May 17th, 2013

Julia Trigg Crawford is standing firm, even as TransCanada arrived this week to dig the tunnel for its Keystone XL pipeline. The controversial pipeline will carry diluted tar sands oil, or dilbit, from Alberta to Houston-area refineries. Crawford has challenged the oil concern in court, saying it doesn’t have proper standing to operate in Texas.

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April 29th, 2013

Keystone XL pipeline protesters locked themselves to earth-moving equipment in Spaulding, OK, today, in one of a series of actions against the intercontinental project that would carry diluted bitumen oil from Canada to Texas refineries and ports. Opponents say the pipeline will unleash massive carbon dioxide pollution, accelerating climate change.

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February 1st, 2013

In an effort to address Texas’ ongoing drought, two state lawmakers have proposed legislation that would free thousands of homeowners from having to water and maintain conventional sod lawns.

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November 20th, 2012

The Texas electric grid, known a ERCOT, set a new record for wind energy use in the state at 10:21 a.m. on Nov. 10, when wind power output provided nearly 26 percent of the “system load” at the the time.

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September 25th, 2012

Tree sitters have brought West Coast-style civil disobedience to the heart of the Lone Star state.

Starting bright and early Monday, and continuing today, eight people have perched in tree houses in a so far successful attempt to thwart the progress of the Keystone XL pipeline through Texas.

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August 22nd, 2012

It’s often assumed that Texans, like the majority of their lawmakers, favor oil drilling and the expansion of the oil industry.

And it’s often true. But a small, scrappy group of protesters that has risen up against the construction of the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline in Texas and Oklahoma are showing that such stereotypes are just that.

Their protests began last week, with small groups brandishing protest signs at work sites, where pipeline operator TransCanada has begun laying the Southern portion of the 1,700 mile transcontinental pipeline from Alberta to the Houston area.

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August 17th, 2012

West Nile Virus has caused more sickness and death this year than any other season since the disease emerged in the U.S. a decade ago, according to The Centers for Disease Control.

As of Aug. 14, the CDC had confirmed 693 cases of human infections caused by mosquito-borne West Nile Virus nationwide, with 336 of those in Texas.

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July 18th, 2012

If enthusiasm were dollars, high speed rail would be zooming across in Texas.
There has been no shortage of advocates ready to envision and mock-up plans for fast passenger trains in the Lone Star state, starting back in the energy-crisis years of the 1970s and building steam throughout the 1980s when a group called the Texas Railroad Transportation Company (TRTC) devised a plan for the “Texas Triangle,” a 750-mile train route connecting Dallas/Fort Worth to San Antonio and Houston.

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April 5th, 2012

Natural gas is portrayed as the “bridge fuel” that will save the US from uneven electricity supply and prices as we transition off coal and oil on our way toward using renewable biofuels, solar and wind power.

A drilling rig in Fort Worth, Texas. (Photo: Green Right Now)

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February 28th, 2012

he much fought-over Keystone XL oil pipeline will begin construction in Oklahoma and Texas, despite having been denied a presidential permit for the entire 1,700 mile project.
The Obama Administration had rejected the project in November 2011, saying more study and a possible re-routing was needed in Nebraska where the route slices through the Sandhills region above the Ogallala Aquifer.

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January 18th, 2012

It’s one of those cold, white-bright days of winter. We’ve not had many like it this January. Instead, we’ve been walking around outdoors in our shirt sleeves, sneezing from pollen allergies and having a lot of little conversations about the unusual warm “spell”.
We’re experiencing climate change, of course, and it’s not a spell, but a new norm. Nearly everyone recognizes that something’s going on. Sometimes I feel like a character in Twin Peaks, exchanging knowing glances with the neighbors over these changes we cannot speak of because it’s somehow become radical to openly declare that climate change is happening, even though people in all walks of life can see it plainly. I’m thinking about farmers, landscapers, urban planners, builders, utility managers, insurers, scientists, oceanographers, biologists, botanists, power plant operators….

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January 13th, 2012

Although it’s less obvious during winter, with the fields and forests having gone dormant, Texas’ historic drought continues to claim casualties.

Trees, especially, remain at risk because they use the winter months to grow root systems, and the moisture in the soil will determine whether they’ll recover from 2011′s record drought and heat.

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