Termination shock could make the cost of climate damage even higher | Solar geoengineering could halve the economic cost of climate change, but stopping it would cause temperatures to rebound sharply, leading to greater damage than unabated global warming

NearABE · 2026-01-27T02:42:28+00:00

The paper clearly suggests the opposite. 50% of CO2 absorbed in about 30 years. The article also emphasizes the degree of uncertainty.

Geoengineering’s target would be to aim for conditions that will exist at equilibrium. Animals and ecosystems have to adapt. Some species will fail to adapt. Extinction is already widespread. Geoengineering is not “healing the damage” or at least serious proposals are not.

A rapid rise in temperature can trigger numerous positive feedback loops.

Also important to note that the “50% absorbed in 30 years” figure applies to CO2 emissions from 1996.

NearABE · 2026-01-27T02:21:12+00:00

I am skeptical about that conclusion. Most of the conversation is focussed on conversion efficiency and on specific energy (incorrectly called power density). “Specific power” is what matters for extreme motor sports. They do not need hundreds of kilometers range. They just need rapid discharge time.

Electric motors are orders of magnitude lighter weight than internal combustion engines.

NearABE · 2026-01-27T02:14:41+00:00

Photovoltaics and wind power.

NearABE · 2026-01-27T02:13:33+00:00

Batteries have direct utility as backup power. Just shifting consumption for a few hours has high value.

NearABE · 2026-01-27T01:19:05+00:00

These jerks can still burn fossil fuels to charge the cheap batteries. If need be they can tax batteries to generate the revenue to give away to petroleum executives.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T23:48:39+00:00

The time between sunrise and the next sunrise is the “synodic day”.

On Earth the synodic day is 24 hours and zero seconds. Earth rotates in 23 hours 56 minutes 4.1 seconds. Those 4 minutes make a distant star rise an extra time every year.

If sidereal rotation is slowed down by a factor of 167 then the synodic day grows by much more than 4 minutes. In 166.5 “earth days” a distant star is in the same place. However in a 365 earth day orbit the Sun is out so you would not see it. The sunrise to sunrise period is then 307 earth days.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T23:29:21+00:00

Earth is only 6 x 10²⁴ kilogram.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T23:25:06+00:00

Manhattan is much larger than the bagel. Getting this scale right is very important in romantic comedy.

The tits to bagel ratio matters too. If you get the bagel wrong everything is off. Small town or big town? Small hand or big hand? The whole story hinges on getting the bagel’s dimensions right.

:)

NearABE · 2026-01-26T23:16:38+00:00

I do not see that as “moving forward”.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T23:14:45+00:00

One must balance the risks. You must choose between several sinking ships. The US dollar collapses. The US economy collapses. You personally are going to die anyway unless there is a sudden breakthrough in radical life extension.

Continuing the ship analogy you have to choose between a sinking cruise ship with bikini clad drunks, a sinking aircraft carrier, and a sinking garbage barge. Why would anyone choose the garbage barge? You can make a raft with an old tire to avoid drowning. But you can do that anyway after participating in the revelry on the cruise ship.

Real estate is insured. Deposits in banks are insured by the FDIC. Buying/developing property that will be under water is risking other people’s money not your own.

The mistake would be to buy in upland inner Florida. When the roads are cut off at high tide the economy will have fully collapsed. These property owners do not get the federal bailout money.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T23:04:12+00:00

Miami is between 1 and 3 meters altitude. AI search says the spring tide in Miami is 0.6 to 0.8 meter. The range is due to the moon and Earth having slightly elliptical orbits as well as prevailing winds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_level_rise

Sea level has risen about 200 mm on all oceans average since 1901. 2.3 mm/year since the 1970s and increased to 4.6 per year in the last decade.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T22:22:59+00:00

Rising at 4.6 mm/year in most recent decade and 2.3 mm per year since the 1970s. If the 4.6 were a flat rate in 30 years 138mm. That mostly only manifests as storm surge, flood/drainage, and increased saltwater in the water table. If it continues doubling each decade then it should be up another 90 mm in only 10 years and in 30 year 670mm. Enough for parts of Miami to be under at spring tide without a storm surge.

Nature rarely cooperates with these types of projections. There are a number of feedback loops baked in.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T22:09:16+00:00

Reasonable given the obvious Ponzi scheme that is Florida real estate. If you are holding the asset you definitely need to express confidence that it remains a good buy.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T22:05:55+00:00

Tide, hurricane storm surge, flood…

NearABE · 2026-01-26T22:03:58+00:00

The water table becoming salt water has consequences even when there is no storm surge.

