The Reduction In CO2 Emissions From The Energy Sector In The U.S. Over The Past 5 Years (see Previous

44% of crocodilians are threatened according to the IUCN. The Chinese alligator, Orinoco crocodile, Phillippines crocodile, Cuban crocodile, Siamese crocodile and Gharial are all considered critically endangered. A conservation success story, the American alligator, once facing extinction, is now considered "low risk", although the American crocodile is "vulnerable".

From reptiles, the conservation status of the world's snakes

Changes in US tree cover since 2000 (purple is gain, red is loss)

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.

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.

Stanford scholar Mark Z. Jacobson lays out how the US could get to 100% renewable energy by 2050. David Roberts describes his ambitious blueprint and the challenges it would face here.

“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

The significance of the Berkley Earth Surface Temperature study is that it was performed by prominent climate change skeptic Richard Muller. Prior to this study, Dr. Muller was a leading voice of climate change skepticism, casting doubt on both the idea that the earth is warming, and that humans are the cause. The land surface temperature trend (previous graph) led Muller to conclude that the earth is warming. 

Muller then studied issues raised by skeptics, such as possible biases from urban heating, data selection, poor station quality, and data adjustment. He concluded that these do not unduly bias the results. He further concluded that many of the changes in land-surface temperature can be explained by a combination of volcanoes and a proxy for human greenhouse gas emissions. Solar variation does not seem to impact the temperature trend.  Muller demonstrated that the upward temperature trend is likely to be an indication of anthropogenic changes, namely carbon dioxide emissions.

These results led Muller to announce in a NY Times Op-Ed that his research shows the earth is warming and that "humans are almost entirely the cause", referring to himself as a converted climate change skeptic.

Look at that wind and solar growth