Houston's green push | Forecasting With Friends

all right welcome to forecasting with friends where today we actually have legitimate friends and we actually have some really important stuff to talk about today uh instead of just showing you animal videos and all the stuff that we usually do so we're joined by Lindsey row now Lindsay is the president of allies and energy um but also the uh you are on the board of the Houston energy and climate week this is the inaugural first one the first one and uh Houston is known as the energy capital of the world but not often are we uh you this climate come into that conversation so let's tell everybody what is Houston energy and climate week what's it all about first of its kind there are climate weeks that have been happening around the world New York has a climate week San Francisco London and we knew that Houston needs to be part of this conversation but to your point we have energy here so it needs to be an energy and climate Focus so what Houston energy and climate week is is a series of self-organized events around the community various locations not one set location to make sure that we are gathering and sharing and talking about all of the really great Innovation that's happening here um but also asking the hard questions and making sure we're coming together because there are sometimes differing views when you think about energy and climate together but there is a common ground that really is going to be what we need to propel us forward so making sure we have that space for that practical real solution finding time so we're excited about having the first one this year yeah and I'm glad it's centered here in Houston too so I guess the bottom line for for those of you watching is that when when there are climate Summits um you have people who are coming who are all basically of the same mindset um from the same causes and same types of organizations but this in this event you're going to have people talking communicating who are in the oil business in the EXP uh energy exploration business but also in the you know the business of a building a green economy or or Building green architecture and things like that which is something that doesn't often happen but it needs to happen so what we know is that the future of energy is going to need a really big mix and oil and gas has to be a part of that mix so we have something that's part of our week called the unity commitment which means we're all in this together everyone needs to be at the table and we need to figure out those real solutions and have that real hard questions asked and and make sure we're answering those and so we want the Collision if you will but to be done civy without much discourse yeah and that that rarely happens right because uh there's a lot of name calling finger pointing especially in politics right so are there going to be any politicians involved I I mean I I know well first of all I want everybody to know this is all volunteer run you're volunteering for this everybody's volunteering for this um are the right ears going to be there that's what we're really hoping so the Allies in energy which is that nonprofit we talked about our goal is to bring the ears and the eyes so we're going to have an opening and a closing we do have commissioner bionas who's going to open us up for the week we have um Angela Blanchard who is part of the the city's resilience and sustainability is going to be there as well and so we do have some of the government component with private sector too we're starting off and kicking it off with something called civil dialogues which is hosted by Linda lurel who has been one of our beloved anchors um and so she has a great series with Jee Becker that says let's ask the hard questions but let's learn how to do that civil yeah is there um out of all because there's a bunch of different events 62 in counting 62 events are they open to the public or how how does somebody get involved if they're interested great question some are open some are closed so we have 62 events at counting we're still taking submission right now we hope to have that closed by August 30th um if you go to climate houston.com you can see the calendar of events some are open some are closed register for what you can um and then obviously the opening and closing are there too but we want to build that platform so the website is where you can see everything that's happening across the city and we'll definitely have a link to that uh at fox26houston.com um when all is said and done what do you hope is going to come of this and is there any sort of like a summary I guess of some of the uh uh insights that might have been you know arrived at during this that can be then passed along to the people who can actually U Institute these changes yeah so we start off you know with a nonprofit you want that impact report what's our impact so our goal was 30 events we've done 60 we want a million eyeballs and the support of Fox 26 is helping us reach that make sure that the community is engaged but what we really want to have is for people to come and say I didn't know that and maybe walk away learning something that will be what spins us to start to say okay now how do we make a solution how do we find something common that's between oil and gas and between climate Renewables what's that next step that we can do as a city and as a city I mean such a huge employer here is the petrochemical you know complex right and so at least that they have a seat at the table you know which is something that is is seems unique right I mean what we see and we know here in