Geoengineering — We’ve Been Doing The Wrong Kind April 6, 2022April 6, 2022 Yesterday, I posted about the climate crisis, suggesting people eat less meat and so on. Dana Dlott: “It’s time for everybody to agree we are not going to convert our economy to one that produces so little greenhouse gas that a disaster can be avoided. Telling people to eat less meat or ride their bikes more is a ludicrous joke, it’s like going to the hardware store to buy a bucket as the flood waters rise. As Pizzo said, ‘the world will not react in time.’ It’s time to move the conversation to geoengineering. We need a sustained geoengineering effort to save our planet and the human species. This is a multifaceted approach involving planting more trees, seeding the oceans, and critically, shielding the Earth from a part of the incoming solar flux. Stratospheric sulfur dioxide seems like the best bet in the near term, giving us enough time to erect a sunshield at the Earth-Sun L1 point. Now, to the legions of readers who will recoil at the ‘horrors’ of geoengineering note that our impending climate catastrophe is DUE to geoengineering: a concerted effort worldwide of humans burning fossil fuels. That is the bad kind of geoengineering. I am talking about the remediative kind. Please do not fill up the email waves with letters about all the perceived horrible things about geoengineering. Instead, if you are against these humankind-saving efforts, please take a little time to explain why the geoengineering aspects you don’t like are worse than what is already happening.” → While stipulating that Professor Dlott knows more about this than I ever will, may I make bold to suggest that we do both? Or at least not discourage efforts that can’t hurt? It can’t hurt to eat less meat, and is likely to be good for our health at the same time as it reduces climate strain. Likewise, walking and biking. Maybe it’s silly to pay attention to how much water we boil for our coffee; but boiling no more than needed saves time! saves water! saves energy! Where’s the harm in that? Or in turning off the lights (and TV) when leaving the room? Trump’s latest — taking a page from the success of his steaks and his airline and his university and his casinos and his magazines and his mortgage company. Lincoln’s latest — “it’s not genius, it’s genocide.” PRKR has now received a definitive, seemingly devastating ruling from U.S. District Judge Paul Byron. I say “seemingly” because there are well regarded patent attorneys, gobsmacked by his ruling, who believe it will be overturned on appeal. That eventually a jury will be allowed to hear the case. (The one and only prior time that happened, ParkerVision was awarded a ton of dough.) But that could be years, and in the meantime the company will presumably need to raise more money to stay alive, which would mean selling more shares, making each existing share less valuable. So what to do? If you bought back when PRKR shares were a dollar or a dime but hung on as they approached $2 . . . you’re in the same boat I am. For the shares in my tax-sheltered account, I’m just hanging on. But with shares in a taxable account, it seems to me the decision one should consider is whether to sell them now, for a tax loss, planning to buy them back cheaper 31 days from now . . . . . . or double down now, wait the same 31 days (that being the waiting period to avoid the “wash sale” rule that would otherwise prevent your taking the tax loss), and then sell the original shares for the loss. In real life, I’ve found, whatever I decide in such situations turns out to be wrong. If I sell first, then before the 31 days are up something drives the price up before I can buy it back. But if I double up first, the stock just keeps falling. I lead a charmed life, to be sure; but somehow it never seems to extend navigation of the wash-sale rule. Ordinarily, my fear of missing out trumps my fear of even greater loss, so I usually double up, wait the 31 days, and then . . . seeing whatever the stock is plunge further, sometimes follow even further down the rabbit hole, buying more, planning to wait another 31 days, and . . . you get the idea. Have I ever mentioned that you must only get yourself into these situations with money you can truly afford to lose?