Dear Friends,                                                                           No recriminations

Enough, we’ve given them every possible chance. Nothing. Let’s take stock, from the (flooded) ground up: immediate responses; responses from local to state level; immediately available resources; first use of these resources; first responders; … and then … everything that was in place, before, everything that already stood in defense against the known possibilities of flood – well-known from prior tragedies.

I’m not listing these things as a score-card to measure the response to emergency by the necessary responders. I always have so much sympathy for those caught in the emergency simply because I have so much doubt in my own ability to respond.

What was in place? Look it up (I’m talking to the “authorities”). How well was it executed? Investigate. Was it adequate to the situation? Yes, that one’s hard. Immediate suggestions after we have preliminary answers to these questions?

None of this is easy when, as I write (7/11/2025), around 170 persons are still missing, many of them children. But we must go on.

Everyone knows that this flood was not simply a natural (God-given or not) event. It is part of a known, and well-understood emergent order. Global, human-induced climate change makes extreme weather conditions more extreme. The Gulf (of Mexico) states have always been subject to extreme weather. When weather conditions overall become more extreme then the extreme conditions normal in the Gulf States will be, normally, even more extreme.

All of that was non-recriminatory, except that the reactionaries, who know that it is true, deny it. They deny it because … sorry, I’m way beyond worrying about why, that’s their problem, we are all in mortal danger because of whatever dumbass excuse they come up with. It’s way past time to be saying everywhere and always

climate change will kill us all,

climate change deniers ask us all to commit suicide

The Texas floods belong to the global climatic system. Their precise location gives them their specific place in that system. The Guadalupe River is the center. The Guadalupe has caused devastating floods many times before. When there’s “normal” extreme weather in central Texas, it’s a good bet that the Guadalupe will be pulling its weight. As “normal” weather shifts so that “extreme” weather becomes more extreme, the Guadalupe River will become something like a barometer establishing the new normal.

Lots of investigating, data to gather, analysis, etc., etc. etc. Yes, there probably will be lots of mistakes at every level. Someone probably needs to sort through all that. I don’t. All I want is for everyone to take on the task of planning for tomorrow from what we know today. And I mean planning with a very big capital P.

Scientific study of climate change is the most important thing if we’re going to survive. Yes, but it won’t be worth a plugged nickel unless we, WE, all of us listen to it and force our governments to listen it.

We’ve known all this for a long time. Remember the Guadalupe’s dead, pledge to them that we will remember, and that we will act!

Love and solidarity,

            Bobby