Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!
You are here
Climate
US workers facing deadly heat borrow from tomato pickers to win key protections
As efforts to protect people from extreme heat stall, organizers are embracing an approach that targets major brands’ reputations
“It’s the kind of heat that makes you feel like you’re being dehydrated, like your skin is drying out,” said Lucas Benitez, after harvesting watermelons with his sons and wife this summer. “The heat that we had 30 years ago is not nearly the heat that we have today.”
This summer was the hottest on record in the US, and most workers in fields, greenhouses and unconditioned indoor facilities still do not have heat protections on the job, putting their health at risk as the climate crisis is expected to make extreme heat more frequent and intense.
Continue reading...A California town’s beaches are washing away. Can its residents turn the tide?
Rapid coastal erosion threatens coastal homes and economies, and as Super El Niño rounds the corner, a town is reckoning with the reality of climate crisis
San Clemente is one of southern California’s most picture-perfect beach towns – a capital of American surf culture since the 1950s. In two years, 2028 Olympic surfers will compete at Lower Trestles, a world-class surfing beach.
But the town’s longtime cultural and economic driver, its beaches, are now under threat. As pounding waves driven by late-summer storms in the Pacific devour chunks of the California coastline, some of San Clemente’s beaches are growing narrower, the sand increasingly eaten away.
Continue reading...The problem with telling people the world is ending
In the face of terrible crises, it can feel right to shock people into action. But what if that has the opposite effect?
These days, it’s easy to succumb to hopelessness. Whether you’re thinking about the climate crisis, the prospect of AI apocalypse, war or political turmoil, the list of challenges facing humanity can seem insurmountable.
It certainly feels unprecedented, and much of it may be. The sense of impending doom, on the other hand, is nothing new. And what we have learned from the past is that doomerism can lead to paralysis. If everyone freezes, then nothing changes – but if we want to have a chance of mitigating some of the threats I’ve mentioned then action is what’s required.
Continue reading...Symbiotic nitrogen fixation sustains carbon sinks under warming Tibetan permafrost region
Almost all NSW homes destroyed in black summer bushfires were within 100 metres of flammable vegetation
Exclusive: Research confirms official advice about high-risk properties and warns worsening conditions will make more homes unsafe
Almost every home destroyed in New South Wales during the black summer bushfires of 2019 and 2020 was inside the 100 metre buffer zone used to identify properties most at risk, new research has found.
The findings are an endorsement of the risk maps used by authorities, but the research warns that as global heating generates ever-worsening fire conditions firefighters may have to extend the recommended distances between homes and vegetation to keep homes safe.
Sign up to get climate and environment editor Adam Morton’s Clear Air column as a free newsletter
Continue reading...Hiding in plane sight: the invisible turbulence that can strike out of a clear blue sky
As the planet warms, airlines are grappling with what this means for air travel – and for the passengers who simply refuse to keep their seatbelts fastened
It was a swelteringly hot afternoon in south-west Myanmar on 21 May 2024. Tropical thunderstorms, showers and highs of 36C were forecast for the area around the Irrawaddy Basin. High above, monsoonal heat and humidity were building into a vast convective column of water vapour, a towering cumulonimbus cloud soaring up to 35,000ft (more than 10,500 metres) into the air. From the ground, it would have looked like something from a children’s picture book – a soft, fluffy white mass. But for Singapore Airlines flight SQ321 passing just above, it was anything but benign.
In the cabin of the Boeing 777, passengers were being woken up for breakfast with three hours to go on the journey from London to Singapore. For the 210 travellers on board, the past 10 hours had been uneventful. The seatbelt signs were off. Some were milling around, others were using the toilets, and cabin staff were preparing trolleys for service. At 2.19pm and 23 seconds local time, moderate turbulence shook the plane for 17 seconds and the seatbelt sign was switched on. Then, as one passenger described it, it was “like a grenade had gone off”. In just 4.6 seconds, any passenger not strapped in hit the roof with 1.5 times the force of gravity and was thrown back on the floor in an instant.
Continue reading...Cloudy with a chance of moths: bogong swarms are bamboozling weather radars across NSW
Radar systems designed for rain, hail and snow are picking up bogong moths migrating to the Australian Alps
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
It was during Sydney’s Olympic Games in 2000, people say, that a swarm of bogong moths attracted by stadium lights was so huge that meteorologists mistook it for rain.
Fast forward 26 years and the bogongs are back in big numbers. And, this time, they are firmly on the radar.
Continue reading...The Glaciers Are Collapsing. This Is What We Must Do.
US voters want action on global heating. So why are midterm candidates ‘climate hushing’?
Polls show that Democrats and Republicans in battleground states want to hear more from candidates about the climate crisis
Most Americans feel unease or alarm about the climate crisis and, in both red and blue states, want to know how political leaders are going to fix it. But in midterm election campaigns across the US, candidates have responded to this desire with near silence.
People in the US have this year endured a record hot summer as well as soaring costs, equating to roughly $2,000 per household, in extra energy and mortgage payments, due to the country’s dependence on a fossil fuel supply scrambled by Donald Trump’s decision to attack Iran.
Continue reading...