The Environmental Blog Mongabay.com Created A Series Of Graphs From The IUCN Red List, Which Evaluates

The United States-Mexico border (solid black line); observed range of adult male jaguar ‘Macho B’ from May 2006 to April 2007 (white oval); important cross-border corridors for jaguars and other wildlife (heavy white double-arrows); 4- to 5-m-tall steel border fences existing or under construction as of 2007 (solid white lines); increased border security [vehicle barriers, chain-link fences, virtual fencing, surveillance towers,agent patrols] (white dashed lines); funneled undocumented immigrant and resulting law enforcement traffic (black arrows).

Given the current administration’s promise to build a border wall along the entire US-Mexico border, worth considering this 2008 study on the potential impacts of a border fence on Jaguars in the borderlands. 

Jaguars (Panthera onca) are typically associated with the rain forests of Central and South America; however, the species historically ranged into the arid southwestern United States... as global climate trends change toward hotter, drier environments, Jaguars living in the borderlands may become even more important to the survival of the species. Effective conservation of jaguars will require maintaining sufficient core and connective habitats to avoid population fragmentation and thus reduce the probability of extinction. 

The Secure Fence Act of 2006 mandated the United States Department of Homeland Security to physically separate Mexico from the southwestern United States with steel fences 3–4 m high across 1,280 km of the United States–Mexico border, including ∼70% of the Arizona border... The border fence may effectively partition the already small, northernmost population of jaguars and isolate jaguars in the United States from the larger source population in northwestern Mexico.

Emil B. McCain, Jack L. Childs; Evidence of Resident Jaguars (Panthera onca) in the Southwestern United States and the Implications for Conservation. J Mammal 2008; 89 (1): 1-10. doi: 10.1644/07-MAMM-F-268.1

...and lizards, a quarter of which are threatened.

Yes, the eastern US is frigid. Yes, the average global temperature is warmer than average.

Temperature anomalies on December 29, 2017

Every year a dead zone forms in the Gulf of Mexico. This year’s dead zone is the largest on record. 

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

“Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution enters the Mississippi [River] throughout its watershed, which includes runoff from the Midwest cropland and factory livestock and chicken farms, and pollutants from sewer systems and septic tanks in other locations...The lighter freshwater containing the nutrients creates a layered effect when it reaches the Gulf and the nutrients trigger blooms of phytoplankton - microscopic marine algae - in the spring and summer. The fresher, warmer water in the upper layer is separated from the saltier, colder water in the lower layer, resulting in a barrier to the normal diffusion of oxygen from the surface to the bottom... When the algae dies and sinks to the bottom, it decomposes, using up oxygen in the deeper heavy saltwater and creating dead zone conditions. Those conditions don't change until wind or weather, especially tropical storms or hurricanes, mix the freshwater at the surface into the saltier water.”

A monitoring cruise measured a dead zone of 8,776 square miles, “4 1/2 times the size of the of the goal of about 1,950 square miles set by the federal-state Mississippi River Nutrient/Hypoxia Task Force.” The result are marine life, such as crabs and crustaceans, that die due to oxygen deprivation.

From the Washington Post:

"There are two ways to think about the cost of energy. There’s the dollar amount that shows up on our utility bills or at the pump. And then there’s the “social cost” — all the adverse consequences that various energy sources... end up foisting on the public."

"The blue bars represent the current market cost of various energy sources. On top of that, Greenstone and Looney have added estimated health damages from air pollution (the purple bar), as well as the cost of climate-changing carbon emissions that come with burning fossil fuels (the gray bar)."

"At the end of the paper, Greenstone and Looney argue that the government should put a price on the social costs of fossil fuels — either through a cap on emissions or a tax. “If firms and consumers faced the full cost of their energy use,” they write, “they would have a greater incentive to make more-informed and socially efficient decisions about energy consumption.”"

According to environmental historian Philip Wright, declining oil transport by the Trans-Alaska Pipeline is one impetus for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). Less oil in the pipeline means the oil moves slows and cools down faster, resulting in technical problems like ice and wax buildup. Drilling proponents argue that drilling in ANWR is necessary to increase the oil supply in the pipeline.

Graph showing carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere over the past 650,000 years. Concentrations are measured by examining trapped air bubbles in prehistoric ice cores. The graph shows current CO2 levels at an unprecedented high level in the atmosphere, far greater than during past natural climate cycles. A rapid increase is observed since the industrial revolution, highlighting the contribution of the burning of fossil fuels.

“About 3 billion people around the world  — mostly in Africa and Asia, and mostly very poor — don't have access to modern energy and still cook and heat their homes by burning coal, charcoal, dung, wood, or plant residue indoors. These homes often have poor ventilation, and the smoke can cause a horrible array of respiratory diseases, including lung cancer... Indoor air pollution gets surprisingly little attention for such a lethal public health problem. It kills more people each year than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined, but few countries treat it as a crisis on the same level.” - Vox

A recent report from the Energy Information Administration found that U.S. plant owners and operators are getting ready to retire 27 gigawatts’ worth of coal generation, or about 8.5 percent of the coal fleet, between now and 2016. Considering the substantial contribution of burning coal to climate change, coal plant retirements are one of the greatest ways to reduce carbon emissions.