Who gets to keep the lights on?

As our climate crisis continues to unfold, who gets to keep the lights on? On August 11th, a derecho hit northwest Indiana, and the predominantly Black city of Gary was left without power for 14 days… which makes it one of the longest power outages in modern US history, according to Electric Choice. As more and more reports of outages and struggling infrastructure come out of these seasonal storms, it made Brittany wonder: How does where we live - or even certain attitudes about where we live - affect the quality of service we get?  To answer that question, Jenae Barnes, health and environment reporter, and Shalanda Baker, Professor of Environment and Sustainability; Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate Action at the University of Michigan join the show. Jenae and Shalanda walk Brittany through how our aging power grid - coupled with climate change, the strain of new technologies, and a lack of investment - exposes the systemic shortcomings that very well might leave all of us in the dark.   NIPSCO’s full message to their customers here.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy