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Major cities are not alone in feeling the effects of climate change. Small vacation towns are starting to get the brunt of sea-level rise—as evidenced by one home listing in Nantucket, Massachusetts. 
In September 2023, a three-bedroom, two-bath waterfront home in Nantucket—a “beautiful seaside retreat” as described by the sellers—was listed at $2.3 million. Looking at the comparable homes in the area, it was somewhat of a steal. Some listings in the area are as high as $8.2 million, according to Zillow. But after a few months on the market, the price plummeted a whopping 74% to just $600,000—well below Nantucket’s median home sales price of $3.2 million. 
During the past two years, we’ve heard nothing but news of home prices increasing, so how could such a seemingly desirable property lose so much value so quickly?
Climate change is to blame. The shoreline surrounding the home lost 70 feet due to erosion in just a few weeks, according to a Boston Globe report. While the 2,625-square-foot property was located at what’s long been considered a prime location in Nantucket, its value was completely washed—literally. While Florida, California, and Texas are primarily the focal points of how climate change is impacting housing, other coastal areas and islands like Nantucket are in danger.
“As sea levels continue to rise, we’re also seeing land areas sink, both due to the increased temperatures from human caused climate change,” Kathleen Biggins, founder and president of non-partisan climate change education organization C-Change Conversations, tells Fortune. “This heavily impacts coastal areas, especially as they become either uninsurable or extremely expensive to insure, because the risk of damage is just too high for market tolerance.”
Despite the risk of future damage, longtime Nantucket visitor Brendan Maddigan, who lives in New York, submitted an all-cash offer in February for the property when he saw the incredible price drop, according to the Globe. 
“The home is amazing. The location is amazing,” he said. “And the price mitigates the risk to a good degree. I’d like to think that it’ll be there for a while, but I was definitely aware of the risk of any particular storm causing a problem in the future.”
Vacation homes are meant to be an oasis, but that doesn’t mean they’re immune from the effects of climate change. Indeed, vacation destinations like Nantucket are typically located in “environmentally sensitive areas” and are likely to be the first communities significantly affected by climate change, Biggins says.
That “will definitely lead to fluctuating property values as the risks and impacts become more evident,” Biggins says. “Millions and millions of people live and work in coastal counties, and will be severely impacted by the effects of climate change over time.”
Not only is there inherent risk in purchasing coastal properties that could lose value, but many of these climate-change ridden communities are uninsurable. Indeed, a recent ValuePenguin survey showed more than one in four American homeowners with insurance worry their homes will become uninsurable in 2024—and 72% of home-insurance policyholders reported rate hikes in 2023.
“Climate change goes well beyond the weather in choosing a home,” Tracy Ramsay, a RE/MAX Results real-estate agent, tells Fortune. “In addition to thinking about comfort, climate change can drastically affect your housing stability—as well as your wallet.”
For the wealthy, it can be nearly irresistible to purchase vacation homes—ones with “an ocean backdrop or rolling hills with vineyards,” Ramsay says. “You can’t help dreaming of living an idyllic life in such a setting.” 
But the harsh reality is that many of these homes are too “unstable” or even dangerous to live in, Ramsay says. Those who have extra cash to burn may not be too concerned with rebuilding or refurbishing their homes if something were to happen, but without insurance the cost can become insurmountable. 
“Even the wealthy will have their tipping point and will flee if the inconvenience and danger become too much,” she says.
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Bill Clinton had Socks the cat and Barack Obama had Bo the dog. Mayor Tessa Rudnick has Willow the rabbit. The “first bun” of El Cerrito, a small town near San Francisco, has learned how to “high five” with her nose and likes to flop down with the family to be petted.
Willow is an anomaly — and not just because of her personality. If you have a pet in the United States, chances are it meows or barks. Of the 129 million households with pets in the country, roughly 3 in 4 have a cat or dog, according to 2021 Census data.
This dominant pet duo furnishes love and affection for millions of people, but there is an entire animal kingdom out there, largely overlooked but no less lovable, whose members tread lighter on the planet.
Cats and dogs have an outsize carbon footprint, mostly because of their carnivorous diet. If the pet food industry, which mainly feeds dogs and cats, were a country, it would rank as the 60th-highest greenhouse gas emitter, equivalent to the Philippines.
Rabbits, by contrast, leave a minimal pawprint. They eat small amounts of hay and otherwise discarded vegetables. Their waste can be used as fertilizer in gardens.
