DANCE YOUR PhD PANTS OFF: Water policy can be a complicated topic to explain to the masses, which is where Florence Metz, this year’s winner of the Dance your PhD contest, comes in. She explains how policy affects water quality through a carefully choreographed dance.

DAM: The collapse of a dam in Southeast Brazil has been dubbed the country’s worst environmental disaster. 25,000 Olympic pools worth of sediment have flowed more than 300 miles since the dams collapse earlier this month and reached the sea over the weekend, threatening fragile marine ecosystems.

OH, CANADA: Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada’s two largest coal burners, have made significant moves to shift to a clean energy economy. Saskatchewan, for example, plans to source half of its electricity from renewables by 2030.

BAD IDEA: A recent report says that Nevada’s plan to bury the nation’s deadliest nuclear waste in the desert is unsafe. State officials cite the threat of radioactive contamination of well water and springs as proof that the proposed Yucca Mountain project is not well thought out.

ROOM FOR THANKS: Amid a slew of environmental news, much of it daunting, we can be thankful for the thousands of organizations fighting for environmental justice.