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Adobe. Stilts. Concrete walls and ember-catching roofs. To adapt to a warming world, design has to relearn how to be local.
Blame architecture. Unreinforced buildings crumbled in Turkey’s earthquake. Heatwaves across the U.K. and India turned steel and glass high rises into greenhouses literally cooking people to death. One-size fits all architecture — a fallout of the industrial revolution and increased globalization — took advantage of inexpensive mass-produced materials, like concrete, steel, and glass, to standardize structures everywhere without consideration for local climate conditions.
From Mumbai to Tokyo to Vancouver to New York City, concrete tower blocks sprung up everywhere over the last century. Built without courtyards, natural air flow, or landscaping, the apartment blocks were vulnerable to extreme temperatures and created heat islands — increasing temperatures in these blocks by several degrees and requiring air conditioning when inhabitants could afford it.
Air conditioning is both a blessing and a curse for a warming planet. A blessing because it can literally save lives when temperatures spike. And a curse because millions of people cranking them up during heatwaves can push electricity grids past their breaking point, a problem that will only worsen as the world gets hotter. Air conditioning also literally warms outside temperatures by another 1 degree Celsius, creating a vicious cycle of heat.
Recently, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres predicted that rising seas would affect more than a billion people and create mass exodus on a biblical scale. Is there a version of this climate narrative that results in a rebirth of adaptable, resilient, and habitable housing? Will the threat of climate migration and extreme weather herald a return to regional design, a trend that better tailors engineering, materials, and technology to local conditions?
Pioneering efforts to merge architecture and climate resilience into a form of regional design is 2023 Pritzer Prize winner David Chipperfield. He launched Fundacion IRA in Galicia with the city’s government and urban planners in response to the scale of challenges presented by global warming. In his acceptance statement for the award, Chipperfield said, “We know that, as architects, we can have a more prominent and engaged role in creating not only a more beautiful world but a fairer and more sustainable one too. We must rise to this challenge and help inspire the next generation to embrace this responsibility with vision and courage.”
And we already know how to do this.
Tropical Modernism is an architecture style that elevated the indigenous traditions of the tropics. Geoffrey Bawa in Sri Lanka and Vladimir Ossipof in Hawaii both connected indoors and outdoors, used overhanging roofs, local woods, and even lava to create structures in harmony with the tropical climate and way of life.
Like Tropical Modernist architects, Le Corbusier tempered climate extremes in Chandigarh, the planned city he designed in northern India, with architectural and landscape interventions — tree canopies, roof overhangs, shutters, verandas, and reflecting pool. The structures could protect from storms and bring in cooling breezes; invite in the daylight, but not the heat. But he also considered Chandigarh a living biological entity and designed the city to facilitate “breathing” in the region’s extreme climate. To do this, he prioritized thermo dynamic performance: prevailing winds, evaporative cooling and convection currents to maximize cooling and promote air circulation.
Pueblo-style adobe homes have historically responded well to harsh conditions — namely heat — but are also proving resistant to fire, hurricanes, and even earthquakes. Built typically in desert environments from Morocco to Spain to Central America to the U.S. Southwest, adobe homes have morphed into styles that include modern earthships made of clay, dirt, old tires, (and whatever else is laying around) and also the amorphously shaped cob homes. Conrad Rogue, who has taught earthen design for 20 years at House Alive in Oregon, insists adobe and cob homes are beautiful, not just for hippies and a good solution for the climate crisis, “Earthen homes, made of local clay soil and straw, have survived thousands of years and can be built in all climates in all parts of the world.”
There is no refuting the climatic benefits of clay and Pritzker Prize-winning architect Francis Kéré’s approach to regional adobe design is refreshingly modern. He combined recent engineering principles with traditional building techniques to create the stunning Gando Primary School in Burkino Faso, which stays cool without air conditioning even though temperatures are in the 90s year round.
A few other ways architects are responding to extreme weather beyond heat include building homes to withstand fire, flood risks, and even hurricanes.
