The U.S. national security and intelligence apparatus has said for years that climate change is the single greatest threat to the nation and world. While systems intrusion and hacking by foreign actors could potentially have replicated some of what happened in Texas, it didn't.

Climate change and failure to plan did that, along with incompetence, ineptitude, and sheer greed.

Not only was what happened in Texas the failure of governance and malfeasance, it was a complete failure of imagination, vision, and insight.

While some folks want to call it a "black swan event," the fact is what happened in Texas was not. Not only was it anticipated, it was predicted. The people in charge were told what the problems were, how to fix them and why. They were told what to expect if they didn't.

Not only was it a cyclical occurrence (the third time in just over 30 years), both the periodicity and severity are increasing and intensifying. Therefore, the choices for inaction paved the way for the occurrence. It was inevitable.

In this regard, conservative ideology, philosophy and fiscal beliefs are their own worse enemy. That's because conservatism's most natural response is at best to do nothing, at worst to resist. Therefore, the disaster was a multi-layered, time induced, mountain of self-sabotage.