Let’s talk about Oliver (Chris) Anthony and The rich man North of Richmond. He basically told All Politicians they suck today. And I 100% agree!! Oh, and it looks as though over 100 million people from around the world agree too.
@@Free4Ever-graceWhen I was a kid a very popular song was Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Erie Ford. It seems very pertinent today so I recommend looking up the lyrics.
desantis played it tacticly, it seemed like he immeadiatly step in ans sayed lets not play school, so he stopped the handraising to everybody elses advantage
I had to choose between a candidate that was for women's reproductive rights - but was anti-gay - or I had to choose that nutjob Cornyn. Find me a Texan politician - OTHER THAN T. BOONE PICKENS who is sadly gone - that actually understands climate change is a fact and not a socialist conspiracy. I already voted for Kinky Friedman. It didn't help.
Texas drought Contingency Plan" - 1. Tell the regular people there's no drought. 2. Tell rich people to hoard water. 3. Let the regular people die of heat and dehydration.
This fits the GOP's believe in Darwinian evolution. I'm convinced they want a large part of the population to die... following "survival of the fittest" thinking... in which "fittest" means "rich white men".
It's been almost 3 years. I told everyone about the government and the schools and the climate. Everyone thought I was being dramatic. Houston is a nice city, but prepared for the new world it is not.
@@Almondsarehealthy I am not that familiar with the states political structure. Everything I hear coming out of the state seems crazy. If those things are coming of Austin then yes. That is so sad. I have heard great things about the city of Austin. It is too bad that R W politics has destroyed a great town.
I'm 100 miles east of Houston. The cities here are experiencing water line breaks daily. In my little hamlet, we all have shallow wells. I have been conserving water since February to try to keep my well at a working level. Several of my neighbors (blood red voters) are complaining about sand in their water running their appliances and showing in their tap water. These idiots have no idea of how to live in a rural area. They have never considered they are not in the city and might need to make adjustments. My yard is dead (HOA not happy), my potted plants are dead, but my water is clear. The only thing I water outside are the drinking bowls I have in the front and back yard for whatever comes by and needs water.
Grew up in the country in Virginia where we had shallow wells that went dry in summer. Now I'm in the City paying an arm and leg for water. It's true that people are going to have a lot to learn about water supplies as well as climate change!
We keep seeing that every Republican accusation is really a confession. So how sure are we that they don't say the elections are rigged...because they are the ones rigging theM>
Well, Ken Paxton destroyed 2.5 million ballots from the predominantly democrat voter areas of Houston. He admitted it on camera. That's why we can't vote them out. They cheat.
@@Amorcea It's also due, in part, to 9 million registered voters NOT voting in 2022. Conservatively, if 10-20% were Democrats, they could have gotten rid of Abbott.
They're moving there for the same reasons anyone moves to a place, their job relocates there 🤷🏻♀️ The jobs move there because they can exploit the state's Republican ideals of low taxes on the wealthy. There was also a push awhile back for blue-voters to move back to the non-coastal states to change the votes to what it would have been had they not bailed out of those backwards places for the more civilized states.
@@AlmondsarehealthyThe poor fools don’t understand how vital it is to have functional AC in the summer. They sure will learn when ERCOT fails (again) to keep the power grid running.
@@Almondsarehealthy > So is that why people flock there? Because they're only looking at cheap real estate and low taxes and failing to recognize the long-term damage being done. Which is also why its not "blue states" moving to "red states" more generally. Its almost entirely Californians moving to Texas with little bits of fodder elsewhere, and most of that is due to the tech industry - Houston has become a bit of a tech mini-hub so there's lots of jobs (for now) and cost of living is significantly lower than Silicon Valley. All the Fox News stupidity about the shift being driven by "wokeness" is just them applying their political ideology to something that's almost entirely economic. I mean sure they can always find _somebody_ who will say they're moving because they want a safe space to be bigots in public, but the vast majority are moving for purely financial reasons. Of course those financial discrepancies are temporary (albeit "temporary" with a multi-year time horizon). As more people move in, real estate prices will go up. Costs for infrastructure will also go up, leading to higher taxes. Plus we're talking about people who come from often deep blue areas and while not every individual will agree with every dime of Democrat spending, as a whole they will slowly start demanding the kind of support they had back where they came from. (Then again we're talking about Texas specifically here and Houston is already deep blue, so its pretty questionable whether those demands will be heard. Republicans have proven quite often in the past few years that they'd much rather retain power by disenfranchising entire cities than actually giving a shit what their constituents want, with Texas being one of the leaders in that race toward fascism.)
@@altrag can confirm there already are insanely high taxes in DFW compared to what is been over the last 10+ years of living here. There's a lot of animosity floating around because suddenly native Texans flat do not have homes anymore. Doesn't matter if you're renting or buying, we can't compete with the money Californian folks are bringing in. My husband and I have been aggressively trying to find a home for more then a year now. We keep putting in offers at asking or a little better for not great fixer upper houses, but get beat out by cash offers. It's insane. How do so many people have that kind of liquid cash? Couple that with all the best paying jobs being taken, the cost of food going up daily, and now the intense heat... it's a powder keg around here. This will get worse before it gets better.
ERCOT's unreliability has been known for some time here. Unfortunately, we have a Republican legislature and most, if not all, state agencies. They are famous for kicking the can down the road if not just ignoring them all together.
Do everything to remove that jackass in the governors mansion asap! And you can find a way to do so. In addition, Vote Blue. (I would find a way to sue Abbott. He's not doing his job.) Too many Texans give him a pass because he acts tough, but they really give a pass just because he's in a wheel-chair. Thats no excuse for being the worst governor in a hundred years!
Which seems strange when Texas is the #1 wind generator and #2 solar producer in the US and 40 percent of our power has been coming from those 2 sources.
I have lived here basically my entire life. Texas is what I call a drought state where rain is ‘uncommon’, most people who have lived here have experienced drought in one form or another nearly every year. Yet we never prepare for it, and we plant things that are a burden in the long term. This upsets me.
I couldn’t agree more. several of my neighbors put in new sod and have been standing outside watering it daily. These grasses are such a waste in my personal opinion. Others are free to disagree.
"Look at thermometer, look at your water pressure, look at how dry it is, look at the grass that doesn't get watered. And tell me that's how it was, when you grew up." YUP
My mother and our neighbors never watered grass in August. Trees yes. Grass no. Grass should be brown in Texas in August. Anybody whose grass is green is wasting water.
It all makes sense now. If you deny workers from drinking extra water in 120 degree heat that's how much water you save for your donors yards. Abbott is a genius.
Now, I think lawns are dumb, but once again, they're putting the burden on individuals, when the real users of water are corporations, golf courses, and cemetaries (ffs). I've always wanted to move to a warmer climate, from rainy ol' Seattle. Now, I'm thinking I'm just going to stay put in my northwest home.
I don’t care for yard work. I vote for just unloading a truck of white granite rocks over the whole damn thing. Plant a cactus or two. Problem solved. So glad I own a condo. Even they plant cactus.
ExkupidsMom, you hit the water thief right on the head ! Governments always make the citizens sacrifice in order that corporations don't suffer inconvenience !
If the dems here remind young people that they literally just tried to surpress our votes. I think we could flip Texas. not to mention abbot has started pissing off small government conservatives, his base.
A few years ago, my state's government approved "fracking" to get more oil. It was essentially a free for all. Earthquakes followed. The first time I felt one, I assumed it was a sudden downdraft of wind over my area, because wind I knew. It comes sweeping down the plains from time to time. I'd never felt the earth shake before in my time living here, since the 80's. The government tried to tell us our state had ALWAYS been an earthquake zone. And, on a super technicality, this was true in that seismic activity could be detected... on a seismometer... but not actually felt by us humans, because no, we were NEVER an active earthquake zone. Add to this that our local geologists confirmed that all these new quakes were shallow depth, as in nothing tectonic could explain them. They were being caused by fracking. This continued for another couple of years, until a massive quake damaged buildings and shook the state capital. Suddenly, regulation happened overnight. While fracking was not eliminated, it was reduced to 5% of what it was. The quakes haven't happened since. I think it's worth adding one conspicuous thing that gives away the lie. If my state had always had earthquakes, why have we NEVER had earthquake drills in school? Why are there no earthquake survival plans, or guides on TV on what to do with it? Why are NONE of our buildings constructed with earthquake resistance in mind? We have ALL of those thing for tornadoes, but none of them for quakes. They tried to lie to all the people in my state about our OWN lived experience and tell us we were just misremembering our own childhoods. Texans, don't let them do the same to you.
Beau, I was born & raised in Texas. I've been here except for 6 months spent in Louisiana. This is NOT normal weather. In the late 60s-early 70s, it was a big deal when the weatherman said we would hit 100°. In NE TX, thunderstorms were common, even short popups through most of the year. You could get by with an attic fan or swamp cooler most of the time east of Dallas & even in Houston. Ann Richards got teachers decent raises but the legislature installed never ending testing to make sure they worked hard for it. After Ann, Texas became "Business Friendly" & business here has had it's way with Texas. Discarded or didn't pass rules to limit pollution. NASA put men on the moon with slide rules, calculators & enormous (slow for today)computers back in the 60s & now our government wants to ignore science, have competing 'facts' & subsidize private schools & homeschooling by a voucher system to undermine public school education. I refer you to LBJ's quote about picking a man's pocket. Republicans have perfected that trick here.
