badbrainstorm
The global economy will grow slower in the 21st century than economists have expected, a finding that has implications for our ability to adapt to climate change in the coming decades, according to new research.
A new study projecting the economic futures of four income groups of countries over the next century finds growth will be slower than predicted, with developing countries taking longer to close the wealth gap and approach the income of wealthier nations. What economists have thought of as a worst-case scenario for global economic growth may, in fact, be a best-case scenario, according to the new study published today in Communications Earth & Environment.
The findings suggest governments need to start planning for slower growth and wealthier countries may need to help lower-income nations finance climate change adaptations in the coming decades, according to the study authors.
"We're at a point where we maybe need to significantly increase financing for [climate] adaptation in developing countries, and we're also at a point where we might be overestimating our future ability to provide that financing under the current fiscal paradigm," said Matt Burgess, a CIRES fellow, director of the Center for Social and Environmental Futures, and assistant professor of environmental studies at CU Boulder who led the new study.
"We can now start to winnow down the range of possibilities and move forward in more tangible ways," said Ryan Langendorf, a postdoctoral scholar at CU Boulder and co-author of the new study.
In the new study, Burgess and his colleagues used two economic models to project how much the global economy will grow over the next century and how quickly developing countries will approach the income levels of wealthier nations.
Both models found the global economy will continue to grow, but that growth will be slower than most economists expected and there will be a larger income gap between wealthier and poorer nations. This means richer countries may need to help finance climate adaptations for poorer countries, and debt-ceiling crises, like what the United States experienced this spring, may become more common.
"Slower growth than we think means higher deficits than we expect, all else equal," Burgess said. "That means debt would likely become more contentious and important over time, and could mean more frequent debt-ceiling fights."
Similar to a flight emergency, where individuals should put their own oxygen masks on first, wealthier nations should focus on getting their own financial houses in order so they can be in a position to support lower-income nations in financing climate adaptations, according to the researchers.
"We're talking about relatively less growth, relatively more inequality, but we're still talking about a world that is richer than today and more equal across countries than today's world," Burgess said.
Still, many wealthy nations are accustomed to growing their way out of debt, but that may not be possible under the new scenario, according to Ashley Dancer, a graduate student at CU Boulder and co-author of the study.
"The next question is: what are some ways that we should be or could be helping [lower-income countries] adapt, if the expectation is that they're not going to meet the level of wealth that would allow them to do that quickly and aggressively?" Dancer said.
An artist's impression shows an immensely energetic explosion called a gamma ray burst. Astronomers studying a powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB) with the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF's NOIRLab, may have observed the collision of stars or stellar remnants in the jam-packed environment surrounding a supermassive black hole at the core of an ancient galaxy.
International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Garlick/M. Zamani/Handout via REUTERS
Very massive stars - more than 10 times the sun's mass - die in a supernova blast that leaves behind neutron stars or even denser black holes, whose gravitational pull is so strong no matter or light can escape
WASHINGTON, DC, USA – Astronomers have spotted an immensely energetic explosion emanating from an ancient galaxy, apparently triggered by a type of star destruction hypothesized for decades but never before observed. You might call it stellar death by demolition derby.
Researchers said the gamma-ray burst they observed may have been caused by the collision of two compact stars in the densely packed and chaotic environment near a supermassive black hole at the center of this elliptically shaped galaxy. They suspect the two doomed stars were neutron stars, which pack roughly the mass of our sun into a sphere only the size of a city.
“In order to explain the gamma-ray burst, it has to have been a compact star, so not one like the sun,” said astronomer Andrew Levan of Radboud University in the Netherlands, lead author of the research published this week in the journal Nature Astronomy.
“Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe. They release more energy per unit time than any other known cosmic phenomena. So they are really superlative in their properties. Their name comes from the first type of light that we see, gamma-rays, but they actually emit across the electromagnetic spectrum,” said astrophysicist and study co-author Wen-fai Fong of Northwestern University in Illinois.
Immense gravitational forces exerted by the black hole at the galactic center may wreak havoc, perturbing the motion of nearby stars and other objects and increasing the chances of collisions – akin, the researchers said, to a demolition derby.
