Student Debt Today
Project on Student Debt | READ STORY

The Project on Student Debt has provided an online tool which simplifies data from their report "Student Debt and the Class of 2012." The average student debt of Montana State University graduates in 2012, for instance, was $27,320, while the average debt of University of Montana graduates was $29,126. Montana has the 18th highest average student debt among graduates in the U.S.

Changing Transportation Trends
U.S. Pirg | READ STORY

This report by U.S. Pirg examines shifts in U.S. transportation habits. Americans did the most per capita driving in 2004. The average U.S. miles per day is down 7.6% since then. Less people are commuting to work in their own private vehicles, more are working at home, fewer have more than one car, and more forgo owning a vehicle altogether.

Western Economy Atlas
Headwaters Economics | READ STORY

This interactive tool from Headwaters Economics presents information on the economic landscape of the westernmost eleven states of the U.S. Economic trends can be investigated at the state, regional, and county levels. Montana, for instance, has gained over 13,000 jobs in the health care/social assistance field--the most in any field--but the retail industry still provides the most jobs, over 70,000 total.

One of Nation's Key Ecosystems Being Lost at Staggering Rate
NOAA | READ STORY

From 2004-2009 wetland area in the coastal watersheds of the U.S. dropped by over 360,000 acres according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in their report. That amounts to an annual loss of over 80,000 acres, a 25 percent-increase since the agencies' previous reporting period.

US Navy Predicts Summer Ice Free Arctic by 2016

Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science | READ STORY

An ongoing US Department of Energy-backed research project led by a US Navy scientist predicts that the Arctic could lose its summer sea ice cover as early as 2016 - 84 years ahead of conventional model projections. The project, based out of the US Naval Postgraduate School's Department of Oceanography, uses complex modelling techniques that make its projections more accurate than others. A paper by principal investigator Professor Wieslaw Maslowski in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences sets out some of the findings.

NOAA: Expect 'Widespread, Sustained Changes' in the Arctic
NOAA | READ STORY

Three decades of a consistent warming trend have made a greener Arctic the new normal, and "widespread, sustained changes" are set to come to region, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a recent assessment.

Humanity Wholly Unprepared for Abrupt Climate Impacts, Warns Report
National Academy of Sciences | READ STORY

A new report released by scientists in the National Academy of Sciences says the sudden impacts of climate change this century and beyond are inevitable but warn that far too little has been done to prepare for them stating, 'the pace of change is orders of magnitude higher than what species have experienced in the last tens of millions of years.'