Californian here. We got insanely lucky with the atmospheric river in the winter and a hurricane this past week... if you can call crippling blizzard in the mountains and heavy flooding in the deserts "lucky". Don't count on storms and monsoonal weather to keep your invasive grass lawns watered. The metro areas are investing in storm water capture (basically ginormous rain barrels) and waste water recycling, which would have been unthinkable 15 years ago. The agribusinesses running the central valley will be compelled by mother nature herself to conserve, move elsewhere, or die.
The growers here in the central valley have been conserving water since the early 90s. Doing it in many ways. Drip irrigation and getting rid of crops that use a lot of water like cotton. Our heavy water usage is people and watering lawns and such. For now we can water lawns three times a week but I see this soon disappearing. We need zero scape. But not much of a push for that. But with the heavy rain and snow we got, we got tulare lake back and many many fields and ground water charging holes or basins were filled. This will help a little in the ground water issue in the long term. Our city watches the water level and restricts water usage if the table gets close to a certain level. But again, I went out the other day and saw vast housing tracts being put up north of me. Hundreds of homes. Just nuts. But since those homes eaves to eaves I doubt there will be much to water. But again, humans use way to much water. So agriculture is not the only boogeyman.
Stockton/Delta area here, we've been following these conservation measures, as well. However, since this wet winter, I've noticed a lot more watered pavement. Some are getting lax or feeling more comfortable letting their inner consumer show. I expect the latter are the same who own at least one big suv or truck, not for work, and, if they have enough money, buy the big motorhomes to drive everywhere. People that feel like they shouldn't have to consider their impact on the community or planet.
@@georgecurtis6463you are right that grass lawns shouldn't be a thing, you are right that huge homes shouldn't go in unless there is enough water for such things. Heck I will raise you one more and say we should get rid of private pools and create public pools for all in some areas. That said, agricultural and manufacturing are still the primary consumption of water in CA agriculture using 4X more water than all the urban areas combined. I am glad that many people are making as much change as they can. But big aggro is the biggest problem in regards to water. " In 2021, expanding almond and pistachio acreage grew its annual water use by 523 billion gallons of water compared to 2017 - enough to supply 87% of California’s population."
@@erinmac4750 in my city, wet sidewalks or running water in gutters etc is a 500.00 fine and it goes up from there. The water cops also patrol at night for those thinking that they are hiding their wasting water.
The thing with ercot is that, despite being called a utility regulator, they're designed to regulate the market, not the utility, and they're doing am amazing job at keeping energy prices high..... Which is not what we the people want, of course, but the governors friends sell energy.
@@macmcleod1188, the governor has been promoting a lot of immigration and continues to do so. I realize that sounds weird because of his border policies but we get many more immigrants from other states than we do from outside the states. Maybe he should stem the flow of migrants by making the area just a little less business friendly and institute statewide mandates for things like water breaks rather than stateside bans on localities implementing their own requirements for those water breaks. Just a thought. Might be a nonissue though since a significant portion of our electrical generation goes towards crypto currency mining. Decreasing demand by regular consumers will only allow crypto miners to take that unclaimed capacity. I would rather a unit of power be used to keep my house down at 78 than turn into someone else's money.
@@macmcleod1188They might be generating just fine, but they lack transmission capacity to carry the wind and solar. More people moving here means more revenue, unfortunately that revenue is not spent on the electric grid, or schools, or mental health, or maternal health, or maximizing Medicaid. But I did hear we're getting another unconstitutional toll road.
@DennisEricStout agree that we need him to stop growing our population but it's not just him. Other states make themselves so expensive that some people with jobs are homeless. But yes, he should take a break. Can't agree on crypto. I had friends in crypto. There were changes to the algorithm in the speeding that made it so unprofitable that they all sold their rigs. On top of that change, power is much more expensive than two years ago.
Been there done that. You can beat them in court - all you need is a printed copy of the government's restrictions with the relevant portion highlighted. The HOA can't force you to break the law.
Everyone in Texas that acknowledges humanity has an impact on Climate Change and your rulers don't have your best interests in mind. Put your hand up 🖐🏻
Good, time to get started on that. That’s how JudgevLudiig says we’re going to make sure Trump doesn’t win. But he warned it will be something the Supreme Court will have to ultimately decide. but yet, he thinks they’ll decided in the people’s favor. Except corrupt Thomas
Texans may eventually realize that rugged individualism is a losing strategy (tragedy of the commons) and a little social(ism) cooperation goes a long way toward aiding their survival.
Texan here.....everything is dying here....one if my neighbor s actually said she would not inconvenience herself in any way untile china cleans up first....WE ARE SCREWED
They ran on deregulation and choice of power companies back in the late 80's and finally took full control in 1995. Nothing meaningful has been done to upgrade the grid since then.
Houston has a major issue with crumbling infrastructure. Public Works & Engineering has not been doing a good job of maintenance, resulting is large, sustained leaks from broken water mains. But the city is hamstrung by a revenue cap imposed by the state. The GOP state would very much like to see the DEM cites fail, so they can usurp local control.
Houston's Public Works & Engineering is big fat joke. I worked for Dallas, you would be amazed at the amount they spend every year for flood control channels, pump houses, lift stations, street drainage, ect... While Houston uses their streets as secondary drainage routes!!??? So if there is a flood, citizens can't easily get to safety and their public employees can't reach problem areas.
Perth, Western Australia here. We have been under water restrictions for 20 years now, and no longer just during summer. Households must restrict yard watering but city councils and business have no restrictions. The water pressure is reduced, so much so that I had to take the flow restrictor out of my shower head just to get my instantaneous gas hot water system to fire up. Over that time our city has focused upon desalination plants to replace the dams, we are talking billions in infrastructure investment. If that doesn't trouble you, our next option is sewerage purification plants to produce potable water.
My condo in Acton, MA in 1990s had its own sewage purification plant. State mandated outflow=potable, but then refused us to use it on plants. Hooked to town system since 2007 due to Radon from rocks. Capital costs either way. Drat.
I'm from Perth as well, I think you will find that purified water from sewage treatment has been injected back into aquifers, where drinking water is drawn from, since 2010ish when the "Groundwater Replenishment Scheme" started trials. Pretty sure it's upward of 28 billion litres a year these days.
It should be against the law to have a golf course in the middle of the desert. Common sense was not even a factor when some "genius" came up with that dumbness.
Hey Beau, have you ever talked to or consulted Texas Paul with the Meidas Touch network? He provides on the ground coverage of events happening in Texas and is just an all around nice guy overall. Have a wonderful day.
I’m in south Texas, my boys we’re asking yesterday at what point we would move. They can hardly play outside during the day in summer. We’re 6th generation Texans. I don’t want to leave, but I want my kids to have a full life.
@@deciduousrex1219 Great question. I have been researching the best place to move from Texas. There is no perfect answer. Climate and politics are volatile across the nation. However, Minnesota seems like a good choice for us. Knowingly trading one climate extreme for another. But hey, my water bill this month was $300. Electric $180 for 1300sf house. Minnesota is less expensive. I think it's only a matter of time before the southwest turns into a "The Water Knife" scenario. But when, that is the question not where imo.
Minnesota does seem like a really good option. The northeast and the northwest likely have high costs of living, making those areas difficult to move into … like Colorado.
You're not wrong about the conditions out here. I live south of Houston in a town called West Columbia. First capital of Texas FYI. I have never seen as many hundred plus Degree Days as I have in the past 2 months. I have to 2" to 3" wide cracks in my yard because the ground is so dry. I wonder how much more it's going to take for my Trump loving neighbors to see the writing on the wall. Keep doing what you're doing, it gives me peace of mind that there are people who actually care.
I live in Blue Dallas County and ercot is constantly begging us to save energy while the prices increase so that they can pocket the money at our expense. They gonna learn soon.
The MAGA cult has no problem denying climate change. I just had someone tell me that the recent record temperature we had was tied with 2011 for the highest temperature on that calendar date so that meant it wasn't getting hotter. They will find a reason to believe whatever the MAGA leaders tell them to believe.
Living with a climate change denier, I can tell you that they simply do not want to deal with the changes. They don't want to give up their gas guzzling pick-ups, or tolerate any restrictions, or have anyone tell them what they have to do. So they deny the problem, confident that it won't affect them in their lifetimes. There is apparently no concern for what the grandchildren will face.
Something I find wildly interesting. Home this summer with 3 small grandchildren in Texas, I installed 2 huge overhead sunshades 16' × 32' each, in the backyard. The grass beneath them is lush and green. The rest of the yard is brown and too dry to walk barefoot. And yet, we have an ongoing dispute with the HOA, who want the drought tolerant shade tree out front cut down because the grass is sparse beneath it.
@@breakingbadheisenberg9703 What's awful is they want a cookie cutter neighborhood! My house is objectively the most welcoming on the block with drought tolerant rose of sharon, purple sage, and my big lovely pin oak.
I live in WA, and I don’t use sprinklers. I have a few posted flowers, but mostly I plant native ferns etc that don’t require any watering outside of the rain we get. It’s shocking to me when I see people in desert areas with tons of flowers and green green grass.
