this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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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] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Serious question. Do the tories over there have a cult like thing going on like our MAGA types here?

ETA: I'm in the US.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Not as such

We just have a lot of selfish, stupid old people.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You just described most of the MAGA crowd.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

No, our lot are significantly more boring. Think Hot Fuzz, seriously. It's that type of "ooo-er not in our village!!!" NIMBY stuck in their way type of folk.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Exactly. I'm a dual national. The problem here in the UK is Middle England and other fuddy-duddies. They're myopic more than conspiratorial, although immigration is an area where they can sometimes venture into fantasy. The MAGA cult in the US is thoroughly unhinged.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Boris was trying to do that. However getting caught partying while people weren't allowed out of their homes and funerals were restricted to about 4 people made a lot of people realise how much of cunt he was.

The two prime ministers since, very much no.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

It's not really equivalent. The USA has a significantly higher level of religious indoctrination/followers than the rest of the developed world, so it was easy for conservatism to wrap itself around the cross and achieve the devoted, religious cult-like brainwashing of MAGA. That level of political sports team fandom doesn't win elections in other developed economies, where the buying and wearing of political merch is ridiculous to the vast majority of voters, and even the most diehard supporters really only wear it to political events or in the weeks immediately surrounding a vote.

With that said, the mental illness of conservatism is very strong in the UK – they've held a majority in federal government for well over a decade, have similar regressive economic policies, have spearheaded a relatively similar level of damage to quality of life and standard of living, and use very similar psychological warfare tactics (blaming all the nations problems on the weakest and most vulnerable of society, political opposition, etc)... They just walk a much finer line in what what they can publicly get away with.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Boris Johnson did. The party got rid of him when the casual Tory enjoyers turned against him after he held drunked piss-ups during COVID lockdown when people couldn't even see their dying relatives in hospital.

Since then their ratings have gone from bad to worse. Johnson was a clown but popular because he'd been on telly and people saw him as a harmless buffoon.

The next election will be a massacre and I can't wait.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

there's a lot of culture war stuff, they generally don't vocally support the Tories but maga don't really support the gop only trump and anything that isn't 'woke' - this sort of move is i presume designed as a nod to those alex jones types that think climate change is just an excuse to install a one world government, exactly the people who voted us out of the EU because of some vague notion of sovereignty.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

One bi-election where they won on a local issue by about 500 votes, and they think they'll get a polling boost by ditching climate policies.

Bold strategy, let's see how that plays out.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They would have lost ULIZ if Labour had bothered to actually correct the record. But they just decided to throw Sadiq Khan under a bus because they were scared of coming out in support of him. They were worried they'd lose the brainless shit head vote.

What everyone needs to do now is yell very loudly at the Tories for having no green policys, and then hopefully Labour will pick up on that and decide that this pussy footing around the problem approach isn't actually a good idea.

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

Polling is currently a Labour landslide, so they need bold policies to stay relevant and this is a topic Labour might actually use some points in.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's a massive gamble. Polling over the past few years has been constantly calling for action on climate change. They're clearly hoping that there's been a shift on this.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

They have a year, Rupert Murdoch and fossil fuel money to create that change. Still a hard sell considering the situation.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

must not be in line with his goals as a very, very wealthy man

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

"Abaaaht time I'm sick of hearing about this woke-vironment rubbish!"

That's what Rishi Sunak thinks of the electorate.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think the electorate know what to expect every time they vote his party into power.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You'd think so, but I saw some poverty article in which some guy was being interviewed.

He was disabled, his 12 year old daughter was collecting from the food bank every day so they could eat, they had no heating, and kept having to fight for his benefits to not be cut.

Who do you reckon he was voting for next time? They've got the best plan for the economy, don't you know? Plus Corbyn wore the wrong tie for the queen or something.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s a good point. I don’t know if I can blame them - there are powerful forces in the battles for hearts and minds. The Murdoch press is one example.

Disclaimer: I’m not from Britain though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

However the thing about the battle for hearts and minds is it's much easier to win if the people you're trying to win over are not used to using them minds.

At some point being politically ignorant is not an excuse.