Government scientists have cooked up a new concept for how to potentially cool an overheating Earth: Fiddle with the upper atmosphere to make it a bit drier.
Water vapor — water in its gas form — is a natural greenhouse gas that traps heat, just like carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and gas. So researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA figure if they can just inject ice high up in the air, water vapor in the upper atmosphere would get a bit drier and that could counteract a small amount of the human-caused warmth.

The central African nation of Congo is offering 30 oil and gas blocks around the country for auction. It's a prospect that concerns environmentalists and some of the people who live near the drilling that has so far been limited to a small area near its far western border on the Atlantic Ocean.
The Associated Press visited Moanda territory, including two villages near drilling sites, and heard from residents who said air and ground pollution has hurt their crops and caused health problems. They say Perenco, the French-British company that began drilling in 2000, has failed to address those problems, and advocacy groups say they want to see changes before drilling expands.

Environmental activists are staging a protest in a forest near Berlin against plans to expand the grounds of electric carmaker Tesla's first plant in Europe and are vowing to stay in place for weeks.
Between 80 and 100 activists have been camping in the forest since early Thursday, according to an initiative called "Stop Tesla." They put up tents and built treehouses, some of them several meters above the ground — a tactic used in previous German environmental protests.

The European Union's legislature on Tuesday approved a watered-down plan to better protect nature and fight climate change in the 27-nation bloc, despite opposition from the biggest party in parliament and fierce protests from the farming community.
The plan is a key part of the EU's vaunted European Green Deal that seeks to establish the world's most ambitious climate and biodiversity targets and make the bloc the global point of reference on all climate issues.

It was the puddles of green sludge left by the tires of massive tractors in western Belgium's industrial farmlands that drew the attention of biological engineer Ineke Maes.
The slime was destructive algae, the result of the excess of chemicals used by farmers to boost their crops, but at a high cost to nature. Maes had hoped the European Union's environmental policies would start to make a fundamental difference by improving exhausted soils.

The world's top decision-making body on the environment is meeting in Kenya's capital this week to discuss how countries can work together to tackle environmental crises like climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity.
The meeting in Nairobi is the sixth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly, and governments, civil society groups, scientists and the private sector are attending.

A cargo ship abandoned in the Gulf of Aden after an attack by Yemeni rebels is taking on water and has left a huge oil slick, in an environmental disaster that U.S. Central Command said Friday could get worse.
Rubymar, a Belize-flagged, British-registered and Lebanese-operated cargo ship carrying combustible fertilizer, was damaged in a Sunday missile strike claimed by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

At least eight people died in Rio de Janeiro state due to landslides and floods caused by heavy rains Thursday, Brazilian authorities said. A 6-year-old was listed as missing in the countryside city of Mendes.
Four of the dead, including an 8-month-old, were members of the same family in the city of Barra do Pirai, officials said. The family's house was destroyed by a landslide.

Animal activists have fashion brands squarely in their sights this Milan Fashion Week, hoping to pressure Italian brands Max Mara and Fendi to give up fur in future collections.
An activist from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) stormed the Fendi runway on Wednesday brandishing a sign saying "Animals are NOT clothing".

Photographer Matt McDonald had lived on Puget Sound for years, but had never seen a whale, so he was elated when he spotted a giant marine mammal just off Seattle's waterfront one evening.
The excitement was short-lived. As McDonald tracked the whale in his camera's viewfinder, a state ferry that dwarfed the animal came into the frame. The next morning he saw on the news that the humpback whale had died in the collision he witnessed.
