this post was submitted on 04 Nov 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] 7 points 1 week ago

It will help doom it, that’s for sure, but I don’t think it will help save it.

They’ll be kicking the can down the road until the road disappears under their feet.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah is there a candidate that is likely to get elected that is even talking about holding corporations and the rich accountable to all the emissions they produce? Or are you saying that if we dont vote one in it wont get any worse but not move the needle towards better?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

If you look at any projection online, you’ll see a huge difference in expected results for each of the major candidates. Neither is enough, but the choice matters. A lot

Edit: or if you read the article like I just did, the second line is you’re

voting to determine whether we'll be in the top row or the bottom row.

Yeah the chart is out of date so it will be worse, but are you really going to claim the top row of the chart is identical to the bottom row?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 week ago (2 children)

So as I asked, is there a candidate that will do anything OR we just dont want the one that will do worse, the answer is : just not one that will do worse. I did read it, and yes it bad if we go one way, but the other isnt any better, we are still long term fucked. With out actual movement in the other direction we still have killed off alot of life on this planet, one would be possibly in your lifetime, the other, in your childrens.

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

Doomerism is fun and all but what's the end game? Just making everything worse than it has to be?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There is no doomerism here. I am saying we need to have done this 40 years ago, but sure as fuck dont be milktoast about the subjects now. Its not me and you that will be able to reign in our CO2 levels and save anything, its corps and the super rich, and with out someone standing up and going after that target we are kinda fucked.

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

As the saying goes, “the second best time to plant a tree is today”. Yeah, we’re missing so many decades where we could have actually prevented many of the consequences, but it will still get worse if we don’t act now.

Assuming Harris also supports Biden’s IRA from a couple years ago, it is the biggest investment in reducing climate change from the US ever, and is certainly projected to reduce carbon emissions. I remember projections at the time saying it gets us halfway to our car in emissions goal. It’s a good start, but now we need someone who can build on that to get us the rest of the way, not someone who will deny, repeal, and backslide. I’m confident Harris will at least hold the line, but there’s still hope she will walk frward