Interesting to see you say that about Texans, as my experience is nearly the complete opposite. Texas is the country's leading wind power state, and is pretty big on solar as well. Among most of the people I interact with daily (friends as well as colleagues), are not people I would consider "pro fossil fuel" at all. And this is coming from people mostly in Dallas/Houston, where oil & gas is much bigger than in Austin. I can even think of a couple friends of mine that actually work for the major oil companies, and even they I would not describe as "pro fossil fuel". One of them drives a Prius. When I was at school at UT, even amongst the buildings and lecture halls that are sponsored and paid for by Chevron/Exxon, I never encountered an anti-renewable sentiment. Hell, McCombs has a masters degree program specifically geared towards exploring renewable energy businesses (as well as several undergrad classes, one of which I took), and I know the engineering school has an entire department for researching renewables.
Most of my friends are in their late 20s/early 30s though, so maybe that makes a difference. I could see older folks who grew up when oil was king maybe being opposed to solar/wind. But even then, now that I think about it, one of my friend's grandparents (who are from West Texas) were very thankful for the wind industry and the money it brought to their town (it got brought up because we made a remark about how there seemed to be endless wind turbines in every direction on the drive through W Texas to visit them).
I just browsed through a few polls and based on them, it seems you must be really unlucky to encounter so many people unwilling to discuss renewables. According to these polls [1][2][3][4], 80%+ of Texans support renewable/clean energy.
I'd be interested to hear more about what types of conversations you try to have and who (age range, industry) you interact with when you find these people. It surprises me that this has been your experience, especially in Austin of all places.
1: https://www.citizen.org/may-11-texas-poll-shows-citizens-wan...
2: https://www.wsj.com/articles/which-state-is-a-big-renewable-...
3: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/04/survey-texans-suppor...
4: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/climate/renewable-energy-...
Most of my friends are in their late 20s/early 30s though, so maybe that makes a difference. I could see older folks who grew up when oil was king maybe being opposed to solar/wind. But even then, now that I think about it, one of my friend's grandparents (who are from West Texas) were very thankful for the wind industry and the money it brought to their town (it got brought up because we made a remark about how there seemed to be endless wind turbines in every direction on the drive through W Texas to visit them).
I just browsed through a few polls and based on them, it seems you must be really unlucky to encounter so many people unwilling to discuss renewables. According to these polls [1][2][3][4], 80%+ of Texans support renewable/clean energy.
I'd be interested to hear more about what types of conversations you try to have and who (age range, industry) you interact with when you find these people. It surprises me that this has been your experience, especially in Austin of all places.
1: https://www.citizen.org/may-11-texas-poll-shows-citizens-wan...
2: https://www.wsj.com/articles/which-state-is-a-big-renewable-...
3: https://www.texastribune.org/2016/05/04/survey-texans-suppor...
4: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/06/climate/renewable-energy-...