This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist’s weekly newsletter here. On a sunny Friday afternoon in October 2023, some 70 children filed into a cool, dark tunnel in the south of Paris to help the city rehearse for its increasingly hot future. The tunnel, part of the abandoned Petite Ceinture railway encircling the city, is always 64 degrees Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius), making it the perfect safe haven from the potentially lethal heat imagined outside. Once underground, each youngster was asked to simulate the effects of extreme temperatures that might become reality in their lifetimes. Some pretended to have been poisoned by food that spoiled during a power outage. Others faked the effects of carbon monoxide leaking from a faulty generator. Meanwhile, Red Cross workers scrambled to decide who to send to overwhelmed hospitals. Around them, dozens of others — fire fighters, city officials, teachers — did their best to simulate the chaos and cascading impacts a heat wave of unprecedented duration and intensity might force them to confront. The officials who created the Paris at 50C exercise wanted children to participate because they will face the consequences of a warming world and because they ask so many questions. Courtesy of Crisotech The exercise, called Paris at 50 degrees Celsius, was designed to imagine what might happen if the mercury hits 122 degrees F, something scientists warn is increasingly likely by 2100. It combined live drills and a tabletop exercise to help shape a plan to protect the city’s two million people from that kind of heat. Once limited to a handful of cities, these exercises are spreading as local governments stress test health services, emergency response, and essential infrastructure before temperatures reach dangerous extremes. What Paris is rehearsing could soon confront cities across the continent. European governments are being urged to prepare for 5 to 6 degrees F (2.8 to 3.3 degrees C) of warming, a change that could push Paris toward dangerous summertime temperatures by the end of the century. Weighed down by negative news? Our smart, bright, weekly newsletter is the uplift you’ve been looking for. [contact-form-7] Such heat is a global threat. Modeling suggests more than 1.6 billion people in nearly 1,000 cities could regularly face perilous conditions within three decades. Heat waves are already straining hospitals, causing outages and paralyzing transit. In the complex systems that make up a city, even small failures can lead to larger breakdowns. But as cities invest time and money into these exercises, one question remains: Do they actually improve preparedness? It took Pénélope Komitès more than 18 months to prepare a drill that would last just two days. As Paris’ deputy mayor in charge of resilience, she considers such planning essential. “It was very important for us to show people that heat waves are not just something we see on the TV, but something that can happen soon, and that we need to improve what we’re going to do,” she said. To help inform the scenario, scientists at the Île-de-France Regional Climate Change Expertise Group, which advises city leaders on climate risk, modeled what the future might look like. Other studies based on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have largely confirmed their projection that temperatures could hit 122 degree F (50 degrees C) by the end of the century. For now, the city’s record stands at 108.68 F (42.6 C), registered on July 25, 2019. A temperature sign over a pharmacy in Paris, France, reads 47 degrees C (116 degrees F) during a heat wave in 2015. Credit: Pierre Suu / Getty Images / Grist The World Health Organization estimates that heat contributes to roughly half a million deaths worldwide each year. Symptoms can quickly escalate from fatigue to dehydration to heat stroke as the body loses its ability to cool itself. For older adults and people with heart or kidney disease, that strain can be fatal. In Paris, much of the work of designing the simulation fell to Crisotech, a consultancy specializing in crisis exercises. It spent nine months working with the city to develop a dozen scenarios designed to anticipate where services would buckle, how agencies would work together and which residents might be missed. The role-playing the children, from two different schools, participated in at two locations occurred on the first day; the second was dedicated to tabletop exercises among city officials and first responders. “The objective was to anticipate all possible impacts of a heat dome across Paris, to consolidate the [preparedness] measures planned by the city in the event of an extreme heat wave, test new solutions … and identify new actions to be implemented,” said Komitès. The simulations are designed