Across the state, Texans are forced to watch helplessly as our politics devolve into mean-spirited petty grievance and blatant corruption, leaving us unable to act collectively to address pressing issues like gun violence, health-care inaccessibility, and the unsettling rise of “child care deserts.” What it means to be Texan is changing, and it is telling that the Elon Musks and Joe Rogans of the world find refuge within the state to live out their cowboy fantasies and revel in the do-as-thou-wilt, devil-may-care world of unfettered industrial deregulation, little to no taxes on the ultra-wealthy, and fascist resurgence.
Growing up between Jamaica and Houston, I’ve been able to compare and contrast how those most impacted by climate change and those most responsible for it react to the steady onset of our unequal new reality. A few days before making landfall in Texas in early July, Hurricane Beryl swept through Jamaica, where it also caused widespread power outages.
While Jamaica is much more deeply bogged down in corruption and political cronyism than the United States, the universality of the country’s collective experience of extreme weather phenomena leaves its leaders little room to distance themselves or deny the reality of anthropogenic climate change. While I am reluctant to assign them a passing grade, there is much to be said for the decisiveness of their response: They wasted no time coordinating disaster response measures, handing out grants to those most impacted, implementing plans to climate-proof the country’s agricultural sector, and performing intensive post-mortems of the resilience of the nation’s electrical grid.
