Texas
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Critical List: Texas drought is a natural disaster; climate change causes extreme weather
After months of drought, the federal government declared 213 counties in Texas natural disasters.
Even if wildfires stay clear of Los Alamos, burning trees and heated soil contaminated with residual radiation from old nuclear tests could be a problem.
Here's the scientific explanation for why extreme weather can be connected to climate change. -
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What we can learn from drought-proof El Paso
It hasn't rained in El Paso in 119 days, and its water manager says it doesn't much matter if it doesn't rain next year, either. "We're basically drought-proof," he told the Guardian. -
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Rick Perry is running as the anti-climate-science candidate
If you thought a field full of anti-science blowhards was scary, just wait until you get a load of GOP presidential johnny-come-lately Rick Perry, currently governor of Texas.
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Rick Perry signs weirdly reasonable fracking disclosure law
Rick Perry must have a secret plan to recapture George W. Bush's long-squandered image as an aisle-crossing Texas governor and run for president to the left of the Tea Party-addled Republican field. Or maybe he just decided to something right for a change. Whatever his motivation, the Texas guv signed into law a bill that requires natural gas drillers to disclose the chemicals they're pumping into ground during hydrofracking.
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Critical List: Two nuclear plants in the path of Missouri River floods; sea levels are rising
Two nuclear power plants are in the path of the Missouri River floods, but DON'T WORRY EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
A new study verifies that the sea has risen more quickly during the past one hundred years than at any other time in the last millennium, and that climate change is definitely, absolutely, positively, no question to blame for that.
Because the Obama administration likes tourist attractions that bring in gazillions of dollars to Arizona's economy, it's not going to let anyone mine for uranium on the 1 million acres of land surrounding the Grand Canyon for the next 20 years. After 20 years … well, hell, it’s only a big hole in the ground. -
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Science connects climate change and wildfires. Why won't the media?
One of the least controversial impacts of climate change is more frequent, severe, damaging wildfires in America's West. Why won't reporters say so?
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Critical List: Sarah Palin’s emails on oil; Firefighters gaining ground on wildfire
Sarah Palin's emails show that even in private that she's not Big Oil's best buddy. In Arizona, the population of two towns was allowed to return home, and firefighters said they were more confident about containing the fire. Obama is visiting an LED manufacturer before convening his jobs council today; NPR asks if investing in […]
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Critical List: Hurricane Adrian rises; Romney’s climate change problem
Here we go: first hurricane of the year. Wild elephants killed one person in a rampage through an Indian city. Poor guy, but also, poor elephants! They were probably only there because their habitat is shrinking. Obama's meeting with the heads of oil-rich African states. Romney believes in climate change, but not in doing anything […]
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Critical List: Kyoto will expire with no successor; Rock climbers scale wind turbines
Global fail: The Kyoto Protocol will expire without a deal to take its place, the top UN climate official said yesterday. China's own Ministry of Environmental Protection said in a report that the country's not doing so hot on the environmental front. The report ticked off problems like acid rain (half of the China's cities […]