“It’s like having a vegan cat,” says Anna Reynoso, the manager at a shelter run by the House Rabbit Society in Richmond, Calif.
I ventured to the bunny rescue to see what’s it like to adopt one of the most environmentally friendly pets out there. As Americans embrace pet ownership like never before — the number of households with pets has more than tripled since the 1970s — I discovered there may be more “rabbit people” than you might expect.
When I walk into the House Rabbit Society’s shelter, more than a dozen quivering noses rise to sniff the air. Then their placid owners return to the business of nibbling at hay or napping under tiny cardboard castles. It’s an ocean of calm.
I approach one rabbit, a one-eyed male named Times New Roman, with my hand outstretched. After submitting to a brief rub on his forehead, he amicably hops away toward his neighbor, a Holland Lop mix named Student Section with crazed fluffy fur and a wonky back leg. (Both were named during the shelter’s font- and sports-themed phase.)
On any given day, the House Rabbit Society shelter, one of 15 chapters around the world, is the temporary home for more than three dozen stray or abandoned rabbits, from ruby-eyed rescues to black-and-white bunnies resembling Dalmatians.
The idea of pet rabbits is relatively new. For millennia, humanity’s primary interaction with rabbits was as hunters and farmers. That hasn’t given rabbits a warm reputation. They are often portrayed as aloof, skittish and devoid of unique personalities. Because rabbits are prey to bigger animals in the wild, they’re nervous when lifted and held (although many do love touch on the ground).
They are the third most surrendered animal to shelters, PETA reports, but that’s not because of bunnies’ inability to be loving companions, argues Beth Woolbright, executive director of House Rabbit Society, who has lived with 30 rabbits (along with cohabitating cats) since co-founding the organization in 1988. People just need to be better prepared for their needs and personalities.
“Rabbits are a nature show that plays with you,” she says.
Rabbits are a group of curious, social animals called lagomorphs, not rodents as many assume. Domestic rabbits can live eight to 12 years, but rarely survive on their own outdoors where they lack the survival skills of their wild cousins. Like dogs or cats, rabbits can be easily trained to use litter boxes, answer by name and may affectionately “nose-bump” your ankles. Many also live cage-free indoors with a “home base” supplied with a litter box, hiding areas, blankets and toys.
And, they’re ideal for busy families, says Woolbright, since they’re crepuscular: They’re most active in the early morning and twilight, when families are home, and nap during the day and evening.
But it’s their diet that gives them an environmental edge over cats or dogs. They eat mostly hay, which makes up about 80 percent of their diet, alongside a few vegetables and leafy greens. And the parts of vegetables humans don’t eat from carrot tops to cilantro stems? Bunny favorites.
In contrast, most cat and dog kibble is roughly 50 percent animal protein, accounting for around 1.5 percent of global agricultural emissions, according to a 2020 study in Global Environmental Change.
That’s expected to rise. More middle-class families are bringing dogs and cats into their homes, as well as buying “premium” pet foods using human-grade meat instead of by-products, with two to three times the emissions of market-leading pet foods.
“All else equal, livestock drives a large part of the environmental impact of the food system,” says Stephanie Cap, a researcher from Leiden University in the Netherlands who analyzed pet emissions for the E.U.’s 1.5° Lifestyles project, “and minimizing livestock production will reduce environmental impact.”
Having a vegan pet may even improve your diet. Rudnick, the mayor, says her family is eating healthier since adopting Willow. “It forces us to always have fresh food in the house,” she laughs. “We’re definitely eating a lot more kale.”
Woolbright say rabbits can be an ideal pet — for the right family. Bunnies need a few basic things: safe housing (a corner of a room or apartment will do); social interaction (with you or other bunnies); healthy food and regular veterinary care, including spaying or neutering.
Patience and gentleness, as well as a casual attitude toward the state of your furniture, also help. If your rabbit chews on furniture or cables, “bunny-proofing” your house can avoid this. While children as young as 6 can make excellent caretakers, it’s important to have responsible adults. And bear in mind that a baby rabbit is an 8-to-12-year commitment.
Budgeting about $50 per month for a pet bunny is typical, although much of the rabbits’ greens can be free at grocery stores or farmers markets. Rabbits also tend to need less expensive regular care than dogs and cats, but some veterinarians consider them “exotic” pets and don’t see them. Check the availability and cost of local veterinarians since emergency care can be more expensive.
