Let’s face it, petroleum built the Texas we know today. My own father was a petroleum engineer, and the oil business put me through Texas A&M, where I earned a BBA and an MS in Finance. In the twentieth century, energy-dense fossil fuels powered a burgeoning human population to heights of achievement and development unimaginable just a century earlier. And Texas went from being a nearly bankrupt republic to one of the wealthiest economies on the planet.

But just in my lifetime, the global human population has doubled. That’s four billion more humans than there were in 1960. And every one of those humans engages in the activities that give rise to climate change. The lowest range growth projections have us adding yet another billion by 2050, and let’s not kid ourselves. The burning of fossil fuels has emitted carbon residues into our whole environment that will not be recaptured for centuries by natural means. And those carbon emissions continue today, almost unabated. Progress on reducing emissions is being made, but I fear we’ve run out of time.

In 2023, humanity endured the earth’s hottest year on record with brutal extremes of weather worldwide. After that global experience, if anyone still remains unconvinced that climate change is real, here, and now, then I see no way of reasoning with them. We must do more to develop and expand alternative energies, develop new methods of carbon-capture at scale; and we must do it much faster.

But again, let’s be real. Depending on the spot price of oil, the value of proven petroleum reserves worldwide can vary from 100 to 200 trillion dollars. The owners of all that wealth are not simply going to walk away from it, and this is the force humanity is up against in our fight for survival. And yes, I do believe that’s what it is. But in a capitalist world, law and policy makers can’t simply ignore these powerful interests. Western economies are never going to abandon capitalism. And as critical as I am of Wall Street greed, I still conclude that a midfield balance of capitalism and socialism is the best economic model ever devised, and that prosperity has spread most widely when we’ve pursued it.

Now a state as wealthy as Texas can contribute much to carbon mitigation efforts. The good news is that great ideas are being researched and promulgated all over the world. We have it in our power as a democracy to encourage investment in these efforts and so we should. One plan being promoted is for oil and gas drilling companies to apply their existing technologies to tap into geothermal sources. With some encouragement and political fortitude, there’s no reason we can’t pursue solutions like these.