Rising global temperatures are set to devastate food crops across the world, with particularly alarming impacts projected for the United States, where production of key crops could plummet 50% by the end of the century, according to a sweeping new analysis.
Of the many impacts of the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis, damage to the global food system is one of the most terrifying. But the overall impact of climate change on crops — and how much it can be offset by farmers' adaptations — has been hard to establish and hotly debated.
The new analysis, eight years in the making, is "the first attempt to really tackle both of those problems," said Solomon Hsiang, a study author and professor of global environmental policy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability.
The scientists also measured how real-world farmers are adapting to climate change, from changing crop varieties to adjusting irrigation, to calculate the overall impact of global warming.
Their findings are stark. Every 1 degree Celsius the world warms above pre-industrial levels will drag down global food production by an average of 120 calories per person per day, according to the study, published Wednesday in Nature.
Read more at the link in our bio.
📸: Charlie Riedel/AP; Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Sustainable construction is redefining its priorities as environmental sustainability in construction shifts from technology-driven solutions to place-based, resource-conscious design. Across climate-stressed regions, the focus is turning to whole life carbon assessment, lifecycle assessment and life cycle cost as essential tools to measure and control the carbon footprint of construction. Developments in the US Mountain West are embedding low carbon design principles, addressing drought and urban growth constraints through sustainable building design that integrates water efficiency, green infrastructure and renewable building materials into district-scale masterplans.
In India, reconstruction efforts in landslide-prone regions expose the financial and environmental risks of neglecting embodied carbon in materials and sustainable building practices. Resilient schemes now apply eco-design for buildings and life cycle thinking in construction to avoid repeating failures, reinforcing that whole life carbon and embodied carbon metrics must guide future housing strategies.
Urban housing demonstrates the growing viability of net zero carbon buildings and low carbon construction materials, supported by sustainable material specification and green building products that deliver measurable performance improvements. Investors are tying building lifecycle performance to life cycle cost benefits, transforming sustainable design into a mainstream financial metric rather than a niche initiative.
Corporate campuses and mixed-use retrofits are consolidating a retrofit-first logic. The drive to decarbonise existing stock is aligning with circular economy in construction principles, end-of-life reuse in construction and circular construction strategies that minimise demolition and embodied carbon losses. Achieving net zero whole life carbon and BREEAM V7 certification is becoming the benchmark for responsible modernisation, integrating resource efficiency in construction and environmental product declarations (EPDs) into procurement systems.
Uneven policy frameworks and material supply constraints are prompting adaptive low-impact construction strategies that incorporate circular economy thinking and carbon footprint reduction across borders. Designs must allow flexibility to meet differing lifecycle assessment standards while maintaining alignment with global goals for decarbonising the built environment.
Future-ready sustainability depends on district-level efficiency, hazard-aware land planning and community-led stewardship. Success belongs to those who demonstrate environmental sustainability at the level that truly counts—the whole place—delivering net zero carbon outcomes through sustainable construction that unites performance, resilience and economic viability.
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