And know that rabbit dispositions span a broad range. Some are snuggly and may even doze on your chest. Others may hop away from you. Many people describe the average rabbit’s temperament as somewhere between that of a cat and a dog: affectionate, yet needing plenty of alone time. Each one is an individual, so it helps to foster a rabbit before adopting one.
For Rudnick, Willow’s entrance into her family’s life has gone smoothly. “Having this low-impact pet with which Shira can have that bond has been huge,” she says of Willow’s relationship with her 8-year-old daughter. The rabbit acrobatics called “binkies” — leaps, kicks and twists in midair — are a joyful diversion.
For anyone considering bringing a rabbit into their life, Shira has some advice. “Bunnies can come in different shapes and sizes, and they can have different needs,” Shira tells me. “But no matter what, they can always be a good part of the family.”

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Making a choice: Imagine you’ve built an environmentally friendly business. Obviously, you’d want a shipping partner that shares your values and offers services that meet your needs. For eco-paint company Kalklitir, UPS carbon neutral shipping was the natural choice.
“We always make decisions primarily from an environmental standpoint. It’s who we are,” said Viktor Hjartarson at Kalklitir.

Shared values: Kalklitir, a Belgian business with Icelandic roots, produces paint products in powder form that are low emissions, low waste and low toxicity. The company aims to be carbon neutral by 2025, and a shipping option that works toward that goal is critical. With UPS carbon neutral shipping, transport emissions from Kalklitir’s products are offset by supporting projects like reforestation, landfill gas destruction and methane destruction.
At UPS, sustainability isn’t just a promise; it’s an action plan. Our carbon neutral shipping option helps us achieve a lower carbon footprint. We have a responsibility to put sustainability at the core of our operations, and that’s why we’ve committed to 100% carbon neutrality by 2050.
Global success: With the help of UPS’s reliable worldwide shipping, the eco-paint brand has seen its customer base expand beyond Europe to locations around the globe. Our easy cross-border shipping options give Kalklitir’s customers a choice of delivery speeds, anywhere in the world.
“We began shipping with UPS and we’ve never looked back. We had a positive feeling from day one,” said Fanný Hjartardóttir, director of sales at Kalklitir.
And thanks to our global network of 55,000 UPS Access Points, Kalklitir’s customers have even more delivery choices, with products reaching the U.S. from Belgium in as few as two days.
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In 2024, the construction industry will play a pivotal role in ushering California into a more sustainable and diverse future. But that is not without its challenges. While financial uncertainty in the new year urges building owners to be prudent on capital project spending, recent environmental legislation requires buildings to adhere to decarbonization goals to reduce emissions. Simultaneously, equity and diversity continue to be critical areas of focus.
As California continues to trailblaze on these issues, the construction industry is emerging as a strategic partner in championing sustainability, delivering projects on time and within budget through the use of technology, and driving diversity initiatives.
Around 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions originate from the built environment. To address this, California enacted several legislative measures in 2023 aimed at decarbonizing buildings. These measures include new codes for large commercial buildings and schools to curb embodied carbon emissions and enhanced monitoring and disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions by large corporations.
To comply with these mandates, clients may find it beneficial to partner with general contractors on innovative solutions including:
Cutting-edge technology is redefining construction projects. Drones, aerial imaging and robotics streamline the decision-making process, improve safety and promise timely and cost-effective project delivery. On the Sutter Health Ambulatory Care Center and Surgery Center in San Jose, we utilized a Dusty Robotics field printer for improved layout design accuracy and efficiency. This project also leveraged the use of Takt Planning for enhanced construction efficiency. The impressive results speak for themselves — completion was achieved nearly three months ahead of schedule and $3 million under budget.
The use of technology and innovative strategies will continue to transform the construction industry in ways we have not seen before, benefiting clients as their projects are delivered on time and within budget.
Supplier diversity holds significant importance in California’s construction industry, given the state’s equity and diversity goals. However, it’s not just about filling quotas or meeting legal requirements; it’s about leveraging the full potential of the state’s diverse businesses for economic growth and social progress.
California’s diversity and equity goals require construction companies to be equally invested in supplier diversity — extending partnership opportunities to minority and women-owned business enterprises. Skanska continues to seek partnerships with minority and women-owned business enterprises (MWBEs) throughout our projects, which have significant implications for local economic development. Across the industry, construction companies are increasingly recognizing the value that minority and women-owned business enterprises (MWBEs) bring to their projects. These partnerships can lead to novel ideas, fresh perspectives and innovative problem-solving approaches that enhance project outcomes. Additionally, they create an inclusive business environment that reflects the state’s demographic makeup.
