And the winner is ...

... $2.89 for regular gas outside of Oklahoma City. Times are good in oil country.

So imagine my surprise as we rolled across western Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle to see broad expanses of wind turbines competing with the ever-present celebration of the oil industry.

The sight confirmed for me the accuracy and wisdom of what David Roberts has been writing since his return to Grist from a year long break for recharging and reflection. Denial among Republicans and right wingers of the reality of climate science is no longer intellectual. They know radical changes in the climate are happening and that these are man-made.

But denial has become just a tribal marker; "our kind of people" don't go in for that high-brow, squishy environmental stuff. They will hang onto denial as if their lives depended on it. Otherwise they'd have to concede that "those people" have a point.

But being hard-headed business and civic leaders, they will also aim to cash in whatever opportunities follow from our need to mitigate the damage to our lives from fossil fuels. The U.S. military has been in the forefront of preparing for climate change for years. Evidently the oil companies plan to keep their dominance in the new energy economy that is coming.

Those forests of windmills in Texas are testimony to their prescience. We need to watch what they do as well as what they say. And our political efforts for sustainability need to be grounded in those observations, not only on our own cherished tribal shibboleths.