I ought to say that the conference is actually not in Houston, but League City, just near to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Either way, I’ve never been to Texas before. Driving around the beltway yesterday in my rather natty rental car (a red Chrysler PT Cruiser – we don’t have them in the UK, as far as I know, and it looks like something out of a Dick Tracy movie, which makes me feel terribly transatlantic), I got my first real view of the city coming over the Houston Ship Channel Bridge. As the car rose further and further up the vast arc of concrete, the whole sprawling mess was laid out beneath me. Oil refineries covered the ground in both directions as far as the eye could see, thick pipes tangling around each other like tree roots. Thousands upon thousands of towers topped by burning gas lit the scene in hot orange. I have honestly never seen anything like it in my life. Someone recently said something about an “addiction to oil” that needed to be addressed – and as I drove on in my rather more guilty pleasure, I thought: for once, he’s absolutely right.

[Posted on behalf of Mark Peplow]

I ought to say that the conference is actually not in Houston, but League City, just near to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Either way, I’ve never been to Texas before. Driving around the beltway yesterday in my rather natty rental car (a red Chrysler PT Cruiser – we don’t have them in the UK, as far as I know, and it looks like something out of a Dick Tracy movie, which makes me feel terribly transatlantic), I got my first real view of the city coming over the Houston Ship Channel Bridge. As the car rose further and further up the vast arc of concrete, the whole sprawling mess was laid out beneath me. Oil refineries covered the ground in both directions as far as the eye could see, thick pipes tangling around each other like tree roots. Thousands upon thousands of towers topped by burning gas lit the scene in hot orange. I have honestly never seen anything like it in my life. Someone recently said something about an “addiction to oil” that needed to be addressed – and as I drove on in my rather more guilty pleasure, I thought: for once, he’s absolutely right.

[Posted on behalf of Mark Peplow]