“Most stars in the universe die in a predictable way, which is just based on their mass,” Levan said. “This research shows a new route to stellar destruction.”
Very massive stars – more than 10 times the sun’s mass – die in a supernova blast that leaves behind neutron stars or even denser black holes, whose gravitational pull is so strong no matter or light can escape. Relatively low-mass stars like our sun puff up and blow off their outer layers, transforming into a stellar remnant called a white dwarf.
The new findings show another path to stellar demise.
“The idea that stars also can die through collisions in extremely dense regions has been around since at least the 1980s. So we’ve been waiting for 40 years for the signatures to be found observationally,” Levan said.
Debris recovered in Bataan likely from Chinese rocket – PH Space Agency
The researchers used data from orbiting and ground-based telescopes to study the gamma-ray burst in a galaxy about 3 billion light-years away from Earth, roughly in the direction of the constellation Aquarius. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).
This ancient galaxy was populated primarily by stars several billion years old.
“The galaxy is what we call ‘quiescent’ – a galaxy that is not actively forming stars at a high rate and is past its heyday,” Fong said. “These quiescent galaxies are very massive and have built up large supermassive black holes in their centers, making them a perfect breeding ground for stellar collisions.”
The distance between our sun and the nearest star, Proxima Centauri, is about 4 light years. This same expanse of space would be filled with perhaps ten million stars in a galactic core, with the supermassive black hole’s destabilizing influence stirring things up.
“You certainly wouldn’t want a front-row seat to one of these events,” Levan said.
“But, if you were close enough, you would see the two neutron stars get ever closer until their gravity deforms them and they begin to shred,” Levan added. “Then the cores of the stars would merge to make a black hole, surrounded by a disc of the remaining material. A fraction of a second later, this material would flow into the black hole, and a jet of material moving at 99.99% of the speed of light would launch,” representing the gamma-ray burst.
This week, I went to the Psychedelic Science conference in Denver, Colorado, where more than 11,000 scientists, artists, investors, and uncategorizable members of the psychedelic community gathered to both celebrate and scrutinize as the “walls of prohibition start to crumble,” in the words of Bia Labate, executive director of the Chacruna Institute. It’s likely the biggest psychedelics conference in history.
“Welcome to the psychedelic ‘20s,” cheered Rick Doblin, founder of the conference’s host, the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, at the welcome address — while sporting an all-white suit that may as well have been plucked from Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test chronicler Tom Wolfe’s closet.
The psychedelic hype bubble is already concerning many in the community, so let’s not exaggerate the scale: Well over half a million people attended the recent parade celebrating the Denver Nuggets NBA finals victory over the Miami Heat. Comparatively, psychedelia remains relatively niche. But a sampling of 11,000 people from the psychedelic community punches above its weight in creating a palpable, colorful, and ever-surprising atmosphere. During Doblin’s opening address, a sort of collective effervescence buzzed through the auditorium. For many in the room, an above-ground psychedelic gathering of this size and stature was decades in the making. “I’m not tripping — culture is tipping,” said Doblin. Psychedelic culture is back, but it looks a little different
It’s tempting to write about all the oddities that come along with a mass congregation of psychedelic-curious folks. And there were plenty: attendees wearing sparkling dragon outfits; a ukulele band stationed in the main hallway attracting a rotating cast of passers-by into a sort of ecstatic but strangely relaxing dance; a “Deep Space” exhibit room — a neon-lit warehouse, really — with tea ceremonies and real-time painting. Outside the convention center, hundreds of people sat upon the patches of turf in every sort of posture you can imagine, with circles of police officers dotting the perimeter.
But the real story that strikes me is the sanity of it all. The conference logistics ran relatively smoothly. Audience members were mostly well-behaved. I haven’t been offered illicit substances even once (the press badge around my neck may have something to do with that). In part, that makes sense for a conference where the three-day tickets start at $805. For all the talk of inclusion, that’s a steep price of entry that surely screened out some of the fun. Nevertheless, this cross-section of psychedelia might optimistically suggest a synthesis between the bacchanalia of the ’60s and the straight-laced, bureaucratic vibe familiar to today’s conference culture.