Houston oil and gas is going to be around for the next several decades energy demand is going up you think about AI data centers all of this new Supply need we're going to need that big landscape and oil and gas is going to be part of that it's a part of our backbone here in Houston but we are a part of the backbone of powering the world uh okay the last thing I want to ask is are there energy the big energy companies have been making well some of them have been making some inroads into converting to some clean energy initiatives I think has done that maybe some others right uh do you see more of that I think we will and that's what we're going to see hopefully through this week is what's happening what's new what's the new technology what's decarbonizing what's happening within the energy sector that's not just necessarily providing hydrocarbons but what else is going on so we're hoping to learn more with this week very good all right Lindsay thank you so much for joining us up ahead we have two of the other volunteers who are going to let us know their perspective on things like the environment and corporate governance even architecture stick around for that Fox 26 is your G Coast weather authority and while our area is vast this storm could bring widespread flooding and dangerous winds to our entire our forecasting Zer Z these storm cells over the Ship Channel are particularly dangerous from your Community Memorial Park is getting hammered right now with heavy down down to your neighborhood streets we're starting to see the water rise along Buffalo Val it's hyper local cover from your G Coast Weather Authority only on Fox 26 Fox 26 News at 9 our breaking Bond reports hold judges accountable a 20-year-old charged with manslaughter the news Edge at 10 your Clues help find the missing her son never made it to his investigations that get results week nights on Fox 26 engaging and sharable visit the fox26 Houston Facebook page need a legal question answered Fox 26 legal expert Chris tro can help but this may be a pretty sizable claim that your sister has just send your legal questions to fox26 law at fox.com then tune in to Houston's morning show every Tuesday and Thursday at 7:00 a.m. to hear your questions answered but news doesn't stop on weekends we're learning more details about a story we first brought you yesterday morning and neither do we as we head throughout the afternoon that's when the rain starts moving in from the southwest Fox 6 Morning News weekends with Denise Middleton well now to a story you'll see only on Fox the family of a beloved bartender in north and meteorologist Allison gargaro right now we are seeing some of the heaviest rain start to push off to our Fox 26 Morning News weekend Saturdays and Sundays beginning at 500 a.m. the Fox 26 weather app with more features and one easy to use screen current weather at a glance high resolution interactive radar severe weather alert video forecasts and much more it's the power of your Gulf Coast Weather Authority in the palm of your hand the Fox 26 weather app downloaded today the Fox 26 YouTube page your home for the best Fox 26 has to offer the latest news good evening I'm Caroline Collins topping the run our most popular local programs like the Isaiah Factor run Center why the hell are so many people burn out and stories you may have missed from series like breaking Bond the quicker we get a grasp on what's Happening Sullivan Smart Sense and the missing please pick up the phone and call the police remember you can remain anonymous the Fox 26 YouTube page like And subscribe today all right welcome back we're talking about the inaugural Houston energy and climate week and we're joined by two more of the volunteers who are Professionals in their own right they have their own careers in the business of um environment green technologies working with companies to become more sustainable but also playing a key role in contributing to the conversation of Houston energy and climate week so uh we have Amanda Co and Steve steler I should have asked you I didn't know if it was stalzer or stalzer thank you so much for both of you joining us thanks for having us Mike so Amanda you you have a really cool job so you work with businesses to help them become more sustainable Greener uh and also to uh help the uh us the consumers kind of know what we're buying right so what are you going to bring to the table as far as communicating with the other participants in this week well I am citizens of I'm so my day job is working for climco as the senior vice president of Str Partnerships and volunteering with citizens environmental Coalition and that's where Steve and I are here together to talk about what the CC is doing with Houston um climate week and I think one of the exciting things that we're doing is we're just hosting of a happy hour on the Thursday is of September the 12th and just an opportunity for everyone of our members to come out for people who are just curious about the environment who people want to just share what they've learned throughout the week get together grab a tasty beverage yeah sustainable beverage hopefully sustainable um which they do have we learned all about this in second from Lindsay so thank you um and I think it's what lindsy highlighted is it's about learning but it's also about sharing so we like creating spaces for these events to happen this is environmental Coalition we're known for two Signature Events here in Houston the next one coming up is our greater Houston environmental Summit coming up on August um October the 18th sorry Friday October 18th at uh downtown and that's