To make water last year-round, Kenyans in dry regions are building sand dams on seasonal rivers

MAKUENI, Kenya — On a dry riverbed one recent sunny morning, residents of Kasengela village toiled away mixing cement and sand to make concrete. The sound of their shovels resonated through the valley while other residents, working in pairs, carried rocks to the site in wooden frames. They were building a sand dam, a structure … Read more

The US Is About to Drown in a Sea of Kittens

Scientists, conservationists, and cat advocates all agree that unchecked outdoor cat populations are a problem, but they remain deeply divided on solutions. While some conservationists propose the targeted killing of cats, known as culling, cat populations have been observed to bounce back quickly, and a single female cat and her offspring can produce at least … Read more

Earth on the brink of a key warming threshold after chart-busting year

A wind change increased flames during a planned ignition on the Ross Moore Lake wildfire in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, on Friday, July 28, 2023. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Last year — the hottest on record — smashed a series of climate records and gave new meaning to the phrase “off the charts,” … Read more

Sachs, Roubini and Zandi on how the climate crisis affects economy

As the climate crisis continues to pose a global threat, top economists are debating its effect on the U.S. economy. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, projects “physical risks” will be the biggest economic cost over the next 10 to 20 years. These are damages caused by natural disasters, which are now occurring at … Read more

Insurance Rates Are Soaring for US Homeowners in Climate Danger Zones

The First Street Foundation study points out that insurers could offer discounts to homeowners who take steps to fortify their homes, which would help make disasters less damaging. Moore said Florida once was a leader when it came to measures like building codes, although that has changed in recent years. The state also had lacked … Read more

The Global Danger of Boring Buildings

We need to make the exterior parts of buildings that people focus on more interesting, so that people want to protect rather than replace them. But most people aren’t architects or city planners—they can’t change the designs of what’s being made. Indeed, we have a public who feel utterly powerless, and a construction industry that … Read more

The Designer Who’s Trying to Transform Your City Into a Sponge

Your city isn’t prepared for what’s coming. The classical method for dealing with stormwater is to get it out of town as quickly as possible, with gutters and sewers and canals. But more and more, that strategy is breaking down: As the atmosphere warms, it can hold more moisture, spawning ever-wetter storms that overwhelm this … Read more

Oil giant Shell waters the down pace of its near-term emission cuts

A Shell logo displayed on a sign at a gas station in Nakuru, Kenya. Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images British oil giant Shell on Thursday announced plans to moderate its near-term carbon emissions cuts, while maintaining its pledge to become a net-zero company by the middle of the century. In its latest energy … Read more

Climate Change Is Bad for Your Health, Wherever You Are

Extreme heat kills roughly half a million people worldwide each year, but at the current rate of global warming it could be close to five times as deadly by 2050. Then there are the indirect health risks of climate change: Chaotic weather and higher temperatures generate deadly natural disasters, bring diseases into new areas, and … Read more

In Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, the lure of moving to the city grows even stronger amid climate shocks

CAN THO, Vietnam — Dao Bao Tran and her brother Do Hoang Trung, 11-year-old twins growing up on a rickety houseboat in the Mekong Delta, have dreams. Tran loves K-pop, watches videos at night to learn Korean and would love to visit Seoul. Trung wants to be a singer. But their hopes are “unrealistic,” said … Read more