- Post written by Andre’ Cotton, Advocacy Intern at Campus Progress

MSNBC ran an alarming piece about extreme weather conditions that have been happening across the country. Over the weekend, two tornadoes touched down in western New York while southeastern states are battling with record breaking drought conditions. Texas is being hit especially hard having over 70 counties that have been classified as having exceptional drought, conditions that are almost unprecedented. However, as usual in the mainstream media, the connection between these disastrous events and the global climate crisis wasn’t made.

These extreme conditions may not be such rare occurrences in the future with the mounting climate crisis if action is not taken. The excess carbon dioxide that is being caused by the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests is having an adverse effect on our earth’s climate. The changes include making droughts and storms much stronger and more persistent than they would have been 100 years ago. Weather disasters like the ones reported in this piece are in line with scientific observations of the impacts of the climate crisis and should be a warning sign to all legislators delaying action about what is to come.

For instance, even though Texas leads the nation in wind power generation, over 85% of Texas’ electricity generation is still derived from fossil fuel sources contributing to the excess. While Texas is well on its way to increasing its wind energy installations by another 50%, it has yet to fully capitalize on its other clean energy resources. For example, there is enough geothermal potential in the state to produce 2,200-megawatts of electrical capacity, which could power 1.1 million Texan homes!

And the switch to cleaner energy is already proving its economic benefits. Clean Energy for Texas and AWEA estimate that 2,500 wind project construction jobs were created in the state during 2008. Furthermore, one report projects that continued investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects could create nearly 370,000 green jobs in Texas in the next three decades.