While we should all be very proud of the individual efforts of Texans during the aftermath of Harvey, let’s not let this impressive local chutzpah distract us from the key takeaway points. Wait, I’m being told the Keys have already been taken away by Irma. In 2017, we remain woefully unprepared for future meteorological events, which can mostly be attributed to a Lemony Snickets-syle series of unfortunate elections. Let’s review the Republican scorecard: 1. They didn’t want a carbon tax to reduce the CO2 levels in the atmosphere; 2. Under Trump, city planning projects are forbidden to use flood studies that take rising sea levels into consideration; 4. They never want to fund basic civil engineering projects to protect our cities in the first place, citing cost and a general repulsion to anything resembling forethought; and 5. They have always been reluctant to switch to green energies for fear of improving our species chance of survival.