During that ’60s era, psychedelia and government stood at odds. At Wednesday’s opening ceremony, Doblin was followed by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, as well as current Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who voiced his support for pardoning all criminal convictions related to psychedelic drugs.
Next was Joshua Gordon, director of the National Institute of Mental Health. Promising results from clinical trials are recruiting governmental allies across the aisle, something the hippies lacked. Psychedelics are still illegal at the federal level, but that’s not stopping states from passing legislation that ranges from decriminalizing the cultivation, possession, and sharing of psychedelic substances, to regulated access at certified clinics for anyone over the age of 21.
Spread across the long halls of the Colorado Convention Center, sessions were grouped into one of 11 different categories, ranging from science and business to society and community. I bopped into a crowded room where Hamilton Morris (the journalist and chemist behind Hamilton’s Pharmacopeia) chronicled 90 years of tryptamine chemistry. The handful of psychedelic drugs we’re familiar with today — which have already caused such a ruckus — hardly scratch the surface of the thousands of psychedelic compounds chemists are discovering. Earlier this year, Jason Wallach, a pharmacologist at St. John’s University, filed for a patent on 218 novel psychedelic drugs, which he hopes will help fill out the inventory of mental health treatment options. (At a later session on AI-assisted drug discovery, Michael Cunningham, a research scientist at Gilgamesh Pharmaceuticals, said that the number of potential small molecules yet to be discovered vastly outnumbers the quantity of stars in the observable universe).
In the afternoon, I moseyed over to hear Robin Carhart-Harris, a professor of neurology and a leading researcher in the psychedelic science realm. At the moment of my entrance, he was describing how brain activity grows more “entropic” on psychedelics. You might recognize entropy as what the second law of thermodynamics tells us the universe is tending toward: disorder. In terms of the brain, you can think of it as the unpredictability of electrical activity.
Entropy is also a fitting theme for the conference at large, which otherwise resists being packaged into a tidy narrative. Everything from the outfits to the art installations is spiced with unpredictability. Even the weather, which delivered a quick bout of hail Thursday night, was surprising. In the brain, heightened entropy can help shake up harmful patterns of thought and behavior. As a culture, psychedelia — at its best — can serve a similar function: shaking up settled patterns, inviting opportunities for new ways of organizing ourselves, our institutions, and maybe even our academic conferences.
Balancing the chemistry and neuroscience, the keynote stage featured speakers like football star Aaron Rodgers and the rapper/artist Jaden Smith (like psychedelics, he’s a little difficult to place). Asked about his first psychedelic experience, Smith shared that he did literally hug a tree, and in that moment, thought: “Oh, wow, there’s a lot going on inside of here.” Does psychedelic experience have broader political implications?
High-entropy psychedelic states that shake up settled patterns, alone, do not offer reliable pathways to making anything better. That’s why psychedelics are now often paired with therapy, which provides a structured experience to guide one toward beneficial outcomes. Is it possible to structure the cultural impact of psychedelics so that, this time around, it doesn’t plummet into moral panic and prohibition as it did in the ’60s?
The metaphor often deployed here is integration. For individuals taking psychedelics through clinical or legalized adult-use formats, a session with a therapist usually follows the day after the trip to integrate the experience. Across a number of panel discussions, participants have suggested that integrating psychedelic experience at the cultural scale requires wholesale systemic change.
Often, this sort of thing is usually followed by a few vague critiques of capitalism or the profit motive. “Don’t forget,” said Jamie Wheal, a writer and co-founder of the Flow Genome Project, “the set and setting of the psychedelic renaissance is free-market capitalism.”
Quibbles over the imprecision of calling the present economic paradigm free-market capitalism aside, the political implications of psychedelics are a rich and unsettled area of debate. “Our minds shape our social structures, and our social structures shape our minds,” said Justin Rosenstein, co-founder of Asana, during a talk titled “Rebuilding society in the light of mystical insight.”
