A Reality Check

In February 2021, the United States was hit with an unprecedented cold snap.

While the entire country was pushed to its limits to combat the cold, several states (mostly in the American South) fell apart in ways that reminded me of New Orleans (and the state of Louisiana) after Hurricane Katrina.

Nowhere were these failures more serious than in Texas.

The power grid in Texas straight up failed across the state, leaving millions of people and several major metropolitan areas without power or even running water in twenty-degree weather. A lot of people in Texas died from either carbon monoxide poisoning or from the effects of the severe cold.

This should have been yet another warning sign that climate change was only getting worse.

This summer, the United States got another sign. But this time it was in the form of a one-in-a-thousand-years heat wave in the Pacific Northwest while the rest of the country got hit with a brutal heat wave.

For those of you living in California, you know that wildfires have only been getting worse, and water is scarcer.

Here in Minnesota, the extremes have been getting worse. I remember what February 2021 was like in Minnesota. It was some of the most brutal cold I ever experienced, and as a Minnesota native, I am used to cold weather.

Which is why the fact that so few people are taking climate change seriously is frustrating.

Nothing Can Be Off the Table

I recently went on a road trip with two family members to the Western United States right before the heat wave in the Pacific Northwest. Both are fervently opposed to some options that, like it or not, are absolutely required in order both to get off of the fossil fuels that are driving climate change and to mitigate the fallout from climate change.

For starters, Americans of all political persuasions must accept the fact that current agricultural practices are unsustainable in every sense of the word. Because of these practices, combined with the effects of climate change, there is less fertile ground for agriculture while the earth’s population continues to grow. Ergo, crops must be able to grow bigger and more nutritious and to produce larger yields while at the same time doing so with less water and healthy sunlight.

This requires genetically modifying crops with these objectives in mind. The soil is already too badly damaged to consider anything else.

People love to eat meat (including yours truly), especially Americans. Beef, pork, and chicken are staples of the American diet. As living standards rise around the world, meat consumption is expected to increase. Because livestock (notably cattle) demand a lot of land, food, and water to raise in a time when all three are growing scarcer, this is already turning into a disaster.

Livestock must be modified so they produce more meat while consuming fewer resources.

In addition, the gas tax must be raised to get fewer Americans driving. Like it or not, even electric cars leave quite a carbon footprint, both in the manufacturing process and the charging process, which uses electricity frequently powered by coal, the dirtiest of the fossil fuels.

Invest more in public transportation, and make it easier for Americans to use.

Nuclear power emits no greenhouse gases, is reliable, and most importantly, can generate massive amounts of raw power that metropolitan areas require to function properly that renewable energy like solar and wind are not able to at the moment.

Most importantly, nuclear power is already integrated into the American energy system, producing 20 percent of America's electricity.

To counter the punishing heat waves and cold snaps that are coming up, we need to have a reliable source of power. Rolling blackouts must be an impossibility when temperatures fluctuate in an extreme manner.

It is a given fact that rolling blackouts and systemic power failures during these climate emergencies will hit communities of color far harder than their White counterparts. These neighborhoods will be cut off from power for longer because that is already what happens during blackouts, rolling blackouts included.

Time is running out. Because of that fact, it’s time to start playing God.

Because only God can save us now.