Dear Editor,
It seems that people like to be scared sometimes, so they watch movies about. . .
serial killers in hockey masks or play video games where they’re tasked to fight other-worldly villain monsters with puny machine guns. I’m not much drawn to that type of fantasy. There are things that have happened in real life, or things that very well could happen in real life, that are plenty scary for me to contemplate.
For example, what would happen if Quebec was as stupid as Texas has been about diversifying and improving its electrical infrastructure? Twenty-some years ago, two weeks of freeze/thaw cycle led to ice buildup on long-distance electrical cables, transmitting power to much of the northeast of the continent. The towers, having been built on a ‘just good enough’ basis, collapsed, leaving millions to freeze in the dark, as a former mayor of a city in Alberta once quipped. Many of our readers won’t remember that, because they weren’t born then. Some were born because of it. It was sexy, romantic and real. Imagine if that had happened this past winter — COVID restrictions, plus no electric heat and no Internet. Yes, folks, the Internet depends upon electricity, not only at your house, but at the other points on the data grid as well.
Afterward, Quebec improved its transmission lines to withstand that amount of ice should it ever occur again. Texas is not as smart about the grim reality of its electrical grid and power sources. Instead of investing in electrical grid improvements, the governor has decided to build a wall to block immigrants from south of the border. That is a strange, other-worldly, ghastly misdirection of resources, considering that people froze last winter and are burning up this summer, in a place that knows temperature variations. That’s an unrealistic set of priorities — it seems that the governor of Texas spends too much time playing video games and not enough time figuring out how to make life better for the people who live there. And that’s scary, indeed, the monsters who have been elected cater to the wealthy, not the masses of people in their jurisdiction.
Robert Wills
Shawville and Thorne, Que.
