Thousands of negotiators and observers representing most of the world's nations are gathering in the Canadian city of Ottawa this week to craft a treaty to stop the rapidly escalating problem of plastic pollution.

Each day, the equivalent of 2,000 garbage trucks full of plastic are dumped into the world's oceans, rivers and lakes, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. People are increasingly breathing, eating and drinking tiny plastic particles.

Skies over southern Greece turned an orange hue on Tuesday as dust clouds blown across the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa engulfed the Acropolis and other Athens landmarks.

Strong southerly winds carried the dust from the Sahara Desert, giving the atmosphere of the Greek capital a Martian-like filter in the last hours of daylight.

As a drought in Mexico drags on, angry subsistence farmers have begun taking direct action on thirsty avocado orchards and berry fields of commercial farms that are drying up streams in the mountains west of Mexico City.

Rivers and even whole lakes are disappearing in the once green and lush state of Michoacan, as the drought combines with a surge in the use of water for the country's lucrative export crops, led by avocados.

Water levels in some overflowing rivers in Russia were starting to drop on Monday, but flooding remains widespread, Russian state TV reports said.

More than 5,000 properties in Russia's Kurgan region, about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) east of Moscow along the border with Kazakhstan, are flooded, according to the Russian Emergencies Ministry, and 15,000 people have been evacuated.

The Mexican government has largely abandoned protection and enforcement measures for loggerhead sea turtles, leading to a spike in the number of turtles being caught up and killed in fishing nets, according to a report released Monday.

The findings were announced by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which functions as part of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement.

Hong Kong has long been a major producer and consumer of great food, and a great amount of plastic and Styrofoam to go with it.

That's going to change as new legislation aiming to stop the sale and distribution of Styrofoam products and single-use plastic cutlery went into effect on Monday.

Europe is the fastest-warming continent and its temperatures are rising at roughly twice the global average, two top climate monitoring organizations reported Monday, warning of the consequences for human health, glacier melt and economic activity.

The U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization and the European Union's climate agency, Copernicus, said in a joint report that the continent has the opportunity to develop targeted strategies to speed up the transition to renewable resources like wind, solar and hydroelectric power in response to the effects of climate change.

Three workers from the Philippines have died in heavy flooding in the United Arab Emirates, Filipino officials announced, as the desert country struggled on Friday to recover from record rains.

Spain's drought-stricken region of Catalonia will install a floating desalination plant to help the city of Barcelona guarantee its drinking water supply, regional authorities said Thursday.

Barcelona already relies on Europe's largest desalination plant for domestic use to compensate over three years of below average rainfall that have led to a historic drought made worse by climate change.

Like many Americans, Ron Theusch is getting more worried about climate change.

A resident of Alden, Minnesota, Theusch has noticed increasingly dry and mild winters punctuated by short periods of severe cold — symptoms of a warming planet.