What would – or wouldn't – happen while our attention is diverted.

We publish EHN.org and DailyClimate.org because we care about environment and climate issues. In other words, what we tend to care most about gets swamped in the daily news cycle. So, in a week where the President helped us understand double negatives, here are a few reminders:

While the world gawks at a possible Putin visit to Washington this fall, here's an interesting look at what might happen to the Endangered Species Act.

While the world leers at unfolding litigation in the Stormy Daniels affair, here's what's afoot in stripping protections against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

While the world gets the vapors over President Trump's cavalier dissing of traditional allies like Canada, Mexico, Japan and the E.U., let's not lose sight of Trump's plans to rollback air pollution standards.

While the world is in a dither over Trump's pardons for Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Scooter Libby and the late boxer Jack Johnson, the pardons of two ranchers who inspired an armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge are worth remembering.

While we're seeing science education triumph over climate denial around the world, let's not forget that two of the places where it still reigns supreme are in the U.S. Congress and the president's cabinet.

While more and more oceanic nations are awakening to the virtues of marine parks and sanctuaries, the U.S. is looking into rolling back the progress it's made under both the GW Bush and Obama Administrations.

While strong investigative journalism has exposed many pathways for "dark money" to corrupt American democracy, dark money has found at least as many new pathways in environmental politics alone.

While the Trump Administration tackles major diplomatic efforts like those on the Korean Peninsula without, say, an ambassador to South Korea, we're facing potential sweeping cutbacks at agencies like EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers.

President Trump challenges reality on measurable things like Inaugural crowd size, while industry-funded scientists undercut credible science on health, climate, environment and ubiquitous pollutants like bisphenol-a.

Improving jobs numbers are nice, but climate change isn't just cooking our planet, it's cooking our workforce.

Despite the huge volumes of information we've learned from fighting wildfires and predicting severe storms, tightening budgets will make it harder to cope with them.

These aren't recipes for gloom, but merely cautionary tales: Those who play whack-a-mole with environmental exploiters have their work cut out for them.

I just wish more of that work would show up on the front page and in prime-time newscasts.