Water & Oceans

"In the waterlogged Netherlands, climate change is considered neither a hypothetical nor a drag on the economy. Instead, it’s an opportunity."

"Scientists have documented a recent, massive melt event on the surface of highly vulnerable West Antarctica that, they fear, could be a harbinger of future events as the planet continues to warm."

"The Trump administration announced Monday that it has canceled proposed limits on the number of endangered whales, dolphins and sea turtles that can be killed or injured by sword-fishing nets on the West Coast."

"California is ordering immediate spillway inspections at about 70 aging dams that it believes might not be sound enough to protect downstream communities in a flood, a state dam regulator said Wednesday."

"FLINT, Mich. — By the time Robert Skidmore, an 85-year-old former auto industry worker, died in late 2015, officials had seen signs for months that Flint was wrestling with outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease, prosecutors say. Yet despite a wave of such cases in 2014 and 2015, no public warning was issued until early 2016."

"It’s the kind of choice that climate change will be forcing over and over."

"With utility industry groups pressuring the EPA to change regulations on coal ash facility maintenance and cleanup, environmental activists in the Southeast worry that companies won’t be required to take responsibility for long-term monitoring of coal ash ponds and landfills."

"California’s largest lake is drying up. The Salton Sea has been shrinking for years, and fish and birds have been dying. The dry lakebed already spews toxic dust into the air, threatening a region with hundreds of thousands of people. And the crisis is about to get much worse."

"UNITED NATIONS — The 193 U.N. member nations issued an urgent call for action Friday to reverse the decline in the health and productivity of the world’s oceans — with the United States backing the action plan but rejecting its support for the Paris agreement to tackle climate change."

"UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Tuesday that by 2050 global demand for fresh water is projected to grow by more than 40 percent and at least a quarter of the world's population will live in countries with a 'chronic or recurrent' lack of clean water."