Category Archives: environmental news

environmental news

Caverns teach a life’s lesson

cave

CARSLBAD CAVERNS NATIONAL PARK, N.M. — It only hurt while we were making the hike.

Afterward? It didn’t hurt a bit.

We came to Carlsbad Caverns National Park to see for ourselves what we’ve heard our entire lives. They are to believed only when you see them up close.

My wife and I possess those lifetime senior passes that get us into every park in the federal system for free. OK, I don’t consider it a free pass, given that our federal income taxes are continuing to pay for the parks’ upkeep.

We went to the park to tour the King’s Palace, which is a particular network of caves within the massive subterranean system.

We got our tickets and then got the “bad news”: The elevator doesn’t work, the U.S. National Park Service officer informed us.

It meant that once we walked down we had to walk back up.

No sweat. We’re in decent shape for folks our age.

We gathered at the entrance to the cavern, got our instructions from the ranger, then we started our trek down into the bowels of the planet.

The paved trail took us 750 feet down; that’s roughly the height of a 40-story building. We met another ranger in what’s called “The Big Room.” She introduced herself to the crowd of about 30 individuals.

Then we headed into the King’s Palace.

What did we learn? Well, we learned that a 16-year-old Texas ranch hand named Jack White was the first white man to explore the caverns; his discovery occurred around 1900. Our tour guide, a young woman named Toni, told us how he managed to rappel into the cave using a homemade latter and armed with a fuel-oil lamp.

He wandered into the cave. At one point during his exploration, the lamp flame went out. The ranger doused the light at the deepest portion of the tour.

Total blackness. Very strange. We all sat there in complete silence.

We learned about the dangers that humans bring to this highly sensitive eco-system. We learned that the cave network essentially has stopped evolving, given that the water that formed it in the first place has receded.

The tour lasted about 90 minutes. Then it was over.

All who walk down have to walk back up.

So, we started our hike back up the paved trail. Back and forth we trudged. Switchbacks galore.

My legs were killing me. My wife is much tougher than I am — big surprise, right? — but she showed great patience as I had to stop from time to time to catch my breath.

Then we saw the first hint of sunlight. It was like a vision. It spurred us to walk a little more briskly out of the dark hole.

Then the pain in my legs disappeared.

I thought right then about something my dear mother once said. Mom told me about how, after giving birth, the intense pain she felt disappeared the moment she held her children in her arms.

Hey, I’m not comparing what we did with childbirth.

Mom, though, was right. It hurt only for a little bit.

environmental news, International news

Happy Earth Day

EarthDay

I’m ashamed of myself.

Today is Earth Day and I damn near forgot about it.

The shame comes because every day ought to be Earth Day. Think of it. Earth is the only planet we have that suitable for human life … that we know of at this moment.

And yet we do such a terrible job of caring for it.

We wipe out forests to make room for human inhabitants.

We spew toxic gases into the air.

We dump garbage into the ocean without thinking of what it does to the wildlife that inhabits it.

We pour chemicals into the ground, poisoning animals that share this planet with us.

We encroach on wildlife habitat and react badly when one or more of those animals strikes back without understanding the consequences of that action.

I could keep going. I’ll stop there.

It gives me hope to drive along our countryside to see wind turbines turning. They are producing energy that helps us conserve the fossil fuels that we’ve already depleted. I also draw hope from the sight of hybrid automobiles that burn much less fuel than their predecessors.

I’m not going to issue condemnations with this brief post.

Instead, I choose to lament that Earth Day doesn’t reap the kind of international attention that we bestow on so many other such events.

Every day ought to be Earth Day.

Maybe one day when all of us here today have left this world, there’ll be an escape for those who come along after us if they don’t do a better job of caring for this world than others have done so far.

For now and for the foreseeable future, though, Planet Earth is all we have.

Let’s take care of it.

 

environmental news, local news, State news

Biking gets a big boost

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Let’s get real. Texans love their cars, trucks and just about any vehicle that burns fossil fuels.

We pull a lot of fossil fuel out of the ground here. The Spindletop oil gusher in 1901 brought us the Texas oil boom and it has continued ever since, with all of its ups and downs.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Heck, our 21-plus years in West Texas have given us a keen appreciation of how much distance one must travel . . . to get anywhere. It almost always involves a motor vehicle.

