Crémieux Profile picture
May 25, 2024 15 tweets 5 min read Read on X
2024 is the hottest year on record, and it's been hotter than 2023 in part because of a global ban on shipping fuels containing sulfur dioxide.

Problem: SO2 causes acid rain, but it cools the globe. How can we just stay cool?

A new company might have found the solution.

🧵Image
Acid rain has been on the decline for many years, but in order to finally put the problem to rest, it'll be crucial to knock out sulfur dioxide emissions from shipping.

Globally, those emissions have been concentrated in these boxed-in regions where ships go to-and-fro. Image
When the International Maritime Organization 2020 regulation went into effect, roughly 80% of sulfur dioxide emissions from international shipping went away overnight. Image
If those sulfur emissions weren't stopped, sulfate aerosols would have acted to change the Earth's energy balance, cooling it down.

Think of this like sunscreen for the planet. Image
Because shipping-related emissions were spread out over so wide an area, their cooling effect was pretty sizable despite being only a fraction of global sulfur emissions. Image
The resulting rise in global temperatures when these went away inspired @ASong408 to think:

How can we keep the cooling while doing without the acid rain?

Watch this video.
What you just witnessed was a balloon containing sulfur dioxide.

You just witnessed a stratospheric aerosol injection, AKA, a controlled sulfur release in the stratosphere.

This part is critical: the stratosphere.Image
The reason the stratosphere is so critical is that, if you release sulfur dioxide up there, it distributes widely and makes minimal acid rain.

There's no weather that far up, so there's nothing to bring it back down right away!
Because there's nothing to bring the sulfur dioxide (+/as byproducts) back down from so far up, you can also consider this "sunscreen" extra long-lasting.

In other words, stratospherically-injected sulfur dioxide has a long "residence time."
The residence time isn't forever, it's a few years.

So in order to ensure the world doesn't face an acid rain problem, the release has to be done in controlled amounts.

Luckily, modest amounts meet our goals: they cool Earth, stabilize her climate, and produce minimal acid rain
The reason this works so well is that, when the sulfur is distributed so high up, it does better at cooling.

Accordingly, we can continue to fight sulfur dioxide emissions on the ground while moving smaller amounts into the stratosphere to keep our planet cool. Image
That's what @ASong408's company does, and, man does it work.

To hammer in just how well it works, check out these calculations:Image
If you want to learn more, you can go check out Andrew's guest post on my blog. There's a lot more info there, so I thoroughly recommend you give it a read.

Link: cremieux.xyz/p/from-polluti…
And if you're already sold and you want to start launching sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere to make the planet cooler, here's a link so you can do that too:



(One balloon = 38,636 trees worth of carbon offset.)makesunsets.com/products/join-…
Other sources:







(Note: I have no financial interest in this. I just want a cooler planet and I'm a true believer.) climatereanalyzer.org/clim/t2_daily/…
reddit.com/r/environmenta…
carbonbrief.org/analysis-how-l…
Image

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More from @cremieuxrecueil

Mar 31
I just updated one of my articles a second time.

It has to do with Justice Jackson's comments that when Black newborns are delivered by Black doctors, they're much more likely to survive, justifying racially discriminatory admissions.

We now know the study contained fraud🧵 Image
The original article claimed that, when Black babies are attended to by Black physicians, their infant mortality rates decline substantially relative to when they have a White physician.

Justice Jackson cited this in the Supreme Court, even though it was implausible. Image
A few months back, we learned that the original finding was driven by the authors failing to include a required control variable.

Not only that, but they seemingly knew they this variable was important.

Read 13 tweets
Mar 30
Thread of natural sources of different medications.

We can thank the Gila Monster for modern GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic Image
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Ziconotide is a powerful non-opioid painkiller used by people who have severe chronic pain that's resistant to other forms of treatment.

It was discovered in the venom of killer Cone Snails. Image
Image
Trabectedin is a chemotherapy drug that was isolated from an extract of sea squirts. Image
Image
Read 19 tweets
Mar 30
In case it's unclear, I think the mechanism here is likely to be preferentially enlarging productive firms.

In more competitive economies, more productive firms have larger market shares🧵

America is a stand-out example of this: Image
Prior to the fall of the Iron Curtain, markets in Eastern Europe were remarkably inefficient.

After its fall, market reforms occurred, and after they took place, they went from less efficient firms capturing larger market shares to the opposite: more efficient firms dominated! Image
The thesis is this:

America's stock markets are set up in a way that, incidentally, promotes more efficient firms capturing larger market shares.

There's not yet enough data to know if this is true, but time will tell if this possibility holds up.
Read 4 tweets
Mar 22
WHAT IF

@nyuniversity didn't engage in blatant racial discrimination when they were selecting the Class of 2028? The result would be

- Much higher average SAT scores
- Minimal racial differences
- Very different student demographics Image
Instead, the NYU we get is far more "diverse" than it has any right to be, because the admissions officers had their fingers on the scale.

We know what unbiased admissions would look like, and it's not this.

They're going to fall back on excuses, but nothing will work.
Their defenders might argue Asians do fewer or worse extracurriculars. The opposite is true.

Their defenders may argue Asians have worse personalities. They don't gather that data and it would be biased. Next?

They could argue Asians do less in athletics. OK, but small effect.
Read 7 tweets
Mar 22
Even when men and women are matched for the amount of muscle they have, men tend to be far stronger.

The case against sex-segregating sporting is the case for women only making appearances in sports with relatively equal performance, like archery. Image
This is true for the lower body too. Image
Elite female athletes even tend to be weaker than typical men.

The case against sex-segregated sporting is very clearly the case for eliminating women's participation in sport. Image
Read 5 tweets
Mar 22
We now know NYU violated the law by engaging in racial discrimination in their latest admissions cohort.

They should be punished severely.

In the meantime, NYU should also try to make amends by contacting all overlooked students and sending them admissions offers right now.Image
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This data comes from today's hack of NYU's admissions department and website.

You can see an archive of what their website looked like an hour ago here: web.archive.org/web/2025032213…
Now, as a reminder, Trump has stated that his preferred punishment for universities that continue to engage in illegal racial discrimination is...

Confiscating their endowments, taking away their accreditation, and imposing severe damages on those responsible.

Godspeed. Image
Read 4 tweets

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