Texas freeze led to release of tons of air pollutants as refineries shut

[TaylorSwift 162,335]

The largest U.S. oil refiners released tons of air pollutants into the skies over Texas this week, according to figures provided to the state, as one environmental crisis triggered another.

Refiners and petrochemical plants along the U.S. Gulf Coast scrambled to shut production as an arctic air mass spread into a region unused to frigid temperatures.

Shutdowns led to the refineries flaring, or burning and releasing gases, to prevent damage to their processing units. That flaring darkened the skies in eastern Texas with smoke visible for miles.
 

Jane Williams, chair of the Sierra Club's National Clean Air Team said "These emissions can dwarf the usual emissions of the refineries by orders of magnitude," and U.S. regulators must change policies that allow "these massive emissions to occur with impunity." 

source

[Economy 52,842]

I guess the oil products that didnt get produced a lot of them ended up getting flared on site...

 

I thought temporarily less pollution came out of texas due to situation but instead it all just came out from one end hot spot 

 

 

[Mister G 10,512]

It really shouldn't take natural disasters and chaos of this magnitude to expose how weak certain political figures are...Texas ya'll deserve so much better than the scheisse in there right now.

[bionic 50,111]

1 hour ago, Mister G said:

It really shouldn't take natural disasters and chaos of this magnitude to expose how weak certain political figures are...Texas ya'll deserve so much better than the scheisse in there right now.

Texan political leaders are responsible for getting the state in this position

[Guest]

of course. I never involved such events when thinking of feedback loops but it totally makes sense. Thanks for makinh me more pessimistic about the climate crisis than I already am