Our picksDisasters & “Warning Fatigue” | How to Deradicalize Your Town | Sea Level Rise and Non-Coastal Communities, and more

Published 6 September 2021

·  Highlights of Iran’s Perilous Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons

·  As Flood Alerts Lit Up Phones, Did “Warning Fatigue” Set In?

·  This Seemingly Normal Lightning Cable Will Leak Everything You Type

·  American Spies Are Fighting the Last War, Again

·  Sea-Level Rise Becoming a Hazard for South Florida Neighborhoods Miles from Ocean

·  Over 230 Medical Journals: Climate Crisis Is the “Greatest” Health Threat

·  Far-Right Groups Hit Germany’s Flooded Regions with Conspiracy Theories and Disinformation

·  Understanding Pyrocumulonimbi, aka ‘Fire Clouds’

·  Cass Sunstein Explores the Bureaucratic Sludge That Slows Us Down in Latest Book

·  How to Deradicalize Your Town

Highlights of Iran’s Perilous Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons  (David Albright with Sarah Burkhard and the ISIS Team)
Iran’s Perilous Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons chronicles the Islamic Republic of Iran’s effort to acquire nuclear weapons. It started slowly, building to a crash nuclear weapons program in the early 2000s to create five nuclear weapons and an industrial complex to produce many more. Under international pressure, fearful of military attack, the program was driven to downsize and deeper secrecy. Nonetheless, Iran remains on the brink of becoming a nuclear weapons power; its nuclear material production capabilities stronger than ever, its weaponization capabilities lurking under the surface.
But just how close did Iran get to nuclear weapons during its crash program and how close is it today?

As Flood Alerts Lit Up Phones, Did “Warning Fatigue” Set In?  (Bobby Caina Calvan, AP / Phys.org)
Cellphones across New York and New Jersey pulsed with urgent warnings of catastrophic flooding as the fury of Hurricane Ida’s remnants, carrying torrential rains, approached upper New Jersey and New York City on Wednesday.
The first alerts of severe weather blared across millions of phones at 8:41 p.m. that night when the National Weather Service warned of dangerous flash flooding from the looming storm. Officials would issue three more alerts, late into the night, urging people to immediately head for higher ground and to stay out of rising floodwaters.
A barrage of other alerts from a litany of apps lit up phone screens throughout the night—prompting some to wonder if people were just too inundated with information to take the threat seriously.

This Seemingly Normal Lightning Cable Will Leak Everything You Type  (Joseph Cox, Vice)
A new version of the OMG Cable is a USB-C to Lightning Cable that hackers can use to steal your passwords or other data.

American Spies Are Fighting the Last War, Again  (Amy Zegart, The Atlantic)
When the Cold War ended, the intelligence community failed to adapt. Today it faces a similar challenge.

Sea-Level Rise Becoming a Hazard for South Florida Neighborhoods Miles from Ocean  (David Fleshler, Sun-Sentinel)
Sea-level rise may appear to be a problem only for coastal residents, a hazard that comes with the awesome views and easy access to the beach.
But neighborhoods 20 miles inland are starting to feel the impact, as the Atlantic Ocean’s higher elevation makes it harder for drainage canals to keep them dry. The problem showed up last year in Tropical Storm Eta, when floodwater remained in southwest Broward neighborhoods for days, partly because the elevated ocean blocked canals from draining the region.

Over 230 Medical Journals: Climate Crisis Is the “Greatest” Health Threat  (Rebecca Falconer, Axios)
Global warming is affecting people’s health — and world leaders need to address the climate crisis now as it can’t wait until the COVID-19 pandemic is over, editors of over 230 medical journals warned Sunday evening.
Why it matters: This is the first time so many publications have come together to issue such a joint statement to world leaders, underscoring the severity of the situation — with the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Lancet and the British Medical Journal among those issuing the warning.

Far-Right Groups Hit Germany’s Flooded Regions with Conspiracy Theories and Disinformation  (Josephine Hüeltin, Coda Story)
Leading figures in the Querdenken anti-lockdown movement have travelled to some of the worst-affected areas, causing chaos and disrupting official relief efforts

Understanding Pyrocumulonimbi, aka ‘Fire Clouds’  (Jon Reisner, Manvendra Dubey, Scientific American)
Caused by wildfires, they can trigger lightning, create fire tornadoes and turbocharge winds that accelerate the spread of a conflagration.

Cass Sunstein Explores the Bureaucratic Sludge That Slows Us Down in Latest Book  (NPR)
 Sludge - yuck. Not just the kind that sticks to your shoes - the kind that sticks in your craw, bureaucratic sludge - long forms, long lines, entering the same information over and over, time and again, like the first days of COVID vaccinations when screens would flash back, we’re sorry, try again, try later - or never. In his new book, Sludge: What Stops Us from Getting Things Done and What to Do about It, esteemed legal scholar Cass Sunstein, who is also now senior counselor at the Department of Homeland Security, shows how sludge isn’t just a nuisance but can hurt our health, perpetuate poverty, frustrate democracy and cost jobs, scholarships and opportunity. Cass Sunstein, thanks so much for being with us.

How to Deradicalize Your Town  (Carla Power, The Atlantic)
While hundreds of men in surrounding towns were leaving Belgium to fight for ISIS in Syria, this town didn’t lose one young person. Here’s why.