Fire on the prairie

The changes we're wreaking on our planet are of such a scale, and of such ferocious speed, that they can be seen by day and night. This image was made from nighttime satellite photos of North America. The circled area shows the Bakken oil fields of North Dakota, which are flaring natural gas that's coming up with the oil. Though domestic extraction has reduced our imports of foreign oil, the cost to the environment (and to ranchers and farmers) has been considerable. Domestic groundwater supplies have been impacted, as have surface waters, including rivers and lakes.
Read the story and see more photos-- and a fantastic time-lapse video of nighttime Earth from the orbiting space station-- at this link: NPR story.