The Texas Crisis Could Become Everyone’s Crisis
About this episode
In February 2021, a winter storm knocked out power for millions of Texans, and this episode uses the disaster as a lens on a larger problem: every piece of human infrastructure was built for a climate that no longer exists. Political scientist Leah Stokes explains how Texas's deregulated grid failed, with generators that never weatherized freezing while gas supplies collapsed, and David Wallace-Wells argues such shocks will become routine everywhere. They discuss why the crisis produced no reckoning: Texas leaders blamed wind turbines and the Green New Deal, research shows extreme weather does not change Republicans' climate votes, and the political incentives may bend toward reaction rather than reform. The conversation also complicates the red-blue story: Texas was an early wind-energy pioneer, while California's housing restrictions undermine its climate goals. Other threads include nuclear power, the fantasy that adaptation is painless, and how inequality determines who suffers.