for anyone who's loving Houston climate week just wants to get more needs to know more wants to geek out it come to the summit that's where we're going to unpack even deeper and get really into the solutions and then the other um thing that we're known for is Earth a Houston we um co-organize that with C green wow when do you sleep we need people we need people working tirelessly like this okay so Steve um you have a background in architecture yes but especially in in green architecture you're like the man when it comes to that right one of them yeah so H how does Houston how what percentage of our buildings have taken into account energy conservation and that kind of thing or maybe have used some of your techniques um is it just a small number is it just residential the businesses do it more than you would think believe it or not um the US Green Building Council had a big influence with their lead rating system we have downtown and the various areas of um Class A office space and high-rise a lot of them are lead certified and a good number of them are lead certified for existing buildings in other words there's the new conr construction way and then there's tuning up your building so well that it's performing at an excellent level and that's a good fit with a lot of developers like why do I want to throw money away on energy um you know as I'm trying to make the best dollar I can can I can I ask you this uh Amanda yeah ESG um environmental social governance you got it is a uh enters into Investments now M mutual funds uh the you know private Equity investors we're talking about big money um want to invest or only invest in companies that are ranked high on ESG ratings does that factor into this kind of thing too I mean it all comes down to the almighty dollar doesn't it so there's got to be like an incentive for people and businesses and all of that stuff sometimes not just out of the goodness of their hearts but you know when it comes to to getting getting money isn't it I think people invest for all sorts of different reasons and what drives their investment decisions depends on their person or the Mandate of whoever is bringing that money for to investment and so we see really a spectrum of investment um some are some is value based right and that could be exclusionary I don't feel comfortable I don't want to invest in certain industries or it could be looking at more of a risk-based perspective I want to understand how a company is en managing their environmental social risk do they have good governance good ethic practices because I feel like it's going to drisk my investment and provide me a stronger return investment so it's it's a whole Spectrum I know like people tend to lump it into like one extreme or the other Spectrum but it's really a whole spectrum of investing and I'm all for transparency and disclosure so that we can make an informed decision so what are some of the uh points that you're looking forward to getting across to this sort of broad audience that you're going to have access to well there's uh I think so many people want to know what they can do because they're just one person and we have a lot of Heavy Hitters out there influencing the way things are done so what can I do uh who could I call whatever and very often they start with what can I do so um we try to come up with the most bang for your PO you know what what what really kind of works is recycling the best thing you can do and there's some other things that are the best thing you can do because I've heard things about that that it doesn't really make a difference or something I mean you know there's a lot of information maybe some bad information online well believe it or not the best thing you do in the recycling in my opinion is to divert your food waste so if that's not going to landfill that's a much better decision okay so there's various ways you can do that composing at home which takes effort you could get a food waste uh pickup uh situation going that is coming on like Gang Busters other cities in Texas are already doing this kind of thing so this is a great conversation piece for Houston to try to pick that up um Houston s waste Department's already done a couple of Pilots for this so it's it's coming MH um you know other things are you know let's cut down on the waste so if you think you're being at all wasteful for anything like wasting energy um how about a home energy audit okay and using a little bit less energy oh that could save a couple of bucks too interesting so there's lots of things that we just get out there another one well I want to build on something Steve mentioned this is always a surprising fact to me that food waste globally contributes to more greenhouse gas emissions than airplane travel we always think it's so bad to you know fly somewhere for a vacation or go see a family member or explore the world and but actually food waste is a bigger contributor to Global is that because the of the energy that went into producing the food harvesting it and all that and then it didn't get consumed It's a combination of all the inputs that goes in because um in modern society a lot of it is industrialized the other part is the methan that occurs that if we don't consume the food um you know which anyways that's another story we don't consume it if it goes to waste it becomes methane which is a very potent greenhouse gas it's 25% more potent um than than CO2 CO2 and it it's a very kind of quick thing um that just gives a big boost to the abster and you know more about that than I do well no I mean it in and this is um look I mean my colleague John