From The Guardian:

The conservation status of turtles and tortoises, nearly 60% of which are threatened. Many critically endangered turtles are in Asia, such as the Yunnan Box Turtle, Yangtze Giant Softshell Turtle and Philippine Pond Turtle. The leatherback and hawksbill sea turtles are also critically endangered.

Wind turbines: not a significant source of death for birds.

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.

From Bloomberg:

The U.K. said in July it will ban sales of diesel- and gasoline-fueled cars by 2040, two weeks after France announced a similar plan to reduce air pollution and meet targets to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

China will set a deadline for automakers to end sales of fossil-fuel-powered vehicles, becoming the biggest market to do so in a move that will accelerate the push into the electric car market... The looming ban on combustion-engine automobiles will goad both local and global automakers to focus on introducing more zero-emission electric cars to help clean up smog-choked major cities.

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

Another graph from Theda Skocpol's analysis of why the 2009 Cap and Trade bill failed, this one looking at increasing political polarization between the Democrats and the GOP from the 1970s on.

*The LCV (League of Conservation Voters) average reflects LCV scores given to lawmwakers, which are based on their votes on important environmental legislation. The higher the score the more "pro-environment" the lawmaker.

The Florida Everglades, where elevation above sea level is often measured in single digits, is on of the most susceptible areas of the country to sea level rise. In addition to its low coastal elevation, the Everglades are threatened as a result of a history of wetland degradation that changed the way water flowed through the large wetland system. Restoring natural freshwater flows will help protect the everglades from the intrusion of salt water due to sea level rise, but it must be done quickly.

Dr. Harold Wanless of the University of Miami Department of Geological Sciences created a series of maps showing the Everglades under varying scenarios of sea level rise. This is the Everglades in 1995. 

The Sulztalferner glacier from 1990 and 2017.  Red arrow is where the glacier ended in 1990, yellow arrow where it ended in 2017, purple dots are the snowline, and the green arrow an area of exposed bedrock amidst the glacier.

 Sulztalferner is a glacier in the Alps of Austria... between 1969 and 2003, 14 of the 88 glaciers in this range disappeared. The area of these glaciers was to 54.1 km2 in 1969, but only 36.9 km2 in 2003. 

In 1990 the Sulztalferner glacier was 3050 m long; in 2017 the glacier is 2100 m long.

Source: AGU 

Rhino poaching in South Africa decreased for the third year in a row, according to South African Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs, Edna Molewa. But the number is still unsustainably high, with about 3 rhinos killed per day in South Africa.

Rising incomes in Asian nations, such as Vietnam and China, is driving a renewed poaching boom for rhino horns, and poachers are finding new ways to avoid detection of exports.

Original Article