this post was submitted on 18 Oct 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:

Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.

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Overwhelming majority of young Americans worry about climate crisis (www.theguardian.com)
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[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

We do not have a functioning democracy.

Because people don't vote.

Most people feel that.

Stop voting with your feelings. Stop making voting decisions with your feelings. Stop making decisions that affect your society with your feelings.

Voting works when there are candidates [worth] voting for

Voting also works when there aren't good options because harm reduction is also important. Not voting only supports the goals of people who want to take away your right to vote. If you don't vote because there are no candidates "worth voting for" then you have already helped the authoritarians achieve their goals. If you do not vote, you are saying "I don't care how my government operates".

but when the system has been hollowed out by money and judicial capture and voting rules designed to prevent actual change

This has been allowed to happen because people don't vote. The people who had the power to do those things got it by discouraging voting and manipulating the remaining voter groups.

Will voting fix this? No, not singularly.

Voting could have prevented it. And can still prevent it from getting worse, while we work on fixing the existing problems.

Vote ... and March. Vote... and boycott. Vote... and disrupt. Vote... and organize your neighbors.

Absolutely. Also, vote... and unionize, so that you have another place where you can make your voice heard.

We can't stop voting, but that can't be our biggest or only tool. And everyone needs to understand this.

Voting is the bare minimum a citizen should do to participate in their government. If you choose not to vote, you have no right to complain about the government.

You can only be represented if you participate.

People (mainly progressives) choosing not to vote because they're waiting for a candidate "worth voting for" are THE reason why conservatives and regressives have more political power and more representatives in government - because they vote reliably.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

It sounds like there's no fundamental disagreement between us. It sounds like the only difference is one of attitude.

I worry sometimes that people express frustration with the state of things as though articulating what people should do might serve as a road map to getting them to do it. But getting people to do it requires understanding why they don't.