If you're sending over a single channel (telephone audio, or a radio link, or an optical fibre), then bits/s are natural.
In the simplest cases you send one bit at a time
Claire - if you have a 200mV or better DC range on your multimeter - remember PCB tracks have non-zero resistance. Measure the drop from +5 input along the tracks to see who's drawing all the current...
(Clearly also applies to ground, but harder with a decent ground plane)
Professor - at Cambridge around 1984, we were shown around the Half Mile telescope, with the vital mothball...
(Paper tape for the dish positioning arrived twice a week by bike and grad student - to an optical tape reader, which attracted moths at night). Drive system debugged...
Gebco is great - low res, but world-wide. Oh, and it also covers land!
In shallow water keep an eye on vertical datum - different sources used various - and I don't think GEBCO has yet unified them.
There are a few bits of CS that are worth studying (data structures, algorithms and complexity, some of OO) for scientific computing
AFAIK they are also possible to study outside a degree program. Your student need not worry - just read good code and ask "how and why"?
We need expensive, unpopular long-term world-wide actions. That requires a world government with a powerful army and no electors.
Any alternative to China?
Just check that no tasks (e.g firefighting, veh maintenance) require you to be 6 ft tall and 200+lbs - if not then an all-female crew could work. (If so, then recruit some big lassies before you kick us out)
As soon as GenAI learns how to hack into HVAC or home automation, it'll be able to commit arson without human involvement.
And no-one is to connect traffic signals to the interweb...
