Hill Country Institute Live: Exploring Christ and Culture

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Larry and Jon will discuss the vocational calling of caring for creation, as well as how each of us can personally participate in this Biblical mandate. They also consider some of the environmental issues which are common to both Michigan-Au Sable’s home base-and Texas, including industrial, plastic, and air pollution, algae blooms and dead zones, and the impact of a warming earth.

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Dr. Hugh Ross and Larry discuss his book, Weathering Climate Change: A Fresh Approach. The natural history of the earth shows substantial volatility in its climate. However, for the last 9,500 years, humans have benefited from climate stability and civilization has flourished. How did the activities of man slow the global cooling which would have been consistent with the cycle of the last 800,000 years and contributed to climate stability before the Industrial Revolution? How are increased emissions impacting the increase in global average temperatures we are experiencing now? What are solutions which Christians can embrace which promote free markets and create jobs? This is a theological and science discussion, not a political one.

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Winter Storm Uri, Icepocalyse, the Big Freeze in February — whatever you call it, we in Austin are still trying to understand what happened and how to prepare for the future to avoid power outages. Frank McCamant returns to Hill Country Institute Live to update us on what the data has revealed, plans that are being made for the future of the electric power grid in Texas, and the impact of the bills passed by the Texas Legislature. Frank is an independent consultant who works with many participants in the market for electricity-evaluating investment opportunities, structuring joint ventures, advising on regulatory issues, and more. 

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Alan Graham, Visionary, Founder, and CEO of Mobile Loaves and Fishes and Community First! Village, discusses with Larry why and how people fall into homelessness; how the community lives together with respect and dignity; the micro-enterprises which many in Community First! operate (artisans, blacksmiths, and more); Genesis Garden, where they raise organic vegetables, fruits and nuts, chickens, goats and bees; and Alan’s exciting vision for adding new phases and new housing for the homeless.

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Larry interviews Winn Collier, author of A Burning in My Bones: The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson. Winn was one of many pastors who Pastor Peterson mentored. They had a long-term friendship and Winn was granted exclusive access to his personal papers to write the biography. Larry and Winn discuss the influences on Pastor Peterson’s life and spirituality, his personal growth and challenges, and how The Message grew out of his desire to make Galatians come alive for a Sunday school class when he was pastor of Christ Our King Presbyterian Church in Bel Air, Maryland.

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Joe Pojman, Executive Director of the Texas Alliance for Life, updates us on pro-life legislation which is currently in process in the Texas Legislature. Joe is asking for all of us to call our State Representatives in support of the seven pro-life bills which have passed out of the Senate to the House, including Senate Bill’s 8, 9, 394, 650, 802, 1173, and 1657. For additional detail on the bills, please visit the Texas Alliance for Life website.

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Is artificial intelligence a welcome addition to our advancing knowledge and capacity to improve human life or an uncontrollable force that will dominate our lives? Jay Richards, author of The Human Advantage: The Future of American Work in an Age of Smart Machines, reviews the history of technological advances and the benefits which they offer to our lives and society, even as we deal with disruptions along the way.

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How did the agricultural producers in Texas fare in Icepocalypse, now officially known as Winter Storm Uri? Will we have beef, grapefruit, and other food items from Texas in the future? How do farmers and ranchers prepare for the weather extremes we are experiencing including the ongoing drought? How much did the storm cost our agricultural community in Texas? How do the losses compare to past extreme weather events such as the drought of 2011 and Hurricane Harvey?
David Anderson, Ph.D., Professor and Extension Economist in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Texas A&M University, chats with Larry about these issues.

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When most of us went to bed on Sunday night, Feb. 14, the power was on and we enjoyed pleasant dreams. In the early morning hours on Monday, Feb. 15th, the dreams, and the power, were gone. What happened? How does the electric market work in Texas? What is ERCOT and the PUC and what do they do? Power generators, transmission companies, and distribution companies bringing power to our homes and businesses, all managed by the grid manager, ERCOT. It is an extraordinarily complex arrangement. Frank McCamant is an independent consultant who works with many participants in the electric market-evaluating investment opportunities, structuring joint ventures, advising on regulatory issues, and more. He has over 35 years’ experience as a leader in the electric power market in Texas. In this interview, we discuss how he lives his Christian faith in the workplace, the complexity of the market for electricity, what happened during the major weather event and outages, and adjustments that can be made to avoid similar problems in the future, subject to further review of what happened, of course.

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John Hall, a longtime Texas leader who brings businesses, elected officials, and community leaders together to grow jobs, restore and maintain clean air and water, and take care of those who are poor and suffer most from pollution, is our featured guest on this episode of Hill Country Institute Live. We discuss the impact of John’s faith on his career, air quality issues (the five largest metropolitan areas in Texas all had over 100 days of bad air quality in 2018), the growth and potential of green energy jobs in Texas, and energy poverty in Texas-over 40% of Texas households pay over 10% of their income for energy.