Sorry, I haven't really been able to keep up with things, had to sleep for like 8 hours. Talk of total state collapse? What happened with the weather?

  • thefunkycomitatus [he/him,they/them]
    hexbear
    72
    3 years ago

    Yet another freak, once-in-a-generation, storm has occurred except this time it's a winter storm not a hurricane. And it's happening to the entire midwest but especially the southern midwest which has been, ironically, dominated by the oil industrial complex. Texas in particular has had it's infrastructure fucked by libertarian nonsense for decades and now it's failing under the global crisis created by the same people who pushed their anti-federalism zealotry.

    I know we joke about "real collapse hours" but this is some real end of empire shit. Just one crisis piling up on another like floors collapsing in a falling skyscraper. And it's absolutely destroying this country in a way nobody has ever seen. We're so big that it hasn't quite caught up to everyplace so most people wouldn't know if it weren't for the news and social media. But in about 20 years the entire country is going to look like post-war Baghdad. Just crumbling ruins and people trying to maintain some normal life living among them. Pandemic after pandemic, natural disaster after disaster. The only ingredient we're missing is massive civil unrest.

    • fuckwit [none/use name]
      hexagon
      hexbear
      28
      edit-2
      3 years ago

      I know it's inevitable, but what I do not want to wait for is people collectively deciding that this sort of disruption to their daily life is fine since they might personally be insulated from the consequences. I would say the collapse started in 2001 but I do agree that we're at or near the climax at the moment.

    • blly509 [he/him,any]
      hexbear
      14
      3 years ago

      I need to read up more on this whole "independent power" thing. I know their grid is connected to the rest of the US (Just check out the transmission lines at https://www.eia.gov/state/maps.php) so the idea of buying and selling energy to the extent that it completely isolated a gigantic state that is full of power plants is crazy. Is this the energy equivalent of the GME short, where everything on the market was for sale and now they can't afford to buy any now?

      • Mardoniush [she/her]
        hexbear
        9
        3 years ago

        From what I understand in theory the power can go from one state to the other. But power is managed by market exchanges in the US (this is blindingly..uh...unwise) The Texas Market refuses to engage with the two other exchanges, and operates independently. So only Texas power can be bought for use in Texas, and Texas doesn't have any power to sell.

        Basically, it's like not being able to call the fire brigade because their webstore only allows local fire brigades to be called.

    • Kresimir [they/them]
      hexbear
      28
      3 years ago

      Heard someone say that most municipalities in the northern states and Canada own more snow clearing infrastructure on their own than the entire state of Texas put together. Also, what will the melted snow do to the cities that are basically concrete bowls? Is there going to be flooding?

      • EldritchMayo [he/him,comrade/them]
        hexbear
        2
        edit-2
        3 years ago

        Pretty much. I live in southern Canada, and looking at a depth map I see that on average Texas got like a foot of snow. Yesterday we got about that much snow on top of the foot that was already on the ground. By lunchtime my relatively small town was cleared out. There were no power outages, only school cancellations for a day and today the roads are clear and everything is back to normal. The temperature is 4 degrees Fahrenheit with wind chill. So I would absolutely think we have more snow plows than Texas.

        Edit: by pretty much I was referring to the snow clearing, not flooding. Snow melts really slowly and in the spring everything just gets slushy and mushy, flooding probably won’t happen.

        • Kresimir [they/them]
          hexbear
          1
          3 years ago

          I also live in Canada and I thought of flooding based on the big River meltwater floods that happen in the prairies, but I doubt that would be as issue except in places that sit on top of major river basins.

          We haven't gotten snow in weeks because it's been too cold, regularly reaching -50 with the wind, thanks to the top end of the same weather patterns in Texas

      • D61 [any]
        hexbear
        2
        3 years ago

        Probably not a lot of flooding but in cities, areas that get enough sunlight to melt will make enough liquid that will refreeze in places where the sun can't hit. So I imagine that storm drains are probably going to be clogged with ice and snow pack so roadways and sidewalks will be a sloggy icy nightmare for a while after the air temps raise to above freezing.

  • btbt [he/him]
    hexbear
    49
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    TLDR: America is being the greatest country in the world again

  • Mardoniush [she/her]
    hexbear
    37
    3 years ago

    Imagine if the Day After Tomorrow happened and everyone in the movie responsible for fixing the issue was an An Cap.

  • zeal0telite [he/him,they/them]
    hexbear
    15
    3 years ago

    Been watching Fox News to keep up.

    Apparently, all the wind power froze up (10% of the power grid) and that took down the entire grid somehow.

  • micnd90 [he/him,any]
    hexbear
    12
    3 years ago

    3rd world banana country pls understand

    Corrupt government and ruling parties wasting everyone's time and resources investigating each other

  • Randomdog [he/him]
    hexbear
    10
    3 years ago

    Yea so what's going on is that climate change isn't real so please stop talking about it :)

    • SoyViking [he/him]
      hexbear
      2
      3 years ago

      "How can climate change be real when it's cold where I live?"

  • SoyViking [he/him]
    hexbear
    10
    3 years ago

    Death to America, but someone is finally doing something about it.

    • KoeRhee [he/him]
      hexbear
      13
      3 years ago

      Blaming it all on wind turbines is propaganda btw. It was a failure to cold-proof the entire power grid.