Water restrictions are in place in several localities (here in Texas). At one city meeting, people are angry, and upset that they have to feel "guilty for flushing toilets'. Like the city council can somehow get water into thw local lakes/reservoirs.
Southern Indiana Hoosier, as well. It even feels like it has a physical presence because of how thick is! And I think it's even hotter than the 111 you're seeing because I just checked and it says 114° 🥵. Luckily it will go down soon but it's still nuts!
I have lived out in the rural country, here in North Texas since the early 1960's. I have never had to worry about water and electricity. Now we have subdivisions popping up like mushrooms, all around us, because 1000 people move to Texas every DAY to build energy insufficient homes and think they have unlimited access to well water for their lawns and swimming pools. But now my well water is running at a slow stream and I am going to probably have to get a well dug deeper. But I don't have thousands and thousands of dollars to get a well dug. And don't get me started with Ercot, run by billionaires who own Gubner AHH-BUTT. I'm still paying for the 2021 February freeze. And will for the next ten years, if I'm still alive in ten years.
You aren't really in water restrictions if you can still water your garden or lawn. The last two years of Australia's big drought in 2010 we could only hand water our gardens from water collected in the house from the shower etc. Most gardens died out, including mine. Showers were only 2 minutes, etc. Most small towns had water trucked in. Our water resources got to 10%. It was scary.
I live in Houston. I was looking at one of the neighborhood web sites, and I came upon a post in which someone complained about yards turning brown and advised neighbors to water more, the day before these restrictions were announced. The irony is hard to miss. I’m afraid we’re going to have to have 3 or 4 incidents like the February 2021 freeze before people decide that maybe they don’t know as much as they think they do.
Every homeowner should look into permaculture. Digging swells and letting nature nurture itself while feeding my family sounds pretty good. It's a start.
Bit of a rant. Skip if you don't like rants. Keep flushing your toilets with drinking quality water. 4 gallons of pristine water to remove 3 ounces of urine. Yeah, that makes sense. And don't capture water from faucets with a little recycled kids pail (from any thrift store for a buck). Rinse your tea cup, let it down the drain. Rinse your fingertips, let it down the drain. Rinse the cat/dog water dish, let it down the drain. Or capture it and water outside plants. Don't for one minute think about putting a 5 gal pail in the shower with you. Or two or three. Capture 10 gallons of 'free' water. Or let it down the drain. (BTW - This rinse water you're wasting is cleaner that many people drink daily in developing or poorer nations people.) Bottom line: The amount of water that slips down your drains daily would be enough to keep a lot of your outside plants alive. Water a heavily mulched garden with your found water. All it takes is for you to stop being a mindless consumer and start acting like water is precious.
Right on, D. Rant away. The 5-gallon bucket is our friend. Waiting for the shower water to warm up? Instant pet water for the rest of the day, if not all the house plants or backyard critters. Another beside the kitchen sink for pasta water, rinse water, anything boiled or washed. And how often do _any_ of those clothes need to be washed? Jeez, Americans' fear of "Omigawd, a deadly Maybe Germ!" is effing insane. Undies, fine; jeans, um, no.
I wish you'd run for president Beau. I'd campaign for you like an evangelist & donate what little I could. You're our Zelinsky, except wiser & less inflammatory.
Texans, welcome to California! Welcome to rolling blackouts, shorter showers, fines for spraying your driveway, watching your front yard die and replacing it with drought-tolerant plants. And don’t forget that useful saying: “if it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”
I don't know where you are in California, but pretty much none of that is true were I live. I use Xeric gardening because I LIKE native plants and it uses a lot less water and takes a lot less work than a lawn. I put in low flow showers and toilets 15 years ago when I bought my home because conservation made sense to me. Sorry you feel so put upon.
@susanelizabeth2222 I was being sarcastic. Good on ya for beating the rush on cultivating native, drought-resistant plants. The things I’ve talked about have been true off and on for the last few years up in my part of the state (Bay area). We were in drought level 2 for last two years or so until the five months of rain hit. (Thanks, climate change, I guess). During the worst of it they were indeed discussing fines for unwarranted water usage (like watering cement that doesn’t need it) and increasing rates for folks not bright enough to water during early morning or evening. All these tribulations are relative tho, compared to what happens in places like India. I’ve lived in a place where electricity is privilege not a right, outages can last days, and water rationing is conducted by the government turning the pipes off at the source and forcing people to line up at public water pumps.
Electric failures are dangerous. There is no excuse for a poor infrastructure. None. Limiting electricity during wet bulb conditions is murder. With wet bulb conditions and no air conditioning that is death. That is a death sentence full stop.
@@mantha6912 I believe they're referring to conditions when the "wet bulb" temperature (the temperature of a thermometer wrapped in wet towels, rather than measured dry) becomes relevant, because the actual temperature is above the survivable 40C and the heat dissipation capacity of a person's evaporating sweat (which changes depending on the humidity) is important for survival. For a Canadian like me, the closest (opposite) situation would be to refer to conditions where 'wind chill' becomes a factor -- meaning the temperature is dangerous enough that if you lose too much body heat you'll freeze, and the speed of the breeze and your degree of shelter from it determines how fast that heat is sapped away from you, and if it's faster than your body can replenish it. Either way, the temperature is so far out of the safe range that you need to look at other factors (for heat, humidity; for cold, wind speed) to determine just HOW lethal it is.
I am so glad my son doesn't live in Texas any more almost froze to death a few winters ago. And to my people still there I hope and pray your electricity doesn’t go off during this summer's long heat wave. I was there a few minths ago it was only 102 in Houston. Unreal that it was 95 at 9 pm.
I'm in Texas. We normally have 90+ degF temps in summer, and a few scattered weeks of 100. We are now into weeks of 100+ temps and no rain in my area north of Houston since June. Scattered showers last night missed me. No rain means no grass and no hay for my animals. I'm praying for fall rain like last year for a late cut. But not sure how much grass will be left in the hayfields. And terrified of another wildfire like the Tri-County fire several years ago. There is a HUGE one raging along the TX-LA border right now. Over 15,000 acres, mostly timberland, and one small LA town has been evacuated.
My city in the Pacific Northwest rainforest started water use restrictions in 1992, because it was already known this was coming one day. Now the residents are mentally prepped for it. There hasn't been a heatwave this year, but it's only rained twice all summer. After last years drought and this year as well, the shrubs & trees are looking damaged. We don't care about yellow grass, and many homeowners have gardens rather than vast areas of mown grass instead.
The whole time I lived in TX there were basic watering restrictions. The city I lived in also outlawed rock gardens and other low water solutions. Thoughts and prayers to everyone's foundations in Texas. It's not going to be pretty.
Why were rock gardens and other low water solutions outlawed? I have a friend in Las Vegas who converted all of the landscaping around her house to a desert-based design.
Is this the part where people of a certain political persuasion throw screaming tantrums at the very suggestion of being asked to modify their individual behavior for the common good?
One of the problems we've had in the UK (aside from the insanity of having privatised the water boards in the first place), is that the people most likely to put their (non-sustenance) garden above the common interest, are exactly the people for whom a £2k fine is an annoyance. It's the equivalent of the speeding ticket being a "go as fast as you like" fee. We have to get serious, and the short-term solution to that is means-tested fines, be it income, or property value, it has to actually hurt, the way 2k would hurt pretty much everyone in this comment section, if it is be any deterrent, failing that or an x strikes and it becomes a criminal offence, but that means getting legislators to write something that hurts people like them, so unlikely. Maybe you could take that Texan anti-abortion bounty-hunter law, and use that. I recon a few decent folx (who have nary so much as a window box, let alone a lawn) would be happy to do their civic duty, for a 10k reward, that'd do a bit of business.
Fines like this should be a % of income and assets. £2000 may not hurt them, but when it starts hitting £100000 or more for every violation they to may start to think twice.
Sorry folks, no water for your grass, we kinda need it to keep the humans alive. How about you stop pretending that you live in New England and plant stuff you don't need to water? Props to my dad, he understood this in the 80's. We moved to Albuquerque and our house had a large turf grass back yard. Dad thought it would be a shame to waste that much water on it, so we dug it all up and did native plants and a nice deck. Within 2 months we had roadrunners. =)
I weep for all the animals who die of dehydration and heat stroke because humans have drained everything and taken everything. Just too many humans making mindless demands on the lifeboat we call earth. Our turn is coming apparently. Death by heat and drying inside is quite horrific I'd imagine.
Lol our house in abq had a big dirt yard. We kids dug a great big hole in it to make a fort or something. We didn’t get roadrunners, just black widows.
ERCOT, less reliable? Never. But, yeah. As a Texan, born and raised (now 41), and a part of that in Houston, can confirm that the extreme droughts and measures are not what's been occurring in theast 41 years. Especially in Houston. Houston has been known for being reliably wet. A large part of our energy crisis is not only about the hottest years, but also unprecedented growth Texas has had. More people equals more power. And before people say "Don't California my Texas" you can blame that on Abbott. Him and his corporation friendly allies lure big businesses in with lax laws, lower taxes, and less regulation. Bringing those businesses means bringing in more people to work at those businesses. The very atmosphere the conservatives complain about is made worse by Republican rulings. But yeah, it's hot and dry in Texas. Lakes are at near or all time lows. There's a lake with the longest floating boardwalk that doesn't have a floating boardwalk because that part of the lake is dried up. On a side note. We're supposedly going to have a chilly, possibly rough winter, so ERCOT is really being put to the test.
