Climate change will increase the number of kidney stones.

In 2021, for the third year in a row, ocean temperatures reached a new high. 

There is a huge increase in lightning strikes in the high Arctic—7,278 in 2021, double the number of the previous nine years combined.

For 2021, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded 688 US fatalities in the year’s 20 separate billion-dollar climate-related natural disasters. 

This winter, Brussels Airlines has operated 3,000 empty or nearly empty flights, solely in order to preserve its landing privileges at major European airports.

The New York Times issues a correction to a clue in its crossword puzzle of January 10, which “implied incorrectly that coal is a viable source of clean energy.” 

The EPA starts enforcing Obama-era regulations requiring coal-fired power plants to clean up the toxic, leftover coal ash that, in at least 200 cases, is contaminating water sources.

A proposed geothermal energy project outside Gerlach, Nevada, and close to the Black Rock Desert is opposed by the Burning Man Project.

The destructive southern pine beetle is found in forests in Maine and New Hampshire.  

Magawa, the heroic landmine-hunting giant African pouched rat who detected more than 100 hidden explosives in his eight-year lifetime, dies peacefully of natural causes.  

A new species of rainfrog discovered in Panama, Pristimantis gretathunbergae, is named after climate activist Greta Thunberg.

American companies continue to import teak from Myanmar despite sanctions put in place after that country’s military seized power in Februrary 2021.

Since 2000, companies that are members of the US Chamber of Commerce have paid more than $20 billion in fines for more than 2,600 environmental violations. 

The Biden administration blocks a Trump-era plan to open all of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska to oil drilling but will allow drilling to go forward on half of the vast reserve in the far north of the state.

Income-eligible people in the San Francisco Bay Area can now trade in their old car for an EV or e-bike.

Hunters kill 20 wolves that wandered beyond Yellowstone National Park, “a significant setback for the species’ long-term viability and for wolf research.” The entire Phantom Lake Pack is eliminated. 

Warning of “demographic winter,” Pope Francis says that people who raise pets rather than children are selfish. 

Independent, simultaneous efforts at two European zoos succeed in identifying the presence of animal species by capturing DNA from the air. 

Isaac, Ariel, Norma, and Adrian scratch their names over a petroglyph in Big Bend National Park in southwestern Texas that may be 8,500 years old, irreparably damaging it.

A hundred ostriches race down the streets of Chongzuo, China, after escaping from a farm. Twenty remain at large.  

Washington, DC, is visited by a rare snowy owl.