Climate change

Newsweek -  The Old Farmer’s Almanac is warning that gardeners should prepare for a hotter, drier-than-normal summer in 2026, with shifting weather patterns likely to put added strain on plants, soil, and water supplies across large parts of the United States.  The long-range outlook suggests that above-average temperatures will dominate much of the country, while rainfall is expected to be uneven and, in many regions, below normal—creating the kind of dry conditions that can quickly stress gardens.

NPR -- Every year, NPR and the NPR network dedicate a week to showcasing climate solutions. In past years, we’ve focused on climate solutions found in food and housing. This year, we decided to focus on local climate solutions. These are stories about how communities are stepping up as the federal government rolls back climate policies. 

Throughout the week, NPR and the NPR Network have brought you stories of cities, states, and neighborhoods coming together to reduce climate emissions and make their communities more resilient.

KUER’s David Condos in Utah took us to communities across his state, which have joined to build renewable energy.

Montana Public Radio’s Ellis Juhlin told us about tribes coming together to fulfill their climate action plans.

NPR’s Lauren Frayer brought us face-to-face with a charismatic mammal that’s helping British communities be more resilient to climate change.

And I spoke with host Ayesha Roscoe on The Sunday Story about city-level solutions, and climate solutions on the neighborhood-level. 

Cryosphere Capsules -    Central Asia’s glaciers experienced their most severe mass loss year on record in 2025, with nearly 2% of the region’s total glacier volume disappearing. About two-thirds of large glaciers in the region (around 4,000 in total) experienced their worst year of ice loss since measurements began. This extreme melt was driven mainly by unusually warm spring and summer conditions, an early start to the melting season, and less snowfall than usual. With snow disappearing earlier in the year, darker ice surfaces were exposed for longer periods, causing more sunlight to be absorbed and speeding up further melting in a feedback loop. Long-term records and reconstructions going back to the 1950s show that 2025 was far outside the range of normal year-to-year variability and falls within a broader trend of increasing glacier loss across the region.