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Energy and Environment Reporting for Texas

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Background

Drought, wildfires, and extreme weather — is this the new normal for Texas?

Latest Posts

December 6, 2013

Here’s What Climate Change and Urban Sprawl Look Like in Texas

The climate is changing, and Texas is growing. For a bird’s eye view of these developments, NASA has put together a ‘State of Flux‘ image gallery that shows how climate change, urbanization, and natural disasters have changed certain geographic features in Texas, and across the world. The gallery puts two satellite images side-by-side to show the changes. […]

December 4, 2013

How a Photographer Captured Stevie Ray Underwater During the Halloween Floods

The floods that hit Austin in the early hours of Halloween morning killed at least five people and damaged more than 500 homes. Some parts of the city received nearly 10 inches of rain in a 24 hour span, and Austin’s rivers, creeks, and streams rose to historic levels. One of the lasting images from […]

November 27, 2013

Your Thanksgiving Carbon Footprint is a Total Bummer

Pie. Planes. Political arguments at the family table. It all takes energy – but how much exactly? As the busiest travel days of the year intersect with back-to-back days of excess consumption and consumerism, it’s a good time to take a step back and assess the energy impact of Thanksgiving. Michael Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at […]

November 22, 2013

Why It Takes a Lot of Snow To Equal a Small Amount of Rain

Texas is seeing its first real winter storm this weekend, and already parts of the Panhandle are seeing trace amounts of snow. Snow is welcome precipitation for a part of the state that is still struggling with extreme drought. But it takes a lot of snow to have the same effect as just a small […]

November 21, 2013

How a Respite in the Drought Has Brought Fall Colors to Central Texas

Think of fall’s turning leaves, and Texas may not be the first state to come to mind. But Austinites have seen their fair share of autumnal red and gold this year – thanks in large part to recent rains. Jerry Brand, a molecular bioscience professor at the University of Texas, says the color changes in […]

November 19, 2013

Should Texas Ranchers Worry About Anthrax?

A map of reported Anthrax cases in Texas, by county. Map by Michael Marks Texas is cattle country: there are nearly 13 million cows wandering through Texas, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. That’s over 14 percent of the country’s total cattle population. And our bovine friends have some company: there are also approximately 1.3 […]

November 13, 2013

‘Like A Bomb Went Off’: Scenes from the Halloween Flood Recovery

After the floods on Halloween morning destroyed their home in Bluff Springs, a community just across the Austin city line in unincorporated Travis County, Debbie Lozano and her boyfriend slept in a tent in their yard. “We got this creek right here, Boggy Creek, and then it runs in the back of the property into […]

October 24, 2013

Smoke But No Fire? Report Looks at Smokiest Counties in 2011

Texans know all too well the devastation that wildfires bring to land, property, and community. Now, research claims to show how smoke from those fires could pose hazards hundreds of miles away, though researchers say there is a need “to look more closely” at the data. The study was conducted by the Natural Resources Defense […]

September 17, 2013

Take a Look at Climate Change In Your Backyard

There’s no shortage of maps or data sets that show the long-term climatic effects of rising temperatures. But what about a map showing the temperature of your block in 2087? You could find that in newly released temperature projections from NASA. Using information from historical measurements, local geography, and greenhouse gas statistics, the maps derived […]

September 11, 2013

As Drought Continues, Texas Reservoirs Could Hit All-Time Lows

Texas is still in a drought, and it’s to the point where reservoir levels in the state may soon reach an all-time collective low. “If they keep going down at the present rate, it will only take about two more weeks before they will set an all-time record for the difference between how much water […]

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