I’m in Corpus Christi. 30 year old male, and I threw up the other day it’s so hot. I was outside for 20 minutes trying to get a car off jack stands. Tropical storm was SO NICE!
WAIT. I thought Texas was a FREEDOM state. RESTRICTING WATER USE? What happened to "Don't Tread on Me (and my water usage)!!"??? Texas isn't sounding so free right now.
@@breakingbadheisenberg9703 - that's not communism. Communism is an economic operational model. Authoritarianism is the political model. not that I think what Texas is doing is either. The people there always brag about their freedoms... and restricting water use during a drought makes good common sense. And the punchline to that is that Texans think they can do whatever whenever and the reality is, if they're smart, they'll acknowledge there's a time and a place.
I recommend people watch the British sci-fi film "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" from 1961. Told from the point of view of journalists at a major London newspaper, it's a serious look at what happens to a nation when temperatures shoot up and water becomes scarce. (Please ignore the somewhat silly title of the film.)
Yeah, most of my close and extended family are in Texas. One of them just told me that there *isn’t* a heat wave, there’s no problem with electricity, climate change isn’t real and they are having normal summer comditions!!! Willfully ignorant. So effing sad. ☹😟😤
My sympathies to you. My family and I have had problems for years, because of their willful ignorance. I try not to judge, but I'll be damned if they won't open their eyes.
Water conservation from one who lived off of rain catchment: Pee into a bucket and flush it down only when the bucket is getting full (saves 20 gals/day) Don't run the water while you're brushing your teeth! Wet the brush, turn the water off and brush, spit and then water on to wash the brush and rinse the sink. In the shower: wet your body, then turn the water off, soap up, then water on to rinse off: Wet, Soap, Rinse, done! Conserve, conserve, conserve.
What could go wrong, hottest summer in recorded history, water restrictions and spotty electricity? 🙁For a political party which puts your life before company profits, vote blue. 😉👍💙🇺🇸🕊
How do they get away with this? Gerrymandered districts and blaming the Democrats - who haven't been in charge for 30 years. No Statewide Offices OR Legislative majorities in all that time.
*will most of the time put your life before profits. Democrats are plenty capable of being corrupt and putting profits before lives. But they won't always. And they definitely will attempt to fix the root problem once hit by a crisis. Execution might be crap and slow though. Meanwhile the alternative is a situation like Texas. Where hundreds of people freeze to death in their homes and years later absolutely no real improvements or attempt to revamp the system to handle intense weather due to climate change because profits. They aren't even trying.
In the town where my mother lives they have a day of the week watering schedule. So you can only water on the day you are assigned. And no watering at all for anyone one day a week. This shit is real folks. Demand your reps do more to prepare for the future or we wont have one.
In DFW, half of our days over 100°F this summer have been over 105°F. Today was 108°F with a low of 82°F, breaking daily records for both high and low temps. When the ground gets this hot and dry, it can cause major foundation issues. Everyone I know has issues with ERCOT, but I'm in a more educated and more liberal area.
I'm not from Texas, but I've lived in Kansas all my 39 years. Never saw hot fog before this summer. I had no idea that outside could literally turn into a sauna. It sucks that kids are growing up with this, because there are more and more days where it's not safe to go outside for any extended period. I feel ashamed when I think about it and I don't even have kids.
It bewilders me that some otherwise sensible people have rosey projections for Texas in light of its climate reality and how poorly, and wilfully so for political reasons, it runs crucial power and water infrastructure.
Clarifying "restricted to 7pm to 5am" those are the times you can do it. There's more info about even and odd number addresses for days.
Let’s talk about Oliver (Chris) Anthony and The rich man North of Richmond. He basically told All Politicians they suck today. And I 100% agree!! Oh, and it looks as though over 100 million people from around the world agree too.
@@Free4Ever-graceWhen I was a kid a very popular song was Sixteen Tons by Tennessee Erie Ford. It seems very pertinent today so I recommend looking up the lyrics.
What's the over/under that they don't undergo this overhaul?
This makes much more sense.
Thank you for the clarification Mr. Fifth Column
Right!? That didn't sound right to me! Thanks!
Please remember not one Republican candidate for president raised their hand when asked if global warming was real.
I'll never forget. Thanks for the admonition.
to be fair haley at least acknowledged it i think and maybe someone else. But you are correct i think no hand was raised.
desantis played it tacticly, it seemed like he immeadiatly step in ans sayed lets not play school, so he stopped the handraising to everybody elses advantage
by everbody i mean the folk on the podium.
Even worse - the torturer immediately stepped in to deflect the question for all of them, and they all went with it (sighing in collective relief).
Electing candidates that don't care about climate change is a bad idea.
They argue job creator.
I had to choose between a candidate that was for women's reproductive rights - but was anti-gay - or I had to choose that nutjob Cornyn. Find me a Texan politician - OTHER THAN T. BOONE PICKENS who is sadly gone - that actually understands climate change is a fact and not a socialist conspiracy. I already voted for Kinky Friedman. It didn't help.
And this will prove problematic as time goes along.
Then that leaves is 0 choices
@@fkknight1 can I borrow your TARDIS?
Texas drought Contingency Plan" - 1. Tell the regular people there's no drought. 2. Tell rich people to hoard water. 3. Let the regular people die of heat and dehydration.
You've got the right attitude to run for office ! You would fit right in !
You forgot to define "Horde" - Stash away enough for them, then continue to waste what the common folk could use.
Well we could steal johnathan swift's simple solution and turn it upside down. Eat the rich.
This fits the GOP's believe in Darwinian evolution. I'm convinced they want a large part of the population to die... following "survival of the fittest" thinking... in which "fittest" means "rich white men".
4. Fly to Cancun and wait it out
Republicans are destroying that state. I miss my home but I had to get out of Texas.
I am following, have to leave no matter how much I love the state
I’m left 44 years ago, best decision I ever made!
It's been almost 3 years. I told everyone about the government and the schools and the climate. Everyone thought I was being dramatic. Houston is a nice city, but prepared for the new world it is not.
But Joe Rogen says it's the best.
@@timothyletwin5911 Thet guy is full of shit or he’s never been anywhere nice!
The first thing that has to change in Texas is the leadership.
PS that goes for the entire nation including every Democrat.
We are not doing enough or anything
🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯
@@Almondsarehealthy
I am not that familiar with the states political structure.
Everything I hear coming out of the state seems crazy. If those things are coming of Austin then yes.
That is so sad. I have heard great things about the city of Austin. It is too bad that R W politics has destroyed a great town.
I'm 100 miles east of Houston. The cities here are experiencing water line breaks daily. In my little hamlet, we all have shallow wells. I have been conserving water since February to try to keep my well at a working level. Several of my neighbors (blood red voters) are complaining about sand in their water running their appliances and showing in their tap water. These idiots have no idea of how to live in a rural area. They have never considered they are not in the city and might need to make adjustments. My yard is dead (HOA not happy), my potted plants are dead, but my water is clear. The only thing I water outside are the drinking bowls I have in the front and back yard for whatever comes by and needs water.
I totally agree with you. Let's try get HOAs banned. 999.9% don't work.
Thank you for placing water out for strays, wildlife, etc. Most people don't think of that at all.
You are awesome 🌟
Yes. Thank you for putting out the water bowls!! 👍
Grew up in the country in Virginia where we had shallow wells that went dry in summer. Now I'm in the City paying an arm and leg for water. It's true that people are going to have a lot to learn about water supplies as well as climate change!
You’re preaching to the choir, Beau. Our Republican leadership is not leading, and we can’t seem to vote them out for anything better.
We keep seeing that every Republican accusation is really a confession. So how sure are we that they don't say the elections are rigged...because they are the ones rigging theM>
That's the gerrymandering.
@@Amorcea And I wonder if anything else is going on, especially with our votes.
Well, Ken Paxton destroyed 2.5 million ballots from the predominantly democrat voter areas of Houston. He admitted it on camera. That's why we can't vote them out. They cheat.
@@Amorcea It's also due, in part, to 9 million registered voters NOT voting in 2022. Conservatively, if 10-20% were Democrats, they could have gotten rid of Abbott.
As a former Texan, decades of right-wing government has wrecked it
They're moving there for the same reasons anyone moves to a place, their job relocates there 🤷🏻♀️ The jobs move there because they can exploit the state's Republican ideals of low taxes on the wealthy. There was also a push awhile back for blue-voters to move back to the non-coastal states to change the votes to what it would have been had they not bailed out of those backwards places for the more civilized states.
@@AlmondsarehealthyThe poor fools don’t understand how vital it is to have functional AC in the summer. They sure will learn when ERCOT fails (again) to keep the power grid running.
@@Almondsarehealthy > So is that why people flock there?
Because they're only looking at cheap real estate and low taxes and failing to recognize the long-term damage being done.
Which is also why its not "blue states" moving to "red states" more generally. Its almost entirely Californians moving to Texas with little bits of fodder elsewhere, and most of that is due to the tech industry - Houston has become a bit of a tech mini-hub so there's lots of jobs (for now) and cost of living is significantly lower than Silicon Valley.
