China should reduce its carbon intensity by 4 to 5 percent per year to achieve goals of low-carbon development by 2050. The proposal from the China Council of International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) is the first time such a high-level organization has proposed firm targets for emissions.

Chewang Norphel, a civil engineer known locally as the Glacier Man, has been building artificial glaciers to supply irrigation water for the villages of the Ladakh region for the last 15 years. Norphel constructs the glaciers by redirecting autumn and winter melt to shady valleys above the fields.

Cloud seeding, a weather modification technique that induces precipitation, might be the key to keeping the Earth’s temperature in balance, scientists say.

Since the dawn of Homo sapiens in arid Africa, nine tenths of our evolution has unfolded as foragers. Only relatively recently did our species embark on agriculture, and recent events suggest certain limits to that extraordinary experiment. Exponential population growth has combined with unprecedented climate change until half the planet’s land surface can now be classified as drylands—arid landscapes inhabited by a third of humankind.