According To The National Climatic Data Center, The Average Global Temperature For 2012 Made It The 10th

I'm back...

I apologize for my 5 months hiatus. I intend to divert my attention back to Envirographs, to continue using graphs and maps to explore environmental problems, trends and solutions.

The larger the share of overall energy jobs that are solar and wind jobs, the more likely a state was to support the Democratic candidate in 2016. This has an important lesson for Trump as his administration crafts energy policy.

Per Axios: 

...for the most part, states that Trump narrowly won have a higher percentage of energy jobs that are renewable-energy jobs than safe Republican states.

Thus, an energy policy that shuns renewables in favor or jobs in fossil fuels could bolster his support in solid red states, while jeopardizing his support in the swing states he narrowly won to give him the presidency. Trump would be wise to continue Obama’s investment in renewables.

Conservation status of reptiles, which include snakes, lizards, turtles & tortoises, tuataras and the crocodilians

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.

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

Coal's share of U.S. electricity generation has been steadily declining, a result of market forces, particularly the low price of natural gas and the expense of building new coal plants. Since throughout its life cycle coal is arguably our dirtiest fuel source (from mountaintop removal mining, to mercury and air toxics released during combustion, to carbon emissions, to hazardous coal ash), a move away from reliance on coal benefits public health, the environment and the climate.

Water stress in the Middle East and North Africa. Of the 16 nations worldwide suffering extreme water stress, all are in this region. Bahrain tops the list of those using far more water than they sustainably receive. In a region prone to conflict and civil unrest, and experiencing rapid population growth, water stress could fuel greater conflict.

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