By partnering with MWBEs, large construction firms like ours can contribute significantly to local economies. These partnerships help stimulate economic development by providing MWBEs with new business opportunities, allowing them to expand their operations, hire more employees and contribute more extensively to local economies. In this sense, supplier diversity is also a powerful tool for socio-economic empowerment.
Skanska’s Construction Management Building Blocks Program exemplifies our commitment to supplier diversity. Through this program, we provide resources and support to minority and MWBEs, helping them overcome common barriers that may limit their ability to secure large contracts. The program equips these businesses with the necessary skills and knowledge to compete effectively in the marketplace, giving them a pathway to work with large construction companies like ours.
By offering a pathway for MWBEs to collaborate with larger firms on significant projects, we’re not only creating tangible opportunities but also sending a powerful message about the importance of inclusivity in our industry.
California’s dynamic landscape is driving innovation, marked by a transformative shift in sustainability practices and industry strategies that will eventually be modelled nationwide. Decision-makers across the region and beyond would benefit from further collaboration with construction companies to achieve ambitious sustainability goals and leverage technology for on-time, on-budget projects. This is also an opportunity to pioneer equity in partnerships with diverse subcontractors and suppliers, effectively shaping the future of construction in California and beyond. We look forward to the groundbreaking evolutions that will continue to take shape in the years to come.
Skanska Group uses knowledge & foresight to shape the way people live, work, and connect. Over 135 years in the making, we’re one of the world’s largest development and construction companies, with 2023 revenue totaling $14.8 billion. We operate across select markets in the Nordics, Europe and the United States.
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A fifth-grade class in Sprague, Washington, came up with the cleverest – and most environmentally responsible – way to earn money for Expo ’74 tickets.
They were jumping “up and down on beer cans” to prepare them for recycling. That’s how they spent one recent recess period. But that’s not all they were doing. They were also collecting newsprint, cardboard, returnable bottles and other kinds of cans to sell to recyclers.
People from Sprague and environs were pitching in to help. The Sprague Fire Department contributed their bottles, and highway department workers gave them cans gathered along the roadside.
After reaching their quota, the fifth-graders marched en masse to a Sprague bank, during a rainstorm, to purchase their tickets.
From 100 years ago: A “little blowout” occurred on the second floor of a rented home in the Cannon Hill neighborhood.
Neighbors heard an explosion and saw smoke billowing from a second-floor window. The residents shooed firefighters away, saying they had put the fire out. But then they loaded belongings into four cars and sped away.
When the landlord arrived, she found something strange on the second floor. It was a 40-gallon moonshine still, which had blown up with such force it knocked a door off its hinges.
Police were searching for the renters.
(From onthisday.com)
1889: Eiffel Tower officially opens in Paris. Designed by Gustave Eiffel and built for the Exposition Universelle, at 300m high it retains the record for the tallest man-made structure for 41 years.
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The sustainable fashion market, described as the fashion sector dedicated to eco-friendly and ethically responsible practices, is poised for rapid expansion.
Sustainable Fashion Market size was valued at USD 7.45 Bn. in 2023 and the total Sustainable Fashion revenue is expected to grow by 8.2 % from 2024 to 2030, reaching nearly USD 12.94 Bn.
Sustainable Fashion Market Overview
Maximize Market Research, a Sustainable Fashion Market business research firm has published a report on the “Sustainable Fashion Market”. The report includes business insights, market dynamics, pricing analysis, demand analysis, and competitive landscape. The forecast period for the Sustainable Fashion market is from 2024-2030.
Sustainable Fashion Market Report Scope and Research Methodology
The Sustainable Fashion market research provides thorough details on important variables such as motivating factors and obstacles that are expected to determine the market’s future growth. Along with a detailed analysis of the competitive landscape, product offerings, and Business strategies of key companies. The report also includes opportunities for stakeholders to invest in the Sustainable Fashion market. The scope of the MMR report includes an in-depth analysis of regional markets for the Sustainable Fashion Market. Both qualitative and quantitative analyses of the industry have been covered in the report.
Request Sample for Report:www.maximizemarketresearch.com/request…ple/213432 
The report describes the segments with numerous sub-segments. The primary and secondary sources were used to collect the data for the Sustainable Fashion Market. Primary research sources include yearly reports, government websites, press releases, articles, and the opinions of numerous specialists, analysts, experts, and researchers from different companies for detailed information on Sustainable Fashion the industry. Political, social, economic, and other markets are instances of secondary sources.
