2016 is the hottest year on record.

Donald Trump's cabinet nominees include Rex Tillerson, former CEO of ExxonMobil, as secretary of state; longtime EPA foe Scott Pruitt to lead the EPA; and climate change denier Rick Perry, former governor of Texas, as head of the Department of Energy.

In early December, the sea-ice cover at the North and South Poles is smaller than recent averages by an area the size of India.

The glaciers that Bolivia depends on for its water are rapidly melting, leading the government to declare a state of emergency.

Global CO2 emissions remained flat in 2016 for the third year in a row. 

The Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar Unit 2 nuclear reactor begins commercial operation, the first in the United States to do so in two decades.

China says it will ban all sales of ivory by the end of the year.

A fungal disease is killing snakes in at least 20 eastern states. Similar diseases are decimating frog and bat populations.

An invasive Burmese python caught in the Florida Everglades is found to have the remains of three deer in its belly. Pythons may now be the park's top predator. 

Canada says it will eliminate the use of coal in power plants by 2030. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also approves a pipeline from the Alberta tar sands mines to a port in British Columbia. 

Concentrations of toxic mercury in bluefin tuna are declining, apparently because so many coal-fired power plants have closed.

Wind electricity generation in Texas hits a new record of 15,000 megawatts—45 percent of total electricity demand at the time.

Utah's Great Salt Lake is drying up. Its water is now 11 feet below historic levels.

According to the International Energy Agency, demand for gasoline has peaked, largely as a result of electric cars and more-fuel-efficient engines.

The U.S. Geological Survey announces the largest continuous oil and gas deposit ever assessed in the United States: the Wolfcamp Formation in West Texas. It is nearly three times larger than the Bakken Formation in Montana and North Dakota.

The outgoing Obama administration establishes a five-year moratorium on oil drilling in most federal waters in the Arctic Ocean and off the Atlantic coast. 

The Army Corps of Engineers blocks work on the Dakota Access Pipeline pending completion of a full environmental impact statement. (The Trump administration subsequently suspended that order.)

Thousands of snow geese die after landing in the toxic waters of the Berkeley Pit mine, near Butte, Montana. Witnesses describe the scene as "700 acres of white birds."

This article appeared in the March/April 2017 edition with the headline "Up to Speed: Two Months, One Page."