So it is with that I noticed this story — yes, it’s a bit dated, having been reported initially in the fall of 2014 — about a proposal to build a 64-mile bicycle trail between Dallas and Fort Worth.

KERA-TV reported more than a year ago that a study of Dallas residents reveals a significant portion of folks would support greater emphasis on bicycle trails in their city.

It’s being called a “superhighway.” It marks a remarkable departure from the love affair Metroplex residents have had with their motor vehicles.

So now comes the question from me, a resident of another community in the midst of some serious urban living change.

Is such an emphasis possible here, in Amarillo?

It’s a creative notion to connect two cities the size of Dallas and Fort Worth with a bicycle trail network.

It prompted this thought: Is such a network possible that would connect Amarillo with Canyon?

Amarillo’s downtown district revival already has begun. They’ve busted up plenty of pavement and begun erecting some structures in the central business district. More construction is on the way.

I am wondering, though, about the city’s effort to connect neighborhoods with bike trails. That project began about a decade ago. Then it stopped. Indeed, we have bike lanes marked off in my neighborhood, which is great. Except that they don’t go anywhere.

I have been told that the city Parks and Recreation Department plans to finish the bike trail network — eventually.

The reality is that the weather here is conducive to that kind of activity. The unseasonably warm winter we’re having is an aberration. Spring can be a bit dicey; summer isn’t oppressively hot; autumn is the most pleasant season of all.

The Metroplex bicycle “superhighway” is still a couple of years away, according to KERA. I do applaud the innovation that’s gone into planning for it.

Might there be a potential for something like that here, way up yonder?

 

environmental news, local news, national news, political news

Cruz pays for lack of pandering

corn%20ethanol%20us%20policy

Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has torn Sen. Ted Cruz a new one.

He calls Cruz an unfit Republican presidential nominee and is urging Iowa caucus participants to ensure he doesn’t win that state’s candidate selection process.

I’m going to say something good about Cruz, however, even though I do not believe he should be the next president of the United States.

Branstad’s dislike of Cruz well might have something to do with the Cruz’s refusal to pander to Iowans’ specific needs and desires — to which I say “bravo!” to the senator.

They grow a lot of corn in the Hawkeye State. They use much of that corn to produce ethanol fuel. Cruz has long opposed subsidizing ethanol. Branstad doesn’t like Cruz’s opposition to it. Thus, he says Cruz shouldn’t be the choice of Iowans.

Enlightened self-interest? That’s what they call it. Conservatives who used to love Cruz now think less of him. It’s all about the corn.

Cruz, though, has shied away from pandering to that particular constituency.

Cruz is taking his share of hits from other Republicans, not to mention from Democrats. Lord knows I’ve lobbed my share of stones at the Cruz Missile from this forum.

The ethanol argument, though, is an interesting back story in this Iowa Republican caucus kerfuffle.

The corn used to produce the fuel requires a lot of water. I repeat . . . a lot of water. There used to be a huge demand for it here, on the Texas Tundra. Then it dawned on many folks that the water it consumes is more valuable to the region than the fuel. The fever for ethanol production has cooled considerably in the Panhandle.

Not so in Iowa.

Cruz isn’t going to jump onto the ethanol train. He does favor more exploration for fossil fuel, which isn’t surprising, either, given that he represents Texas in the U.S. Senate. And yep, we produce a lot of oil and natural gas here, correct?

OK, so perhaps Sen. Cruz isn’t being totally and completely high-minded in his opposition to ethanol subsidies.

Still, a lot of politicians have journeyed to Iowa to sing the praises of ethanol production just because their audience wants to hear it from them.

 

environmental news

Why is cutting carbon emissions so bad?

banner_emissions

President Barack Obama is singing high praise for the worldwide climate deal brokered in Paris this past week.

No surprise there, right? The president believes, as many of us out here do — me included — that human activity has contributed to the worsening of our worldwide environment.

However, you know what? I’m not going to debate that point. Skeptics of the climate change crisis have their minds made up; those of us on the other side have made up our minds, too.

So, we’ll go on with the rest of the discussion.

The agreement calls for reducing carbon emissions, those pollutants that come from fossil fuels. They increase carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and create a gradual warming of the atmosphere.

Beyond that, though, why is it a bad thing — as some interested parties contend — to cut those fossil fuel emissions.