Sustainable Fashion Market Regional Insights
The Sustainable Fashion market is segmented into regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. The Regional Analysis used in the report to understand the status of the Sustainable Fashion market in key countries. A complete analysis of all the factors is included such as market size, growth rate, in regions.
 Report:www.maximizemarketresearch.com/inquiry…ing/213432 
Sustainable Fashion Market Segmentation
by Product Type
Clothing
Footwear
Accessories
Textiles
by Product Nature
Organic
Man-Made/Regenerated
Recycled
Natural
by Distribution Channel
Retail Stores
E-commerce
Sustainable Fashion Events
by Consumer Demographics
Eco-conscious Consumers
Mainstream Consumers
Brands and Organizations
by End-User Men
Women
Kids
Sustainable Fashion Market Key Players
Key questions answered in the Sustainable Fashion Market are:
Key Offerings:

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(Nikole Liang/Daily Bruin staff)
This post was updated Nov. 12 at 8:24p.m.
The bridge connecting humanities and social sciences to the environment may not be as treacherous as we are conditioned to think.
There is a common misconception that the only way to solve environmental issues is through deep scientific understanding. Oftentimes, we imagine scientists tinkering away in labs or taking samples from obscure places as they work toward a solution to the climate crisis. The scientific jargon and acronyms scientists use are inaccessible to the general population. However, the way humanists and social scientists work with language is valuable for communicating with the population and fostering connection between scientific research and public action.
The humanities and social sciences have successfully achieved social change that would not be possible by science alone. These disciplines use narratives to connect the public to environmental issues. In social sciences, for instance, they often provide data to the government that support the development of policy and law.
While environmental sciences provide irrefutable data on climate change in the upcoming decades, it is the collaboration with humanities and social sciences that allows people to understand these complex issues on a personal level.
The humanities and social sciences should not leave this work up to STEM fields; rather, professionals can and should use their skills to tackle environmental issues.
“The solutions are not mysterious,” said Michael Ross, a political science professor who researches environmental politics. “We understand what we’re doing that’s causing the problem. The real problem is politics, and that’s what I study and take as my central focus.”
Ross added that climate change is the most discussed environmental issue of this century. In the United States alone, there are cultural, political and economic factors that impact our approach to climate change, he said.
There is a need for political scientists, especially to help the government and the public understand issues of climate change, he said. Political science students learn skills such as gathering and analyzing data that can be useful in environmental studies.
The humanities play a significant role in understanding how different cultures understand environmental changes. In doing so, humanities adds depth that scientific facts cannot do alone.
The Lab for Environmental Narrative Strategies uses tools from anthropology, history and literary studies to analyze narratives.
“Our task is to make people aware of those cultural differences and histories that then inform them,” said Ursula Heise, an English professor and interim director of the Lab for Environmental Narrative Strategies. “Histories of colonization have had a really important influence on how people perceive global changes and ecological crises.”
Heise added that the intersectionality of humanities and social sciences also extends internationally to how the global south and non-western nations understand their environments.
Many indigenous cultures have literary and artistic traditions to express their interactions with natural disasters and climate change, said Susanna Hecht, a professor in the Luskin School of Public Affairs and director of the Brazil Center and Institute of Environmental Studies.
“I work in Brazil, so it has a really strong El Niño set of events, and those events are memorialized,” Hecht said. “I’m looking at some drawings of the impacts of drought and how people are migrating and being displaced because of drought. Also, the music talks about it, and the poetry and literature talks about it.”
Along with the benefits of a different perspective through the humanities and social sciences, there are also similarities between these interdisciplinary fields and traditional science that can foster collaboration.
“A lot of our basic concepts of how you do scientific research are the same,” Ross said.
He added that political science uses tools like surveying and analyzing data, just like environmental scientists. Both sides are willing to talk and get insight from different perspectives.
Some students pursuing the humanities or social sciences might feel unprepared to discuss environmental issues without a traditional science background, yet their ability to evaluate different material in a familiar scientific method helps them take a different perspective.
“If you look in environmental history, what you see is that people are working from both the scientific data, from what we call the natural archive, but they’re also working from the human archive,” Hecht said.
She added that the human archive includes material written in indigenous languages in Latin America that have existed for 4,000 years.