Dawson and I who by the way you compost don't you JD or you used to I I took a break but yeah yeah you took a break JD big Gardener so he's been composting for a long time um but um back to the subject at hand um there this is such a weird issue because those of us who are meteorologists we focus on day-to-day forecasting honestly and that's the safe Zone to be in um if you want to avoid uh sort of uh getting run over um I know for myself uh we had hurrian Barrel that strength to a category 5 hurricane on July 1st it was the earliest hurricane to ever hit Category 5 status hit category 4 on on June 30th that had never happened before and so I made a an Instagram reel and um all I did was mention climate change it was like a very short part of even what I was talking about and the hateful comments that I got I'm telling you even from Friends well I think that's just from friends I mean hateful and I'm not even necessarily an evangelist at all um I just mentioned it and and it's an immediate reaction so that's a that's tough that's why I'm kind of glad that you guys are maybe you know that that a lot of people are from different walks of life are going to be there but that's that's a big obstacle what's I'm this is what I'm hopeful for when it comes to human Houston energy and climate week is that we can kind of change this dialogue but Lindsay mentioned before have a civil dialogue um when we think about like Sarah week which is the largest oil and gas conference here in Houston Every Spring they're talking about ESG they're talking about climate it is a specific track um because we can't we don't talk energy without talking climate they're embedded and I think what's going to be really fun as well is to hear about the Innovations happening with maybe carbon capture hydrogen Houston is one of the does the seven hydrogen hubs our project is called the high velocity um hydrogen Hub it's going to be super cool to see what happens here but Steve there there is money to be made in this field I know look we have such a long history of good paying jobs uh in this area based around the petrochemical industry whether it's working in the oil field or working at a plant or something like that uh people they work there their dad worked there their granddad worked there and they've put food on the table for all these years in that industry and any inkling that there's going to be an end or change to that industry hits people you know in in a pretty tough spot so is there like a transition that could be done where we could still have those jobs that are good paying jobs that people can rely on but maybe transitioning to something that's a little more sustainable I am not that versed in predicting the future on exactly how that transition is going to happen but I I like to to talk about in the meantime as things are getting hotter and we don't need to even argue about why they're getting hotter but we have the and meteorologists know all about how much hotter it's getting I know how about our installation how about our window films how about keeping that heat outside so that we can run less air conditioning inside so I try to get neutral about anybody in any who wouldn't want to save money exactly and anybody in the oil patch and anybody who has a home no matter what they do boom so it's this conversation we can have without antagonizing um you know what's going on in the the 20,000 ft view are you concerned at all that um there have been a lot of um like when it comes to EVS that maybe we got ahead of ourselves a little bit you know a lot of people bought U you know there's Teslas all over the road but maybe the infrastructure is not didn't keep up with the demand at first because I know now EVS are kind of you know some people are going back to regular uh cars after having experimented with the EV uh do you think I mean what are your thoughts on that I thought it was a blessing that we had this incredible alternative come up so now let's just see what happens okay I have a Tesla I love it and um you know now that there are actually more charging stations it is becoming extremely convenient and so all these Teslas that you see are there because they can charge and it's not a problem for them or they would get rid of that car yeah yeah I think one thing that I'm reminded of is any transition is lump which is a very scientific word right but and this is why I think we need dialogue and we need to be talking to all these different stakeholders so we can kind of figure out what does this transition look like so it's less lumpy smoother maybe a better word that makes a lot of sense well the important part is we're talking right and because we all got to share this planet together and the city together and everything else so it's uh Houston energy and climate week we will provide a link uh to their website and you can go on their website and find out which what's public what isn't public and what you could might be able to stream right right Lindsay there's there's going to be streaming events that you could watch online and and hopefully learn some stuff and contribute to the conversation and uh we will have more guests by the way in the days to come who are taking part in all this so you guys are doing this on a volunteer basis giving your own time for all this so we we appreciate it as a city very much thank you thank you very much for coming in thank you all right so uh coming up at the end since this is forecasting with friends we're going to be talking about the forecast and meteorologist John Dawson will be up with a quick look at some of the rain that's popping up out