Drought, wildfires, and extreme weather — is this the new normal for Texas?
AMARILLO — By an interstate overpass along the languid Canadian River near Amarillo, off-road vehicles zooming by are a common sight. “They get in the river and run up and down it,” said Gene Wilde, a professor of biology at Texas Tech University. It’s legal, he said, but “they’re not supposed to get in the […]
Texas is the nation’s leader in oil, natural gas, and wind production. But what parts of the state are doing the heavy lifting when it comes to energy? Last week, StateImpact Texas used data from the Railroad Commission of Texas and thewindpower.net to answer that question. We created maps that showed how much oil, natural […]
To his surprise, Jerry Bates has had a busy summer. Bates owns Frio River Outfitters & Happy Hollow Grocery in Concan, a small Hill Country community 90 minutes west of San Antonio. In addition to selling basic groceries and camping equipment, Happy Hollow’s main business is renting out tubes and kayaks to tourists on the […]
Texas is changing — with more people, less water, and a surge in oil and gas drilling that is changing communities. To see some of that change up close, we here at StateImpact Texas have embarked on an occasional trip across the state — what we’re calling a “Road Show” — to engage with those communities. […]
The Texas Water Development Board’s most recent drought report showed that 97 percent of the state is still experiencing some level of drought. So what does a state that parched look like? The agency, along with Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Texas Department of Agriculture, have come together to show you. Those three agencies have launched an […]
This summer the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department celebrated its 50th anniversary. To mark the occasion TPWD Executive Director Carter Smith sat down with StateImpact Texas to talk about the history of the Department, and what climate change means for Parks’ future. One interesting historical nugget? Smith began the interview mentioning how how an illegal […]
It’s early August, and that means that this week millions of Americans are watching one of TV’s greatest aquatic traditions: Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. Texans, whose state borders a body of water teeming with sharks of all sizes and species may want to take special notice. According to Dr. Greg Stunz, there are […]
‘Not Everyone Believes in Global Warming,’ Smitherman Says Over 97 percent of climate change studies agree: the climate is changing, the world is warming and humans are the cause of it. But that does leave 3 percent of climate studies that are skeptical. And that sliver of skepticism is where Barry Smitherman, the head of Texas’ oil […]
New Research Shows Melting at Rates Comparable to the Arctic Unlike the Arctic Circle up north, where once-permanent sea ice began melting and miles of permafrost began thawing decades ago, the ground ice in Antarctica’s Garwood Valley was generally considered stable. In this remote polar region near the iceberg-encrusted Ross Sea, temperatures actually became colder […]
Boy Scouts can earn merit badges in everything from Atomic Energy to Shotgun Shooting. But there has never been a badge for sustaining the planet, until now. On July 15, the Boy Scouts of America introduced the Sustainability merit badge, a new award designed to teach scouts about conservation and natural resource management. The badge […]
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