Environmental historians, like scientists, draw from a body of data in a methodological way as well.
The humanities in particular are able to raise discussions on broader ethical and social issues in relation to the environment.
“The environmental movement in the United States has very much focused on science and policy,” Heise said. “Latin American environmentalism tends not to be a movement apart from other social movements. It’s always been part of fights for indigenous sovereignty and land rights, part of fights for women’s rights, part of campesino struggles.”
A multidisciplinary angle can uncover these insights that are missing from mainstream narratives. Storytelling is a unique way for humans to connect, in contrast to distant statistics.
“Get out of your building, go wander around. There’s wonderful things going on,” Hecht said.
Humanities and social science students have many opportunities to get involved in subjects outside their field. In the increasingly essential study of the environment, all disciplines must participate to create positive change.
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March 27, 2024
This article has been reviewed according to Science X’s editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content’s credibility:
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by Daniel Lawler and Juliette Collen
Struggle to wrap your head around daylight savings? Spare a thought for the world’s timekeepers, who are trying to work out how climate change is affecting Earth’s rotation—and in turn, how we keep track of time.
In a strange twist, global warming could even help out timekeepers by delaying the need for history’s first “negative leap second” by three years, a study published on Wednesday suggested.
Experts fear that introducing a negative leap second—a minute with only 59 seconds—into standard time could cause havoc on computer systems across the world.
For most of history, time was measured by the rotation of the Earth. However in 1967, the world’s timekeepers embraced atomic clocks—which use the frequency of atoms as their tick-tock—ushering in a more precise era of timekeeping.
But sailors, who still relied on the sun and stars for navigation, and others wanted to retain the connection between Earth’s rotation and time.
There was a problem. Our planet is an unreliable clock, and had long been rotating slightly slower than atomic time, meaning the two measurements were out of sync.
So a compromise was struck. Whenever the difference between the two measurements approached 0.9 of a second, a “leap second” was added to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the internationally agreed standard by which the world sets its clocks.
Though most people likely have not noticed, 27 leap seconds have been added to UTC since 1972, the last coming in 2016.
But in recent years a new problem has emerged that few saw coming: Earth’s rotation has been speeding up, overtaking atomic time.
This means that to bring the two measurements in sync, timekeepers may have to introduce the first ever negative leap second.
Our unpredictable planet
“This has never happened before, and poses a major challenge to making sure that all parts of the global timing infrastructure show the same time,” said Duncan Agnew, a researcher at the University of California, San Diego.
“Many computer programs for leap seconds assume they are all positive, so these would have to be rewritten,” he told AFP.
Partly using satellite data, Agnew looked at the rate of the Earth’s rotation and the effect of its slowing core for the new study published in the journal Nature.
He determined that if not for climate change, a negative leap second might have needed to be added to UTC as soon as 2026.
But starting from 1990, melting ice in Greenland and Antarctica has slowed down the Earth’s rotation, the study said. This has delayed the need for a negative leap second until at least 2029, it added.
“When the ice melts, the water spreads out over the whole ocean; this increases the moment of inertia, which slows the Earth down,” Agnew said.
If the need for an “unprecedented” negative leap second was delayed, that would be “welcome news indeed,” Patrizia Tavella, the head of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, which is responsible for UTC, commented in Nature.
Demetrios Matsakis, former chief scientist for time services at the US Naval Observatory who was not involved in the research, told AFP that he was skeptical of Agnew’s analysis.
He said that “Earth is too unpredictable to be sure” if a negative leap second would be needed any time soon.
Second nature
But all agreed that a negative leap second would be a hop into the unknown.
“It would not bring about the downfall of civilization, and given enough publicity some problems could be avoided,” Matsakis said.
“But I would not recommend being in an airplane at that time.”
Even positive leap seconds have previously caused problems for systems that require precise timekeeping.
That is partly why the world’s timekeepers agreed in 2022 to scrap the leap second by 2035.
From that year, the plan is to allow the difference between atomic time and the Earth’s rotation to grow up to a minute.
A subsequent leap minute to bring them into sync is not expected to be needed in the next century.
And “a negative leap minute is very, very unlikely,” Agnew said.
He hopes his research will prompt the world’s timekeepers to consider dropping the leap second sooner than 2035, a sentiment echoed by Tavella and Matsakis.
More information: Duncan Carr Agnew, A global timekeeping problem postponed by global warming, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07170-0

Journal information: Nature
© 2024 AFP
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