"After years of largely neglecting the buildup of plastic waste in Earth’s environment, the U.N. Environment Assembly will meet in February and March in the hopes of drafting the first international treaty controlling global plastics pollution."

"A growing constellation of methane-detecting satellites is giving researchers new and disturbing insights into “super emitters” around the globe — from pipelines in Russia to North America’s oil fields. But as the reams of data reveal the depth of the problem, they also have made clear a potential tool to combat climate change, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science."

"If you think it’s not our fault, urine denial."

"Peacocks may lose their legally mandated welcome in some neighborhoods across Miami-Dade after county commissioners agreed to loosen a law protecting the divisive birds."

"Sen. Joe Manchin declared Tuesday that President Joe Biden’s vast social and environment bill is “dead,” using his strongest language to date to underscore that any revival of Democrats’ top domestic priorities would have to arise from negotiations that are now moribund."

"The White House on Monday announced new steps to help curb emissions of methane, saying it will send $1.15 billion to states to clean up thousands of orphaned oil and gas wells that leak the powerful planet-warming gas."

"A new generation of pesticides promoted as safe alternatives to compounds shown to endanger the environment and public health are turning up in California streams at toxic levels, researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey report."

"Biden administration officials are kicking off a crackdown on power plant pollution, aiming to shift the nation’s electricity supply to cleaner energy in the face of congressional resistance and a Supreme Court that could limit the federal government’s ability to tighten public health standards."

"A fire raging in an underground Colorado coal field in 1883 sent so much smoke pouring from cracks in the ground that the scene was likened to burning volcanoes and the state’s first mining inspector deemed the blaze “impossible to extinguish.”

"Community groups in New Jersey and California are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, seeking to force trash incinerators across the country — many of them in predominantly minority communities — to emit less pollution into the air."