"A “de facto moratorium” on offshore oil and gas leasing is taking hold over the next several months while the Biden administration considers its options for a proposed five-year leasing plan for the Gulf of Mexico, an oil and gas industry attorney said."

"South Sudan is moving ahead with plans for a 240-mile canal to divert water from the White Nile and send it to Egypt. But critics warn the megaproject would desiccate the world’s second largest wetland, impacting its rich wildlife and the rains on which the region depends."

"Alaska is on pace for a historic fire season, spurred on by warm temperatures, a diminished snowpack, and an apparent uptick in lightning strikes. Fires have ripped through 2 million acres so far this year, roughly 10 times the total area burned in all of 2021."

"After 20 years of failed negotiations, the World Trade Organization (WTO) has secured a deal to curb harmful subsidies that contribute to overfishing. Conservationists and campaign groups welcomed last week’s agreement as historic, despite criticism of “big holes” in the agreement."

"A Guardian analysis of water samples from around the United States shows that the type of water testing relied on by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is so limited in scope that it is probably missing significant levels of PFAS pollutants."

"European Union lawmakers voted Wednesday to include natural gas and nuclear in the bloc’s list of sustainable activities, backing a proposal from the EU’s executive arm that has been drawing fierce criticism from environment groups and now looks set to trigger legal challenges."

"Writers like Kim Stanley Robinson, Barry Lopez, Sy Montgomery and others celebrate the fragile beauty of this modern world — and address how to help save it."

"Summer is normally beach-read season, the time of year when publishers pump out potboilers and steamy romances to fill the sun-drenched days.

But what if your local beach is polluted, flooded, plagued with invasive species or just too darn hot?

"Drought and changing weather patterns feed stronger, longer dust storms, causing damage that costs the region $13 billion a year".

"A U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding state authority to prosecute some crimes on Native land is fracturing decades of law built around the hard-fought principle that tribes have the right to govern themselves on their own territory, legal experts say."

"A potent weather system near Australia’s east coast has unloaded tremendous rainfall in the state of New South Wales for days, putting Sydney on track for its wettest year on record."