All the Fox News stupidity about the shift being driven by "wokeness" is just them applying their political ideology to something that's almost entirely economic. I mean sure they can always find _somebody_ who will say they're moving because they want a safe space to be bigots in public, but the vast majority are moving for purely financial reasons.
Of course those financial discrepancies are temporary (albeit "temporary" with a multi-year time horizon). As more people move in, real estate prices will go up. Costs for infrastructure will also go up, leading to higher taxes.
Plus we're talking about people who come from often deep blue areas and while not every individual will agree with every dime of Democrat spending, as a whole they will slowly start demanding the kind of support they had back where they came from. (Then again we're talking about Texas specifically here and Houston is already deep blue, so its pretty questionable whether those demands will be heard. Republicans have proven quite often in the past few years that they'd much rather retain power by disenfranchising entire cities than actually giving a shit what their constituents want, with Texas being one of the leaders in that race toward fascism.)
@@AlmondsarehealthyI live in TX. Tons are now leaving.
@@altrag can confirm there already are insanely high taxes in DFW compared to what is been over the last 10+ years of living here. There's a lot of animosity floating around because suddenly native Texans flat do not have homes anymore. Doesn't matter if you're renting or buying, we can't compete with the money Californian folks are bringing in. My husband and I have been aggressively trying to find a home for more then a year now. We keep putting in offers at asking or a little better for not great fixer upper houses, but get beat out by cash offers. It's insane. How do so many people have that kind of liquid cash? Couple that with all the best paying jobs being taken, the cost of food going up daily, and now the intense heat... it's a powder keg around here. This will get worse before it gets better.
Is part of the drought contingency plan Ted Cruz going on holiday to somewhere with plenty of water and working air conditioning?
ted cruise
Rafael is going to be like Tubby, he'll set up residence in Cancun but he'll still get voted Senator of Texas.
The less “hot air” the better. Good riddance, CanCruz.
If the punishment for a crime is only a fine, they are telling us it is okay for rich people to do it.
"hottest summer of the last 100 years"
look on the bright side,
this is also going to be the coolest summer of the next 100 years
🤣🤣🤣
Oooh, that's bleak! 😄
@@euansmith3699 no, that's just looking at the bright side of our situation
ERCOT's unreliability has been known for some time here. Unfortunately, we have a Republican legislature and most, if not all, state agencies. They are famous for kicking the can down the road if not just ignoring them all together.
Those good old no state taxes sure don’t buy much.
And that's when they're not claiming the can is a hoax or otherwise doesn't exist.
It's time to mess with Texas if it's going to survive.
Do everything to remove that jackass in the governors mansion asap!
And you can find a way to do so. In addition, Vote Blue.
(I would find a way to sue Abbott. He's not doing his job.) Too many Texans give him a pass because he acts tough, but they really give a pass just because he's in a wheel-chair. Thats no excuse for being the worst governor in a hundred years!
Which seems strange when Texas is the #1 wind generator and #2 solar producer in the US and 40 percent of our power has been coming from those 2 sources.
I have lived here basically my entire life. Texas is what I call a drought state where rain is ‘uncommon’, most people who have lived here have experienced drought in one form or another nearly every year. Yet we never prepare for it, and we plant things that are a burden in the long term. This upsets me.
Xeriscaping is important.
I couldn’t agree more. several of my neighbors put in new sod and have been standing outside watering it daily. These grasses are such a waste in my personal opinion. Others are free to disagree.
That reminds me... What was it General Melchett said? "A total, pigheaded unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through."
Sounds very much like CenCal (Central California)
As the population grows, the worse it's going to get.
"Look at thermometer, look at your water pressure, look at how dry it is, look at the grass that doesn't get watered. And tell me that's how it was, when you grew up." YUP
Maybe when it starts hitting them in the pocket book, they'll finally see the light. Money talks.
My mother and our neighbors never watered grass in August.
Trees yes. Grass no.
Grass should be brown in Texas in August.
Anybody whose grass is green is wasting water.
Darling, a few years back, some of us New Englanders started having Christmas barbecues.
@@tenofivelips That's actually an Australian thing. End of wonter, and getting very pleasant here.
It all makes sense now. If you deny workers from drinking extra water in 120 degree heat that's how much water you save for your donors yards. Abbott is a genius.
Sarcasm much?😂❤
Abbott has s junk but Texans re-elected him! They get what they voted for!!
Evil genius .
Ok . Just evil .
@@billmcmillan7735 I live in a vote red or be dead district, I vote progressive anyway my vote doesn't count.
@@billmcmillan7735 I voted against Abbott. Don't forget that Texas isn't homogeneous.
Now, I think lawns are dumb, but once again, they're putting the burden on individuals, when the real users of water are corporations, golf courses, and cemetaries (ffs). I've always wanted to move to a warmer climate, from rainy ol' Seattle. Now, I'm thinking I'm just going to stay put in my northwest home.
Yeah, I think the warmer climate is coming to you. 😕
Fellow webfoot, and I lived in Arizona for a bit a few years back (decades).
I'm happy being wet.
Actually, agriculture is the biggest water user, by far.
I don’t care for yard work. I vote for just unloading a truck of white granite rocks over the whole damn thing. Plant a cactus or two. Problem solved. So glad I own a condo. Even they plant cactus.
ExkupidsMom, you hit the water thief right on the head ! Governments always make the citizens sacrifice in order that corporations don't suffer inconvenience !
Abbott will just start yelling about immigrants and drag queens and half of the people in this state will ignore the ERCOT situation.
That sounds about right.
Next will be blaming immigrants for stealing all of the water. 😑
If the dems here remind young people that they literally just tried to surpress our votes. I think we could flip Texas. not to mention abbot has started pissing off small government conservatives, his base.
A few years ago, my state's government approved "fracking" to get more oil. It was essentially a free for all. Earthquakes followed. The first time I felt one, I assumed it was a sudden downdraft of wind over my area, because wind I knew. It comes sweeping down the plains from time to time. I'd never felt the earth shake before in my time living here, since the 80's.
The government tried to tell us our state had ALWAYS been an earthquake zone. And, on a super technicality, this was true in that seismic activity could be detected... on a seismometer... but not actually felt by us humans, because no, we were NEVER an active earthquake zone. Add to this that our local geologists confirmed that all these new quakes were shallow depth, as in nothing tectonic could explain them. They were being caused by fracking. This continued for another couple of years, until a massive quake damaged buildings and shook the state capital. Suddenly, regulation happened overnight. While fracking was not eliminated, it was reduced to 5% of what it was. The quakes haven't happened since.
I think it's worth adding one conspicuous thing that gives away the lie. If my state had always had earthquakes, why have we NEVER had earthquake drills in school? Why are there no earthquake survival plans, or guides on TV on what to do with it? Why are NONE of our buildings constructed with earthquake resistance in mind? We have ALL of those thing for tornadoes, but none of them for quakes.
They tried to lie to all the people in my state about our OWN lived experience and tell us we were just misremembering our own childhoods. Texans, don't let them do the same to you.
There WAS an earthquake south of San Antonio about a month ago. And it was probably caused by fracking. At least we couldn't feel it here in SA.
Beau, I was born & raised in Texas. I've been here except for 6 months spent in Louisiana.
This is NOT normal weather. In the late 60s-early 70s, it was a big deal when the weatherman said we would hit 100°. In NE TX, thunderstorms were common, even short popups through most of the year. You could get by with an attic fan or swamp cooler most of the time east of Dallas & even in Houston.
Ann Richards got teachers decent raises but the legislature installed never ending testing to make sure they worked hard for it. After Ann, Texas became "Business Friendly" & business here has had it's way with Texas. Discarded or didn't pass rules to limit pollution.
NASA put men on the moon with slide rules, calculators & enormous (slow for today)computers back in the 60s & now our government wants to ignore science, have competing 'facts' & subsidize private schools & homeschooling by a voucher system to undermine public school education. I refer you to LBJ's quote about picking a man's pocket. Republicans have perfected that trick here.
Californian here. We got insanely lucky with the atmospheric river in the winter and a hurricane this past week... if you can call crippling blizzard in the mountains and heavy flooding in the deserts "lucky". Don't count on storms and monsoonal weather to keep your invasive grass lawns watered.
The metro areas are investing in storm water capture (basically ginormous rain barrels) and waste water recycling, which would have been unthinkable 15 years ago. The agribusinesses running the central valley will be compelled by mother nature herself to conserve, move elsewhere, or die.
Fellow Californian here, Home of the golden lawn. I second this comment.
The growers here in the central valley have been conserving water since the early 90s. Doing it in many ways. Drip irrigation and getting rid of crops that use a lot of water like cotton. Our heavy water usage is people and watering lawns and such. For now we can water lawns three times a week but I see this soon disappearing. We need zero scape. But not much of a push for that. But with the heavy rain and snow we got, we got tulare lake back and many many fields and ground water charging holes or basins were filled. This will help a little in the ground water issue in the long term. Our city watches the water level and restricts water usage if the table gets close to a certain level. But again, I went out the other day and saw vast housing tracts being put up north of me. Hundreds of homes. Just nuts. But since those homes eaves to eaves I doubt there will be much to water. But again, humans use way to much water. So agriculture is not the only boogeyman.