There was no disagreement in the crowd when it comes to ending the prohibition on psychedelic drugs (though how that should be done is another story). The political interests of psychedelic discourse, though, tend toward far larger spheres. “If we’re going to have a conversation about drug policy endgame, the endgame is complete social transformation,” said Kassandra Frederique, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. What does that mean in practice?
The hippies also held a famously antagonistic view toward prevailing economic structures. But their engagement with policy discourse wasn’t up to the task of achieving meaningful change.
If the conference was any indication, this new iteration of psychedelic culture is more willing to speak the language of decision-making institutions (another source of polarized debate). There is a new dose of prudence in the air. Panelists discussed the absolute importance of informed consent, the slim-but-real risks of psychosis (particularly for those with a family history), and the value of clinical research. A keynote conversation between Michael Pollan and Bob Jesse (a behind-the-scenes driver of the movement for decades) was titled “Tempering psychedelics,” in which Pollan reflected on the virtues of opening conversations around psychedelics with their risks. But if psychedelic culture is an unpredictable force of entropy, you never know what turns it may take next.
International Gemini Observatory traces gamma-ray burst to nucleus of ancient galaxy, suggesting stars can undergo demolition-derby-like collisions.
Astronomers studying a powerful gamma-ray burst (GRB) with the Gemini South telescope, operated by NSF's NOIRLab, may have detected a never-before-seen way to destroy a star. Unlike most GRBs, which are caused by exploding massive stars or the chance mergers of neutron stars, astronomers have concluded that this GRB came instead from the collision of stars or stellar remnants in the jam-packed environment surrounding a supermassive black hole at the core of an ancient galaxy.
Most stars in the Universe die in predictable ways, depending on their mass. Relatively low-mass stars like our Sun slough off their outer layers in old age and eventually fade to become white dwarf stars. More massive stars burn brighter and die sooner in cataclysmic supernova explosions, creating ultradense objects like neutron stars and black holes. If two such stellar remnants form a binary system, they also can eventually collide. New research, however, points to a long-hypothesized, but never-before-seen, fourth option.
While searching for the origins of a long-duration gamma-ray burst (GRB), astronomers using the Gemini South telescope in Chile, part of the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF's NOIRLab, and other telescopes [1], have uncovered evidence of a demolition-derby-like collision of stars or stellar remnants in the chaotic and densely packed region near an ancient galaxy's supermassive black hole.
"These new results show that stars can meet their demise in some of the densest regions of the Universe where they can be driven to collide," said Andrew Levan, an astronomer with Radboud University in The Netherlands and lead author of a paper appearing in the journal Nature Astronomy. "This is exciting for understanding how stars die and for answering other questions, such as what unexpected sources might create gravitational waves that we could detect on Earth."
Ancient galaxies are long past their star-forming prime and would have few, if any, remaining giant stars, the principal source of long GRBs. Their cores, however, are teeming with stars and a menagerie of ultra-dense stellar remnants, such as white dwarf stars, neutron stars, and black holes. Astronomers have long suspected that in the turbulent beehive of activity surrounding a supermassive black hole, it would only be a matter of time until two stellar objects collide to produce a GRB. Evidence for that type of merger, however, has been elusive.
The first hints that such an event had occurred were seen on 19 October 2019 when NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory detected a bright flash of gamma rays that lasted for a little more than one minute. Any GRB lasting more than two seconds is considered "long." Such bursts typically come from the supernova death of stars at least 10 times the mass of our Sun -- but not always.
The researchers then used Gemini South to make long-term observations of the GRB's fading afterglow to learn more about its origins. The observations allowed the astronomers to pinpoint the location of the GRB to a region less than 100 light-years from the nucleus of an ancient galaxy, which placed it very near the galaxy's supermassive black hole. The researchers also found no evidence of a corresponding supernova, which would leave its imprint on the light studied by Gemini South.
"Our follow-up observation told us that rather than being a massive star collapsing, the burst was most likely caused by the merger of two compact objects," said Levan. "By pinpointing its location to the center of a previously identified ancient galaxy, we had the first tantalizing evidence of a new pathway for stars to meet their demise."
