Texas Can No Longer Treat Climate Change Like the Elephant in the Room

In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey struck the Texas Gulf Coast. In February and March 2024, wildfires ravaged the Texas Panhandle.

These two disasters could not be more different from each other. But they are linked.

The Harvey and Panhandle wildfires broke records for destruction, claiming the lives of Texans and causing extensive property damage. Harvey’s destruction was primarily caused by record-breaking rainfall. It was the most severe rainfall event in U.S. history in terms of rainfall, killing more than 100 people when the storm stalled over the Houston area. The Panhandle wildfires began in extreme drought and unusually high temperatures. These fires were the largest in state history, burning more than 1 million acres, killing three people, killing 15,000 livestock, and destroying more than 100 homes and businesses in the Texas Panhandle and parts of Oklahoma.

The link between Harvey and the wildfires is a global phenomenon that makes the conditions for such disasters more likely: climate change. Unfortunately, most Texas lawmakers refuse to acknowledge this side of the story.

In response to the wildfires, Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan created a special committee to investigate and propose legislative recommendations to prevent and respond to future fires. The committee compiled its findings in a report released in May.

While the report acknowledges the unusual nature of the February wildfires, it does not mention climate change once. The 42-page report focuses on responding to the fires with better equipment and other measures. Providing first responders with the best possible equipment and training to fight wildfires is a good thing, and the committee deserves credit for these recommendations.

While we need to find solutions to combat major wildfires, ignoring climate change is a blatant mistake. How could the inquiry have missed the elephant in the room regarding climate change? After all, 2023 was the hottest year on record on the planet, and 2024 could surpass it.

The report describes a scene leading up to the fire that warranted a discussion of climate. It says that “unusually high temperatures (20 degrees above average on February 26), low relative humidity, and high winds” created the “perfect” conditions for a record-breaking fire. As part of its investigation, the committee held three hearings in Pampa, where witnesses appeared by invitation only. No invited witnesses addressed climate change. At Texas Tech University in Lubbock, a world-renowned climate science center is just a two-hour drive away. Was an invitation extended to Tech?

The reality of the climate crisis makes it harder for Texas to ignore it any longer. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, nearly 400 climate- and weather-related disasters have caused at least $1 billion in damages in the United States between 1980 and the end of 2023. Nearly half of those, 170 to be exact, have occurred in Texas.

Rather than taking meaningful action to combat climate change, state leaders prefer to cave to powerful fossil fuel interests, which benefit from millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded subsidies. Too many lawmakers and regulators, who are supposed to hold the industry accountable, behave like industry cheerleaders. Consider that while the committee identified abandoned oil wells as a major cause of wildfires, the report offers no stronger solution than to require the state’s oil regulator to clean up old wells, a responsibility the agency already carries and chronically fails to do.

Harvey’s damage was primarily caused by water, which is very different from the wildfires in the Panhandle. However, it is linked to the weather conditions that make these disasters more likely and more severe when they do occur. Higher temperatures increase evaporation, which causes drier conditions in some places and brings more atmospheric moisture to bear in devastating quantities on other locations. It’s a combination of plenty and famine, but plenty is just as deadly as famine.

If Texas does not acknowledge reality, it will bury its head in the scorched, waterlogged sand.

White is the climate policy and advocacy specialist in Public Citizen’s Texas office.

This article was originally published on the Austin American-Statesman: Texas can no longer treat climate change like the elephant in the room