A ‘false solution’? How crypto mining became the oil industry’s new hope

Climate experts warn that repurposing oil rigs' waste gas (mainly methane) is not a solution, but more like a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. Some top Republican officials in Texas like the idea, however.

Leanna First-Arai

As climate-linked crisis of plastic pollution grows, we keep cranking out plastic

From 1950-2017, the world produced 8.3 billion metric tons of plastics. Global production has skyrocketed – it totaled 381 million metric tons (MMT) in 2015 alone. Now, humans create 242 MMT of plastic waste each year.

Melissa Gaskill

A fork in the road for Texas officials on climate-altering methane pollution

Facing new federal regulations and global momentum for a crackdown on oil and gas emissions, will Texas finally admit methane’s threat? Or will state officials keep resisting climate action?

Bill Dawson

Gains and disappointments from COP26, and now to tend to the gaps

The U.N. climate summit led to some incremental progress, but the path forward is still riddled with chasms that need to be bridged. A review of the meeting’s biggest outcomes and the emission-reduction challenges that remain.

Bob Henson

TCN Digest: Water worries in Texas, worldwide as weather extremes multiply

The U.N.’s weather agency predicted a “looming” global water crisis created by changing climate and growing population. A Texas water expert asks: Will the state adequately adapt its “fragile” water and power infrastructure?

Bill Dawson

A big jump in climate-action support follows 2021’s run of extreme weather

A new national poll found increases in Americans’ agreement that global warming is happening, their worries about it and support for climate action. Will the surge translate into passage of bills stalled in Congress?

Bill Dawson

Climate, local authority, divestment: The enduring clout of oil and gas

Fossil fuels don’t dominate the Texas economy as they did in the past. But they still provide “a huge amount of the money that goes into the coffers” of public office-seekers, said a TCU political scientist.

John Kent

No doubt climate change made Ida more destructive, scientists say

Warmer ocean waters can rapidly strengthen storms. Ocean warming has been unceasing for 50 years, the IPCC recently reported. And this trend “will likely continue until at least 2300 even for low-emission scenarios.”

Bill Dawson

TCN Digest: Even with a ‘code red’ climate report, scientists still have hope

“Unprecedented” climate changes lie ahead, some “irreversible.” Parts of the IPCC’s latest update may prompt a defeatist response, but the report also says there’s still time to avoid the worst, researchers stress.

Bill Dawson

‘Code red for humanity’: The IPCC report’s meaning for the world and Texas

Human-caused warming of the earth is “unequivocal,” the new scientific assessment’s authors declared. “This report must sound a death knell for coal and fossil fuels,” the UN secretary-general said.

Bob Henson

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