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Energy and Environment Reporting for Texas

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

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July 19, 2013

Texas Drought Forecast to Continue, Perhaps For Years

Recent rains have brought some relief to some parts of Texas afflicted by drought, especially around Central Texas: reservoir levels are a little higher, and the moisture has greened vegetation that was previously tinderbox-dry, potentially reducing the risk of wildfires this summer. Now for some bad news: national meteorologists expect the drought to continue or […]

July 18, 2013

Five Ways Climate Change Threatens Energy in Texas

The Department of Energy released a report recently looking at how climate change and extreme weather could make our power supplies more vulnerable. Given that it’s the nation’s leader in energy production, Texas was prominently featured. The report looks at both current and future threats to the energy sector from climate change. There are three […]

July 12, 2013

Where We Stand: The Texas Drought

Texas is now in its third year of drought—but is the end in sight, or are conditions getting worse? Far more of the state is in extreme or exceptional drought now than in July 2012. The Panhandle and the Southeast Texas coast, which are important regions for ranching and agriculture, have been especially hard-hit. According […]

July 3, 2013

Backyard Grilling Increases Air Pollution, But Can Texans Live Without It?

Listen to Harvey Gebhard talk about grilling and you can almost smell the smoke. Gebhard is the CEO of the Lone Star Barbecue Society, a group that organizes charity cook-offs. “Get the smoke going, and stand over it and let the smoke get in your eyes,” he advised me in a recent interview. “[Your eyes] get […]

July 2, 2013

Lake Invaders: Zebra Mussels Continue to Spread in North Texas

Before last week, the only positive thing about zebra mussels in Texas was that they lived in just two of the state’s lakes. But even that’s not the case anymore. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) released an emergency order yesterday which enacted special regulations for three new North Texas lakes to control zebra […]

How Do You Save Hundreds of Species in Texas ?

Last week, the African Rhino Specialist Group (AfRSG) confirmed the extinction of the western black rhinoceros. Although the species had initially been declared extinct in 2011, a final search failed to find any remaining rhinos. While Texas doesn’t have a thriving rhinoceros population, the news got StateImpact Texas thinking about which species from our state may face […]

June 25, 2013

Here’s Obama’s New Plan to Deal With Climate Change

In a speech in Washington today, President Barack Obama unveiled a plan to deal with climate change, one that focuses on reducing emissions from the energy sector, building up the nation’s renewable energy and increasing energy efficiency. It also calls for the country to prepare for the impacts of climate change, like rising sea levels, […]

June 21, 2013

As Wildfire Season Burns On, Lessons Abound in Bastrop, Texas

Take a trip to the lake at Bastrop State Park, and -at first glance- everything appears normal. The loblolly pine trees that line the shore are singed, but not decimated by the wildfires that struck there in 2011. A turtle suns itself on a rock, a lizard scurries into the underbrush. Look closer and you […]

June 20, 2013

What the World Will Look Like After Three Decades of Warming

The world is warming, sea levels are rising, and that isn’t likely to change anytime soon. In Texas, the heat waves of 2011 have been “explicitly attributed” to man’s impact on the climate, according to a 2012 World Bank report, ‘Turn Down the Heat.’ And the extreme drought of that same year — the driest […]

June 18, 2013
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