More than two dozen jeans have died as a result of the Uri winter storm, and thousands remain without heat, water and food, but widespread evidence of human suffering has not prevented a gross energy executive from boasting of take advantage of the crisis.
“Viously, obviously this week is like winning the biggest prize.” That’s what Roland Burns, president and chief financial officer of Comstock Resources, Inc., a shale drilling company, told investors in a profit call earlier this week, according to NPR.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) dit On Thursday, Burns’ comments are a reminder of why the fossil fuel industry and aligned politicians oppose the Green New Deal, though its need is clearer.
How NPR reported that “the storm has reduced natural gas production at the same time that demand – for both domestic heating and power generation – has skyrocketed,” leading to “catastrophic shortages as well as some prices. striking natural gas in the affected regions. “
Although “many in the oil and gas industry have had a hard time because wells and pipes have stopped working due to an unexpected cold,” NPR He noted that “Comstock was already increasing production with the expectation that natural gas prices would rise.”
The company, which operates in Texas and Louisiana, is listed on the stock exchange. But Jerry Jones, the billionaire owner of the Dallas Cowboys, is the majority shareholder and largest beneficiary of what executives called “super premium prices” of “from” $ 15 per thousand cubic feet to $ 179 per thousand cubic feet . Last quarter, Comstock sold the same gas for $ 2.40 per thousand cubic feet.
Natural gas prices for heating and power generation are now soaring south. At these prices, homeowners would face $ 1,000 a month in heating and electricity utility bills if the costs are passed on. It is more likely that a long-term harsh storm surcharge will be added to the bills. https://t.co/gvl59LReEO
– Stop the cap! (@stopthecap) February 19, 2021
As millions of jeans endured a dangerous onslaught of very cold weather, while it was hot for several days, many right-wing media and lawmakers, including Greg Abbott – the state’s Republican governor, who faces calls to resign over his inept response to the disaster – senselessly blamed the devastating power outages on frozen wind turbines in an attempt to discredit renewable energies and even an implemented Green New Deal.
Republican Party lies about sources of electricity problems in Texas have proliferated despite officials from the Texas Electric Reliability Council (ERCOT) attributing the calamity to frozen equipment for gas, coal and nuclear plants. The role played by Lone Star State’s supply of a free market approach to energy, which has included decentralization and deregulation of its fossil fuel network, has also been well documented.
Texas sought the independence of the two interstate power grids to circumvent federal regulations. In addition, despite a 2011 warning about the need to winterize energy infrastructure statewide, the profit motives led privatized power companies in Texas to give up air conditioning.
While Rep. Jamaal Bowman (DN.Y.) on Tuesday night accurately online the Texas crisis to an “energy policy that puts business benefits on human life,” Abbott, one of the main recipients of fossil fuel industry donations, erroneously claimed the same night Fox News that “this demonstrates how the Green New Deal would be a deadly deal for the United States of America.”
On Thursday night, Ocasio-Cortez, who helped raise $ 2 million in direct aid to the Texans, while Ted Cruz, one of the state’s U.S. Republican senators, hurried back home later. of having faced a backlash for having traveled to a warm Cancun resort while his death: Burns’ comments on how Comstock is taking advantage of the catastrophe to uncover the underlying reason for the false and relentless anti-energy narrative -renewable from the Republican Party.
The reason the right-wing media and Republican lawmakers “fight to blame the Green New Deal,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, is because “it’s the biggest legislative threat against responsible corrupt powers (and that they benefit) from the suffering that is now unfolding. “
Billionaires of fossil fuels are taking advantage of this nightmare. Financial executives called it an “award.”
The reason the Republican Party faces the blame for the Green New Deal is that it is the biggest legislative threat against the corrupt powers responsible for (and benefiting from) the suffering that is now unfolding. https://t.co/3rRXKGUQOc
– Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) February 19, 2021
The Green New Deal resolution introduced in 2019 by Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey (D-Mass.) Calls for the creation of millions of green jobs to develop a 100% renewable energy system and build “disaster resilience related to climate change “.
Although Congress has not yet approved the measure, proponents of climate justice at Greenpeace USA, the Sunrise Movement and elsewhere argue that the aggravated crises in Texas – which scientists link to climate change – have exposed total failure. of the government in preparing for extreme weather conditions. and strengthened the case of the Green New Deal.
Journalist Samantha Grasso and academic environmental justice activist Robert Bullard were a week among analysts who described Texas as a “failed state.” How BuzzFeed As reported Thursday, the deadly winter storm has “exposed a deep chasm between those who can afford to escape the deadly cold and those who can’t,” with vulnerable residents who are left to seek help for themselves amid life-threatening circumstances “.
Exemplifying the fall in crises and cold temperatures also led to widespread pipe bursts and disruptions in supply chains, which means that even when energy is restored in most homes, Texas, water and food shortages are likely to persist. After the winter storm, residents of the state also have to deal with the costs of major damage to housing.
Houston, the fourth-largest U.S. city, is likely to remain under a boiling water warning over the weekend, officials warned of possible pollution. Vaccine distribution plans and state hospitals have also been negatively affected amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
A source tells me that they are trying to evaluate more than 300 patients at an Austin hospital and that the pipes just exploded and that there are floods at the UIC and the children’s hospital. All because Texas wanted to skimp a bit and keep our energy grid privatized.
– Emily Porter, MD (@dremilyportermd) February 18, 2021
According to the document, it could have been even worse The Texas Tribune. ERCOT officials told the newspaper on Thursday that state network operators “applied shutdowns to prevent a catastrophic failure that could have left jeans in the dark for months.”
It seems that our ability to effectively prevent / manage disasters has decreased while the frequency / scale of disasters has been increasing. And people in positions of public confidence spread information or hope that “no one can see it” is somehow an excuse
– Costa Samaras (@CostaSamaras) February 18, 2021
Pointing to the deadly situation in Texas as a warning sign, experts have emphasized this week the extremely most frequent climate that will become this century as a result of the climate emergency; they stress that the United States, which is currently unprepared to face dangerous storms, needs to improve its ability to cope with the worst-case scenarios.
“We’re already seeing the effects of climate change,” said Sascha von Meier, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. The guardian Friday. “There will be more of that and it will get worse.”
Roshi Nateghi, a researcher at Purdue University who studies infrastructure sustainability and resilience, told the paper that the Texas crisis shows why “we need to act now and rethink our systems.”
According to Ashley Thomson of Greenpeace USA, “only a green New Deal-style investment in our shared future can reach us.”
“The time has come to fundamentally fix the grid,” he added, “so that it can cope with the current and growing impacts of the climate crisis. It’s time to invest the whole country in clean energy jobs, jobs work climate and climate solutions, putting millions of people will work as we build the renewable energy infrastructure of the future. “