The Eclipse Fingerprint On Solar Panels In Missoula, MT.

“Over the past year, seven of the estimated 80 remaining Texas ocelots were killed by vehicles. Six of these mortalities were adult males. Among ocelots, it is not easy to be a maturing male. In order to prevent competition for access to breeding females, older males often force the younger males to leave the area where they grew up, sending them out to find females and territory of their own. Once out of protected, dense brush habitat areas, these younger males encounter the human-developed world and all of its dangers, in particular roads and vehicles. In reaction to the large proportion of road mortalities being males, Dr. Hilary Swarts, a wildlife biologist who monitors ocelots in south Texas with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) said, ‘I can’t say it’s surprising that six of the seven deaths were males, since they have such a rough time of it once the older males start to see the younger males as competition for mates and territory.’” - See more at: http://blog.cincinnatizoo.org/#sthash.YjGoogOC.dpuf

Carbon emissions from energy production decreased by 89 million metric tons (MMmt), from 2015 to 2016, an annual percent change of 1.7%. 

The 1.7% drop in emissions occurred despite an increase in real gross domestic product (GDP) of 1.5% over that period. Other factors, most significantly greater use of energy sources (like renewables and natural gas) that emit less carbon dioxide than coal, more than offset the growth in GDP.

Emissions have declined in 6 out of the past 10 years, and energy‐related CO2 emissions in 2016 14% below 2005 levels.

The government owns a whole lot of land in the western United States. The resulting conflict between the government and environmentalists seeking to conserve this land for multiple use (parks, ranching, logging, mining, forestry, wildlife preservation, recreation etc.), and the Wise Use movement seeking to transfer the land from the government to the states or to private ownership, is a hallmark environmental fight in the west that many in the eastern United States are unaware. And it drives these standoffs that we saw in Nevada (Cliven Bundy) and now Oregon.

On the two year anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, it's worth putting the size of that spill into context. By the time it was capped on July 15, 2010, the well had released 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf, making it the largest accidental oil spill in history.

From National Geographic:

Four national monuments in the American West could be shrunk and six others opened up to permit more mining, grazing, logging, and commercial fishing if President Trump follows the recommendations of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke...

If enacted, the modifications would represent the most sweeping changes to existing national monuments by any sitting president — and are sure to set off a legal battle over presidential powers likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

Here are the threatened monuments:

Facing size reduction: 4. Cascade-Siskiyou, Oregon/California 12. Gold Butte, Nevada 13. Grand Staircase Escalante, Utah 14. Bears Ears, Utah

Facing management changes (mining, grazing, logging, fishing): 20. Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, New Mexico 21. Rio Grande del Norte, New Mexico 22. Katahdin Woods and Waters, Maine C. Pacific Remote Islands, south of Hawaii  D. Rose Atoll, by American Samoa E. Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, off the coast of Massahcusetts

Good read by Brad Plumer on the recent drop in China’s CO2 emissions.

Everglades (and south Florida, including Miami) with 2ft of sea level rise

The Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study just released an analysis of land-surface temperature records going back 250 years, about 100 years further than previous studies. The analysis shows that the rise in average world land temperature was approximately 1.5 degrees C in the past 250 years, and about 0.9 degrees in the past 50 years. This graph displays decadal average land surface temperatures reported from multiple sources.

A lacy, cloud-like pattern drifting across a Denver-area radar screen turned out to be a 70-mile-wide (110-kilometer) wave of butterflies, forecasters say... An unusually large number of painted ladies, which are sometimes mistaken for monarch butterflies, has descended on Colorado’s Front Range in recent weeks, feeding on flowers and sometimes flying together in what seem like clouds.