This deal, they say, is “no better” than the Kyoto Protocol worked out during the Clinton administration in 1997. It never was ratified by Congress. President George W. Bush, Bill Clinton’s successor, said the agreement would cost American jobs and would give emerging powers — such as China and India — a free pass.

I keep coming back to the notion, though, that reductions in these emissions — which are indisputably harmful to Earth’s ecosystem — will produce a net positive impact on the future of the planet.

We can conserve those fossil fuels, which are a finite resource. We can invest in alternative energy sources, such as wind, solar and — yes! — nuclear power.

As Politico reports as well, there was some water down of the language in the agreement, which initially stipulated that developed nations “shall” cut those greenhouse gases; Secretary of State John Kerry got the conferees to change that language to “should” with the hope it would stand a better chance of being ratified by the Republican-controlled Congress.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/paris-climate-talks-tic-toc-216721

Shall or should? Whatever.

The goal remains the same: to reduce greenhouse gases that harm the only planet we have.

How can that be a bad thing?

 

environmental news, local news

Did prayer bring the water back to the Panhandle?

lake levels

Let’s flash back to a time just before the 2012 presidential campaign.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry was thinking about seeking the Republican nomination. His state was being throttled by a killer drought.

What did he do? He called for Texans to pray. The reaction by the media and many others outside of Texas was quite predictable. Perry drew criticism, even outright scorn. It was a simplistic tactic he sought to employ, critics said.

Four years later, consider this: Texas is no longer in a drought.

Hmmm. How could that’ve happened? Was it, um, prayer — maybe — that did it? Who can say “no” categorically?

Consider the levels at Lake Meredith. The Panhandle’s largest manmade reservoir is filling back up. Last time I noticed, I saw that the lake was at 64 feet. What was it about the time Gov. Perry called for prayer? I believe it was around 26 feet.

There’s more to report. Kent Satterwhite, head of the Canadian River Municipal Water Authority, says the quality of Lake Meredith water has improved while the lake levels have increased. Indeed, the levels have improved so dramatically that CRMWA has resumed pumping water to its 11 member communities, including Amarillo.

Look, I’m not going to discount actual scientific factors that have contributed to the increase in moisture in this part of the world. Pacific Ocean currents are helping spur more storms. It’s that El Nino effect, right?

However, neither am I going to discount a more spiritual cause for the turn of events.

I’ve never been able to prove or disprove the impact of a simple act of prayer. I am left to rely on faith, which doesn’t require anyone to prove anything.

Whatever the cause of the return of Lake Meredith’s priceless resource, I’m good with it.

environmental news, political news, State news

Nuclear power … time for a return

nuclear%20plant_1

Many Americans long have feared nuclear energy.

To be honest, I was one of them. I no longer fear it.

An essay in the New York Times makes a compelling argument that the time to bring nuclear energy back into the discussion of clean alternatives to coal has arrived. Why not now, while 150 or so world leaders are meeting in Paris to talk about climate change?

Technological improvements have greatly improved nuclear power’s safety record. Peter Thiel’s essay in the New York Times makes a most interesting point.

Remember the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011? Thousands of people died in the earthquake and tsunami that ravaged Japan and destroyed the Fukushima nuclear plant, Thiel writes. Not one person died of radiation poisoning, he adds.

Time for a “new atomic age.”

Yes, there have been disasters, notably the Chernobyl event in Russia in 1986; Three Mile Island before that.

But in the intervening years, nuclear power has become many times safer.

I’m all in on efforts to harvest the wind — which is being done in places like the Texas Panhandle, where my wife, one of our sons and I live. I want there to be more exploration of natural gas, which also is in abundance throughout West Texas. With the abundant sunshine we have in this part of the world, it’s high time we invested far than we do in solar energy.

These all are viable alternative energy sources that must become part of the nation’s wide-ranging effort to wean ourselves of fossil fuel and coal.

We’re neglecting any serious discussion, though, of nuclear energy.

It’s interesting that a climate change conference is being held in a country, France, that relies heavily on nuclear power to keep the lights on.

Roughly 75 percent of France’s energy needs are met by nuclear power plants. It’s ironic, to my way of thinking, that nuclear energy isn’t being discussed as openly as it should, given the location of this climate change conference.

