Climate experts warn that US Kalshi and Polymarket users are ‘gamifying disasters’ as they bet on events like heatwaves and daily temperatures

Online prediction markets, saturated by money staked on sport, crypto and politics, have now set their sights on a promising new area of growth: betting on the future livability of the planet itself.

The rise of gamified predictions on the unfolding climate crisis, and shorter-term weather forecasts, has been underscored by a new deal that allows Kalshi, a leading online financial exchange, to access data from the Weather Company, owner of the Weather Channel, to verify weather-related betting outcomes.

US energy department warns of potential for outages in PJM Interconnection, serving 67 million from DC to Chicago

The risk ⁠of power outages ⁠is expected to ​escalate across a broad swath of the United States on Wednesday as intense heat will test the capacity of electricity supplies ⁠serving millions of homes and businesses from the midwest through the mid-Atlantic.

The US Department of Energy warned of the potential for heightened blackout risks in ⁠the PJM Interconnection, the largest US electric grid, which serves 67 million people in ​a territory stretching from Washington DC to ‌Chicago.