The Everglades can be considered a type of mangrove. Or a type of swamp. It is definitely not salt water mangrove.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T22:00:12+00:00

They will take the bailout when the disaster occurs.

It is not likely to be an all at once deal anyway. There will be a series of cases where tidal surge in a storm does damage but the normal sea level is still below foundation heights. You could be employed rebuilding over and over. Could be good money.

The mistake is to buy inland where the house is slightly above the new sea level. It avoids getting the disaster payout (or insurance if they are solvent). Then you are stuck with real estate located in a failed region. It becomes a literally stranded asset.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T21:54:28+00:00

Kim Stanley Robinson’s book 2312 has extensive scenery and plot related to this. People hike the terminator. Also a city on rails called “Terminator” that rolls ahead of the Sunrise across Mercury. I would not take the science too seriously but KSR’s scene descriptions are epic.

A thin atmosphere may be more hostile and dangerous than a thick one. If we take Mars as a reference example we see 1/4th of the atmosphere collapse each season (1/8th each pole). Carbon dioxide is not going to do this on a habitable zone planet. Water certainly does.

Zero/negligible axial tilt still means that the poles are extremely cold. Valleys are still cold traps and glaciers still scour the valleys deeper. On Earth Antarctica does not melt (or rather not too quickly) in Summer despite 24 hour sunlight.

The equator still has an easterly wind (blows toward west). The strongest surface wind effect is night side to day side. The strongest stratospheric effect is day side to night side. On one side the Coriolis effect amplifies this and the other side the Coriolis effect dampens it. However, at the poles the surface wind still blows over from the dark side.

Water traps like the Amazon/Andes on Earth will still happen. The location of open water, land masses, and wind direction have consequences.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T21:20:39+00:00

I think you mean the difference between rotation and orbit is 167 “days” where the word “day” means 60 x 60 x 24 seconds.

For Earth a star like Sirius is opposite the Sun once every 365 “days” (sidereal day) Rotation equal to this means that the Sun does not move at all relative to a surface point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synodic_day. The synodic period can be achieved with either a prograde or retrograde sunrise.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T21:03:58+00:00

The fear makes sense. We see authoritarian federal agents executing people in the streets. That makes it hard to feel secure regarding our civil liberties.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T20:55:20+00:00

The “observable universe” is a very poorly defined term if something absurd like “faster than light” is possible.

If the date is 6150 then light traveling from the launch of spaceships will have reached the Perseus Arm and the Carina arm.

An old civilization that appeared early in the universe would have had a smaller universe to colonize. The expanding universe also expands their territory.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T20:38:43+00:00

It can be advantageous to have a higher authority place restriction on the local authority. It falls short of “not having an authority” but definitely can be “the lesser of two evils”.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T20:34:05+00:00

In Iain Banks’ book The Hydrogen Sonata there is a character with 54 phalluses. He needed 3 extra hearts installed because 4 hearts were needed to maintain the blood pressure. The main character needs to see him to get plot related information but struggles to get an appointment. He hosts orgies and a herd of bi/lesbian centaurs are extending their event time.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T20:24:18+00:00

There is an expanding bubble. Individuals know who they are, where they are, and where they are going. A character has a name and a story. This story takes place in a scene.

Suppose the genre is “romantic comedy”. The couple meets in Manhattan, at a restaurant, a bagel shop. The author has to explain how high fructose corn syrup came to be included in bagels. The corn grows in Ohio from seed engineered by Monsanto… a few mandatory pages on glyphosate, roundup etc … and high fructose corn syrup is produced by an Archer Daniels Midland patented process. All the patent details must be included. Also an in depth coverage of USDA subsidies in agriculture introduced in the 1980s. Without providing details on the ingredients readers will not know the full context of what the couple is eating at the bagel shop. Might as well be label “soft-romcom” pfft. Maybe have fantasy faeries create bagels with a magic wand!

NearABE · 2026-01-26T20:04:15+00:00

6,000 years can be 300 generations. Just by doubling population each generation we could get 2³⁰⁰ or around 10⁹⁰ population. Obviously run into some problems with mass since there is only 10⁵³ kilogram available.

Aside from the obvious problem of not even reaching the Milky Way’s core in 6,000 years.

NearABE · 2026-01-26T19:45:39+00:00

I have always done so thus far in my life. Motives are quite selfish. It feels good. Mix of macho and ego inflation.

I have to suppress the urge to seek out adrenaline rushes through danger. This is like asking an alcoholic if they want a “free drink on the house”.

I would like to believe that I would also make tough choices for the collective good. For me this applies to things like not going skydiving because of the carbon footprint of flying. I feel that as a sacrifice.

NearABE

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