Katharine Hayhoe and the climate change spin cycle

The Texas Observer recently interviewd Katherine Hayhoe. And? It's "meh" what the climate scientist famous for trying to convince fellow evangelical Christians that even her slightly-squishy level of concern is anything more than socialism has to say.

First of all, IMO, she's a bit squishy about the severity of climate change. I've thought that for several years and tangled with her and others on Twitter, summing that up in this blog post.

Let's not forget, as I said then, that she comes off as a nice polite Obamiac, and considering she's from the Great White North, she's surely a nice polite Canadian. And, she and co-nice polite climate change scientist Bob Kopp fellated the Paris Accord.

IMO, as of right now, we have 50-50 odds of hitting 5C by 2100. And, as I've said repeatedly, the Paris Accord is little more than Jell-O.

Within the interview, she spins, about how Texas is decarbonizing about as fast as any other state, among other things. Untrue. Until the Lege adopts a feed-in tariff system for rooftop solar, this will surely remain untrue. Until Texas joins many Western states with a fixed target for renewable energy, this will remain untrue.

As for Texas' energy resilience? It was less than a decade ago that, because ERCOT is largely disconnected from other portions of the US power grid, that it had to get electricity from Mexico in a severe cold snap.

(Update, April 4, 2022: Hayhoe got away with saying this bullshit because it was before Winter Storm Uri. And, I just Tweeted the Observer asking if they asked her for a "retraction." And yes, that's the word I used; those aren't scare quotes, they're quote marks regular style.

Specifically, she claimed that the Texas electric grid was "resilient." AND, good neoliberal, said that this was because it's independent of the rest of the nation's electric grid.

And 19.2 percent of the power on the [statewide] ERCOT grid last year was wind and solar. This is all happening because of the state’s energy policy, not because of our climate policy. Texas’ independence has actually made it more resilient

Seriously. This is the person that Texas librulz hold up as a Texas exceptionalist exemplar of what Texas could really do on climate change.

She's got the goods, squish level of climate change aside, on what's going to happen to Texas. She's just spinning on how she claims Texas is already adapting.

As for the Observer? Why? Is this one of those pieces where it dives into a defensive version of Texas exceptionalism?

(Update, April 4, 2022: She's also wrong about the role of fear, and emotions in general, in human living. She needs to read some Hume, among other things.)