If you’ve not heard about the “clean energy” executive orders signed by President Joe Biden and you’re in Louisiana, I’d like to welcome you out of your coma. It has been the subject of many conversations and rightfully so when you consider how important the oil and gas industry is to the area.
We have to end our addiction to fossil fuels. The earth won’t survive it. But how do you balance that with the basic human desire for dignified work? How do you assuage fears of not being able to take care of oneself or a family?
If any “green deal” is to be reached, it will require the buy in of those currently in the fossil fuel business. You can’t just flip a switch and tell those oil and gas workers that leave work on Friday to show up at the solar plant on Monday. There needs to be a well thought out transition that protects the planet while economically protecting the people that live on it.
What exactly do the orders that President Biden signed call for? How many jobs and families could they effect? What timeline could we be looking at? Those were among the questions I posed to our guest, Greg Upton, an Associate Research Professor at the Center for Energy Studies at LSU. His answers were important.
