The black gold rush
A land of records, even the most dramatic ones, Texas is home to the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases. The Permian Basin, which stretches across western Texas and, to a lesser extent, southeastern New Mexico, supplies 40% of the country's oil, making Texas the leading producer of hydrocarbons in the United States. As a result, Uncle Sam's country is the world's leading oil producer, as of 2017. The extraction of black gold destroys habitats, consumes large quantities of water, pollutes water tables and, of course, produces large quantities of greenhouse gases.
Texas thus maintains the paradox of a state hard hit by climate change, yet largely responsible for it. This duality is surely also due to the fact that the state is traditionally a bastion of climate-skeptic politics. Texas governors like Greg Abott, in office since 2015, often reject the scientific consensus.
Wind power on a roll
However, the land of oil drilling is gradually becoming a pioneering U.S. state for renewable energies, particularly wind and solar power. The sector is booming, and President Biden is promoting it with tax breaks and major investments. Renewable energies are also part of the new president's plan to reduce greenhouse gases, which led the United States to rejoin the Paris agreements a year after President Trump pulled it out.
The US state that supplies the most oil is also the national champion of wind power. Its impressive capacity of 29,000 MW would rank it, if it were a country, as the world's sixth largest producer of wind power. At the very least, it accounts for a large share of the 35,000 MW of capacity in the USA, making the country the world's wind power champion.
The phenomenon is such that, locally, it is helping to turn around a flagging agricultural sector, by allowing farmers to lease their grazing land to wind turbines and solar panels, while continuing to graze their livestock. This is also the system chosen by Engie, which saw the Biden administration's tax breaks as a great opportunity. The French energy giant has signed land leases for the next thirty years, multiplying its giant wind and solar projects.
When plastic gets in the way
There are some guests we'd rather not receive. Such is the case with Formosa Plastics, a Taiwanese giant in the production of plastic microbeads, intended to be transformed into various components. The multinational only moved into the small town of Point Comfort, in southeast Texas, in 2019, and has already completely altered the environment.
The cause: regular leakage of plastic microbeads from the production lines, so that the soil and waterways are littered with these granules. Locally, the affair sparked a major mobilization, led in particular by Diane Wilson, a former shrimp fisherwoman, forced into retirement by the pollution of the waterways. Under pressure, the company was regularly forced to pay heavy fines. Yet the environmental damage continues, while some accuse the Texas government of burying its head in the sand..
A fierce drought that holds surprises
The news went round the world in the summer of 2022. As the Paluxy River dried up, it revealed the world's longest succession of dinosaur footprints! 113 million years old, these footprints belong to an Acrocanthosaurus: a large carnivore resembling the famous Tyrannosaurus rex.
While archaeologists are delighted by the news, ecologists are also in a cold sweat, as it shows that rivers are drying up to record levels! Although drought after drought has been the order of the day since 2010, the summer of 2022 was unprecedented. While supplying local populations with water has become a real challenge, the consequences of the drying-up of this highly agricultural state are being felt nationwide. Texas alone, for example, produces more than half of America's cotton, while the country ranks as the world's third-largest supplier. Yet Lubbock, the Texas cotton capital in the north of the state, received no rain at all between January and May 2022, and very little for the rest of the year. Although cotton plays a major economic role in Texas, its production fell by 58% in 2022 alone.
Texas' protected parks
As in every American state, it's important to distinguish between national parks, recognized by the United States, and state parks, recognized on a federal scale, of which there are dozens in Texas. The former are almost always more remarkable than the latter. Texas has two national parks. The first, Big Bend National Park, has captured the hearts of Americans since its creation in 1944. Its vast stretches of desert, criss-crossed by rivers and punctuated by the Chisos Mountains (up to 2,385 metres), are a sight to behold, especially as the park is relatively uncrowded, which makes it very enjoyable. To discover it, take the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Trail, among others. To prolong the pleasure, the national park is bordered by Big Bend Ranch State Park, a state park with a very similar landscape.
The second Texas national park, Guadalupe Mountains National Park, is located on the New Mexico border. It, too, is made up of desert areas interspersed with mountains, for typical Texas landscapes. The park is home to Guadalupe Peak, at 2,667 m the highest peak in Texas. It is home to an abundance of wildlife, including coyotes, pumas, lynx, vultures and eagles.
Among the most interesting state parks, Palo Duro Canyon State Park is home to the second-largest canyon in the United States. Colorado Bend State Park is as famous for its waterfalls as for its numerous caves.
