Climate Point: Cry me a river, or three of them. And a glacier too.

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and the environment. I’m Janet Wilson from Palm Springs, California, where flash floods have shut our iconic tram for the week. An eloping couple were wed on a station balcony instead, showing human ingenuity as mud rolled down the mountain.

It's one example of the latest headlines about amped-up weather and climate change across the planet. Antarctic ice sheets and Arctic sea ice are both disappearing far faster than expected, and deadly rains, wildfires and lightning storms have hit from near the White House to Seoul to southeast Kentucky. And 73 million Americans  endured extreme heat. Drought and overuse are also impacting the Colorado River system in the American West, where bodies keep appearing on Lake Mead's exposed shoreline, as well as the Rhine and Danube Rivers in Europe too.

All are grim reminders that the planet isn't waiting for one species — us — to finally take action to slow greenhouse gas emissions and change our evil ways, as the song goes. That said, Congress is poised to take historic action as soon as today, with House Democrats expected to pass the Inflation Reduction Act package that the Senate OKed Sunday. 

The package is loaded with billions for everything from electric vehicle rebates to transmission lines for wind and solar power. Not everyone's happy, including environmental justice advocates (who say big polluters could reap big bucks) and foes of major oil and gas leasing (which Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia, insisted on including). But drillers might not want those leases, or at least not to pump out more crude.

Out West, as seven states and Mexico work to slash their annual supply to stave off the collapse of the Colorado River, Sen. Krysten Sinema, D-Arizona, and colleagues tucked $4 billion into the agreement that could help. Farmers who hold the largest rights to water from the river will likely be paid to fallow fields, and could win funds to install water-efficient equipment.

Elsewhere, two absolute must-reads.

The Arizona Republic's Deb Ustacia Krol has a stellar set of stories on how tribes who lost access to ancestral water more than a century ago are regaining seats at the negotiating tables over who gets how much water in the West, including from the Colorado — and how they're making painful cuts too.

And ProPublica's Mark Olalde and Maya Miller have a devastating tale of how a small New Mexico town has suffered from uranium waste, and how the company that mined it is now seeking to walk away from full clean-up. It's one of those slow-build stories that stays with you, complete with a haunting, lyrical soundtrack by one resident. "We were sacrificed a long time ago," says another, who keeps a "death map" of cancers and other health impacts.

In other news, read on for new research on how climate-related hazards are linked to  human disease, why Michigan auto companies are worried about the federal climate package, whether endangered whales can compete with thousands of wind turbines in the Atlantic Ocean, and what inspectors found by dumpster diving at swanky Ritz-Carlton hotels.

And, due to technical glitches, last week's great graphic on how to identify fast-spreading and poisonous hemlock didn't appear, so we're trying again. Stay safe out there.

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