Northern California-based Faulkner architects build in wildfire-prone zones and are gathering expertise in construction with non-combustible materials and using landscaping to limit the risk of igniting as well as providing "defensible space," by limiting the amount of highly flammable vegetation around it. One Faulkner project, a family house near Lake Tahoe, was only 25 miles away from the Caldor fire in 2021. After, they reinforced the home in a “fire-resistive shell” of concrete walls and a steel roof coated with an ember-catching membrane. They also installed window glazing that can withstand temperatures of 1500 degrees Fahrenheit and gives the house a real chance of surviving a wildfire.
And it’s becoming more and more possible to live in a flood zone. Stilts protect houses built on floodplains and from rising tides. The Insurance Institute for Business and Home Safety says, “There’s no real substitute for elevation. It's your best bet." U.K. architect Lisa Shell’s beach house is a great example. She built it out of cork on stilts over an estuary where high tide flows under the house.
More and more, architects are designing with climate in mind:
• Genzler Architects built a photovoltaic canopy that shades an entire office building.
• Copenhagen-based Snohetta partnered on Harvard HouseZero to experiment ways to maximize energy efficiency of an old house. They recently completed Under, an underwater restaurant built to withstand rough seas and destined to become part of the seabed.
• BIG architects, famous for Copenhill, their waste-to-energy ski slope in Copenhagen, completed the first fully sustainable factory that doubles as a public park in Norway for outdoor furniture company Vestre.
• Land on Water is a transportable floating housing community developed by Danish Maritime Architecture Studio MAST
• Cosmic pre-fab houses are built for climate extremes with heat pumps and solar panels.
• Buhaus prefabs are made with fire-resistant aluminum facades.
• London-based Hugh Broughton Architects designs for both Antarctica and Mars. His Halley VI remote mobile research station was in a movie with Cate Blanchett and has moveable hydraulic legs that can be raised over snow drifts and slid to a new location if the ice melts. The Martian house explores new ways of living resourcefully here on Earth or on Mars. But architecture will need to do more than just return to regional design to create habitable structures that will withstand the environmental volatility coming our way.
It’s probably more instructive to look to the work of Shigeru Ban who has been constructing disaster housing in response to earthquakes, wars, and floods since the Kobe earthquake in 1995. He invented a system of recycled paper tubes that allow for quick construction of emergency shelters that can transition to permanent housing. (His latest prototype for Ukraine is a flat-pack, lightweight, easy-to-assemble house.)
In her book, Atmosphere Anatomies: On Design, Weather and Sensation, Harvard Professor and architect Sylvia Benedito explores habitats and communities that have learned to live with extreme weather in a resourceful way.
She believes Le Corbusier’s approach at Chandigarh is even more relevant today, “Chandigarh budgets were low and they could not afford air conditioning and they had to find inventive ways to tackle the climate challenges. Operating just as an architect doesn't help us think about climatic amelioration. Landscapes are vehicles for transforming punitive and inhospitable environments into spaces capable of accommodating and nurturing human life.”
“That’s why it is so frustrating,” she continues, “to see architects cut down trees, put in glass. I believe the next decades will see a revolution in landscape management.”
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On the Chevy Bolt’s return, China’s rare earth crackdown, and Nestle’s spoiled climate push
Current conditions: A possible nor’easter is barreling toward New York City with this weekend with heavy rain, flooding, and winds of up to 50 miles per hour • While Hurricane Priscilla has weakened to a tropical storm, it’s still battering Baja California with winds of up to 70 miles per hour • A heatwave in Iran is raising temperatures so much that even elevations of more than 6,500 feet are nearly 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Bureau of Land Management has canceled Nevada’s largest solar megaproject, Esmeralda 7, Heatmap’s Jael Holzman scooped late Thursday. The sprawling network of panels and batteries in the state’s western desert was set to produce a gargantuan 6.2 gigawatts of power — equal to nearly all the power supplied to the southern part of the state by the state’s main public utility. At maximum output, the project could have churned out more power than the country’s largest nuclear plant, the nearly 5 gigawatts from Plant Vogtle’s four reactors in Georgia, and just under the nearly 7.1-gigawatt Grand Coulee hydroelectric dam in Washington, the nation’s most powerful electrical station. It would have been one of the largest solar projects in the world.