Stockton/Delta area here, we've been following these conservation measures, as well. However, since this wet winter, I've noticed a lot more watered pavement. Some are getting lax or feeling more comfortable letting their inner consumer show. I expect the latter are the same who own at least one big suv or truck, not for work, and, if they have enough money, buy the big motorhomes to drive everywhere.
People that feel like they shouldn't have to consider their impact on the community or planet.
@@georgecurtis6463you are right that grass lawns shouldn't be a thing, you are right that huge homes shouldn't go in unless there is enough water for such things. Heck I will raise you one more and say we should get rid of private pools and create public pools for all in some areas.
That said, agricultural and manufacturing are still the primary consumption of water in CA agriculture using 4X more water than all the urban areas combined. I am glad that many people are making as much change as they can.
But big aggro is the biggest problem in regards to water.
" In 2021, expanding almond and pistachio acreage grew its annual water use by 523 billion gallons of water compared to 2017 - enough to supply 87% of California’s population."
@@erinmac4750 in my city, wet sidewalks or running water in gutters etc is a 500.00 fine and it goes up from there. The water cops also patrol at night for those thinking that they are hiding their wasting water.
The thing with ercot is that, despite being called a utility regulator, they're designed to regulate the market, not the utility, and they're doing am amazing job at keeping energy prices high..... Which is not what we the people want, of course, but the governors friends sell energy.
They really are doing a good job of increasing our generating capacity. But too many people are immigrating here.
@@macmcleod1188, the governor has been promoting a lot of immigration and continues to do so. I realize that sounds weird because of his border policies but we get many more immigrants from other states than we do from outside the states. Maybe he should stem the flow of migrants by making the area just a little less business friendly and institute statewide mandates for things like water breaks rather than stateside bans on localities implementing their own requirements for those water breaks. Just a thought.
Might be a nonissue though since a significant portion of our electrical generation goes towards crypto currency mining. Decreasing demand by regular consumers will only allow crypto miners to take that unclaimed capacity. I would rather a unit of power be used to keep my house down at 78 than turn into someone else's money.
@@macmcleod1188They might be generating just fine, but they lack transmission capacity to carry the wind and solar. More people moving here means more revenue, unfortunately that revenue is not spent on the electric grid, or schools, or mental health, or maternal health, or maximizing Medicaid. But I did hear we're getting another unconstitutional toll road.
@DennisEricStout agree that we need him to stop growing our population but it's not just him. Other states make themselves so expensive that some people with jobs are homeless. But yes, he should take a break.
Can't agree on crypto. I had friends in crypto. There were changes to the algorithm in the speeding that made it so unprofitable that they all sold their rigs.
On top of that change, power is much more expensive than two years ago.
@michellelove9838 in the news, they say its total generation power when they ask for reductions by the public.
You should also talk about those of us who conserve, and then get fined by HOAs because our grass isn't green. HOAs shouldn't exist.
Been there done that. You can beat them in court - all you need is a printed copy of the government's restrictions with the relevant portion highlighted. The HOA can't force you to break the law.
Adults can be some of the biggest babies.
What's a HOA?
AGREED!
HOA = Home Owners Association = Condo governing board.@@chrisvinicombe9947
Can't wait to hear how windmills are responsible for this
Everyone in Texas that acknowledges humanity has an impact on Climate Change and your rulers don't have your best interests in mind. Put your hand up 🖐🏻
🖐️
✋🏼
🖐
o/
✋🏾
Texans probably should seriously consider getting new leadership from the top down.
The Hill
Florida lawyer files challenge to disqualify Trump from 2024 race, citing 14th Amendment.
Hooray. I thought it would be California first, but because DeSantis is running, it makes sense.
Good, time to get started on that. That’s how JudgevLudiig says we’re going to make sure Trump doesn’t win. But he warned it will be something the Supreme Court will have to ultimately decide. but yet, he thinks they’ll decided in the people’s favor. Except corrupt Thomas
Texans need to start voting.
Texans may eventually realize that rugged individualism is a losing strategy (tragedy of the commons) and a little social(ism) cooperation goes a long way toward aiding their survival.
Texan here.....everything is dying here....one if my neighbor s actually said she would not inconvenience herself in any way untile china cleans up first....WE ARE SCREWED
Your neighbor is demonstrating MAGA thinking at its finest. Wow....
As long as the republican’t are in power, NOTHING WILL HAPPEN. It’s all about POWER AND MONEY. Their power their money. NOT YOURS.
They ran on deregulation and choice of power companies back in the late 80's and finally took full control in 1995. Nothing meaningful has been done to upgrade the grid since then.
are they going to write those warnings and give tickets to the gated communities and golf courses??
Houston has a major issue with crumbling infrastructure. Public Works & Engineering has not been doing a good job of maintenance, resulting is large, sustained leaks from broken water mains. But the city is hamstrung by a revenue cap imposed by the state. The GOP state would very much like to see the DEM cites fail, so they can usurp local control.
Settlements do not become successful enough to become cities on rightist policies.
Houston's Public Works & Engineering is big fat joke. I worked for Dallas, you would be amazed at the amount they spend every year for flood control channels, pump houses, lift stations, street drainage, ect... While Houston uses their streets as secondary drainage routes!!??? So if there is a flood, citizens can't easily get to safety and their public employees can't reach problem areas.
Perth, Western Australia here. We have been under water restrictions for 20 years now, and no longer just during summer. Households must restrict yard watering but city councils and business have no restrictions. The water pressure is reduced, so much so that I had to take the flow restrictor out of my shower head just to get my instantaneous gas hot water system to fire up. Over that time our city has focused upon desalination plants to replace the dams, we are talking billions in infrastructure investment. If that doesn't trouble you, our next option is sewerage purification plants to produce potable water.
Atlanta Georgia is already using a percentage of their black water for potable water.
My condo in Acton, MA in 1990s had its own sewage purification plant. State mandated outflow=potable, but then refused us to use it on plants. Hooked to town system since 2007 due to Radon from rocks. Capital costs either way. Drat.
I'm from Perth as well, I think you will find that purified water from sewage treatment has been injected back into aquifers, where drinking water is drawn from, since 2010ish when the "Groundwater Replenishment Scheme" started trials. Pretty sure it's upward of 28 billion litres a year these days.
A fine of $2000? I'm sure that'll dissuade the water wasting golf courses
I'm sure it won't apply to commercial use.
Unless you are a small business that didn't donate to the Right candidate.
In CA, golf courses, like Pebble Beach, use reclaimed water.
They restricted water use at the wrong damn time of the day. Should've been 5 AM to 7 PM
It should be against the law to have a golf course in the middle of the desert. Common sense was not even a factor when some "genius" came up with that dumbness.
@@VictoriousGardenosaurus I agree!! Why put water out when it'll be immediately evaporated?
They are just starting to see the price...our children will pay for it.
🔥 😢 ✌
Hey Beau, have you ever talked to or consulted Texas Paul with the Meidas Touch network? He provides on the ground coverage of events happening in Texas and is just an all around nice guy overall. Have a wonderful day.
❤👍
I’m in south Texas, my boys we’re asking yesterday at what point we would move. They can hardly play outside during the day in summer. We’re 6th generation Texans. I don’t want to leave, but I want my kids to have a full life.
Where do you go?
@@deciduousrex1219 Maine?
@@deciduousrex1219 Great question. I have been researching the best place to move from Texas. There is no perfect answer. Climate and politics are volatile across the nation. However, Minnesota seems like a good choice for us. Knowingly trading one climate extreme for another. But hey, my water bill this month was $300. Electric $180 for 1300sf house. Minnesota is less expensive. I think it's only a matter of time before the southwest turns into a "The Water Knife" scenario. But when, that is the question not where imo.
Minnesota does seem like a really good option. The northeast and the northwest likely have high costs of living, making those areas difficult to move into … like Colorado.
You're not wrong about the conditions out here.
I live south of Houston in a town called West Columbia.
First capital of Texas FYI.
I have never seen as many hundred plus Degree Days as I have in the past 2 months.
I have to 2" to 3" wide cracks in my yard because the ground is so dry.
I wonder how much more it's going to take for my Trump loving neighbors to see the writing on the wall.
Keep doing what you're doing, it gives me peace of mind that there are people who actually care.
I live in Blue Dallas County and ercot is constantly begging us to save energy while the prices increase so that they can pocket the money at our expense.
They gonna learn soon.
It's hard to deny climate change when it's literally in your backyard, at least I hope so. Take care, Texans! ✌️❤️
The MAGA cult has no problem denying climate change. I just had someone tell me that the recent record temperature we had was tied with 2011 for the highest temperature on that calendar date so that meant it wasn't getting hotter. They will find a reason to believe whatever the MAGA leaders tell them to believe.
Its the crooks in office that we are trying to kick out that have us Texans either freezing or cooking 😢
Living with a climate change denier, I can tell you that they simply do not want to deal with the changes. They don't want to give up their gas guzzling pick-ups, or tolerate any restrictions, or have anyone tell them what they have to do. So they deny the problem, confident that it won't affect them in their lifetimes. There is apparently no concern for what the grandchildren will face.
My friend in Texas hates how Ercot and Abbott run things.
We all do.
I wish Abbott was the only POS in Texas calling shots.
