[ad_1]
Original Title: Texas, Why Has It Become Musk’s Sad Place?
Text | To hui
The extremely cold weather plaguing the southern states of the United States continues. In Texas, one of the hardest hit areas, a large number of residents fell into the water shortage before the “dark moment” of the power outage during the snow storm. On February 20 local time, the President of the United States, Biden, finally approved that Texas enter a “state of major disaster” and ordered the federal government to provide assistance. However, it is still unknown if the people of Texas, who are suffering from a bad cold, can quickly get rid of their current situation.
01
According to a CBS report from the 20th local time, the winter storm hitting the United States has killed 50 people, while the Associated Press and USA Today reported 70 deaths.
On the 20th, local time, the White House issued a statement indicating that the President of the United States, Biden, approved that Texas enter a “state of major disaster” and ordered the federal government to provide assistance.From February 11, when Texas suffered a rare blizzard, until Biden announced that it had entered a “state of major disaster,” the people of Texas had spent 10 days in freezing cold.
The “major disaster status” allows the disaster area to receive more federal funds and funds, which are divided into public assistance and personal assistance. Public assistance is used to repair public infrastructure and personal assistance is provided directly to affected residents. However, the “major disaster state” approved by Biden is only one part of Texas. Originally, Texas Governor Abbott asked the president to approve 254 counties and counties for personal and public assistance, but Biden only approved 77 counties for personal assistance.
Currently, power has been restored in some parts of Texas, but there are still power outages in many parts of the state. Another big problem is that due to the freezing and breaking of the water pipes and the closure of the water company equipment, the people of Texas are facing a new crisis of drinking water shortage.According to the state Commission on Environmental Quality, as of 20 local time, more than 1,400 public water supply systems in the state had interrupted water supplies and approximately 14.4 million people in 190 counties of the state did not have access to drinking water. In many places, defenseless Americans have to queue for water.
In recent days, videos of fires have been circulating the Internet in many parts of Texas. Although the firefighters arrived on time, they were helpless due to lack of water. For example, on the 18th, a fire broke out in an apartment building in San Antonio, but firefighters discovered that the nearby fire hydrant was unavailable due to a lack of water, so they were only able to send 15 water-carrying wheels to transport water from a stream about 600 meters away, which did not solve a problem. In Houston, a fire engulfed a home, black smoke rose at the scene, but a fire truck was watching silently.
The extreme cold caused power and water outages, and residents had to burn anything that could burn in their homes to keep warm. This is extremely prone to fires, and the lack of water makes fighting fires difficult. This is really a chain of death.
0two
Electricity facilities in Texas were paralyzed by the severe cold and the power company raised the price of electricity 200 times when residents were experiencing extreme power shortages. Preventive measures by the Texas government and related companies against extreme weather events have been widely criticized. According to foreign media reports, Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized the Texas Electric Reliability Commission (ERCOT), the state’s grid operator, on Twitter last week, saying ERCOT is not worthy of a ” R “, that is, short for” responsible “(reliability). .
Musk reportedly announced in December last year that he had moved to Texas from Silicon Valley, California, where he previously lived. Musk said this is so he can pay close attention to Tesla’s new superfactory in Austin, Texas, and the interstellar spacecraft project of his American space exploration technology company SpaceX. At the same time, Musk’s tunnel mining company “Boring Company” also has a branch in Austin.
Just over two months after moving in, Musk was very depressed and you can imagine his dissatisfaction.
Statistics show that nearly 700,000 Californians in the United States have moved to Texas in the last 10 years. Low home prices and low cost of living are one reason many Californians have moved to Texas in recent years. It is said that for the money on one home in California, Texas can buy two. In recent years, in the context of rapid growth in Austin, Houston, and Dallas, many middle-class families originally living in California have been drawn to the high-quality, affordable quality of life and ideal Texas housing costs. . Texas has become a hot spot flowing into the region.
Houston’s Middle Class Ocean Lake Villa Community
However, many middle class people regretted it shortly after moving to Texas. An article published in “Business Insider” in the United States recorded the experience and reasons of a sales director for a semiconductor company named Alder who moved his family from California to Texas and then back to California from Texas. In the article, Alder listed the top ten reasons he “can’t love” Austin, Texas, including bad weather, lack of public facilities and grounds, and lack of good places to relax.
The nightmare-like cold, power and water outages this time around seemed to reflect the “wisdom” Alder lamented. For the American middle class, Texas has turned sad this time.
03
The severe cold weather found in Texas occurs once in a century and belongs to a natural disaster. Texas, located in the southern United States, was originally equivalent to Guangdong in China. It is a place with a temperature of more than 20 degrees Celsius in winter under normal circumstances, but this year there has been an extreme cold wave of minus 20 degrees. Celsius This is global warming and an extreme manifestation of increased climate. In the future, if extreme weather occurs frequently in various parts of the world, the normal production and order of life of humanity will face enormous challenges.
At the beginning of last year, a pink phenomenon of “watermelon snow” appeared near the Ukrainian scientific research station in Antarctica, which looked mysterious and beautiful, but in fact, this was because the snow contained a kind of microbe called polar snow algae that grew rapidly when the temperature rose, a result of. The scientists said that when ice and snow appear red, it will reduce the reflection of sunlight and reduce the speed of melting. If it occurs over a large area, it will exacerbate global warming and threaten the ecosystem.
On February 19, the United States officially rejoined the Paris Agreement. US President Biden said he will host a summit on climate issues on Earth Day on April 22. The Paris Agreement helps prevent catastrophic global warming and strengthens the ability to respond to the effects of climate change on a global scale. However, after Trump took office, he did not want the United States, which is the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases, to assume its due obligations and responsibilities and withdraw from the Paris Agreement. The disasters and hydropower problems in Texas this time are a lesson from nature in the form of extreme weather.
Of course, problems like the shutdown of infrastructure in Texas, rising electricity bills, power outages, and water shortages are government management problems and are man-made disasters.
The “Washington Post” ran an article in which Texas’ poor performance is the latest example of the US government’s failure to respond to disasters. Whether it was when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 or when the new corona pneumonia epidemic broke out in the United States last year, this chronic disease that has plagued the United States government for a long time was completely exposed. Although experts have issued warnings to the US government many times, the US government has been slow to respond and responded incorrectly. Considering that the United States government has repeatedly stumbled upon the same problem but failed to correct it, people really can’t have overly optimistic expectations about how many lessons these politicians and bureaucrats can learn from this severe cold crisis in Texas.
