According to the EPA, Texas emits a far higher volume of greenhouse gases than any other state — more than 676 million tons a year.
For the sake of context, that's more than many entire regions put together; more than twice as much as Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada and Utah combined, for instance.
California comes in second among states for total emissions, at 402 million tons, but to provide electric power to its people, the most populated state in the union emits 50 million tons of CO2.
To generate its power, Texas coal plants belch out more that 229 million tons of greenhouse gases.
It's shameful.
Now, news comes that Texas is going to pay the price for its emissions in hellish temperatures.
That's according to the latest in a long-line of studies by Texas A&M professor (and IPCC co-author) John Neilsen-Gammon.
To put it in English, as he did in a recent post:
The climate model projections are that the summer temperatures of 2009 will be the temperatures of a typical summer by about 2050. An unusually cool summer in 2050 would be similar to what we presently consider a normal summer, and an unusually hot summer in 2050 would be, well, way off the chart.
The funny thing is, as Neilsen-Gammon points out in a post in the Houston-Chronicle, this projection of has been out for some time, but somehow, the facts still seem to make people spitting mad.
One emailer called Neilsen-Gammon lots of names; about 20% of those who heard about it from a Texas TV station were angered.
Regardless, since 2007 it's been out, to be exact, in a front-page story in the Houston Chronicle by the paper's science writer Eric Berger:
Welcome to Texas, circa 2100, when severe drought and triple-dight temperatures — presently considered a heat wave — will become standard summer fare.
Wait, there's more. Rising seas will increase the inland reach of hurricane storm surges and threaten low-lying coastal areas. Rainfall may remain the same, but will come in shorter bursts, leading to more flooding. Warmer temperatures will cause rivers traversing Central and South Texas to run dry before reaching the coast.
Now the news seems to be sinking in. According to a poll on a Dallas-Fort Worth TV station, 40% of those reading about the future summers in the area were left sad.
And, according to NOAA, some may be thinking of leaving, perhaps with electoral consequences, as Jim Tankersley speculated for Slate:
Both major political parties could see their power bases erode as Americans, responding to warming temperatures and rising seas, flee the Republican-dominated South and Democratic-friendly coasts.
I guess it's wrong to blame Texans for the 115-degree broiling they will suffer. Blaming the victim.
h/t: Creative Greenius
Kit Stolz 