Experts in the News

If a major hurricane struck the Houston Ship Channel, the chemical soup left behind would cast a pall over southeast Texas for decades to come, said Rice faculty scholar Jim Blackburn. “You could say goodbye to economic development, to entire communities, and to one of the most prolific estuaries in the United States."

Fellow Jim Blackburn and the Baker Institute are leading a group that is brainstorming ways to create a market for storing carbon in the soil of prairies, farms, ranches and grasslands in Texas and around the country. Grasslands store most of their carbon underground, in their roots and the soil. "It’s a good locker to put the carbon into,” said Blackburn.

Scholar Jim Blackburn discussed how climate change impacts flooding in Houston.

"I believe it's going to be obsolete on arrival when we get the new 100-year floodplain maps," said Rice faculty scholar Jim Blackburn.

The institute has initiated a working group to develop a U.S. protocol for paying ranchers and farmers to store carbon in their soil. The current system for voluntary carbon transactions is broken and needs to be fixed, group founders said. The group is co-led by Baker Institute Rice Faculty Scholar Jim Blackburn and Center for Energy Studies Senior Director Ken Medlock.