Geoengineering with Shovels

is a writer — follow his work at .Founded in 2021, Do Not Research is a reader-supported publication.I’ve spent most of my life around salt marshes. They’re weird, smelly, beautiful ecosystems, teeming with hundreds of species of birds, frogs, fish, invertebrates and plants. By some definitions, their only rivals for sheer biological productivity are tropical rainforests1. But for all their natural wonders, their most interesting feature isn’t easily seen on foot. Not without the assistance of a cheap Chinese flying camera.I got my first drone while living at home after college, in search of some distraction from the realities of living at home after college. While it still feels a little like cheating whenever I send it up to take a photo, it’s now one of my favorite hobbies: equal parts composition exercise and Call of Duty chopper gunner minigame. The only downside is that it’s tough to do in any populated area without feeling like the Jimmy Stewart character in a remake of Rear…