Category Archives: environmental news

environmental news

Weather cools, climate still scorches

Well, gang … summer is about to give way to autumn in less than three weeks, bringing with it some relief from the summer heat that has many of gasping for air, swilling tons of water and the weather guys telling us what we already know — that it’s hot, damn hot, out there!

Except that the summer of 2025 has bordered on pleasant this summer. Don’t get me wrong. I am not going to say I want the weather to stay like this year-round. Weather forecasters tell us we had fewer 100-plus-degree days this summer than in the recent past. We’ve had a good bit of rain on occasion … with more expected this weekend. The playas look pretty full. So do the reservoirs, such as Lake Lavon near my home in Princeton.

I want to caution everyone against accepting the view from climate-change deniers who are bound to view this improved weather as a sure sign that the climate change crisis is a “hoax,” that it’s part of the deep state fake news machine.

Climate change is real. Earth’s climate is producing stronger than normal wind, heavier than normal ocean storms, ice caps melting at a faster rate, diminution of mountain glaciers that provide water for many communities (such as my hometown of Portland, Ore., which relies on Cascade Range snowpack runoff to fill reservoirs).

We measure weather changes that occur day to day, or week to week. Climate change is measured in much larger and longer time increments. A blip in the weather has little tangible impact on a region’s climate, according to scientists who know a lot more about this than your chump blogger.

I welcome the relief we seem to be getting from Mother Nature during the summer of 2025. The heat hasn’t been unbearable. However, all of us must remain vigilant and do what we can to prevent further damage done to our good planet Earth by our changing climate.

environmental news, local news

Not used to humidity … just expecting it

My introduction to Texas’s fascinating climate came in the spring of 1984, when I moved to Beaumont to take a job at the Beaumont Enterprise newspaper.

It took no time at all for the seasonal humidity to settle in. I informed my wife of that in a phone call to her in Oregon, where she stayed behind for a time to sell our house. To be candid, once we went through a summer or two of Gulf Coast heat/humidity, we all — our sons included — learned to expect the stifling temperature and the energy-sapping humidity. None of us ever got used to it.

Then we moved to Amarillo in 1995. The weather in the Panhandle was as unpredicatable in the spring as the Gulf Coast. It also was more temperate. Cooler in the morning and evening. The elevation of Amarillo, at 3,676 feet above sea level, had something to do with it. Much more pleasant. During the summer days? Still damn hot! But, hey … it was a dry heat, y’know?

Then we moved to Princeton in 2019. More humid again. Not like the coast, but stickier than the Panhandle.

My mantra now is as it was when I first got here 41 years ago. I have learned only to expect the humidity. I don’t like it, but as my dear old Dad would tell me when I bitched as a boy about the rain in Portland: Go talk to God!

environmental news, local news

Praise for twin-edged gesture

A company that does business in the North Texas community where I live has instituted an initiative I want to praise with this brief blog entry.

Community Waste Disposal picks up trash and recyclable material in Princeton and several Metroplex-area communities. This weekend I saw a public service announcement from CWD that kinda made my job drop. It encourages residents served by CWD to recycle material. Why? Because for every ton of material that CWD processes through its recycling program, it pledges to donate $10 for relief to aid the victims of the Fourth of July flooding in Central Texas.

Ponder that for a moment. The company is encouraging its customers to be more proactive in preserving the environment while at the same time pledging more money to repair the destruction that Mother Nature brought when the Guadalupe River wiped out families, businesses, homes and property.

The death count is something north of 100 people who perished in the river’s torrent. Many thousands more lives will need to be rebuilt, many of them without the presence of loved ones who perished in nature’s savage assault.

I have no idea how much CWD recycles each month. I am guessing it’s in the thousands of tons of material it picks up in front of Princeton houses — and elsewhere. Someone at CWD once told me that recycling efforts throughout the region has reduced landfill waste by something more than 30%. So, the region buys into the notion of recycling. It has become a way of life for many of us in North Texas.

I can think of no better reason to step up our efforts to send material to the recycling station than to raise money to aid our fellow Texans in distress.

Well played, Community Waste Disposal.

environmental news

Our grief is intense, personal

Texans are still grieving the loss of life and the destruction brought to the Texas Hill Country on July 4; our collective sadness might be difficult to explain.

I think I’ll try.

