UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres lashed out at Texas and Texans at a press conference last week, telling the media that “If Texas wants to remain prosperous in 2050 or 2070, Texas will have to diversify its economy and Texas will have to be less dependent on oil and gas. It has all the conditions to be – because of the weather in Texas – a leading state in renewable energy in the US.”
Gutteres went onto say that “Texas is prosperous today because Texas is based on what was the main factor of what was wealth and power in the last century. Oil and gas. What we are seeing is, with things changing, the green economy will tend to be preponderant in the future.” So, the UN’s talking points on climate change evolve from merely alarming to needlessly offensive.
This would be amusing if it weren’t so inexcusable for the leader of the UN to be so astonishingly uninformed. The fact is that the state of Texas set out on a concerted effort to diversify its economy in the wake of the oil bust of 1985 and has continued to focus on that effort ever since. State leaders at that time realized that the economy here was overly-reliant on oil and gas and that diversification was crucial to the state’s future success and prosperity.
That was 36 years ago, and while the oil and gas industry certainly continues to make significant contributions to the state’s economy and funding of schools and government, Texas is not nearly as reliant on the industry as states like New Mexico, Wyoming, North Dakota, Alaska, Oklahoma and Louisiana continue to be.
As for the “green economy,” Guterres apparently hasn’t been informed of it, but Texas is already far and away the leading U.S. state in the build-out and usage of wind power. The amount of electricity generated by the Texas wind industry exceeds that of all but a handful of countries on the face of the earth, in fact.
Someone might also want to let Sec. Guterres know that Texas is home to a booming solar industry. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the rate of growth in solar generation in Texas in recent years has out-paced every other state in the union, and is on track to surpass California in total utility-scale generating capacity within the coming few years.
But it’s not just about energy. Texas has long been home to Dell, and outside of Silicon Valley, Austin has become the largest center for high-tech business in the nation. The Dallas and Houston areas are also home to booming high-tech sectors.
Ill informed, ignorant conmunist democrats gonna prove the maxim of speaking and removing all doubt. Every time.
This guy should never have been confirmed. But when you have RINO Republicants in the Senate all bets are off.
Renewable energy technology in Texas failed miserably last winter. Unless something was done between then and now, if there is another brutally frigid winter they will fail again. Renewable energy, in its current configuration and state, is NOT READY for prime-time.