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The Department of Housing and Urban Development disproportionately sells homes in flood-prone areas, NPR finds. Housing experts warn that this can lead to big losses for vulnerable families.

Commentator Paul Raeburn says Detroit should stop worrying about making environmentally friendly automobiles and start making cars with fins.

Susanna Capelouto of Peach State Public Radio reports on a plan by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to reduce the flow of the Chattahoochee River to protect Atlanta's drinking water supply. The plan has upset those who live downstream. Because of a long regional drought, the Corps wants to hold the water in Lake Lanier, which is the main reservoir for Atlanta. Environmentalists fear that plan will prevent aquatic life below the dam from getting enough water in the river to survive the dry conditions.

The infrastructure bill moving through Congress includes billions to replace lead pipes. In Flint, Mich., NPR's Ari Shapiro talks with residents on how governments can tackle a water crisis equitably.

Ford is announcing today that it will increase the average fuel economy of its sports utility vehicles by 25 percent over five years. As NPR's Jack Speer reports, the company said it was responding to environmentally-conscious consumers who want their vehicles to burn less gas. Ford, which pioneered the trend toward big, gas-guzzling SUVs, appears to be shifting course under the direction of chairman William Ford Jr., an avowed environmentalist. But Ford's move may be prompted by economics, too. SUVs are highly profitable and high gas prices could put that lucrative market at risk.

NPR's Ina Jaffe reports on the Environmental Protection Agency's experimental attempt to cover an undersea deposit of toxic DDT off the coast of California, with a fresh layer of sediment. An estimated 110 Tons of the poisonous pesticide is located on 17 square miles of ocean floor. Between 1947 and 1971, Montrose Chemical dumped the DDT into the sewer system, which discharged it into the ocean.

For some time, scientists have generally agreed that carbon dioxide from tailpipes and smokestacks is the principal gas responsible for global warming. Now, some scientists are suggesting that more attention should be paid to other gases that contribute to climate change. A new study in Science magazine finds that farming practices that are supposedly environmentally friendly actually contribute greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. NPR's Richard Harris reports.

NPR's Ari Shapiro speaks with author Giulio Boccaletti about his new book Water: A Biography, which takes readers through the complex and surprising history of humanity and water.

Powers climbs down from the treetops of The Overstory in his latest novel, to tell the story of a widowed father and his troubled son who head into the wilderness to try to figure out their lives.

Lulu Garcia-Navarro talks with Caroline Hickman, lecturer at the University of Bath, about a recent study she co-authored on young people's anxiety over government inaction on climate change.