Politics & Policy
April 24, 2024
What the Bleep Is Going On With Texas Home Insurance?
We’re already dealing with high prices, high mortgage rates, and high property taxes. Now the state faces a new crisis.
Climate Change
Sponsored
April 1, 2024
A Global Impact
Texas Tech’s Katharine Hayhoe continues to break new ground and lead the way in climate science.
News & Politics
March 1, 2024
Answer Me This: Is “Crazy” Texas Weather Getting Crazier?
Droughts, arctic blasts, heat waves—senior editor Alex Samuels explains what the future holds for the state's notoriously chaotic climate.
Critters
February 21, 2024
Hard Freezes Are Killing Texas Bats
Tens of thousands of Texas bats have died from freezes since 2021. It could take decades for the population to recover.
News & Politics
January 8, 2024
Fire, Ice, and Wind: Texans Brace for Impact as Severe Weather Swallows the State
Whether it’s a Panhandle blizzard, a Houston thunderstorm, or a South Texas fire hazard, no matter where you are in Texas, there’s no escaping the chaos.
News & Politics
January 5, 2024
Are Texas’s Abnormally Warm Winters the New Normal?
During the height of Texas’s unbearably hot summer a few months ago, I told you all how excited I was for winter. The period of June through August—when temperatures reached the triple digits and it was impossible to step outside without breaking a sweat—was a true test of my
Sponsored
November 1, 2023
Putting Nature to Work
How so-called “nature-based solutions” can put nature to work – and at the same time provide a place where humans can recharge in a beautiful setting.
Travel & Outdoors
October 6, 2023
Stopping to Smell the Moonflower, One of Texas’s Most Tenacious (and Poisonous) Plants
Unfazed by extreme weather, this dangerous beauty blooms only at night.
Business
September 26, 2023
Drought and Relentless Heat Push Texas Pecan Growers to the Brink
Pecan trees are dying across Central Texas during the second-hottest summer on record, prompting farmers to consider the future of the beloved state tree.
Food & Drink
August 9, 2023
Meet Luna: The New, Improved “Great-Granddaughter” of the Beloved Hass Avocado
Luna, a new variety of avocado that can withstand higher temperatures, may soon find a home in South Texas.
Politics & Policy
August 1, 2023
Think Seasonal Affective Disorder Is a Winter Thing? Try Living Through Texas Summer.
The disorder is commonly associated with the colder months, but studies show that excessive heat also impacts our mental health
Politics & Policy
July 31, 2023
Think You’re Hot? Try Being a Pitmaster During the Hottest Summer in Texas History.
A new era of climate change–fueled heat waves is pushing the high priests of Texas barbecue to their limit.
Politics & Policy
July 27, 2023
Fahrenheit 105: Why I No Longer Love the Texas Heat
I like to think I am Texas Tough when it comes to the heat. But lately, my fortitude has been tested.
Style & Design
July 24, 2023
The Texas Heat Has Me Scrolling Zillow for Fantasy Homes in Cooler Climates
I swear I feel refreshed after looking at a house in Oregon or Virginia. And according to my research, other Texans do too.
Arts & Entertainment
July 20, 2023
A Sanitation Worker, a Climate Scientist, and a Modern Dancer Walk Onto a Stage . . .
. . . and Allison Orr, the founder of Forklift Danceworks, helps them turn their everyday movements into choreography with a mission.
Books
June 29, 2023
As a Heat Dome Envelops Texas, a Bracing Look at Our Hotter Future
In his new book, ‘The Heat Will Kill You First,’ Austin-based journalist Jeff Goodell examines climate change in its most essential form: temperature rise.
Texas History
June 20, 2023
What Hurricane Harvey Taught Us (and Didn’t Teach Us)
Six years ago, the mother of all storms arrived and brought home a lesson too many of us have refused to learn: our penchant for bravely adapting to circumstances has its limits.
Texas Icons
January 17, 2023
But It’s Not a Dry Heat, Actually
State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon says we need to be ready for more triple-digit days and more humidity.
Politics & Policy
July 25, 2022
Is This a Typical Texas Heat Wave or the Coldest Summer of the Rest of Our Lives?
Across the state, Texans are experiencing record-high temperatures, but we might be recalling this summer fondly someday.
Books
July 21, 2022
In an Urgent New Book, “Floodies” Reinvent the Story of Hurricane Harvey
‘More City than Water: A Houston Flood Atlas’ brings together a team of writers, scholars, designers, and eyewitnesses from the front lines of climate change in a grand experiment.
Business
July 19, 2022
The Climate Crisis Spells Big Business for Carbon Capture
At a recent expo in Houston, innovators claimed they can spare us a global catastrophe—and make billions in the process.
News & Politics
February 18, 2022
Why Have There Been So Many Wildfires in Texas This Year?
Wes Moorehead, an expert at the Texas A&M Forest Service, explains what’s happened in 2022 and what the future might hold for the state.
Travel & Outdoors
February 16, 2022
I Went Skiing in Texas
On top of Mt. Aggie, the only slope in the state, it’s all downhill from here.
