In rural Rajasthan, villagers have taken action against climate damage by constructing water-saving walls, trenches and dams to revive their farmland

The villagers of Surajpura have built a wall: a 15ft (4.5 metre) mud bulwark that snakes through barren land for nearly a mile, with an equally long trench dug beneath it. It might not look like it, but for the 650 residents who toiled on it for six months in 2022, it is an architectural marvel.

The wall passed its strength test last year when it stopped rainwater runoffs, and the trench channelled the water to parched farms in the drought-prone region of Rajasthan in north-west India, reviving them for the first time in more than two decades.

A process called biofortification puts nutrients directly into seeds and could reduce global hunger, but it’s not a magic bullet

In 2004, Donald Davis and fellow scientists at the University of Texas made an alarming discovery: 43 foods, mostly vegetables, showed a marked decrease in nutrients between the mid and late 20th century.

According to that research , the calcium in green beans dropped from 65 to 37mg. Vitamin A levels plummeted by almost half in asparagus. Broccoli stalks had less iron.

A group of hospitals in Germany serve up a menu rich in plants and light in animals – and say they have had few complaints

Patrick Burrichter did not think about saving lives or protecting the planet when he trained as a chef in a hotel kitchen. But 25 years later he has focused his culinary skills on doing exactly that.

From an industrial park on the outskirts of Berlin, Burrichter and his team cook for a dozen hospitals that offer patients a “planetary health” diet – one that is rich in plants and light in animals. Compared with the typical diet in Germany, where the cuisine is best known for bratwurst sausage and doner kebab, the 13,000 meals they rustle up each day are better for the health of people and the planet.

Subsidence linked to extraction of groundwater and natural gas, and weight of buildings pressing into soft ground

A number of cities on the US east coast are sinking, increasing the risk of flooding from rising sea levels.

Between 2007 and 2020 the ground under New York, Baltimore and Norfolk in Virginia sank between 1mm and 2mm a year, other places sank at double or triple that rate, and Charleston, South Carolina, sank fastest, at 4mm a year, in a city less than 3 metres above sea level.

French president tells Brazil forum both parties need to be ‘much stronger’ on biodiversity and climate

Emmanuel Macron has called a proposed trade agreement between the EU and South America’s Mercosur bloc a “very bad deal” that lacks proper climate considerations.

“As it is negotiated today, it is a very bad deal, for you and for us,” the French president told Brazilian businessmen in São Paulo on Wednesday while on a three-day trip to Brazil, Latin America’s largest economy.

Chase Hays and more than 50 neighbors are suing Blackhawk Mining after a silt retention pond burst and killed 43 people

Chase Hays knew it was time to evacuate when he saw his neighbor’s home float through his front yard. It was just after midnight on 28 July 2022, and Lost Creek, Kentucky, was experiencing a catastrophic rainstorm .

As Hays would later learn, the rains caused a silt retention pond to burst at a nearby mine, sending a torrent of rainwater and sediment down the mountain.

IFRC and USAid staging conference to draw attention to risks and share best practice in disaster alerts and response

Two of the world’s biggest aid agencies will host an inaugural global summit on extreme heat on Thursday as directors warn that the climate crisis is dramatically increasing the probability of a mass-fatality heat disaster.

The conference will highlight some of the pioneering work being done, from tree-planting projects to the development of roof coverings that reduce indoor temperatures.

Cost of living crisis and sustainability concerns drive shoppers towards ‘pre-loved’ garments as older buyers join in

Secondhand clothing sales are on track to make up a tenth of the global fashion market next year, as the cost of living crisis and concerns over sustainability drives consumers towards “pre-loved” garments.

Global sales of pre-owned clothes surged by 18% last year to $197bn (£156bn) and are forecast to reach $350bn in 2028, according to a report by GlobalData for resale specialist ThredUp. The landmark is expected to be reached a year later than predicted, as global growth remains slightly behind previous estimates.

Are growing rates of anxiety, depression, ADHD, PTSD, Alzheimer’s and motor neurone disease related to rising temperatures and other extreme environmental changes?

In late October 2012, a category 3 hurricane howled into New York City with a force that would etch its name into the annals of history . Superstorm Sandy transformed the city, inflicting more than $60bn in damage, killing dozens, and forcing 6,500 patients to be evacuated from hospitals and nursing homes. Yet in the case of one cognitive neuroscientist, the storm presented, darkly, an opportunity.

Yoko Nomura had found herself at the centre of a natural experiment. Prior to the hurricane’s unexpected visit, Nomura – who teaches in the psychology department at Queens College, CUNY, as well as in the psychiatry department of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai – had meticulously assembled a research cohort of hundreds of expectant New York mothers. Her investigation, the Stress in Pregnancy study , had aimed since 2009 to explore the potential imprint of prenatal stress on the unborn. Drawing on the evolving field of epigenetics, Nomura had sought to understand the ways in which environmental stressors could spur changes in gene expression, the likes of which were already known to influence the risk of specific childhood neurobehavioural outcomes such as autism, schizophrenia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).