to test a city’s response to all the things that might happen during a prolonged heat wave, such as people experiencing heat stroke and other health impacts. Courtesy of Crisotech More than 100 organizations took part, from city agencies and emergency services to utilities and nonprofits. While other cities, including Melbourne, London and Phoenix, have hosted similar workshops, Paris made the unprecedented decision to include citizens in the role-playing portion of the €200,000 ($236,000) event. The city held informal meetings to recruit volunteers and help residents visualize the scenario. Children were especially valuable participants, both because they will face the consequences of a warming world and because they ask so many questions, said Ziad Touat, the crisis management consultant who led the simulation for Crisotech. Komitès also wanted to prepare Parisians for the day when all of this would unfold for real. That’s important, she said, because the pandemic showed that well-informed communities respond to a crisis more effectively. If people recognize the symptoms of heat stroke, for example, or know when to find a cooling shelter, first responders can focus on the most vulnerable, Komitès said. Five years ago, these simulations were confined to a handful of cities in the U.S. and Europe. Now, cities around the world are getting interested, said Cassie Sunderland, managing director of climate solutions at C40, a global network of mayors focused on climate action. Some of the sims are sprawling operations like the one in Paris; others are more modest tabletop exercises, or hybrids that combine interagency workshops with limited role-playing. All are meant to identify points of failure before a crisis does. Success is not measured by whether a drill runs smoothly, but rather, the opposite. The most valuable ones are realistic enough to force decisions, yet unpredictable enough to expose coordination problems and infrastructure failures. For example, engineers might be brought in to determine the temperature at which train tracks expand. “Imagine if you suddenly have a huge amount of people who need additional health care, but doctors and nurses can’t get to the hospital because of transport failures,” said Sunderland. A huge generator provides power during an exercise designed to simulate the surge in electricity demand Paris might experience during a prolonged heatwave. Courtesy of Crisotech The growth of these exercises reflects a broader concern that many cities are unprepared. “Simulating extreme heat is really important,” said Dr. Satchit Balsari, a professor of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical School. “A lot of cities stop and make heat action plans, but they actually don’t drill into how they are going to implement them, whether the funding for it exists, and if they actually have the know-how.” Some scenarios can only be explored in a simulation, such as the question of cooling patients experiencing heatstroke. “How do you take a large human body and put it in ice? Is there a bucket that big?” Balsari said. “The answer is no, so is it a body bag? Where do you get all this ice?” What might appear simple on paper becomes a challenge unless tested. Simulations should also consider what measures are needed after the heat breaks, Balsari said. For instance, health care systems will need plans for addressing the long-term impacts like increased risk of chronic kidney disease. “Have a final session that thinks about what the subsequent months look like,” he said. Such challenges are compounded because most cities do not have someone responsible for crafting a unified response. A few, including Athens, Greece; Melbourne, Australia; and Freetown, Sierra Leone, have appointed “heat officers,” but most rely upon coordination among multiple departments. Rigorous testing can identify where that might break down and how coordination can be improved. Phoenix created a heat department after an exercise revealed that very problem. Barcelona has created more shaded areas throughout the city to protect people from increasingly dangerous heat. Courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona Some of the cities most vulnerable to extreme heat may not have the resources to stage an expensive drill. But Touat said preparedness is not an all-or-nothing affair. Smaller, less costly efforts can still build readiness — whether by testing communications plans, mapping vulnerable citizens, or practicing how agencies would collaborate during an outage. “Don’t try to have everything at once and to spend too much money to do an exercise of this type,” he said. “It’s better to do five small ones than one big one.” However, simulating extreme heat to improve preparedness isn’t enough, and work to decrease temperatures in cities must