The Sierra Club decries the attack on the US Capitol by a violent pro-Trump mob: “We won’t stand down, and we won’t stand by. We will, instead, speak up.”

The three iconic 775-foot smokestacks of the Navajo Generating Station coal-fired power plant in Arizona fall in a planned demolition.

Washington State closes its last coal-fired power plant, Centralia Unit Nine.

Two endangered Florida panthers are killed by vehicles in the first week of 2021. Nineteen panthers were killed by cars in 2020.

Americans are buying so many SUVs and light trucks that, for the first time in five years, the fuel efficiency of new vehicles declined and emissions increased.

Tesla founder Elon Musk is now the richest person in the world.

Major oil firms decline to bid in the Bureau of Land Management’s auction of drilling rights for the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The only large bidder is the state of Alaska itself.

In 2019, the use of ExxonMobil’s petroleum products led to the emissions equivalent of 730 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, as much as all of Canada's.

The production of bitcoin consumes as much energy as Pakistan.

Trump vetoes a bipartisan bill that would have protected whales, dolphins, and sea turtles by banning enormous driftnets in California coastal waters. 

Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency passes a so-called secret science rule that severely limits the data that can be used to craft public health protections.

Mexico City bans all single-use plastics including straws, cutlery, and balloons.

Microplastics are detected in the placentas of healthy women. 

362,000 Americans have died of COVID-19. On January 7, for the first time, more than 4,000 perish.

So many National Park Service employees in Washington, DC, contract COVID after Interior Secretary David Bernhardt hosts a private event at the Washington Monument that the site is closed to visitors. 

Endangered black-footed ferrets are being inoculated against COVID-19, to which they and other mustelids are especially susceptible.

Rain showers in Las Vegas end a record 240-day dry spell.

Virginia decriminalizes jaywalking and pot.

Bottlenose dolphins are developing “a devastating skin disease” due to the reduced salinity of coastal waters, a consequence of climate change.

A hitherto unknown population of blue whales in the Indian Ocean is identified by their unique song. 

Loud New Year’s Eve fireworks in Rome kill hundreds of birds.

Passings: Carrie Dann, Western Shoshone lands rights activist; George Whitmore, last remaining survivor of the first successful climb of Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan.