staticDB_ENV*volatilemost_recent_env;// most recently opened env, used for engine status on crash. Note there are likely to be races on this if you have multiple threads creating and closing environments in parallel. We'll declare it volatile since at least that helps make sure the compiler doesn't optimize away certain code (e.g., if while debugging, you write a code that spins on most_recent_env, you'd like to compiler not to optimize your code away.)