Lenore Manderson, University of the Witwatersrand The winds that whip the towns of the Eastern Cape in South Africa have the power to generate energy. But on a dry, hot day, those winds can gather up embers and dump them into tinder dry savannah and forest, destroying crops, fodder and homes, and taking
Ioanna Stamataki, University of Greenwich Recent images of the devastating flash floods caused by Storm Daniel in Greece hit close to home literally and figuratively. As a Greek who has completed a PhD and worked for the past eight years on flash floods, the scenes unfolding across my homeland are painfully real: a
by Naseem S. Miller, The Journalist’s Resource July was the Earth’s hottest month on record, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a program of the European Union. Extreme heat not only strains water, energy and transportation infrastructure, and affects crops and livestock, it also impacts human health. Many people don’t take heat
Oftentimes they imagine a scientist being a crazy person in a lab suit, but then they themselves have been scientists As part of the German PlasticPiratesEU team, Tim and his colleagues have devised an innovative way to get students and teachers from schools around Germany and beyond to help gather information about the
Jacqueline Peel, The University of Melbourne Australians relish being at the top of international league tables in sport. But few would know we’re a global champion when it comes to using the courts to hold governments and companies to account on climate change. A new report from the United Nations Environment Programme found
Ocean acidification is going to do all sorts of weird things to animals’ sensory perception. Dungeness crabs hunt by flicking their chemical-detecting antennae to and fro. Sensing the water—the underwater equivalent of sniffing the air—is a well-trod strategy for homing in on potential prey. But that timeless tactic appears to be at risk,
Millions of people, displaced from their home countries, take refuge in areas that are highly vulnerable to extreme weather. Qaabata Boru left his home in Ethiopia on a nearly 1,500-kilometer journey to Kenya as a political refugee. Upon arriving at the Kakuma refugee camp, he learned of the worrying conditions faced by its
In the past few weeks, climate records have shattered across the globe – 4 July was the hottest global average day on record, breaking the record set the previous day. Average sea surface temperatures have been the highest ever recorded and Antarctic sea ice extent the lowest on record. Also on 4 July,
Tulare County is the largest dairy producer in California and the US. But as climate change exposes the region’s vulnerability, could the industry collapse under its own weight? For Joseph Goni, a fourth-generation dairy farmer in Tulare County, California, the region’s historic floods were part of family lore. As such, his grandfather, who
“This story was originally published by Grist.” This story is part of Record High, a Grist series examining extreme heat and its impact on how — and where — we live. In late June 2021, a high-pressure atmospheric system settled over Seattle to create an inescapable heat dome. Jean-Paul Yafali, a resident of nearby