happen in parallel, Sunderland said. True resilience requires long-term changes that cool cities and slow climate change itself. Even though these simulations have their limits and can come with a hefty price tag, many cities still see their appeal. In Taiwan, they are expanding beyond cities. The country staged a tabletop exercise last year and plans a live simulation in July to test coordination within cities and between national officials. The goal is to test whether national and local agencies can effectively work together, said Ken-Mu Chang, the deputy director general of the country’s Climate Change Administration. The tabletop exercise and role-playing scenario will focus on managing the health impacts of a days-long 104-degree F (40-degree C) heat wave — the kind of prolonged heat that can overwhelm hospitals and power systems. One challenge, Chang said, is designing an exercise that feels realistic enough to be useful without creating unnecessary public anxiety. After last year’s trial run, officials realized that much of the exercise focused on agencies explaining existing plans, rather than showing how they’d respond to a crisis. “We want to make those gaps more visible and more concrete,” Chang said. “We want agencies not only to explain what they have, but also to identify what is still missing under a more extreme situation.” Meanwhile, Barcelona, Spain is adapting the model Komitès helped develop. The Catalan city faces growing urgency to prepare for a hotter future. The Mediterranean basin is warming 20 percent faster than the global average, making it one of the continent’s climate hot spots. Barcelona is among the European cities expected to see the greatest number of heat-related deaths by the end of the century. Given that future, city officials want to develop plans to protect infrastructure, build a registry of vulnerable residents and improve coordination. “It’s not easy when there’s so many actors and it’s not easy when the impacts are on so many different levels,” said Irma Ventayol, who leads Barcelona’s climate change department and is overseeing the simulation. Barcelona’s Heat Plan 2025-2035 calls for the continued expansion of green infrastructure and shaded areas in public schools and playgrounds. Courtesy of Ajuntament de Barcelona “Can we cope with waste management at 40 degrees C or 50 degrees C? Are the trucks prepared? Maybe they are, but no one has checked, so we need to ask those questions sooner rather than later,” Ventayol said. She also sees media coverage of the event as an opportunity to raise awareness among Barcelona’s nearly two million residents. Beyond protecting the city, she hopes the exercise can help others. “I’d like to have a protocol that can serve other cities too, a scalable methodology that other cities can take and replicate, even for other impacts such as floods,” Ventayol said. In Paris, the simulation — which inspired a flooding exercise that took place in October — produced 50 recommendations later folded into the city’s 2024–2030 Climate Action Plan. Some are now underway, including insulating thousands of homes and replacing asphalt parking spaces with trees; it planted 15,000 last winter alone. Even the three bathing spots along the Seine River that opened with a splash during last year’s Olympics are part of a broader effort to help residents stay cool. Komitès is being peppered with questions from others eager to launch similar exercises. All of the lessons for the simulation were compiled into two public documents: a guide to running a heat simulation of this scale and a report detailing what organizers learned. “Everything we did is already on the internet so you’re already one step ahead,” said Touat at Crisotech. Wait, you're not a member yet? Join the Reasons to be Cheerful community by supporting our nonprofit publication and giving what you can. Join Cancel anytime The biggest surprise to come out of the exercise had nothing to do with infrastructure resilience or cooperation among departments. What shocked Komitès the most was how unprepared Parisians are for extreme heat. The realization prompted what may be the city’s most important adaptation effort yet: preparing citizens, not just officials. In March, Paris opened its first Campus of Resilience with the civil protection agency and fire department. The center will host training sessions, smaller simulations and public workshops open to all residents. “We need to talk with Parisians,” Komitès said. “To inform them, to prepare them.” This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/cities/cities-are-rehearsing-for-deadly-heat-will-it-help-when-disaster-comes/. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org The post Paris Staged a Huge Stress Test for Extreme Heat appeared first on Reasons to be Cheerful.