Aren't enough of them yet. He still gets elected.
@@susanelizabeth2222 He won by less of a percentage than last time.
Lifelong Texan here and I hate those things too. I miss Ann Richards.
Texas isn't best served by anyone in charge here
Something I find wildly interesting. Home this summer with 3 small grandchildren in Texas, I installed 2 huge overhead sunshades 16' × 32' each, in the backyard. The grass beneath them is lush and green. The rest of the yard is brown and too dry to walk barefoot. And yet, we have an ongoing dispute with the HOA, who want the drought tolerant shade tree out front cut down because the grass is sparse beneath it.
F all HOAs!
Oh HOA , says it all ! Forget reality we want a presentable neighborhood.
@@breakingbadheisenberg9703 What's awful is they want a cookie cutter neighborhood! My house is objectively the most welcoming on the block with drought tolerant rose of sharon, purple sage, and my big lovely pin oak.
Can't we just 2nd Amendment HOAs?
@@ronm3245 🤣
I live in WA, and I don’t use sprinklers. I have a few posted flowers, but mostly I plant native ferns etc that don’t require any watering outside of the rain we get. It’s shocking to me when I see people in desert areas with tons of flowers and green green grass.
Water restrictions are in place in several localities (here in Texas). At one city meeting, people are angry, and upset that they have to feel "guilty for flushing toilets'. Like the city council can somehow get water into thw local lakes/reservoirs.
They call it Mello Yellow...at least that's what we do here in CA.
They're running the sirens for heat index in my hometown right now. Feels like 111°. Never witnessed this before today. Southern Indiana.
I'm in central Illinois. Our heat index hit 121 yesterday. 🥵
@@kathywiseley4382 You know it's bad when even the breeze is hot!
Southern Indiana Hoosier, as well. It even feels like it has a physical presence because of how thick is! And I think it's even hotter than the 111 you're seeing because I just checked and it says 114° 🥵. Luckily it will go down soon but it's still nuts!
Central Illinois here: heat index of 122 degrees today (8/25)
I’m sad to hear that. I lived n southeast Indiana for awhile.
welcome to the coolest summer the world will ever see, ever again
I have lived out in the rural country, here in North Texas since the early 1960's. I have never had to worry about water and electricity.
Now we have subdivisions popping up like mushrooms, all around us, because 1000 people move to Texas every DAY to build energy insufficient homes and think they have unlimited access to well water for their lawns and swimming pools.
But now my well water is running at a slow stream and I am going to probably have to get a well dug deeper. But I don't have thousands and thousands of dollars to get a well dug.
And don't get me started with Ercot, run by billionaires who own Gubner AHH-BUTT. I'm still paying for the 2021 February freeze. And will for the next ten years, if I'm still alive in ten years.
You aren't really in water restrictions if you can still water your garden or lawn. The last two years of Australia's big drought in 2010 we could only hand water our gardens from water collected in the house from the shower etc. Most gardens died out, including mine. Showers were only 2 minutes, etc. Most small towns had water trucked in. Our water resources got to 10%. It was scary.
Grey water usage is a good way to go, if done correctly. Good for Australia. Hope people's lightbulbs went off.
I live in Houston. I was looking at one of the neighborhood web sites, and I came upon a post in which someone complained about yards turning brown and advised neighbors to water more, the day before these restrictions were announced. The irony is hard to miss. I’m afraid we’re going to have to have 3 or 4 incidents like the February 2021 freeze before people decide that maybe they don’t know as much as they think they do.
Every homeowner should look into permaculture.
Digging swells and letting nature nurture itself while feeding my family sounds pretty good. It's a start.
Bit of a rant. Skip if you don't like rants.
Keep flushing your toilets with drinking quality water. 4 gallons of pristine water to remove 3 ounces of urine. Yeah, that makes sense.
And don't capture water from faucets with a little recycled kids pail (from any thrift store for a buck). Rinse your tea cup, let it down the drain. Rinse your fingertips, let it down the drain. Rinse the cat/dog water dish, let it down the drain. Or capture it and water outside plants.
Don't for one minute think about putting a 5 gal pail in the shower with you. Or two or three. Capture 10 gallons of 'free' water. Or let it down the drain. (BTW - This rinse water you're wasting is cleaner that many people drink daily in developing or poorer nations people.)
Bottom line: The amount of water that slips down your drains daily would be enough to keep a lot of your outside plants alive. Water a heavily mulched garden with your found water. All it takes is for you to stop being a mindless consumer and start acting like water is precious.
Right on, D. Rant away. The 5-gallon bucket is our friend. Waiting for the shower water to warm up? Instant pet water for the rest of the day, if not all the house plants or backyard critters. Another beside the kitchen sink for pasta water, rinse water, anything boiled or washed.
And how often do _any_ of those clothes need to be washed? Jeez, Americans' fear of "Omigawd, a deadly Maybe Germ!" is effing insane. Undies, fine; jeans, um, no.
In public restrooms in Japan the sink to wash your hands in sits on top of the toilet cistern, and drains into it.
Basic redesign of thinking.....
Also, perhaps don't live in a desert or an area that is prone to droughts.
@@neilmarshall5087 It works fine for a quick rinse. Just don't load it up with a lot of soap! (Binnair. Dunnat)
@@anotherdamn6c Lol. I shall consider myself flush with new information....
What about some HOAs fining home owners because their lawns are brown?
I wish you'd run for president Beau. I'd campaign for you like an evangelist & donate what little I could. You're our Zelinsky, except wiser & less inflammatory.
in Australia we have had restrictions this for like 20+ years.
Texans, welcome to California! Welcome to rolling blackouts, shorter showers, fines for spraying your driveway, watching your front yard die and replacing it with drought-tolerant plants. And don’t forget that useful saying: “if it’s yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.”
I don't know where you are in California, but pretty much none of that is true were I live. I use Xeric gardening because I LIKE native plants and it uses a lot less water and takes a lot less work than a lawn. I put in low flow showers and toilets 15 years ago when I bought my home because conservation made sense to me. Sorry you feel so put upon.
@susanelizabeth2222 I was being sarcastic. Good on ya for beating the rush on cultivating native, drought-resistant plants. The things I’ve talked about have been true off and on for the last few years up in my part of the state (Bay area). We were in drought level 2 for last two years or so until the five months of rain hit. (Thanks, climate change, I guess). During the worst of it they were indeed discussing fines for unwarranted water usage (like watering cement that doesn’t need it) and increasing rates for folks not bright enough to water during early morning or evening.
All these tribulations are relative tho, compared to what happens in places like India. I’ve lived in a place where electricity is privilege not a right, outages can last days, and water rationing is conducted by the government turning the pipes off at the source and forcing people to line up at public water pumps.
Electric failures are dangerous. There is no excuse for a poor infrastructure. None. Limiting electricity during wet bulb conditions is murder. With wet bulb conditions and no air conditioning that is death. That is a death sentence full stop.
Yep, but our government doesn't seem to care!
For the uninitiated, what are "wet bulb" conditions?
@@mantha6912 I believe they're referring to conditions when the "wet bulb" temperature (the temperature of a thermometer wrapped in wet towels, rather than measured dry) becomes relevant, because the actual temperature is above the survivable 40C and the heat dissipation capacity of a person's evaporating sweat (which changes depending on the humidity) is important for survival.
For a Canadian like me, the closest (opposite) situation would be to refer to conditions where 'wind chill' becomes a factor -- meaning the temperature is dangerous enough that if you lose too much body heat you'll freeze, and the speed of the breeze and your degree of shelter from it determines how fast that heat is sapped away from you, and if it's faster than your body can replenish it.
Either way, the temperature is so far out of the safe range that you need to look at other factors (for heat, humidity; for cold, wind speed) to determine just HOW lethal it is.
...and, THAT's their plan.
Kill off poor working class people; so, the very wealthiest can live high on the hog.
Thank you! I'd never heard of 'wet bulb' before, either...you had me at (opposite of) wind chill...greetings from MI, our northern cousins💯💙🤟
I am so glad my son doesn't live in Texas any more almost froze to death a few winters ago. And to my people still there I hope and pray your electricity doesn’t go off during this summer's long heat wave. I was there a few minths ago it was only 102 in Houston. Unreal that it was 95 at 9 pm.
I'm in Texas. We normally have 90+ degF temps in summer, and a few scattered weeks of 100. We are now into weeks of 100+ temps and no rain in my area north of Houston since June. Scattered showers last night missed me. No rain means no grass and no hay for my animals. I'm praying for fall rain like last year for a late cut. But not sure how much grass will be left in the hayfields. And terrified of another wildfire like the Tri-County fire several years ago. There is a HUGE one raging along the TX-LA border right now. Over 15,000 acres, mostly timberland, and one small LA town has been evacuated.
So sorry about the fires. They are terrifying. We were evacuated two years ago for 18 days. Our home was safe, but I still have PTSD.
My city in the Pacific Northwest rainforest started water use restrictions in 1992, because it was already known this was coming one day. Now the residents are mentally prepped for it. There hasn't been a heatwave this year, but it's only rained twice all summer. After last years drought and this year as well, the shrubs & trees are looking damaged.
We don't care about yellow grass, and many homeowners have gardens rather than vast areas of mown grass instead.
