Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

Societies periodically run up against epochal changes. They emerge from them more adept at dealing with their future, or they get left behind by the economic, political or cultural shifts of their times.

Texas certainly faced a make-or-break moment in the 1980s. Collapsing energy prices upended the state's oil-driven economy, causing wildcatters, developers and builders to don sackcloth and ashes. The times were humbling and uncertain.

What happened next was the instructive part of the crisis: Texas responded to changes that threatened to devastate it. Diversification became the new zeitgeist, resulting in an economy in which financial services, technology companies and medical centers became the new drivers.

Texas, like the rest of America, now faces a similar epochal moment. This time, it comes from the environment, which could be a harder force to respond to than the economy. Unpredictable weather patterns can prove far more apocalyptic than falling energy prices.

Some prefer going to talk radio to debate why the climate is changing: Are humans causing this, or is it something else? Fine, debate all you want. But the rest of the state would be better off following those who are figuring out how to respond.

State Sen. Kip Averitt, for example, has been working during this legislative session to find a way to pay for Texas' 50-year water plan. The Senate has passed two of the Waco Republican's bills that would help finance the plan, which includes solutions from better aquifer management to creating desalination projects to using new reservoirs.

The House could consider his proposals this week, and those of us interested in having water in the future should hope it passes them. One proposal would set up an ongoing bond fund to finance the water plan; the other would pay for the debt on those bonds.

Both are necessary to get Texas ready for the impact more severe droughts could have. And as with all shifts, the rest of us must change our own ways to avoid the undertow of larger forces.

For example, if the Legislature put a fee on bottled water purchases, the revenues could pay the debt on those bonds. Some of us might howl, but what would we rather do, let droughts overwhelm us or cope with them?

Like Averitt, Sen. Eliot Shapleigh also has ideas about preparing the state for the impact climate change could have on its water supplies. The El Paso Democrat has proposed two bills that would require the state to consider how climate variations could affect water supplies. (His bills have passed the Senate, too, and the House could help Texas by embracing them.)

One measure would establish a council of experts to advise state water officials on how to respond to climate change. The other would require Texas water planners to regularly factor climate change into the 50-year plan.

Shapleigh got the Texas Water Development Board to hold an El Paso conference last summer to talk about how unpredicted changes in the environment could affect the Rio Grande. Here's the part of that conference's report the rest of us should think about:

"Planners have relied on the concept of 'stationarity,' which assumes that natural systems fluctuate within a relatively stable envelope of volatility. ... One of the most daunting challenges to the stationarity assumption is mounting evidence, most recently highlighted by the International Panel of Climate Change, that the world's climate itself is changing enough that it could have profound impacts on water resources and their management around the world."

Societies that become great respond to their times. Societies that fall behind fail to meet them. Which will it be for Texas when it comes to the state's water needs?