The Docket | Emerging Science

Climate Decisions

The Night the Electrician Had to Choose

By Seth D. Carrington— January 28, 2026

Feature image for article: The Night the Electrician Had to Choose

The power failed at Richmond's water treatment plant at 4:25 on a January morning during a blizzard. Three operators had been running the hundred-year-old facility manually for hours when the electrician arrived. He stood in front of equipment he wasn't sure how to operate. The backup generators were there. The training had been inadequate.

That electrician is still working at the plant. So are the operators who ran it manually that night. They read the investigation identifying everything they already knew was wrong. They're reading the climate projections about the next ten years. They're also reading job postings.

Climate Decisions

The Night the Electrician Had to Choose

By Seth D. Carrington— January 28, 2026

The power failed at Richmond's water treatment plant at 4:25 on a January morning during a blizzard. Three operators had been running the hundred-year-old facility manually for hours when the electrician arrived. He stood in front of equipment he wasn't sure how to operate. The backup generators were there. The training had been inadequate.

That electrician is still working at the plant. So are the operators who ran it manually that night. They read the investigation identifying everything they already knew was wrong. They're reading the climate projections about the next ten years. They're also reading job postings.

Questions You Should Ask

You're trying to make decisions about where to live and how to protect what you've built, but the information keeps contradicting itself. One risk model says severe flooding, another sees no threat. Insurance costs surge while coverage shrinks. Technology gets cheaper but implementation stays complex.

These frameworks focus on questions that matter when answers aren't clean. Not because we're withholding clarity, but because these decisions genuinely depend on your circumstances, risk tolerance, and timeline. What we offer: the right questions, the real tradeoffs, and recognition that uncertainty itself tells you something useful.

Questions You Should Ask

You're trying to make decisions about where to live and how to protect what you've built, but the information keeps contradicting itself. One risk model says severe flooding, another sees no threat. Insurance costs surge while coverage shrinks. Technology gets cheaper but implementation stays complex.

These frameworks focus on questions that matter when answers aren't clean. Not because we're withholding clarity, but because these decisions genuinely depend on your circumstances, risk tolerance, and timeline. What we offer: the right questions, the real tradeoffs, and recognition that uncertainty itself tells you something useful.

Risk Models

When Your Property Gets Conflicting Scores

Three different flood risk assessments give you three different answers about the same house. One shows severe exposure, another moderate, the third sees minimal threat. You need to understand which model reflects actual vulnerability versus statistical abstraction. What assumptions drive each score? Which one accounts for infrastructure that might protect you or fail you?

Insurance Economics

What Your Deductible Actually Covers Now

Deductibles jumped 22% last year while coverage narrowed. Hurricane deductibles can run five times your standard policy amount. You're paying premiums for protection that only kicks in after you've spent thousands. How much cash do you need available to make your insurance meaningful? When does the deductible effectively become self-insurance?

Backup Systems

Sizing Solar Storage for Actual Outages

Most residential battery systems provide 12 to 24 hours of power. That works for brief outages but fails during multi-day events. Do you design for refrigerator and medical devices only, or try to maintain normal life? Can you expand capacity later without replacing everything? What's the realistic timeline before batteries need replacement?

Retirement Geography

Traditional Destinations Face Highest Natural Hazard Risk

Florida, Arizona, Gulf Coast counties. The places Americans have retired to for decades now rank highest for climate exposure. Relocating twice because your first choice proves unsustainable costs more than getting it right initially. How do you evaluate 20-year trajectories for places you're considering? What distinguishes genuinely lower risk from just different risk?

Property Choice

Older Home Versus New Construction Climate Math

That 1970s house in an established neighborhood lacks resilient design but sits on higher ground with mature infrastructure. New construction incorporates climate features but often occupies high-growth areas with increasing exposure. How do retrofit costs compare to new-build premiums? Which resilience features can't be added after the fact?

Decision Windows

Better Information Versus Closing Opportunities

Risk models improve yearly. Insurance markets shift quarterly. Technology costs decline steadily. Waiting means better data. But it also means rising premiums, vanishing coverage, and property values that already reflect known risks. How do you know when you have enough information to act? What signals tell you the window is closing?

Studies That Actually Matter

Coral Reefs Cross Thermal Point of No Return

Nearly a billion people depend on coral reef ecosystems for food and coastal protection. We've warmed the planet 1.4°C past pre-industrial levels, exceeding the 1.2°C threshold where coral collapse becomes irreversible without actually cooling the planet back to 1°C. A quarter of marine life lives in reefs already dying.

What shifted?

The conversation moved from "how do we save reefs" to "they're gone unless we reverse warming already locked in."

Who says so?

160 scientists from 87 institutions across 23 countries in the 2025 Global Tipping Points Report.

Groundwater Depletion Accelerates Through Multiple Pathways

Your backup water source during droughts is disappearing faster than anticipated. Less rain and more evaporation are draining underground reserves through cascading failures: wells running dry, extraction costs spiking, streams losing base flow, saltwater contaminating coastal aquifers, land subsiding. Coastal megacities face the steepest risks from systems you can't easily restore.

Why does this matter now?

The water you thought you could rely on when surface supplies fail is vanishing.

What's missing?

International climate negotiations largely ignore groundwater despite it affecting billions of people.

Northern Ecosystems May Be Losing Carbon Absorption Capacity

Northern Hemisphere forests and soils appear to be transferring carbon to the atmosphere at accelerating rates over the past decade. If this trend holds, the natural systems currently absorbing half our emissions are weakening, shrinking the remaining carbon budget for meeting temperature targets. Researchers caution the signal might reflect temporary El Niño effects rather than permanent ecosystem shifts.

What's at stake?

