Tisha Schuller: The Role of Oil & Gas in a Carbon-Neutral Future

Thinking Ahead with Carter Phipps

Every day, Americans use oil and gas. We heat our homes, we drive our cars, we power our technology and our lives. And yet, due to climate concerns, we know we need to move toward carbon-free sources of energy as fast as possible. But changing our national infrastructure is a challenge, not to mention international infrastructure—even with the ongoing push for renewables. So the questions loom: How do we get from here to there? How do we decarbonize our energy sources faster and at scale? And what role, if any, will oil and gas play in that carbon-neutral future?

On this episode of Thinking Ahead I address these questions and more with energy expert Tisha Schuller. I met Tisha a few years ago at a gathering on political polarization that the Institute for Cultural Evolution co-sponsored with the Breakthrough Institute and the Esalen Center for Theory and Research. A passionate environmentalist, Tisha is the former head of the Colorado Oil & Gas Association—a role in which she excelled, but that also left her a grizzled veteran of the fracking wars. During that time, she worked hard to adjudicate between the needs of the industry and the concerns of Colorado’s increasing powerful environmental groups (that chapter of her life story is chronicled in the book Accidentally Adamant: The Story of a Girl who Questioned Convention, Broke the Mold, and Charted a Course Off Map.) Since then, Tisha has founded a consulting group, Adamantine Energy, in Boulder, Colorado, that helps oil and gas companies all over the country and the world make the necessary transition to deal with our increasingly climate-focused social and political landscape. What I appreciate about Tisha is not only her rich knowledge of the energy industry, but the way in which the intense scrutiny and political and cultural landmines she has faced have led her to evolve as a person. Out of those trials and tribulations, she emerged a deep and integrative thinker, someone who really understands not just energy but the cultural voices around it, and who can speak about the climate debates as someone who has really sat on all sides of the table. She is someone I trust to give me the straight story about the future of this increasingly important arena that affects all of our lives.