"When Biden issued an expansive day one executive order on climate change and public health, it included a little-noticed provision that intended to reinstate a flood-mitigation policy that President Obama had established in 2015 and President Trump revoked in 2017."

"A floating mat of muck on the surface of Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp, home to rare carnivorous pitcher plants, blooming lilies and countless alligators and insects, looks like any other patch of mud from a distance."

"President Biden is holding firm on energy and climate provisions in the White House infrastructure proposal but has expressed a willingness to cut some research and development funds, according to a memo to Senate Environment Committee ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) obtained by The Hill."

"In a bid to boost the whale watching economy, a new law bars Greenlanders from taking humpback whales near the capital."

"A federal judge ordered an immediate halt on Thursday to plans to dredge a shipping channel on the Georgia coast, citing a threat to sea turtles nesting on nearby beaches."

"Negotiations between the White House and Senate Republicans over President Joe Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan are hitting a crucial stage ahead of talks Friday after the latest GOP offer left some dismay in the administration that there wasn’t more movement off the Republicans’ initial $568 billion proposal."

"Just months after the conclusion of the busiest Atlantic hurricane season on record, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released its 2021 outlook, calling for another active season. The agency is the latest of several forecasting groups watching the upcoming hurricane season’s potential to overperform for the sixth year in a row."

"Storms, floods, wildfires — and to a lesser degree, conflict — uprooted 40.5 million people around the world in 2020. It was the largest number in more than a decade, according to figures published Thursday by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, a nonprofit group based in Geneva that tracks displacement data annually."

"Roughly a sixth of the planet’s land and freshwater area now lies within protected or conservation areas, according to a United Nations report released Wednesday."