In normal galactic environments, the production of long GRBs from colliding stellar remnants such as neutron stars and black holes is thought to be vanishingly rare. The cores of ancient galaxies, however, are anything but normal and there may be a million or more stars crammed into a region just a few light-years across. Such extreme population density may be great enough that occasional stellar collisions can occur, especially under the titanic gravitational influence of a supermassive black hole, which would perturb the motions of stars and send them careening in random directions. Eventually, these wayward stars would intersect and merge, triggering a titanic explosion that could be observed from vast cosmic distances.
It is possible that such events occur routinely in similarly crowded regions across the Universe but have gone unnoticed until this point. A possible reason for their obscurity is that galactic centers are brimming with dust and gas, which could obscure both the initial flash of the GRB and the resulting afterglow. This particular GRB, identified as GRB 191019A, may be a rare exception, allowing astronomers to detect the burst and study its after effects.
The researchers would like to discover more of these events. Their hope is to match a GRB detection with a corresponding gravitational-wave detection, which would reveal more about their true nature and confirm their origins, even in the murkiest of environments. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, when it comes online in 2025, will be invaluable in this kind of research.
"Studying gamma-ray bursts like these is a great example of how the field is really advanced by many facilities working together, from the detection of the GRB, to the discoveries of afterglows and distances with telescopes like Gemini, through to detailed dissection of events with observations across the electromagnetic spectrum," said Levan.
"These observations add to Gemini's rich heritage developing our understanding of stellar evolution," says Martin Still, NSF's program director for the International Gemini Observatory. "The time sensitive observations are a testament to Gemini's nimble operations and sensitivity to distant, dynamic events across the Universe."
A new IIASA-led study explored fairness and feasibility in deep mitigation pathways with novel carbon dioxide removal, taking into account institutional capacity to implement mitigation measures.
Meeting the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement will require ambitious climate action this decade. Difficult questions remain as to how warming can be limited within technical realities while respecting the common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities of nations on the way to a sustainable future. Meeting this challenge requires substantial emissions reductions to reach net-zero emissions globally.
Among the new options being studied in scientific literature, engineered Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) like Direct Air Capture of CO2 with Carbon Capture and Storage (DACCS), is a potentially promising technology to help bridge this gap. DACCS captures carbon by passing ambient air over chemical solvents, which can be considered a form of CDR if the captured carbon is stored permanently underground. But whether these novel technologies can help make ambitious goals more attainable, or whether they can help reach them more equitably remains an open question.
In their study published in Environmental Research Letters, an interdisciplinary research group led by IIASA scientists developed new scenarios exploring fairness and feasibility in deep mitigation pathways, including novel CDR technologies. For the first time, the team implemented DACCS in a well-established integrated assessment model called MESSAGEix-GLOBIOM, and studied how this technology could impact global mitigation pathways under different scenarios of environmental policy effectiveness based on country-level governance indicators.
"In current policy debates, concerns about the political feasibility and fairness of the current generation of climate mitigation scenarios are raised, and DACCS is often proposed as a possible solution. In our study we quantified under what conditions and how DACCS might address those concerns," explains Elina Brutschin, a study coauthor and researcher in the Transformative Institutional and Social Solutions Research Group of the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program.
The researchers emphasize that the goal of limiting warming to 1.5°C does not change when considering novel forms of CDR. For a broader perspective on pathways to limit warming, the research team investigated how novel CDR interacts under different assumptions of technoeconomic progress and the evolution of regional institutional capacity. The researchers highlight the risks of dependency on unproven carbon removal while also discussing the role novel CDR and similar technologies could play in the future for developing countries.
The results indicate that novel CDR can keep pre-Paris climate targets within reach when accounting for such risks, but that increasing institutional capacity beyond historical trends is necessary for limiting warming to the Paris Agreement's 1.5°C goal, even with novel CDR processes. The study also suggests that substantially improving institutional capacity to implement environmental policies, regulations, and legislation is critical to keep warming below 2°C if new forms of CDR fail to emerge in the near future.
