Speak up for science YOUR TURN
Re: “Hotez urges help fighting antiscience aggression,” Business, Nov. 15: Chris Tomlinson’s column about Baylor College of Medicine professor Dr. Peter Hotez and the cost of anti-science aggression is alarming, and his warning that we need to join the campaign against anti-science misinformation is compelling. This leads me to ask, “What about the passive-aggressive, anti-science movement happening right now in Texas?”
Texas voters recently approved Proposition 7, authorizing creation of the Texas energy fund to help prevent a repeat ERCOT bungle. However, camouflaged in the ballot’s wording was the reality that this solely benefits fossil-fueled energy at a time when cleaner solar and wind projects generate about 39% of Texas electricity, which have actually reduced costs.
Instead of working toward balanced, reliable energy production, Prop 7 shuns sustainable energy from taxpayer-funded resources at a time when climate change acceleration is scientifically correlated to the burning of fossil fuels. The myopic engineers of this exclusion will not focus beyond the deep pockets of their political donors in the oil and gas industry — science be damned.
Concurrently, members of the State Board of Education are rejecting science textbooks that discuss global warming. Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian hyperbolically asked the board to avoid books that “promote a radical environmentalist agenda” at a time when all Texans have personally experienced the ravages, or at least the expense and discomfort, of extreme climate change.
As Tomlinson implores us, Texans must stand up to anti-science bullies now — because the closer we move to full-out climate crisis, the fewer options we will have.