Getting Serious about Renewable Energy in Texas

Here’s a piece that suggests that the people of Texas are developing a cleaner grid-mix, because they’re tired of have huge swaths of residential land destroyed by hurricanes, e.g., Beryl of June and July, 2024.

This is a great example of something that I’ve been talking about for years: climate change is a global phenomenon, and making slow progress in decarbonizing the energy sector in a place like Texas will have an infinitesimally small effect on the local climate (even if the people of the state have the political will to make it happen, which they most assuredly do not).  In particular, the hurricanes that are increasingly devastating to Texas generally form off the coast of West Africa, generated and strengthened by rising ocean temperatures.

Of course, I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth, and any positive change is good, but I do want to add a dash of reason here.

As I told the emissary of Germany’s state department who asked me what his country could be doing better vis-a-vis renewable energy. After more than an hour of being peppered with essentially the same question, I finally responded, “In large measure, it doesn’t matter.  This is a problem we either come together and solve as a global community, or we’re all going to suffer in ways that are completely unprecedented.”