Backed by NextEra Energy, Invenergy, ConnectGen, and other renewables developers, the project was moving forward at what Jael called “a relatively smooth pace under the Biden administration, albeit with significant concerns raised by environmentalists about its impacts on wildlife and fauna.” The solar farm notched a rare procedural win in the early days of the Trump administration when the Bureau of Land Management advanced its draft environmental impact statement. When the environmental review came out, BLM said the record of decision would arrive in July. “But that never happened,” Jael wrote. Instead, as part of a deal with conservative harderliners in Congress to pass his tax megabill, Trump issued an executive order that, among other actions aimed at curtailing renewables development, directed the Department of the Interior to review its policies toward wind and solar. A series of departmental orders followed that effectively froze all permitting decisions for solar. Fast forward to today, when Esmeralda 7’s status on the BLM website was changed to “cancelled,” normally an indication that the developers pulled the plug.
The Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, a 2.6-gigawatt giant that’s nearly triple the size of the nation’s current largest operating seaborne wind farm, is just six months from coming online, its leadership said. In an August earnings call, Dominion Energy CEO Robert Blue said the project would start producing electricity in “early 2026.” But on Thursday, the company told Canary Media’s Clare Fieseler that “first power will occur in Q1 of next year,” and “we are still on schedule to complete by late 2026.” As of the end of last month, Dominion had installed all 176 turbine foundations.
Since returning to office, President Donald Trump has waged what Jael called a “total war on wind power,” halting work on projects that were nearly 80% complete and ordering a half dozen federal agencies to join the effort. But the industry has fought back. Two weeks ago, as I reported in this newsletter, a federal judge lifted the administration’s stop-work order. While Secretary of Energy Chris Wright last month brushed off the targeting of offshore wind as a “one-off complication,” the assault has alarmed even the administration's favored sectors of the energy industry. Earlier this week, Shell’s top executive raised the alarm over what she said could set a precedent that blows back to big oil in the future.
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A fresh jolt for the Bolt. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Elon Musk’s promise to deliver a Tesla for under $30,000 may — as I wrote here yesterday — remains unfulfilled, but one of his biggest rivals is bringing back its popular affordable electric vehicle. General Motors announced on Thursday that it’s rolling out a new line of Chevrolet Bolts in 2027, starting at $29,990 and later introducing a $28,995 model. “The Chevrolet Bolt was the industry’s first affordable mass-market, long-range EV and it commanded one of GM’s most loyal customer bases thanks to its price, versatility and practicality,” Scott Bell, Chevrolet’s global vice president, said in a statement. “After production ended, we heard our customer’s feedback and their love for this product. So the Bolt is coming back — by popular demand and better than ever — for a limited time.” When Chevy discontinued the Bolt in 2023, the car was popular but had some problems, Andrew Moseman wrote Thursday in Heatmap. And while the 2027 Bolt “is virtually indistinguishable from the old car,” he wrote, “what’s inside is a welcome leap forward.” Notably, the new Bolt’s lithium-ion-phosphate battery delivers a max range of 255 miles and can handle a 100% charge without risking long-term damage to the battery’s lifespan.
Though the $7,500 federal tax credit for electric vehicles expired last month, it’s morning in America for battery-powered car drivers. The U.S. is adding charging stations at a record clip, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
China’s Commerce Ministry announced a new edict Thursday requiring foreign suppliers to obtain approval from Beijing to export some products with certain rare earths if the metals account for 0.1% of the goods’ total value. Export applications for products with military uses “generally won’t be approved,” The Wall Street Journal reported, and licenses related to semiconductors or artificial intelligence will be granted on a case-by-case basis. “This is a very big deal,” Dean W. Bell, a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, wrote in a post on X. “China has asserted sweeping control over the entire global semiconductor supply chain, putting export license requirements on all rare earths used to manufacture advanced chips. If enforced aggressively, this policy could mean ‘lights out’ for the US AI boom, and likely lead to a recession/economic crisis in the US in the short term.” The new restrictions even apply to some lithium batteries and equipment used to make them.
