How Texas is transforming from a gas guzzler to a green jobs state

Brut America

The biggest oil and gas producer in the United States is also a growing leader in clean energy.  Here’s how local climate action is driving the green economy and creating new jobs in Texas…  Learn more at: https://www.c40.org/about-c40/

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00:00This is the heartland of oil and gas worldwide.

00:04The wide highways, all the gas guzzlers, every other block, there's four gas stations.

00:12At least that's what people think.

00:23The energy landscape is changing quite a bit in Texas.

00:27Currently, we have 24,000 and growing jobs in our wind sustainable energy component,

00:34and it is projected that our solar capacity is going to increase 70-fold by 2030.

00:45There's a bigger shift going on, and that's a paradigm shift here in Texas,

00:50around people thinking about green jobs as comforting jobs, as jobs of the future.

00:57The

01:20promise of a really just and significant transition to green jobs in our city is economic

01:28beyond the climate change mitigation benefits.

01:31What made me rethink my career was actually witnessing a fracking site,

01:35flares that are burning 24-7, and thousands of those flares only in

01:43central Texas. That really was the eye-opener for me.

02:05The scariest thing about giving up an oil and gas job was just the perceived comfort, right?

02:12I'm a first-generation immigrant, so my parents came from Egypt, very humble beginnings.

02:18After college, I found myself in the middle of oil country down in Houston.

02:23I was responsible for securing land and mineral rights so that oil companies could drill.

02:29And to be honest, I didn't really understand the implications of my work.

02:33And we're not going to get to the end goal unless we start making pretty radical changes now.

02:47In achieving that end goal, we do it in an equitable way, recognizing

02:51that our path needs to include everyone in a fair and just manner.

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