President Obama can seize the moment as he enters the final year of his presidency, according to Thiel.

As Thiel writes: “Both the right’s fear of government and the left’s fear of technology have jointly stunted our nuclear energy policy, but on this issue liberals hold the balance of power. Speaking about climate change in 2013, President Obama said that our grandchildren will ask whether we did ‘all that we could when we had the chance to deal with this problem.’

“So far, the answer would have to be no — unless he seizes this moment. Supporting nuclear power with more than words is the litmus test for seriousness about climate change. Like Nixon’s going to China, this is something only Mr. Obama can do. If this president clears the path for a new atomic age, American scientists are ready to build it.”

 

environmental news

A harbinger of a harsh winter?

el nino

Dave Oliver, one of Amarillo’s TV meteorologists, predicted the other day that we are in for a long, cold and wet winter.

“Doppler Dave” predicted 44 inches of snow this winter, blaming it on the strength of the El Nino weather current in the Pacific Ocean.

Weather forecasters have called it the “Godzilla” of such events, contending that it’s stronger and more persistent than normal. It’s likely to pelt and pummel the Pacific Coast with much-needed rain, not to mention sending more moisture across the Rocky Mountains and onto the High Plains.

It’s always welcome. But … c’mon!

Whatever the case, I’ll just make this brief plea.

I hope they’re wrong.

Today was not a particularly fun day. We were housebound because the temperature didn’t get above about 25 degrees all day. The ice — and the light coating of snow — that blanketed the city overnight did not melt. Not one bit. There was no drip-drip-drip off the edge of the roof on the south side of the house, which usually occurs in the winter months around here — as the sun’s trajectory dictates.

We didn’t get a lot of snow. I keep hearing some slightly conflicting forecasts for Saturday and Sunday. I do hope, though, to get out of the house at least a little bit over the weekend.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy my wife’s company and she tells me she enjoys mine, too.

However, we’re both prone to fits of cabin fever.

environmental news, local news

If you hate the weather now, just wait …

tree

Take a look at this tree. Pretty, isn’t it?

It sits in front of our house in Amarillo.

Check out the sky. It’s pretty, too — and blue, yes? I took this picture two days ago.

As I write this brief post, we are being pummeled by extremely cold wind from the northwest. Snow is falling in our neighborhood.

This comes not quite 24 hours after a mile-wide tornado — one of several that touched down northeast of us — tore across the flat land near Pampa. I heard from one of the local TV meteorologists this morning that damage was extensive. He’d stayed up until 3 a.m. today.

We got hail, a good bit of rain, a lot of wind — and upset stomachs — as we watched the news unfold outdoors.

The tornado and hail were more like what we get in the spring and early summer around here. However, as the weather guys told us last night, anything can happen at any time around here.

Boy howdy, y’all.

There’s a common quip in the Texas Panhandle that goes: If you don’t like the weather, just wait 10 minutes …

Well, it wasn’t exactly a 10-minute turnaround from the blue sky and pretty fall colors on the tree in our front yard.

It just seems like it.

 

environmental news, local news

We’re going to be talking about the weather

pampa twister

If we were suffering from “terrorism fatigue” in the Texas Panhandle, our attention has been diverted to concerns a lot closer to home.

A large tornado touched down in the Pampa area earlier this evening. It was a big, fast-moving storm that roared across the plains. At this moment, I don’t know about any casualties, nor do I know about the extent of damage. The weather tonight went bonkers! The picture that accompanies this blog post comes courtesy of Dennis Palmitier, a friend of mine who lives in Pampa; a storm chaser took the picture. It’s a bit grainy, but you get the idea of the size of this thing.

In our neighborhood in the far southwestern corner of Amarillo, we got pelted with a violent — but thankfully very brief — hailstorm.

But what we’re hearing from weather forecasters is that an event such as what we had tonight is rare for this time of year. The middle of November isn’t considered a “normal” time of the year to produce the kind of energy that produces these storms.

Still, these things can happen any time and usually without much warning. It’s all part of living here. Indeed, we often joke in the Panhandle about how quickly the weather can change … and it does — rapidly!

The National Weather Service did warn us about 24 hours ago that the weather could get a little dicey in the Texas Panhandle.

Well, it did.

And for the time being, it’s taken our minds — more or less — off the tragedy that played out in Paris.