Ā
Foresight is a key component to being prepared, but the secluded nature of the state's energy disincentivized that proactivity and subsequently left many Texans in the cold. Though the storm forecast showed signs of how big Uri was going to be, ERCOT underestimated the amount of energy it needed to reserve. If it had been connected to the larger grid, it may have had the supply necessary to withstand the winter storm. With that, the investment to weatherize energy equipment never happened either.Ā
As a result of this type of market, too many Texans' eyes are rolling out of their skulls at the sights of electricity bills surpassing $1,000. One Griddy customer (a wholesale Texas energy provider) received a $17,000 bill.
What could be the reason behind this severe miscalculation and failure to take the necessary precautions? C'mon, you fellow Bud-drinking, red-blooded Americans; it's profits!
Adaptation and profit margin are diametrically opposed initiatives. Would it have cost millions of dollars for ERCOT to go about weatherizing and improving energy infrastructure? Sure, but if the investment had been made then all this suffering that has occurred could have been avoided. Could Texas energy providers have at least done a better job warning customers about the hiked energy prices? Absolutely, but then they wouldn't be able to pull in the cash of extremely low supply that makes their mouths water.Ā
An obsession with profits hinders preparedness.
Texas was a mere example of why adaptation and proactivity is so vital. Not everyone faces the same potential weather events or the same kinds of complications, but everyone is likely to face some brunt of a similar kind of event in years to come.Ā
These threats that confront us are what they are. Unless the coordination of resiliency and adaptation projects become commonplace, those threats are going to be too big to handle. The climate has already begun to change on account of human activity, it's time to act.Ā
Climate change, again, is an omniscient issue, and it doesn't care about our feelings or our capital. Whether or not the necessary action will be taken in response remains to be seen, but the politicization of the whole issue did more to distract from the cautionary tale that is so palpable.
This global climate crisis is, sadly, one of those things that loses meaning when it is overly politicized. Hearing feckless politicians (not all, but many) use it as a political prop with half-baked knowledge and disingenuous concern for the actual issue is one of the worst things the human senses can experience. In that case, they aren't even grasping or attempting to grasp the issue, but rather they are grasping the fear (or anti-fear in the case of "climate deniers"). It's then when the issues begin to die as watered-down reductions of very complex issues. It's then that the serious discussion subsides into gibberish.Ā
Forget the politicization. Forget the "culture war." And forget the fear. Fear is a paralyzing inhibitor and this is a moment that requires action and movement. Hopefully, there's a sort of collective consciousness that sees the events in Texas as a moment where the issue became real, and that we desperately need to begin to adapt because these threats aren't going away.Ā
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