The Guadalupe River roared to an unfathomable level the other day. The death count from the torrent stands far north of 100. About the same number of folks are still missing. The media have been covering this story with “team coverage” one sees only during terrorist attacks, school shootings or jetliner crashes.

I was visiting with friends this morning at a church meeting in North Texas and the topic of our grief came up. I mentioned to them that I believe we are feeling it so deeply because we know someone who (a) has escaped the carnage, (b) is among the missing or (c) is one of the victims.

I’ll toss out a fourth category, which would include those we know live in the devastated region, but we’ve been. unable to locate them. They might not yet be on any missing persons list.

I am friends with a couple that moved to Comfort, Texas, a few years ago. Comfort is at Ground Zero of the flood devastation. I once worked with the wife of that duo in Beaumont. My wife and I became friends with her and her husband and their now-grown daughter.

I don’t know where they are. I managed to send a note via snail mail to an address I had for them. As of this moment, I haven’t heard from them. For all I know, they might not have mail delivery in the area affected by the ravaging water.

I am just one person out of millions of Texans who are waiting to hear if their friends are OK. I’m praying every night for my friends’ safety. Still, the waiting is torturous.

Media organizations are advertising aid programs where people can send money to pay for food, medical supplies and clothing for the victims. They are raising a lot of money.

I’ve seen the pictures from the Guadalupe River bed and the destruction left behind by the roaring deluge. Many others have seen them, too … and we all are mourning together.

environmental news

Weather cools; climate still hot

If I was able to hear every conversation taking place this weekend in North Texas, I am certain I would hear something like this: Boy, this cooler weather is sure putting the kibosh on the nonsense being conveyed about climate change and how the planet is getting hotter.

Well, you know where I am going with this. Weather and climate are different critters. Weather is what’s happening in the here and now; climate requires the wider angle. Earth’s climate has changed. It has nothing to do with the weather of the moment. The only argument worth discussing, and that argument is fading away, is the effect human activity has had in changing the planet’s climate. Those who argue that human beings have had an impact on the climate have all but won that argument.

Arguably the most insipid public display of ignorance on the climate change discussion occurred in the U.S. Senate some years ago. D.C. was in the midst of a serious cold snap one winter, so in walked Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., a climate change denier who was carrying a snow ball he brought in from outdoors. He displayed his laughable ignorance by suggesting that the existence of snow meant that the climate wasn’t changing, that it was actually getting cooler. He was wrong.

We’re likely getting a taste of that ignorance in the past week as North Texas has basked in weather that doesn’t match up to the customary sweat-box character so familiar at this stage of the summer season.

The high temperature today was supposed to hit 85. Tomorrow will be about the same. Then it will heat up to more seasonable temps in the low to mid-90s. Hey, I never have quite welcomed the heat and humidity of North Texas. I just have learned to expect it.

However, the break from the heat has been a welcome respite.

environmental news, local news

Heroism abounds in Hill Country

Hill Country heroism is alive, well and flourishing as the nation grieves the horrifying loss of life and the destruction in the wake of the Guadalupe River flooding that began on the Fourth of July.

I cannot keep up with the fatality count these days. It’s past 100. It figures to climb. Many more are missing. Time is running out on those looking for survivors.

Through it all, we keep hearing about the men and women who drop all they are doing to pursue their lives to lend aid, comfort and assistance to the first responders who, themselves, are behaving with heroism beyond the call of duty.

Fire departments and medical organizations from all across the nation are deploying personnel to lend aid to the recovery effort. That’s what Americans do. We rally. We reach out. We offer love, prayers — and pickup trucks — to help our fellow Americans bring closure to the drama they are enduring. And by closure, I mean happiness as well as sadness.

I feel helpless sitting in my comfortable North Texas home. I am left to offer my best wishes to those who have survived the carnage. Prayers to those who are grieving the loss of those they love.

I also can salute the heroes who are answering the cries for help from Central Texas. They fill me with pride and hope that they might be able to minimize the suffering as we seek to recover from our collective grief.

environmental news

Looking for answers to this tragedy

Public officials charged with finding solutions to prevent future tragedy appear to be zeroing in on what might have led to the carnage we are witnessing in the Texas Hill Country in the wake of the horrifying floods that tore through the region.

It was the lack of any sort of electronic warning system that would have told residents to get the hell out of the Guadalupe River’s way as it roared its way downstream.

