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U.S., Canada Pledge To Lower Methane Emissions In Oil And Gas sectors
Posted by National Public Radio: John Burnett on March 11th, 2016
National Public Radio: Methane leaks are bad news. We'll fly over a South Texas oilfield with a leak detection crew and witness - with the aid of an infrared camera - how much methane gushes into the atmosphere.
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Texas seeks new water supplies amid drought
Posted by National Public Radio: John Burnett on July 8th, 2012
National Public Radio: The punishing seven-year drought of the 1950s in Texas brought about the modern era of water planning. But the drought of 2011 was the hottest, driest 12 months on record there.
Though only a handful of towns saw their water sources dry up last summer, it got so bad that cities, industries and farmers began to think the unthinkable: Would they run out of water?
With the state's population expected to double by 2060, Texas must begin an expensive and politically charged search for new water...
How one drought changed Texas agriculture forever
Posted by National Public Radio: John Burnett on July 8th, 2012
National Public Radio: In Texas, there is still the drought against which all other droughts are measured: the seven-year dry spell in the 1950s. It was so devastating that agriculture losses exceeded those of the Dust Bowl years, and so momentous that it kicked off the modern era of water planning in Texas.
From 1950 to 1957, the sky dried up and the rain refused to fall. Every day, Texans scanned the pale-blue heavens for rainclouds, but year after year they never came.
The ground desiccated and cracked open, and...
Texas Fire Evacuees Return To Find Only Ashes
Posted by National Public Radio: John Burnett on September 15th, 2011
National Public Radio: For 17 years, Linda and Roger Ward lived in their two-story dream house in a subdivision in Bastrop County, southeast of Austin, Texas. They loved to sit on their back deck and listen to the wind in the pines.
On the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 4, everything changed.
"I used to sit in the living room and decide which pictures on the wall "” that was my primary thing, important papers and pictures "” I was gonna get out," Linda Ward says. "And it happened so fast I didn't even have a chance to...
Austin Plagued By Record Heat Wave
Posted by National Public Radio: John Burnett on August 24th, 2011
National Public Radio: MELISSA BLOCK, host: Today, at around 2:00 p.m. in Austin, Texas, an unhappy record was broken. This is the 70th day this year that temperatures there have exceeded 100 degrees. That broke the city's record of triple digit days set in 1925.
NPR's John Burnett sent us this postcard from the scorched streets of the Texas capitol.
JOHN BURNETT: It's always hot in Texas in the summer, but this one has been like no other in memory. The heat is like a malevolent force. People are sweaty, people are...