usa_night

NASA

If you look at the NASA satellite photo above, you can pick out, in the generally dark western plains, a weird clump of lights up near the Canadian border.

Those are the fracking fields of the Bakken oil boom.

Reader support helps sustain our work. Donate today to keep our climate news free. All donations DOUBLED!

Here’s a close up:

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.

bakken_vir_2012317

NASA

NPR’s Robert Krulwich points out that sometimes these lights are “almost as bright as the Aurora Borealis.” What a handy signal to alien races that they should have nothing to do with us.