Environment

Submitted by Dave Forest via OilPrice.com,

With 2016 now closed out, we’re getting the first looks at year-end data. And numbers from one nation in the energy space have been particularly eye-catching this week.

Russia.

Over the last 15 years, Russia vaulted upwards in oil and gas production — challenging for the world’s top producer of crude. A fact that’s especially critical given this big producer is a “rogue” nation that lies outside the purview of OPEC.

Images captured by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft reveal what looks like three huge towers on Mars equally spaced out from one another and symmetrically aligned. The massive structures were spotted in the Terra Meridiani area of Mars located just south of the equator where surface material appear to be constantly in the process of getting stripped away. The towers appear to be artificial and laid out in the same pattern as the famous Giza pyramids of Egypt. The Daily Sheeple reports: Here’s yet another curious find on the surface of the red planet.

Update: sure enough, here comes Trump's twitter victory lap:

"@DanScavino: Ford to scrap Mexico plant, invest in Michigan due to Trump policies"https://t.co/137nUo03Gl

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017

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The following dramatic time-lapse video, shows a wall of toxic smog rolling into Beijing over a 20-minute period collapsed into a 10 second video; it gives a glimpse of the pollution problem in China's capital city. Chas Pope, a British engineering consultant working in Beijing, shot the video.

http://abcnews.go.com/video/embed

A flock of stoned sheep went on a “psychotic rampage” over the New Year after eating cannabis dumbed in a village in Wales. According to locals from the Welsh village of Rhydypandy in Swansea, the sheep were spotted roaming around the streets and randomly breaking into people’s homes. County councillor Ioan Richard told reporters that sheep were “getting in people’s gardens and one even entered a bungalow and left a mess in the bedroom”.