Blog Critique: Xeriscaping

In an article by The Lonestar State stands alone, xeriscaping is offered as a solution to help decrease the amount of water that is being used in Texas. I agree that this would be a good idea especially since Texas has many droughts and could be using this saved water elsewhere. I think that watering the lawn takes up a lot of water and the article says that “anywhere from 25% to 60% of household water consumption is used for landscaping”, which we should be conserving for other important uses such as drinking water. I have even seen sprinklers running while it is raining outside which just goes to show how wasteful it can be.

I have seen yards in other states, such as Nevada and New Mexico, which use xeriscaping for their yards and I think that it looks good. Some people may be opposed to switching from their lawns, but I think that it looks just as good and doesn’t need the sort of maintenance that grass does. In conclusion, I think that xeriscaping is a good plan and Texas should implement it in order to conserve water.

Texas May Refuse Environmental Rules

The Obama administration proposed a directive in June that is meant to reduce carbon emissions from power plants. However, Texas may try to ignore this proposal. The proposal is asking for a 200 billion pound decrease in carbon emissions from Texas power plants over the next 20 years.

Although I think that it is a good decision for Texas to regulate the amount of carbon emissions it has, I think that Texas should be able to make its own laws regarding the issue. I think that legislators in Texas should know what is best for their state, and creating the laws themselves may be better. An article by Neena Satija said that there was an event in the Texas Capitol where the chairman of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality talked about the proposal. There were over 100 people who attended and the general consensus was "that the state should sue the Environmental Protection Agency, or even the federal government itself, over the rules if they are finalized." I think that other measures should be taken before Texas sues anyone in order to avoid any unintended consequences. When Texas tried to avoid federal environmental rules before, it only led to a slow-down of the permitting process and energy companies lost a lot of money.

I definitely think that the amount of carbon emissions needs to be regulated in order to take better care of our environment. There is only one earth and I think a lot of people take the environment for granted and don't care about polluting it as long as they can make money. While I know the federal government is trying to do something about this issue, I think that they should come to agreement with Texas and the other states on more specialized programs. This way, each state can do what is best for itself as well as the environment.

Editorial Commentary

While I agree with Longhorn Liberties that “traffic in Austin has gotten progressively worse over the last few years”, I am not sure that creating a metro rail system in Austin would help.

I read an article by Amanda Haight where she explained that Austinites must first adopt a public transportation based lifestyle before millions of dollars are invested. Building a metro rail system in Austin would be difficult because it would have to be built around the city, whereas New York has had their underground subways since 1904. Cities like New York have been able to grow around their public transit system and there has always been room for it. Austin is constantly under construction and there is only so much it can fit. Building the rail in Austin would be very expensive and Austinites would have to be willing to give up their cars and use the rail. I think that if Austinites support the idea of making a metro rail system and actually use it, then the metro rails could be a good solution to the traffic problem.