I heard a news report that absolutely galls me to no end. It stated that Kerr County Commissioners Court had debated the installation of storm sirens for years only to fail to act after earlier floods.

Would adequate warning sirens have prevented all the deaths that have occurred since the Fourth of July deluge? Probably not. However, for God Almighty’s sake, if they could have prevented some loss of life then that would be a huge victory for some Hill Country victims.

I don’t yet know how many victims’ remains have been recovered from the carnage. I know there will be more. Many of them will be children who were attending Camp Mystic, the Christian girls camp along the river. Our hearts continue to break as they find what’s left of these beautiful children. And the adults who died along with them.

I don’t want us to wait until we’re no longer hurting before we find some answers to the issue at hand: What can we do to prevent this from happening again? I believe storm sirens would be a productive start?

environmental news, local news, media news

Keep it in perspective

Once in a while, news of the day can render whatever discomfort we are feeling to be irrelevant, if not laughable.

Here’s what happened to me on Monday morning.

I was delivering my weekly run of Meals on Wheels to shut-in residents of Princeton. I left the house wearing just my shirt, a pair of shorts and sandals. I picked up the meals to deliver at a local church and went on my way. I made the first stop, chatted up the gentleman who is always waiting for me.

I drove to the second residence. On the way, it started to sprinkle. The rain worsened the farther along I drove. By the time I delivered my second meal, the sky had opened up. It poured. I got soaked.

I grumbled to myself as I drove to the third location. Damn rain, I wish it would stop … or so I muttered under my breath.

Then the news came on the radio, which I had turned on my truck to National Public Radio. The reporter told me of the suffering in Central Texas. The raging river had killed dozens of residents. Many of the victims were girls attending a church camp in Kerrville, It had destroyed thousands of homes. The deluge roared down the Guadalupe River bed at enormous speed, sweeping away trees, homes, big and small vehicles and presumably people.

That was the moment I realized I was bitching about something that didn’t matter one damn bit. Why am I complaining because I am getting wet from rainfall.

Needless to say, I realized in real time that my concerns about wringing my clothes from the rainfal paled in comparison to the unfathomable tragedy that has gripped our Central Texas neighbors.

I learned my lesson.

environmental news

FEMA can earn its spurs … again!

One of the many idiotic ideas carried in Donald Trump’s big ugly bill is the dismantling of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which Trump kicked aside because of alleged corruption or some made-up reason.

The entire world now gets to see if FEMA can re-earn its spurs by expediting aid to the stricken residents of Texas victimized by the raging Guadalupe River floodwaters. The scenes of entire homes being swept away in the deluge are mind-blowing and heartbreaking in the extreme. Families have lost every single thing they own while watching their homes being swallowed up by the raging storm.

FEMA stands ready to help all Americans in need. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has declared an immediate disaster in the region. He is pulling together all the state resources at his command. Non-government agencies have stepped up. Pro sports teams’ ownership have ponied up money to buy food, medical supplies and assorted household goods for victims. The president now is obligated to do the same. FEMA is the feds’ go-to agency in times like these.

I don’t know how Trump can reverse the damage his big ugly bill has done to our government’s operations. I damn sure hope he finds a way to bring FEMA back into the game of saving lives.

environmental news

What if we had voted ‘blue’?

Grateful as I am for Donald Trump/s pledge to rush aid to struggling Texas families damaged by the raging floodwaters of the Guadalupe River, I feel compelled to ask what I believe is a fair question.

What would his response be if Texas had voted against him in three presidential elections?

Trump has this sickening habit of politicizing everything, of attaching partisan preferences to issues that demand that he act as president of the entire United States of America. Disaster relief of the scale that has befallen Central Texas is one of those issues.

We have seen his reaction to California wildfires when he lectured state officials on what he said was inadequate forest management policies. Or his silence on the assassination not long ago of a Minnesota state senator and her husband by a known MAGA supporter.

I dislike bringing all this up, but I know it’s on the minds of many Americans who are worried and grieving the loss of all those Texans from the carnage brought to the Hill Country by the Guadalupe River.

Texas has stood firmly in Trump’s corner through three presidential elections, in 2016, 2020 and 2024. I guess our state’s fealty to Trumpism has earned the quick federal response. It sure isn’t supposed to be that way.