Drought, wildfires, and extreme weather — is this the new normal for Texas?
Texas just ended its warmest year in history, with an established trend of warming over the last few decades.
It’s time for our look back at the year in Texas weather for 2012. Although it was a time of improved precipitation for the state, Texas was still struggling to recover from its driest one-year period ever in 2011, and “improved” just wasn’t enough to bring the state back from drought in 2012. It was […]
Map by NOAA As the 83rd Texas Legislature convenes next week, there’s considerable pressure on lawmakers to do something about the state’s water woes, whether it be funding water infrastructure, increased conservation or even desalination. The state’s population is booming, with over 100,000 people moving to Texas in 2011 alone. And as new forecasts out […]
The Texas state legislature meets next week for another session, and there’s a sense that this time around, serious measures will be taken to fund water projects. Texas is, after all, an ever-growing state in the midst of an extended dry spell. Hopes that the lege will act to fund water projects are high in […]
Update: If you’re reading these words the peak of the Quadrantid Meteor Shower has passed. But if you missed it, you can check out this slideshow or check out the video embedded below the jump. Earlier: If you didn’t see any fireworks on New Year’s Eve, you might want to look to the skies tonight […]
Back in the seventies and eighties, algae, a biofuel, was viewed as a possible path to energy independence. Federal money flowed to research, and science made some progress understanding how the stuff could be used. Then, the money stopped flowing. For about 20 years. Now that researchers are taking another look at algae, they’re also […]
Many people who lived through the hot Texas summer of 2011 remember it with something approaching shell shock. The weeks upon weeks of 100-degree heat, the drought that crippled agriculture and contributed to widespread wildfires. Nothing, it seemed, could ever approach such a summer again. But that doesn’t mean the state isn’t breaking heat records […]
Choosing the most environmentally-friendly tree might be an easier choice than you think. StateImpact Texas reports on the carbon footprint of real and artificial trees.
The reality is that cutting down or buying a Christmas tree has less of an environmental impact than the impact of someone living for one day in the United States.
Drought takes no prisoners, and Christmas trees are no exception. The 2011 drought decimated Texas wildlife, and not even resilient evergreens could take the heat. This left Christmas tree farmers in Texas with little or no trees to sell during the holidays. Some farms, like Evergreen Farms in Elgin, shipped in trees from Washington State […]
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