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Most lawn care advice focuses on the grass itself: the seed variety, the mowing height, the fertilizer schedule. Tony Burris, Lawn Services Supervisor at Killingsworth Environmental, says that framing misses the mark. “Soil with poor nutrient availability or extreme pH levels will always struggle to support and retain grass,” he says. As Burris sees it, lawn care is far more about treating the soil than treating the grass. Getting the soil right is what gives seed its best chance to germinate, take hold, and grow in with real density. When grass is growing slowly or sparsely, the four most common causes are soil nutrient deficiency, an imbalance of sun and shade, improper watering, and uneven terrain. Each is diagnosable and fixable. Start with the soil If your seed isn’t taking hold, a soil test is a strong first move. Taking a sample and having it analyzed at a professional laboratory shows you the pH level and available nutrients, so you know exactly what amendments the lawn needs rather than guessing. One nutrient worth paying attention to is potassium. It strengthens the lawn by helping roots anchor firmly to the soil, which improves nutrient uptake and offers protection against disease and drought. If the test shows high acidity, adding lime can bring the pH to a range where grass can actually access the nutrients already present. Sun, shade, and knowing your grass type Different grass varieties have very different light needs, and planting the wrong type for your conditions sets you up for a frustrating season. Bermuda grass thrives in full sun but dies back in heavy shade. Tall fescue handles lower light well and often grows thickest under some tree cover. If you have warm-season grass struggling under tree canopy, Burris says removing some lower limbs to let more light reach the soil can make a real difference. In some spots, though, the shade is too deep for any grass to thrive. His recommendation there: create a defined natural area, such as a mulched bed or bordered garden section, and let the turf grow where conditions actually support it. Watering smarter, not more Overwatering is as common a problem as underwatering, and the mechanics matter too: the wrong sprinkler type, watering during windy conditions, and timing all affect how much the lawn actually benefits from the moisture it receives. “The best advice is to water deeply and infrequently to encourage deeper root systems,” Burris says. Shallow, frequent watering trains roots to stay near the surface, making the lawn more vulnerable during dry stretches. Deep, less-frequent sessions push roots downward where the soil holds moisture longer. Timing matters as well. Watering between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m. reduces the risk of lawn disease by giving blades time to dry before nightfall. And when summer turns to fall, keep watering until the grass goes dormant rather than stopping early. Dormancy is how a lawn conserves energy to come back well in spring; cutting water off too soon interrupts that process. For consistent, hands-off coverage, installing an irrigation system takes the guesswork out of it entirely. Level ground matters more than you’d think Terrain affects more than appearance. “Soil moisture and terrain often go hand in hand, as water runoff on grades can cause uphill turf to dry out,” Burris explains. Low spots that collect standing water create the opposite problem: oversaturation that drowns the root system. Levelling is easiest before seeding, when bare soil can be raked flat and new grass will grow to match it. But it’s possible to address an existing lawn’s unevenness too, even if it takes more effort. Beyond grass growth, a level surface improves drainage, simplifies mowing, and creates a safer surface for walking. Taken together, these four factors account for most of what stands between a homeowner and a lawn that fills in the way they hoped. The good news is that each one is fixable. A soil test, a watering schedule adjustment, some thoughtful pruning, or a bit of regrading can make a bigger difference than anything on a garden center shelf.   Did this solution stand out? Share it with a friend or support our mission by becoming an Emissary.The post 4 reasons your lawn looks thin this spring and how to fix them first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Before any vaccine can protect a child, someone has to reach them. Around 12.3 million of the children covered by the Big Catch-Up had never received a single dose of anything: not measles, not polio, not diphtheria. They are known as zero-dose children, and the reasons they go unvaccinated are rarely simple. They live in conflict zones, remote areas, or communities where health systems have never been reliable, or where vaccination services collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic and were never rebuilt. The Big Catch-Up, a multi-year initiative backed by UNICEF, Gavi, and the World Health Organization, concluded program implementation at the end of March 2026, delivering over 100 million doses to an estimated 18.3 million children in 36 countries, primarily low and lower-middle-income nations across Africa and Asia. About 15 million of those children had never previously received a measles vaccine. The initiative is on track to meet its target of reaching at least 21 million children by the time final data is compiled. What the pandemic left behind The campaign launched in 2023 to address a specific problem. The COVID-19 pandemic overwhelmed health facilities and halted or disrupted routine immunization services across much of the world. The number of zero-dose children grew by millions during that period. Children who should have received vaccines before their first birthday did not, and in most cases, they were never caught up as they grew older. Fourteen of the 36 participating countries are classified by Gavi as conflict-affected, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. In