Abraham "Snake" Ah Hee rides waves when the surf's up and dives for octopus and shells when the water is calm. The lifelong Lahaina, Hawaii, resident spends so much time in the ocean that his wife jokes he needs to wet his gills.

But these days Ah Hee is worried the water fronting his Maui hometown may not be safe after the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century scorched more than 2,000 buildings in August and left behind piles of toxic debris. He is concerned runoff could carry contaminants into the ocean where they could get into the coral, seaweed and food chain.

A major highway was closed and ski resorts were shut down Sunday as the effects of a powerful blizzard continued to cause problems across the Sierra Nevada, and forecasters warned that more heavy snow was on the way for Northern California.

Sections of Interstate 80 to the west and north of Lake Tahoe were made impassable by blowing snow piling up in lanes, with no estimate for reopening, the California Highway Patrol said.

Strong winds spread flames and prompted at least one evacuation while airplanes dropped fire retardant over the northern Texas Panhandle as firefighters worked to stop the largest wildfire in state history.

As of Sunday afternoon, the Smokehouse Creek fire was 15% contained and two other fires were 60% contained. Authorities have not said what ignited the fires, but strong winds, dry grass and unseasonably warm temperatures fed the blazes.

A fertilizer-laden cargo ship, which sank in the Gulf of Aden after it was damaged by missiles from Yemen's Houthi rebels, poses an environmental risk, the U.S. military warned.

The Houthis claimed the February 18 attack against the Rubymar, a cargo ship flying a Belizean flag and operated by a Lebanese firm, which transported combustible fertilizers.

Off the charts "crazy" heat in the North Atlantic ocean and record-smashing Antarctic sea ice lows last year are far more severe than what Earth's supposed to get with current warming levels. They are more like what happens at twice this amount of warming, a new study said.

The study's main author worries that it's a "harbinger of what's coming in the next decades" and it's got him not just concerned, but wondering why those two climate indicators were so beyond what was expected.

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.