this post was submitted on 09 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] 23 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Back to the roots, passenger ships, ferries, railways (fast overnight connections).

Ban short-distance flights.

Imagine Ryanair as a fast train operator.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Rail is so nice. I wish there were connections everywhere.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

When it’s done right, it’s amazing. The problem is that (here in the UK) it’s just terrible.

Example, going from London to Edinburgh

A flight takes 1h30m and costs £33 A train takes 4h26m and costs £178

Yes there are other monetary costs involved (driving to the airport, parking) and other time costs involved (you need to be at the airport 90 minutes early) but the headline price make a flight seem like much better value for time and money.

Trains are also often late or cancelled, this seems to happen much less with flights.

Until flights are taxed to hell people aren’t going change their habits.

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

That's interesting, because it's basically the opposite in the US. They're cheaper and more reliable. You can't buy a puddle jumper flight for less than $100, and trains are rarely delayed by much, if at all.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

I road that train! 70 minutes late so I got a full refund.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The UK could meet its net-zero goals if it halved the number of private-jet flights.

Flying isn’t entirely horrible, but private jets are just about the worst thing you can do for the environment.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Flying is horrible, 2.5% of emissions with twice the impact because it's released at high altitude, mostly done for leisure or to transport stuff that should be transported by boat and trains? Ban all non essential air traffic.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ban all jet aircraft with fewer than 200 seats.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

No matter the number of seats, if you get 4.5L/100km/passenger or less you're better off traveling by car instead. That means two people in a Corolla pollute less than two people doing the same trip in an A380 filled with passengers.

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

What really should happen is short flights should become electric.