this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.

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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world.  About 1C of total warming.  Second chart:  about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability.  Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases.  About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

I really don't think they are given the alarming number of people who support parties that actively work against climate action. If people were appropriately worried about climate change anything but a robust, clear and effective climate policy would be a political death sentence.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, also paper plate and bottled water sales would be at zero if people were worried, so.many industries wouldn't exist if we cared.

Everyone thinks it's someone else's job, everyone thinks it's a problem for other people to solve. 'I only contribute a little, it's the system thats the real problem...- ignoring that the system is just what we call the result of everyone's individual choices

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I feel you but if 'everyone needs to make the individual choice to change their behaviour' is your view on solving the climate crisis we might as well give up now.

The system itself is a lot more than the collective sum of all our choices, it determines which choices are available to you. A good example of this is plastic bags, they were optional and you could use re-usable bags for your groceries for a long time. Some people did, most didn't. Then where I lived single use plastic bags were banned, overnight everyone is now using a reusable bag.

Individual action is a positive and commendable thing and we should be doing what we can but the reality is it is a systemic problem and requires a systemic solution. I think voting and doing what you can to influence the politics in your area is by far the most impactful thing you can do if that option is available to you.

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