Ramin's Space: Time for an accounting of climate change's costs
Hi everybody! The latest edition of Ramin's Space includes a couple new stories I've published as well as a sampling of others I’ve picked involving science, space and society. Happy reading! As always, feel free to send me any thoughts or tips.
The Biden Administration increases the social cost of carbon
President Biden directed his team to reassess the social cost of carbon, a seemingly obscure concept that puts a number on how much damage each ton of carbon dioxide emitted today will do in the future, showing how much a given climate policy would benefit our economy in the long run. Considering how, you know, our kids’ generation matters and that people’s lives and livelihoods are already affected by climate-related natural disasters, it’s important! Read all about it in my new feature story in Undark magazine.
Tech is rising and tourism is tanking, but San Diego still banks on the latter
It’s not just thousands of workers in San Diego’s tourism economy that have lost their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic: there are also effects on the policy priorities of the city government, whose revenue hinges on it. This includes climate policies, police reform, and infrastructure, which could face budget cuts. The city depends on tourism, and it has turned out to be a vulnerability. But maybe there’s another way? Read all about it in my new Voice of San Diego story.
In other writing...
We’re hurtling toward global suicide
A pragmatic approach to climate change, including speculative carbon-removing tech, won’t save us, argues Ben Ehrenreich in The New Republic. I think he’s right about the scale of the problem, which requires rethinking many parts of our society, including transportation, health care, housing and education.
Hawaii’s forgotten treasure trove of climate data
Researchers digging into 19th-century Native Hawaiian-language newspapers found a bunch records of extreme weather events like hurricanes, which ultimately climate-related legislation. It reminds me of a citizen science project called Old Weather, where people pored over old ships’ logbooks to reconstruct climate history. This is an interesting story by Lucy Sherriff in Future Human, a Medium magazine.
Sperm whales in 19th century shared ship attack information
Sperm whales, or Leviathans, as Herman Melville called them, have long suffered from human harpoons. It turns out that whale culture dating back centuries (or longer) enabled some whale communities to learn to evade hunters’ ships. But now they have new threats, of course. Fascinating story by Philip Hoare in The Guardian.
Why are Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos so interested in space?
Whether it’s out of concern for crises on Earth, or out of curiosity or machismo or something else, Musk, Bezos and a few other billionaires are playing a major role in driving the future of space travel and exploration. But Kara Swisher in this New York Times op-ed argues, “We’re continuing to place too much of our trust in the hands of tech titans.” I concur with that.
The business of scenery
There’s even more tension between environmental conservation and the recreation industry in the US’s National Parks than I had realized. This is a provocative essay in Harper’s magazine by Christopher Ketcham, arguing for rebuilding the National Park Service and rethinking what the parks are for.
What I'm reading: Under a White Sky by New Yorker staff writer Elizabeth Kolbert and Overheated by The New Republic staff writer Kate Aronoff. They both include an analysis of ways people are trying to address climate change, but they’re coming from different perspectives.
Looking back: One and a half years ago, I published this investigative story about “robot truckers,” people dealing new kinds of surveillance tech. It won an award, and it was one of a few stories I wrote for OneZero, a Medium magazine. But Medium just announced that major changes are in the works, and if OneZero and its fellow magazines disappear, it will be huge loss.
More about me: I'm an astrophysicist turned science writer and freelance journalist based in San Diego. You can find me at my website, raminskibba.net and on Twitter @raminskibba. I'm also former president of the San Diego Science Writers Association (SANDSWA) and on the board of the National Association of Science Writers (NASW), though the opinions I express are mine alone. If someone has forwarded this email to you, you're welcome to subscribe too.