The authors further point out that, when accounting for the possible future evolution of novel CDR technologies combined with inherent risks, the 'fairness' of overall outcomes did not meaningfully improve. DACCS did not impact near-term required global mitigation ambition, and additional carbon removal in developed economies accounted for only a small component of the mitigation necessary to achieve stringent climate targets. This is because the removal of carbon dioxide in these areas does not compensate sufficiently for their historical emissions by mid-century.
The inability of DACCS to enhance the fairness of outcomes, like cumulative carbon emissions, in 1.5°C scenarios, emphasizes the notion that meeting global climate targets is a global effort requiring an 'all-of-the-above' mitigation strategy. There is no room for flexibility when it comes to reaching climate goals.
The results, however, show that engineered removals can play a role in making the post-peak temperature stabilization (or decline) phase more equitable. This means that the full timeframe under which accounting takes place is critical for exploring fair outcomes that are agreeable by most Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
"Our results show that new technologies for removing carbon from the atmosphere can play a role in ambitious climate policy, but they won't be a silver bullet for solving the climate crisis. Developed countries especially need to cut emissions by more than half this decade, primarily by reducing existing sources of emissions while scaling up CDR technologies to be in line with the Paris Agreement," says study lead author Matthew Gidden, a researcher in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program.
The researchers emphasize that there is a clear need for the modeling community to assess the role of novel CDR in a structured way to better understand robust outcomes and insights versus observations related to a given model framework or approach. Looking forward, these issues can be explicitly included in scenario design to arrive at more equitable outcomes while incorporating political realities of the capabilities of governments and institutions to enact strong climate policy.
Adults who live in walkable neighborhoods are more likely to interact with their neighbors and have a stronger sense of community than people who live in car-dependent communities, report researchers at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California San Diego.
The findings of the study, published online in the journal Health & Place, support one of six foundational pillars suggested by United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy as part of a national strategy to address a public health crisis caused by loneliness, isolation and lack of connection in this country.
In May 2023, the Surgeon General Advisory stated that loneliness and isolation can lead to a 29% increased risk of heart disease, a 32% increased risk of stroke, a 50% increased risk of developing dementia among older adults, and increases risk of premature death by more than 60%.
To address this public health crisis, the Surgeon General recommends strengthening social infrastructure by designing environments that promote connection.
"Our built environments create or deny long-lasting opportunities for socialization, physical activity, contact with nature, and other experiences that affect public health," said James F. Sallis, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and senior author of the UC San Diego study.
"Transportation and land use policies across the U.S. have strongly prioritized car travel and suburban development, so millions of Americans live in neighborhoods where they must drive everywhere, usually alone, and have little or no chance to interact with their neighbors."
Walkable neighborhoods promote active behaviors like walking for leisure or transportation to school, work, shopping or home.
The study analyzed data from the Neighborhood Quality of Life Study, which included 1,745 adults ages 20 to 66 living in 32 neighborhoods located in and around Seattle, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
Neighborhood walkability may promote social interactions with neighbors -- like waving hello, asking for help or socializing in their homes, said the first author, Jacob R. Carson, M.P.H., a student in the UC San Diego -- San Diego State University Joint Doctoral Program in Public Health. Carson began the research while a Master of Public Health student at the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health.
Neighborhoods where people must drive in and out, and where there is an absence of gathering places, may have the opposite effect, preventing neighbors from socializing.
"Promoting social interaction is an important public health goal. Understanding the role of neighborhood design bolsters our ability to advocate for the health of our communities and the individuals who reside in them," said Carson.
"Fewer traffic incidents, increases in physical activity, and better neighborhood social health outcomes are just a few of the results of designing walkable neighborhoods that can enrich our lives."
Co-authors include: Terry L. Conway and Kelli L. Cain, UC San Diego; Lilian G. Perez, RAND Corporation; Lawrence D. Frank, UC San Diego Department of Urban Studies and Planning and Urban Design 4 Health, Inc.; and Brian E. Saelens, Seattle Children's Research Institute and University of Washington.
Noise pollution is the worst part of living in a city, personally. I cannot wait until everything is EV. Though I've still seen jackasses making them make loud motor noises with speakers. Fucking car culture my dudes