Stories not to miss from our environmental coverage over the past year.

A chinstrap penguin surveys his domain near the shore of the Antarctic Peninsula. Some penguin species have already been displaced by the decline of ice in the region, and many populations will lose habitat in the decades ahead. (Photo: Bob Berwyn)

I think we can all agree, things really went off the rails in 2016.

Environmentally, it was a year of extremes. It is more likely than not to be the hottest year on record, and yet, global fossil fuel emissions flattened. Wildfires torched tens of thousands of acres across the United States in one of the longest and largest fire seasons on record, and the Paris Agreement entered into force. Storms that should only happen every 500 years became increasingly common, and the Army Corps of Engineers denied permits for the Dakota Access pipeline pending a…