those settings, health workers reached children through mobile services, working around population displacement and destroyed infrastructure. The figures from individual countries show the scale of what was required. In Ethiopia, more than 2.5 million previously zero-dose children received their first diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis vaccine; the country also delivered nearly five million doses of inactivated polio vaccine and over four million doses of measles vaccine to unvaccinated children. In Nigeria, two million previously zero-dose children received their first DTP dose alongside 3.4 million doses of polio vaccine. Why the work is not done Even with those gains, over 14 million infants still miss essential vaccines every year. Measles cases have risen in every region of the world: around 11 million were recorded in 2024, and the number of countries facing large outbreaks has tripled since 2021. That rise is driven by persistent gaps in routine immunization, compounded by declining vaccine confidence in some communities that previously had high coverage. “We’ve caught up with some of the children who missed routine vaccinations during the pandemic, but many more remain out of reach,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “The gains made through the Big Catch-Up must be sustained through investment in strong, reliable immunization systems, especially at a time where measles is resurging.” The distinction the agencies are drawing is between a catch-up effort, resource-intensive and temporary by design, and the routine immunization systems that should make catch-ups unnecessary. “We need to shift from recovery to sustainability, from fragility to resilience,” said Dr. Ephrem T. Lemango, UNICEF’s global chief of immunization. In conflict-affected regions, sustainability means mobile services capable of following displaced populations. Elsewhere, it means rebuilding the infrastructure and community trust that routine programs depend on. Twelve countries in the campaign, including Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, reached over 60 percent of all zero-dose children under five, a result the agencies are pointing to as evidence of what consistent effort in difficult settings can achieve. Building on that consistency, rather than cycling through emergency catch-ups, is the stated goal going forward.   Did this solution stand out? Share it with a friend or support our mission by becoming an Emissary.The post The Big Catch-Up vaccinated 18 million children in two years first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

In 1968, The Beatles released the song “I’m So Tired” from their eponymous White Album, where John Lennon sings about being utterly exasperated. In the chorus, he begs, “I’d give you everything I’ve got for a little peace of mind.” A lot of Americans are feeling just as stressed in 2026 amid political tensions, war, and an unstable economy, which raises the question: How much would the average American pay for peace of mind? According to a poll taken by TalkResearch in March of 2026, the “average American” would spend $57,000 for security and serenity. Of those polled, the average household income was $79,000 (slightly less than the U.S. median of $84,000), so they’d give up 72% of their yearly earnings just to live without worrying about whether they can make ends meet, while feeling 100% safe. Americans worry about taking care of the necessities The poll also revealed that the average American would pay $21,000 a year to never worry about necessities (groceries and medication), $19,800 for complete job security, and $16,400 to never have to be concerned about an unexpected medical bill or copay. A woman at peace. Credit: Canva “We exist in an environment defined by economic uncertainty and political instability,” Dr. Jenny Martin, PsyD and founder of Gemstone Wellness, said in a statement. “Peace of mind has become psychologically equated with control, which feels harder and harder to find. When core needs such as healthcare, employment, or transportation feel unpredictable, the nervous system remains in a state of threat. The idea of ‘paying for peace of mind’ reflects a deeper desire to secure safety and predictability—relief from chronic vigilance.” How far would you go for peace of mind? The poll shows that many Americans would go to extreme measures to move through the world feeling light and knowing everything is taken care of. It also reveals the things preventing them from achieving peace of mind…and they all seem to be financial. One wonders: if there were a magical lever someone could pull that would take 72% of their earnings but let them sleep like a baby every night for the rest of their lives, how many would actually do it? Would you trade most of your financial freedom for a worry-free existence? Man on a treadmill. Credit: Canva. The problem is that it may be impossible to become 100% worry-free. The psychological phenomenon known as the hedonic treadmill or hedonic adaptation suggests that people normalize their improvements in comfort, such as having enough money to get by or being out of a war zone, and then return to a relatively stable baseline. Once our basic needs are met, it’s human nature to find new things to become dissatisfied about, whether that’s status, identity, a sense of meaning, and so on. The unlikelihood that we can ever be permanently satisfied means we should look for comfort elsewhere. “Sustainable peace of mind is less about removing uncertainty and more about increasing our ability to handle it,” Dr. Martin says. “Research tells us that internal regulation, not external control, is the more reliable way to go.” So, to truly find peace of mind in a world where we can always find things to worry about, the best thing to do is to build it within ourselves. The post The ‘average American’ put a price tag on ‘peace of mind.’ It’s worth a lot. appeared first on Upworthy.