there right now and maybe a quick look at the tropics we'll see you in a couple Fox 26 is your G Coast weather authority and while our area is vast this storm could bring widespread flooding and dangerous winds to our entire our forecasting zero in these storm cells over the ship Chunnel are particularly dangerous from your Community Memorial Park is getting hammered right now with heavy right down to your neighborhood streets we're starting to see the water rise along Buffalo Val it's hyper local coverage from your G Coast Weather Authority only on Fox 26 Fox 26 News at 9 our breaking Bond reports hold judges accountable a 20-year-old charged with manslaughter the news Edge at 10 your Clues help find the missing her son never made it investigations that get results week nights on Fox 26 engaging and carable visit the Fox 26 Houston Facebook page need a legal question answered Fox 26 legal expert Chris tro can help but this may be a pretty sizable claim that your sister has just send your legal questions to fox26 law at fox.com then tune in to Houston's morning show every Tuesday and Thursday at 7:00 a.m. to hear your questions answered but news doesn't stop on weekends we're learning more details about a story we first brought you yesterday morning and neither do we as we head throughout the afternoon that's when the rain starts moving in from the southwest Fox 26 Morning News weekends with Denise midleton well natural story you'll see only on Fox the family of a beloved bartender in north and meteorologist Allison gargaro right now we are seeing some of the heaviest rain start to push off to hour Fox 26 Morning News weekends Saturdays and Sundays beginning at 5 a.m. the Fox 26 weather app with more features in one easy to ous screen current weather at a glance high resolution interactive radar severe weather alerts video forecasts and much more it's the power of your Gulf Coast Weather Authority in the palm of your hand the Fox 26 weather app downloaded today the Fox 26 YouTube page your home for the best Fox 26 has to offer the latest news good evening I'm Caroline Collins toing the run our most popular local programs like the Isaiah Factor run centor why the hell are so many people burn out and stories you may have missed from series like breaking Bond the quicker we get a grasp on what's Happening Sullivan Smart Sense and the missing please pick up the phone and call the police remember you can remain anonymous the Fox 26 YouTube page like And subscribe today all right welcome back to forecasting with friends I'm meteorologist John Dawson such a great discussion question with chief meteorologist Mike Kitz and our guest from Houston's energy and climate week and just a reminder because I'm I'm not sure we said the dates there at the end September the 9th through the 13th is when the actual week will be happening here in the Houston area so we've got a another week or so to talk about it more and um sort of get us even more aware of what's going to be happening and help you maybe kind of plug into some of those events as we can taking a look across the Houston area right now we've got about 88 degrees in the downtown Houston area those Southeast winds at around 9 miles an hour our due points sort of climbing back up again we're back into the mid 70s so when you take the humidity and the air temperature that feels like temperature still about 97 so let's make sure we're you know not going to let it slip up on us and overdo it out there uh very much we're still focused on our rain possibilities I know a lot of us appreciated those showers that we had yesterday kind of knocked those temperatures down for most of the day but notice in the next 5 days we're starting to add up a few more inches here on what our expectations are going to be so by the time we get to Friday I really think we're going to have some heavier downpours across the area so for the most for the rest of the week really today Wednesday Thursday we're not really concerned a lot as far as a flooding or a severe weather that's something that we you know it's August so we always just kind of be aware of the fact that we might get one of those really intense brief downpours uh and there could be some Gusty winds that are kind of mixed in but for the most part we're sort of just looking at some average rain that is more beneficial than it is anything else the fox red stormseeker radar does have a couple heavier downpours like I was talking about boria county is where we're seeing that right now also just offshore uh there's some uh Stronger storms uh in the Marine uh concerns again those are just offshore temperature-wise we're all about the same mid to the upper 80s unless you're seeing some of that rain or very recently seen some of the rain we've been watching this upper level low so we always use our water vapor imagery when we want to see what's happening up in the upper levels of the atmosphere so not down at the surface where we're hanging out but upstairs we're watching that up upper level low and it's helping to sort of bring in churn in that moisture and really it's just the opposite of that Ridge of high pressure that we talked about for so long it decreases the stability and gives us those possibilities of some rain so we're going to continue to see that here are those heavier downpours over on the the western side of borya County we're continuing to see some more move in across the Chambers County area uh and up down towards Lake Jackson as well that'll do it for forecasting with friends remember of course we've got Fox 26 News at Noon coming up in about 30 minutes we'll see you then