I introduced a wonderful lady to your channel today, Hi Barbi!! ❤❤ Jeannie in Lakeport California Welcome to the real world....
The whole time I lived in TX there were basic watering restrictions. The city I lived in also outlawed rock gardens and other low water solutions. Thoughts and prayers to everyone's foundations in Texas. It's not going to be pretty.
"Outlaw rock gardens"? I'm used to the city not helping, but that's actively making thinks worse than 😱
@@sigmascrub It was a "master planned"community. I'm not sad I don't live there anymore.
Why were rock gardens and other low water solutions outlawed? I have a friend in Las Vegas who converted all of the landscaping around her house to a desert-based design.
@@SteveBrant55 Beats me. They wouldn't let the Home Depot have any orange on it's exterior at all. They just had their "standards".
@@sigmascrub It's not. Rock gardens absorb far more heat and thus actually worsen the situation.
Is this the part where people of a certain political persuasion throw screaming tantrums at the very suggestion of being asked to modify their individual behavior for the common good?
Thank you for the update on Texas
Second day in a row I’ve gotten an email from ERCOT about the voluntary reduction.
Thanks, Abbott!
One of the problems we've had in the UK (aside from the insanity of having privatised the water boards in the first place), is that the people most likely to put their (non-sustenance) garden above the common interest, are exactly the people for whom a £2k fine is an annoyance. It's the equivalent of the speeding ticket being a "go as fast as you like" fee. We have to get serious, and the short-term solution to that is means-tested fines, be it income, or property value, it has to actually hurt, the way 2k would hurt pretty much everyone in this comment section, if it is be any deterrent, failing that or an x strikes and it becomes a criminal offence, but that means getting legislators to write something that hurts people like them, so unlikely. Maybe you could take that Texan anti-abortion bounty-hunter law, and use that. I recon a few decent folx (who have nary so much as a window box, let alone a lawn) would be happy to do their civic duty, for a 10k reward, that'd do a bit of business.
Fines like this should be a % of income and assets. £2000 may not hurt them, but when it starts hitting £100000 or more for every violation they to may start to think twice.
Amen!@@kattkatt744
Sorry folks, no water for your grass, we kinda need it to keep the humans alive. How about you stop pretending that you live in New England and plant stuff you don't need to water?
Props to my dad, he understood this in the 80's. We moved to Albuquerque and our house had a large turf grass back yard. Dad thought it would be a shame to waste that much water on it, so we dug it all up and did native plants and a nice deck. Within 2 months we had roadrunners. =)
I'd love to do that, but it's certainly a no-go with most HOAs.
I weep for all the animals who die of dehydration and heat stroke because humans have drained everything and taken everything. Just too many humans making mindless demands on the lifeboat we call earth. Our turn is coming apparently. Death by heat and drying inside is quite horrific I'd imagine.
Lol our house in abq had a big dirt yard. We kids dug a great big hole in it to make a fort or something. We didn’t get roadrunners, just black widows.
@@BC25citizen Oh we got those too. Got my annual spider bite several years in a row. =D
ERCOT, less reliable? Never.
But, yeah. As a Texan, born and raised (now 41), and a part of that in Houston, can confirm that the extreme droughts and measures are not what's been occurring in theast 41 years. Especially in Houston. Houston has been known for being reliably wet.
A large part of our energy crisis is not only about the hottest years, but also unprecedented growth Texas has had. More people equals more power. And before people say "Don't California my Texas" you can blame that on Abbott. Him and his corporation friendly allies lure big businesses in with lax laws, lower taxes, and less regulation. Bringing those businesses means bringing in more people to work at those businesses. The very atmosphere the conservatives complain about is made worse by Republican rulings.
But yeah, it's hot and dry in Texas. Lakes are at near or all time lows. There's a lake with the longest floating boardwalk that doesn't have a floating boardwalk because that part of the lake is dried up.
On a side note. We're supposedly going to have a chilly, possibly rough winter, so ERCOT is really being put to the test.
I’m in Corpus Christi. 30 year old male, and I threw up the other day it’s so hot. I was outside for 20 minutes trying to get a car off jack stands. Tropical storm was SO NICE!
WAIT. I thought Texas was a FREEDOM state. RESTRICTING WATER USE? What happened to "Don't Tread on Me (and my water usage)!!"???
Texas isn't sounding so free right now.
Reality doesn't seem to come with arbitrary freedoms. Who knew?
Turning communist 😂
Well...my fellow Texans will just shoot the drought with their humongous arsenal of GUNS. That'll work, right?
@@breakingbadheisenberg9703 - that's not communism. Communism is an economic operational model.
Authoritarianism is the political model.
not that I think what Texas is doing is either.
The people there always brag about their freedoms... and restricting water use during a drought makes good common sense.
And the punchline to that is that Texans think they can do whatever whenever and the reality is, if they're smart, they'll acknowledge there's a time and a place.
117 degrees yesterday at around 6 pm. yesterday in Dallas. Trucker here
My sister in law in Midlothian sent us pictures of cracks in the ground on her property that one could literally loose a phone in.
I recommend people watch the British sci-fi film "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" from 1961. Told from the point of view of journalists at a major London newspaper, it's a serious look at what happens to a nation when temperatures shoot up and water becomes scarce. (Please ignore the somewhat silly title of the film.)
Thanks for the recommendation. I will look at this. Cheers
Howdy folks!
Yeah, most of my close and extended family are in Texas. One of them just told me that there *isn’t* a heat wave, there’s no problem with electricity, climate change isn’t real and they are having normal summer comditions!!! Willfully ignorant. So effing sad. ☹😟😤
My sympathies to you. My family and I have had problems for years, because of their willful ignorance. I try not to judge, but I'll be damned if they won't open their eyes.
It's hot , turn up the air conditioner 😂
That is sad. I lived there and i never faced what they have now.
Hey, one more reason to move to Texas! Such a fantastic business 'climate'!
Was really nice to see Ercot's CEO on local DFW news multiple times this week with 0 tough questions asked or pushback from the interviewer.
Water conservation from one who lived off of rain catchment: Pee into a bucket and flush it down only when the bucket is getting full (saves 20 gals/day) Don't run the water while you're brushing your teeth! Wet the brush, turn the water off and brush, spit and then water on to wash the brush and rinse the sink. In the shower: wet your body, then turn the water off, soap up, then water on to rinse off: Wet, Soap, Rinse, done! Conserve, conserve, conserve.
A submarine shower!
I kind of understood when Texas was caught off guard when it got really cold, but I kind of thought they'd have expected it to get hot.
There are over a thousand water mains busted around San Antonio because of extreme heat!
Only over a thousand?
Awful & tragic
That means a lot of wasted water, no?
oh boy, my city is in Beau's news again.....
What could go wrong, hottest summer in recorded history, water restrictions and spotty electricity? 🙁For a political party which puts your life before company profits, vote blue. 😉👍💙🇺🇸🕊
How do they get away with this? Gerrymandered districts and blaming the Democrats - who haven't been in charge for 30 years. No Statewide Offices OR Legislative majorities in all that time.
*will most of the time put your life before profits.
Democrats are plenty capable of being corrupt and putting profits before lives. But they won't always. And they definitely will attempt to fix the root problem once hit by a crisis. Execution might be crap and slow though.
Meanwhile the alternative is a situation like Texas. Where hundreds of people freeze to death in their homes and years later absolutely no real improvements or attempt to revamp the system to handle intense weather due to climate change because profits. They aren't even trying.
💙
In the town where my mother lives they have a day of the week watering schedule. So you can only water on the day you are assigned. And no watering at all for anyone one day a week. This shit is real folks. Demand your reps do more to prepare for the future or we wont have one.
Wait, Texas has an energy policy?
Underrated comment! ^^
Yes it's drill baby drill (can exchange drill for frack)
Don't mess with Texas!!!😠
Yeah, it's already a mess.....
✌️Beau
It's always amazed me how long these record keepings have been tracked. Must have been some smart fellows back then.
I live in Dallas. This is why my lawn is on the Darwin Plan-survival of the fittest! I don’t waste water on a lawn.
I wonder how many Houstonians are already familiar with these measures? 🤔
Cheers from California!🥂😂
In DFW, half of our days over 100°F this summer have been over 105°F.
Today was 108°F with a low of 82°F, breaking daily records for both high and low temps.
When the ground gets this hot and dry, it can cause major foundation issues.
Everyone I know has issues with ERCOT, but I'm in a more educated and more liberal area.
I'm not from Texas, but I've lived in Kansas all my 39 years. Never saw hot fog before this summer. I had no idea that outside could literally turn into a sauna. It sucks that kids are growing up with this, because there are more and more days where it's not safe to go outside for any extended period. I feel ashamed when I think about it and I don't even have kids.
It bewilders me that some otherwise sensible people have rosey projections for Texas in light of its climate reality and how poorly, and wilfully so for political reasons, it runs crucial power and water infrastructure.
Muh gunz, muh freedumbs, muh faith and now muh lawn.......I can't wait to hear the screaming and crying. Time to protest. Hahaha
That's why we need get rid of the governor we have not the 1st time
It will make you a believer sooner or later
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine 😢
Would anyone else not be surprised if Abbot said his no water break thing was him attempting to deal with the water shortage or something like that?
Thank you Beau and Crew.