We all know and love the fluffy, sweet, decadent taste of French toast. But what many of us don’t know is that it’s about as authentic to French cuisine as chicken parm is to Italian cuisine. In fact, the dish predates the country entirely.  From ancient Rome to your breakfast plate The earliest known recipe goes all the way back to ancient Rome. In a fourth-/fifth-century cookbook titled Apicius, you’ll find instructions for making Aliter Dulcia (“another sweet dish”), as it was called back then, which involved soaking white bread in a milk-and-egg mixture, frying it, then covering it with honey. @tastinghistory 2,000 year old Ancient Roman French Toast #history #foodhistory #tastinghistory ♬ original sound – Max Miller According to some sources, this iteration of French toast was considered a luxury food intended for the wealthy. Only “fine white bread” with the “crusts removed” would be used.  However, fast-forward to Medieval Europe, and the dish served slightly more practical purposes. It not only revived otherwise stale and useless bread in a time when food really couldn’t go to waste, but the eggs used in the dish also provided necessary protein.  During this time period, the dish went by many names, but French toast wasn’t one of them. Germans called it “eggy bread,” the Irish called it “gypsy toast,” and the English called it “poor knights,” referring to its economical ingredients. Even the French called it pain perdu, or “lost bread.” Below, Max Miller of Tasting History recreated Suppa Dorata (often translated as “Golden Soup” or “Golden Sippets”), essentially the 15th-century Italian version of French toast, featuring a rich, crispy texture flavored with saffron and rose water rather than maple syrup or honey. The accidental birth of “French toast” Astoundingly, the term French toast actually refers to an American…an American who could have benefited from autocorrect.  As legend has it, in 1724, New York innkeeper Joseph French advertised it as “French toast” when he meant to call it “French’s toast.” A simple grammatical error became immortalized forever.  It seems, though, that French toast wouldn’t become America’s go-to name until World War I. Before then, it was called “German toast.” But when all things German became taboo, a name attributed to an Allied country seemed more befitting. Sidenote: Some might recall that in 2003, the United States was trying to rebrand French toast as “freedom toast,” similar to “freedom fries” instead of “French fries.” It did not catch on.  Breakfast, dessert, or something else entirely? Even after the name French toast stuck, people couldn’t agree on which meal it belonged to. As Miller explained, some felt it was best suited for lunch, while others thought it should be an after-dinner dessert. It wasn’t until 1866, when Godey’s Magazine (which brought us “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and that little holiday known as Thanksgiving) dubbed it an “excellent” breakfast choice, “equal to waffles.” Bold statement, indeed! Today, French toast still goes by countless other names and variations. In several countries, it’s a savory dish. In India, it’s served with spices, green chilis, onions, and even ketchup. Similarly, Italy places mozzarella between the bread slices before dipping them in eggs and frying them. Meanwhile, in places like Brazil and Spain, where it’s called “rabanadas” and “torrijas,” respectively, it’s served on special holidays like Christmas or Lent. @daenskitchen Torrijas (Spanish French toast). Full recipe over on my website! ♬ sonido original – Vibes by Ley No matter what you call it, this enduring dish is far more magical than it appears at first glance, carrying not only delicious comfort but also centuries of history in every bite. The post French toast isn’t actually French. How the ancient frugal meal got its contradictory name. appeared first on Upworthy.