this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2023
19 points (100.0% liked)

Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.

5229 readers
507 users here now

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.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 7 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] skhayfa@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You first no you go first policy. It's not our fault that we're doing nothing, it's because they are doing nothing too.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unfortunately the Biden administration is stuck in the difficult position of negotiating a US climate policy which they have minimal control over. US action on climate will lag behind the rest of the world unless and until enough members of congress are elected who are willing to solve the problem. Unfortunately I don’t see that happening in the near future but we will see.

[–] skhayfa@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

True there's a divided Congress and the supreme court that blocks major reform. Still the president through executive orders can do better starting by declaring the climate crisis a national emergency which will give him more powers. Banning fracking on public land, or reversing his decision on Alaska oil field. Even just asking EPA to enforce its rules on pollution and methane would really help. There's definitely a lack of commitment from the administration, is it guided by donors and lobbying or just a wait and see approach I don't know.

[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I agree and it was one of the biggest reasons I opposed his candidacy in the primaries. But still, these actions would only somewhat limit emissions and would be at high risk of being struck down by extremists in the courts. Real, meaningful action will need to come from congress. I hope our citizens keep that in mind as they vote in 2024 but people rarely seem to prioritize this issue as highly as they should.

[–] meyotch@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago

Yeah, this is a good example of how not to show leadership.

[–] Charliebeans@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 year ago

Pointing fingers won't remove the carbon

[–] cyph3rPunk@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago

Maybe I’m an idealist but if the UN can unite behind war, why do they have such a hard time uniting behind climate change?

If the UN (or some international group given the authority to punish climate offenses) would enact steep financial penalties for ecological offenses that scale based on the size of the corporation doing the damage, pollutiontion would go away overernight.

For example: If you ship goods on a giant container ship from China, you will pay penalties/fines that scale with the size of your corporation and the size of your carbon footprint.

We should figure out the math behind this: what amount would hurt their profits enough to cause them to stop shipping and move manufacturing to a more sensible location?

load more comments
view more: next ›