Natural carbon sinks doing half the work of slowing warming may be failing when we need them most.

How certain is this?

Scientists need more time to separate temporary climate variability from longer-term ecosystem breakdown.

Oceans Absorbed 37 Years of Energy in 2025

Earth's oceans gained 23 Zetta Joules of heat last year alone, equivalent to roughly 37 years of total global energy consumption. That's the ninth consecutive year of record ocean heat, with more than 90% of greenhouse gas warming ending up in the water. This heat loads the dice for stronger hurricanes, heavier rainfall events, and accelerating sea level rise.

Why should you care?

Ocean heat drives the storms flooding your city and the insurance market collapse you're already experiencing.

Who verified this?

50+ scientists from 31 institutions synthesized multiple independent datasets in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.

Studies That Actually Matter

Coral Reefs Cross Thermal Point of No Return

Nearly a billion people depend on coral reef ecosystems for food and coastal protection. We've warmed the planet 1.4°C past pre-industrial levels, exceeding the 1.2°C threshold where coral collapse becomes irreversible without actually cooling the planet back to 1°C. A quarter of marine life lives in reefs already dying.

What shifted?

The conversation moved from "how do we save reefs" to "they're gone unless we reverse warming already locked in."

Who says so?

160 scientists from 87 institutions across 23 countries in the 2025 Global Tipping Points Report.

Studies That Actually Matter

Groundwater Depletion Accelerates Through Multiple Pathways

Your backup water source during droughts is disappearing faster than anticipated. Less rain and more evaporation are draining underground reserves through cascading failures: wells running dry, extraction costs spiking, streams losing base flow, saltwater contaminating coastal aquifers, land subsiding. Coastal megacities face the steepest risks from systems you can't easily restore.

Why does this matter now?

The water you thought you could rely on when surface supplies fail is vanishing.

What's missing?

International climate negotiations largely ignore groundwater despite it affecting billions of people.

Studies That Actually Matter

Northern Ecosystems May Be Losing Carbon Absorption Capacity

Northern Hemisphere forests and soils appear to be transferring carbon to the atmosphere at accelerating rates over the past decade. If this trend holds, the natural systems currently absorbing half our emissions are weakening, shrinking the remaining carbon budget for meeting temperature targets. Researchers caution the signal might reflect temporary El Niño effects rather than permanent ecosystem shifts.

What's at stake?

Natural carbon sinks doing half the work of slowing warming may be failing when we need them most.

How certain is this?

Scientists need more time to separate temporary climate variability from longer-term ecosystem breakdown.

Studies That Actually Matter

Oceans Absorbed 37 Years of Energy in 2025

Earth's oceans gained 23 Zetta Joules of heat last year alone, equivalent to roughly 37 years of total global energy consumption. That's the ninth consecutive year of record ocean heat, with more than 90% of greenhouse gas warming ending up in the water. This heat loads the dice for stronger hurricanes, heavier rainfall events, and accelerating sea level rise.

Why should you care?

Ocean heat drives the storms flooding your city and the insurance market collapse you're already experiencing.

Who verified this?

50+ scientists from 31 institutions synthesized multiple independent datasets in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences.

What It Means Here

Atlantic Scallops Growing Faster, Smaller by 2100

New modeling research reveals something strange about Atlantic sea scallops under climate change: they'll grow faster but stay smaller. Warmer water and ocean acidification speed up juvenile development while preventing scallops from reaching full adult size. The pattern varies dramatically by latitude. Southern populations face habitat loss by mid-century. Northern waters see growth benefits through the 2050s before acidification takes over.

By 2100, the Atlantic scallop fishery looks fundamentally different. Faster maturation sounds good until you realize the market pays for size. Smaller scallops mean different processing economics, different pricing, different yield calculations for an industry built on historical growth patterns that no longer apply.

What It Means Here

Atlantic Scallops Growing Faster, Smaller by 2100

New modeling research reveals something strange about Atlantic sea scallops under climate change: they'll grow faster but stay smaller. Warmer water and ocean acidification speed up juvenile development while preventing scallops from reaching full adult size. The pattern varies dramatically by latitude. Southern populations face habitat loss by mid-century. Northern waters see growth benefits through the 2050s before acidification takes over.

By 2100, the Atlantic scallop fishery looks fundamentally different. Faster maturation sounds good until you realize the market pays for size. Smaller scallops mean different processing economics, different pricing, different yield calculations for an industry built on historical growth patterns that no longer apply.

IN SUMMARY

New Bedford fishermen:

Expect productivity gains through 2050 before size reductions complicate your harvest math and processing relationships by century's end.

Virginia watermen:

Southern scallop grounds become marginal habitat within 25 years as warming overwhelms any growth benefits from faster juvenile development.

Seafood buyers:

Plan for smaller scallops changing your menu economics and plating by 2100, though timeline varies significantly by harvest location.

Fisheries managers:

Size-at-age relationships you use for sustainable harvest calculations stop working when temperature and chemistry rewrite scallop physiology mid-century.

Career decisions:

The scallop industry remains viable through 2050 in northern waters, but southern operations face existential habitat questions within your working lifetime.

Broader context:

This mirrors global patterns where ocean acidification cuts invertebrate fisheries catch potential 3.4% by 2100, with Arctic losses exceeding 20%.

Living the Climate Science

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Living the Climate Science

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At Tule River Indian Reservation, the vulnerability framework maps how everything connects. The valley traps wildfir...

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At 5:47 AM, Travas Deal opens the emissions projection again. If the Ray Nixon coal plant runs until 2040: 8.2 mill...

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It's 11pm on a Tuesday in January and Pim Saetang has been through the manila folder twice already. Contractor quote...