Climate change is being felt across Texas, from brutal summers and numerous tornadoes to high-speed winds and devastating floods. In 2025, climate change is not a distant, future concern, instead, it is a problem directly affecting the present. Denton must begin implementing local environmental policies and take initiative against climate threats.
According to CBS News and Fox Weather, as recently as June 8, Denton County witnessed a thunderstorm with prominent lightning and brutal 80-mile-per-hour winds around the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Some of these winds damaged impoverished areas and homes all around the Lone Star State. These types of storms and floods are not just happening around Denton but also around Collin County.
According to The Dallas Morning News, Denton County is recording its 50th wettest January through May in around 131 years, citing erratic precipitation patterns and causing significant flooding in the area. Combining that with the massive storms and constant tornado warnings in the area, Denton is a hotspot for climate change’s impact and will only worsen in the coming months as summer fully begins.
According to Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, climate change’s heat waves will continue to strain power grids, harm vulnerable animal populations, and dry out landscapes. Texas is already experiencing a drought in the Austin area, along with sporadic precipitation.
The droughts risk sparking wildfires, and along with the consistent floods, these climate effects put at risk the destruction of Denton's most historic sites and can result in history being swept away. These scorching summers are a clear time to rethink urban infrastructure protection policies in all Texas areas.
Despite the tornado warnings in Denton and Collin counties, no tornado touchdown was ever reported. However, during tornado warning storms, there is always the risk of broken windows, uprooted trees and disrupted lives of Dentonites in the area.
From droughts to tornadoes, climate change’s effects on the rest of the world offer a glimpse into what a warmer, wetter planet has in store for Texas and other local communities—and it is not healthy or safe for anyone, regardless of where they live.
Beyond Denton, climate has affected the world as a whole. According to reports from NASA and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, assessments on climate change began in the 1970s as signs that the planet was slowly getting warmer. Ice caps are melting, and carbon emissions are cited as two main effects that cause climate change. The Environmental Protection Agency lists the youngest generations as the most susceptible to climate change's health effects in a report from 2023. For their sake, the best thing to do is to begin implementing local climate policies.
Texas has historically fallen near the 100th meridian of the dry line, a boundary that separates a mass of moist air from dry air, adding to the heat and dryness of Texas’s atmosphere, according to The Dallas Morning News. Climate change is pushing that line eastward, making Denton feel the consequences of both water shortages for plants, crops and trees and extreme humidity and drought swings.
There are also the damage costs in the wake of these natural disasters. From the ‘80s to last year, Texas has endured over $1 billion in weather disasters, with recent spikes in the three biggest problems, drought, flooding and storms.
Denton should have public health planning for these rising heat energies, such as the cooling centers in the Civic Center and throughout libraries. Putting those around school campuses' classrooms may help with students' summer classes. While some homeowners may have storm shelters built into their houses, the Denton City Council should rectify its storm shelter building codes to be safer and more cost-effective to protect some of its most historic sites or the city’s roads, especially during construction.
The bottom line is that 2025 and climate change are in a head-on collision in Denton and around the world. Sweltering heat, violet storms and flash flooding are not the least of the city’s problems, but they should be put at the forefront. The state needs strong leadership that will inform Denton, planning and policy that protect and community action to help counteract the effects that climate change is bringing to Denton.
Denton needs to begin implementing more local policies that help ease the effects of climate threats in the city not just for the sake of current residents, but also to help future Dentonites prepare for the deepening effects of climate change.
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