"New Orleans, Houston and Albuquerque are losing trees faster than any other U.S. cities, and across the country tree cover is declining at a rate of about four million trees per year, finds new U.S. Forest Service research published in the journal 'Urban Forestry & Urban Greening.'"

"The rapid increase in the number of cities home to more than 10 million people will bring huge challenges … and opportunities."

Detroit, one of the birthplaces of American industrial capitalism, has also been in many ways one of its earlier deathplaces -- an urban landscape where many houses and lots are abandoned. A conversation with civil rights legend Grace Lee Boggs and people she inspires offers a key example of how the urban agriculture movement is reclaiming post-industrial America both physically and spiritually.

Christa Tippett hosts this episode of American Public Media's On Being January 19, 2012.

Changes in federal flood insurance policy, along with increased flood risks from global warming, may encourage development in the wrong places.

"A review suggests that the Amazon rainforest may be changing, courtesy of human impacts on the region's weather."

Most of humanity today lives an a metropolis. Is all climate local? Cities are the locus of many of the world's unique environmental, social, and economic problems. But they are also demonstrating a unique talent for applying smarter technology and policy to create a better future.

"STOCKHOLM — Population growth and water stress are driving Earth to a food and environmental crunch that only better farming techniques and smarter use of the ecosystem will avert, a UN report issued on Monday said."

"Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal, labeled 'one of the most contaminated bodies of water in the nation,' isn't just a filthy Superfund site. To urbanites, it's a little piece of the outdoors."

"Nearly 200 communities across the United States have been awarded new federal grants to clean up old contaminated industrial sites and transform them into new, job-creating developments."

The rehabilitation of San Francisco's Hunters Point Naval Shipyard is bringing pressure on the minority population of the area.

"Southern California's Imperial Valley produces about 80 percent of the nation's winter vegetables. But years of drought, and a population boom in the Southwest, now threaten the water supply in the desert region — and all those cheap winter greens."

The oil and gas industry is slurping up available groundwater in parts of South Texas where population growth is exploding and global warming may diminish rainfall. There may be a serious crunch ahead.

Water managers, farmers, electric utilities, skiers and some 30 million water users breathed a sigh of relief in recent weeks with news that snowpack in the basin of the Colorado River was better. The relief may be temporary. The drought that has plagued the region for 11 years may become the new "normal."

"Changes in Iowa's weather patterns, landscape, cities and farms have rendered some of the state's most trusted flood prevention safeguards outmoded and inadequate, a review by The Des Moines Register shows."

"A once-unthinkable day is looming on the Colorado River. Barring a sudden end to the Southwest’s 11-year drought, the distribution of the river’s dwindling bounty is likely to be reordered as early as next year because the flow of water cannot keep pace with the region’s demands."