News & Politics
November 2, 2021
The Failure of the Texas Grid Inspired Two Climate Activists to Go on a Hunger Strike in D.C.
North Texans Kidus Girma and Julia Paramo haven’t eaten since October 20, as they try to pressure Joe Biden to pass a reconciliation bill with large green proposals.
Business
September 13, 2021
This Texan Aims to Resurrect the Woolly Mammoth to Save the Planet
Ben Lamm’s latest company, Colossal, hopes to reverse climate change by reintroducing the long-extinct creature to the Arctic. What could go wrong?
Energy
September 12, 2021
Fracking Has a Bad Rep, but Its Tech Is Powering a Clean Energy Shift
Texas start-ups are harnessing know-how born of the shale boom in pursuit of a greener future.
News & Politics
August 13, 2021
What the New Climate Change Report Means for Texas
Acclaimed climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe on reasons for alarm—and hope.
Books
August 12, 2021
The Flood That Changed San Antonio, for Better and Worse
One hundred years ago this month, a natural disaster devastated the city's poorest neighborhoods—and then transformed its politics.
Critters
November 20, 2020
Meet the Carrion-Craving Falcon That’s Taking Over Texas
Crested caracaras used to range no farther north than Texas’s southern tip, but now they’re expanding across the state—perhaps because of climate change and habitat loss.
Politics & Policy
March 18, 2020
Is Climate Change Denial Thawing in Texas?
Surprising statements by oil industry leaders have grabbed headlines. But the bigger change is underway more quietly, among young Republicans.
News & Politics
December 6, 2019
Coral Reefs in the Gulf of Mexico Could “Bleach” From Climate Change
Unless rapid warming is halted, the teeming reefs of the Gulf will likely be decimated.
Being Texan
October 3, 2019
The Summer That Wouldn’t Die
I left Texas after the brutal summer of 2011, only to return in time for the hottest September on record.
Politics & Policy
June 10, 2019
South Texas Was Hotter than Death Valley Last Week
Falcon Lake hit a balmy 116 while the heat index in Brownsville was an eyeball-melting 128 degrees, nine degrees warmer than Death Valley.
News & Politics
August 24, 2018
Voices From the Storm, a Year Later
Checking in with nine Harvey survivors a year after Texas Monthly first spoke to them.
Politics & Policy
March 16, 2018
FEMA Planning Documents Omit Mention of Climate Change
It's the Trump administration's latest move to stop addressing—or even acknowledging—climate change at the federal level.
Energy
March 7, 2018
Rick Perry Delivers the Gospel of ‘Energy Realism’
The energy secretary outlined the Trump administration’s new direction at an oil and gas conference in Houston.
News & Politics
January 20, 2018
New York Targets Texas Energy Companies in a Climate Change Lawsuit
ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips among the companies named in suit.
Energy
December 23, 2017
This Week in Texas Energy: Exxon to Disclose Risks from Climate Change
Plus: power reserves dip from coal plants shuttering and Austin commands the cheapest solar.
Energy
December 22, 2017
Failure to Prep for Climate Change Could Hurt Texas’s Credit Rating
States and cities that do not create adequate "adaptation and mitigation strategies" may face tarnished credit ratings, Moody's warns.
Bum Steers
December 21, 2017
Bum Steer Awards 2018 No. 8: Lamar Smith
The outgoing congressman takes eighth place for his refusal to face the truth about climate change.
Energy
August 24, 2017
Exxon Says a Harvard-Backed, Peer-Reviewed Study of Its Own Internal Communications About Climate Change Is “Preposterous”
The current debate is getting downright silly.
Energy
June 23, 2017
What Will Rick Perry’s Delayed Energy Grid Study Say?
The current energy secretary was a big proponent of wind power as governor of Texas. The signs now point to a change of heart.
Uncategorized
January 19, 2017
Double Entendres as Rick Perry Dodges Climate Change Questions
Rick Perry manages to avoid being pinned down at his Senate confirmation hearing.
Science
April 15, 2016
Unfriendly Climate
Katharine Hayhoe has made it her life’s mission to proclaim the truth about climate change. Can she get the skeptics to listen?
Politics & Policy
September 30, 2015
Skeptics and Scare Stories
Climate change is caused by emissions, not epistemology.
The Daily Post
June 4, 2015
The Problems With “100-Year Floods”
They seem to happen a lot more often than once a century, for one thing.
Politics & Policy
March 24, 2015
FEMA’s Climate Change Carrot to Texas
A new federal disaster preparedness rule is threatening to withhold hazard mitigation money from Texas if state leaders do not embrace climate change as a factor in weather disasters.
Feature
February 1, 2008
Bruce McCarl
Al Gore may be the public face of climate change, but all around the world, researchers are toiling in semi-obscurity to deepen our understanding of the challenge it poses. One of these is McCarl, a Texas A&M University professor who has spent the past twenty years studying the potential effects
Green Guinea Pig
February 1, 2008
The New Conservative
Can Jim Atkinson change the world?
Energy
January 1, 2007
Coal Hard Facts
Facing an energy crisis, Texas is on the verge of a solution that will belch about five billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in the next forty years. Breathe deeply—while you still can.