Less than two years ago, Nestle formed an industry alliance with food giants Danone and Kraft Heinz to cut methane emissions from the dairy industry’s hundreds of thousands of suppliers. But last month, Nestle’s logo vanished from the initiative's website. On Wednesday, Bloomberg reported that the Swiss behemoth had abandoned the effort. “We have decided to discontinue our membership of the Dairy Methane Action Alliance,” a company spokesperson told the newswire.
The exit comes as sustainability executives, academics, and carbon-accounting experts spar over how to measure companies’ emissions in what Heatmap’s Emily Pontecorvo called an “obscure philosophical battle that could reshape the clean energy economy.” With the Trump administration phasing out wind and solar tax credits next year, Emily wrote, “voluntary action by companies will take on even greater importance in shaping the clean energy transition. While in theory, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol solely develops accounting rules and does not force companies to take any particular action, it’s undeniable that its decisions will set the stage for the next chapter of decarbonization.”
Increasingly extreme weather is driving up insurance costs all over the world, making homes almost impossible to underwrite in fire- or flood-prone places such as California or Florida where climate change is raising recovery costs. But Japan’s largest non-life insurer is taking a different approach than just canceling policies. As the Financial Times reported Thursday, Tokio Marine purchased Integrated Design & Engineering this year for roughly $642 million in a bid to offer the design consultancy’s services to “Japanese companies at risk of landslides, flooding, and natural disasters related to climate change” to upgrade facilities before destruction occurs.
It would have delivered a gargantuan 6.2 gigawatts of power.
The Bureau of Land Management says the largest solar project in Nevada has been canceled amidst the Trump administration’s federal permitting freeze.
Esmeralda 7 was supposed to produce a gargantuan 6.2 gigawatts of power – equal to nearly all the power supplied to southern Nevada by the state’s primary public utility. It would do so with a sprawling web of solar panels and batteries across the western Nevada desert. Backed by NextEra Energy, Invenergy, ConnectGen and other renewables developers, the project was moving forward at a relatively smooth pace under the Biden administration, albeit with significant concerns raised by environmentalists about its impacts on wildlife and fauna. And Esmeralda 7 even received a rare procedural win in the early days of the Trump administration when the Bureau of Land Management released the draft environmental impact statement for the project.
When Esmeralda 7’s environmental review was released, BLM said the record of decision would arrive in July. But that never happened. Instead, Donald Trump issued an executive order as part of a deal with conservative hardliners in Congress to pass his tax megabill, which also effectively repealed the Inflation Reduction Act’s renewable electricity tax credits. This led to subsequent actions by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to freeze all federal permitting decisions for solar energy.
Flash forward to today, when BLM quietly updated its website for Esmeralda 7 permitting to explicitly say the project’s status is “cancelled.” Normally when the agency says this, it means developers pulled the plug.
I’ve reached out to some of the companies behind Esmeralda 7 but was unable to reach them in time for publication. If I hear from them confirming the project is canceled – or that BLM is wrong in some way – I will let you know.
It’s not perfect, but pretty soon, it’ll be available for under $30,000.
Here’s what you need to know about the rejuvenated Chevrolet Bolt: It’s back, it’s better, and it starts at under $30,000.
