Business | Schumpeter

Go to Texas to see the anti-green future of clean energy

Lessons for liberals from climate-sceptic wind ranchers 

For more than 140 years John Davis’s family has owned the Pecan Spring Ranch on the prairie lands of West Texas. He has a photo of his great-great-grandmother, known as “the sheep queen of Texas”, sitting in a horse-drawn carriage beneath a tree that still stands in front of the hay barn. It’s a tough business to maintain, even with a valuable herd of Wagyu beef cattle to raise. Yet when a renewable-energy developer offered Mr Davis a large payment to put wind turbines on his land, at first the staunch Republican—and former state congressman—turned it down.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Not green but clean”

From the January 14th 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Business

Illustration of two wolf cubs sitting on the head of the wall street bull

Meet the ambitious wolf cubs of Wall Street

A duo of whippersnappers is taking on Goldman Sachs 

What next for US Steel?

The faded industrial icon has few good options without a Nippon deal


Foxconn's Model D electric vehicle .

Foxconn and other gadget-makers are expanding their empires

The world’s contract manufacturers are moving into new products and places


The signals of workplace submissiveness

Deference is all around you, unfortunately

America’s internet giants are being outplayed in the global south

From e-commerce to online banking, regional competitors are innovating rapidly

Will Mark Zuckerberg’s Trump gamble pay off?

He risks making enemies elsewhere