Although the revived 2027 Bolt doesn’t officially hit the market until January 2026, GM revealed the new version of the iconic affordable EV at a Wednesday evening event at the Universal Studios backlot in Los Angeles. The assembled Bolt owners and media members drove the new cars past Amity Island from Jaws and around the Old West and New York sets that have served as the backdrops of so many television shows and movies. It was star treatment for a car that, like its predecessor, isn’t the fanciest EV around. But given the giveaway patches that read “Chevy Bolt: Back by popular demand,” it’s clear that GM heard the cries of people who missed having the plucky electric hatchback on the market.
The Bolt died at the height of its powers. The original Bolt EV and Bolt EUV sold in big numbers in the late 2010s and early 2020s, powered by a surprisingly affordable price compared to competitor EVs and an interior that didn’t feel cramped despite its size as a smallish hatchback. In 2023, the year Chevy stopped selling it, the Bolt was the third-best-selling EV in America after Tesla’s top two models.
Yet the original had a few major deficiencies that reflected the previous era of EVs. The most egregious of which was its charging speed that topped out at around 50 kilowatts. Given that today’s high-speed chargers can reach 250 to 350 kilowatts — and an even faster future could be on the way — the Bolt’s pit stops on a road trip were a slog that didn’t live up to its peppy name.
Thankfully, Chevy fixed it. Charging speed now reaches 150 kilowatts. While that figure isn’t anywhere near the 350 kilowatts that’s possible in something like the Hyundai Ioniq 9, it’s a threefold improvement for the Bolt that lets it go from 10% to 80% charged in a respectable 26 minutes. The engineers said they drove a quartet of the new cars down old Route 66 from the Kansas City area, where the Bolt is made, to Los Angeles to demonstrate that the EV was finally ready for such an adventure.
From the outside, the 2027 Bolt is virtually indistinguishable from the old car, but what’s inside is a welcome leap forward. New Bolt has a lithium-ion-phosphate, or LFP battery that holds 65 kilowatt-hours of energy, but still delivers 255 miles of max range because of the EV’s relatively light weight. Whereas older EVs encourage drivers to stop refueling at around 80%, the LFP battery can be charged to 100% regularly without the worry of long-term damage to the battery.
The Bolt is GM’s first EV with the NACS charging standard, the former Tesla proprietary plug, which would allow the little Chevy to visit Tesla Superchargers without an adapter (though its port placement on the front of the driver’s side is backwards from the way older Supercharger stations are built). Now built on GM’s Ultium platform, the Bolt shares its 210-horsepower electric motor with the Chevy Equinox EV and gets vehicle-to-load capability, meaning you’ll be able to tap into its battery energy for other uses such as powering your home.
But it’s the price that’s the real wow factor. Bolt will launch with an RS version that gets the fancier visual accents and starts at $32,000. The Bolt LT that will be available a little later will eventually start as low as $28,995, a figure that includes the destination charge that’s typically slapped on top of a car’s price, to the tune of an extra $1,000 to $2,000 on delivery. Perhaps it’s no surprise that GM revealed this car just a week after the end of the $7,500 federal tax credit for EV purchases (and just a day after Tesla announced its budget versions of the Model Y and Model 3). Bringing in a pretty decent EV at under $30,000 without the help of a big tax break is a pretty big deal.
The car is not without compromises. Plenty of Bolt fans are aghast that Chevy abandoned the Apple CarPlay and Android Auto integrations that worked with the first Bolt in favor of GM’s own built-in infotainment system as the only option. Although the new Bolt was based on the longer, “EUV” version of the original, this is still a pretty compact car without a ton of storage space behind the back seats. Still, for those who truly need a bigger vehicle, there’s the Chevy Equinox EV.
For as much time as I’ve spent clamoring for truly affordable EVs that could compete with entry-level gas cars on prices, the Bolt’s faults are minor. At $29,000 for an electric vehicle in the U.S., there is practically zero competition until the new Nissan Leaf arrives. The biggest threats to the Bolt are America’s aversion to small cars and the rapid rates of depreciation that could allow someone to buy a much larger, gently used EV for the price of the new Chevy. But the original Bolt found a steady footing among drivers who wanted that somewhat counter-cultural car — and this one is a lot better.