this post was submitted on 15 Apr 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] 5 points 6 months ago (2 children)

I'm a solarpunk who lives in a tiny apartment and bikes everywhere and has 100% renewable energy'l production and heating. Vegetarian also, but lots of dairy

The calculator still said I needed 1.8 earths to offset my lifestyle.

What do they want me to do, keel over and die? My carbon impact is almost zero, and is actually negative with my research and contributions into 3D photovoltaics.

I don't think "planting 200 trees per year per person" is tenable. I think slapping a huge fuck-off fine on a major polluter is a much easier and effective strategy.

My personal yearly CO² impact is dwarfed by a single container ship travelling just 8 miles burning bunker oil.

Personal responsibility in this case isn't the answer, social responsibility is. No one human being alone could damage the environment to this extent.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Thanks for what you do. Most anyone on this thread, except the trolls, are not the problem. All I'm suggesting is using the plant kingdom to fix carbon out of the air. No solely that, of course, but at least some of that.

I'm trying to understand what exactly solar punk means. My main transport, a surly ogre is sitting in view not 10 feet from where I sit. I put solar panels on my roof last year, something I've been meaning to do for decades. I eat from my garden and local farmers as much as I can. I haven't flown in a plane since 2019, and may not ever again. I've never been on a cruise ship, probably never will. But yeah, one container ship, one private jet, adds up to a lot of carbon real fast.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You can call yourself a solarpunk, you garden, have solar, it counts 👍

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

Yep, that was my original point. Trees just can't cut it. They have such a little impact they're almost not worth even discussing. Far larger gains can be found elsewhere.

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

So ride bikes? What large gainz are you thinking of? Can't leave me hanging, Friend.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Well, kind of... Reducing carbon emissions would be far more effective than trying to capture the emissions we currently use.

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

I didn't say you can't do both. The real danger is the green washing. In fact, it's not a danger, it's currently already used to subvert carbon cap and trade regulations. Scams of companies that sell carbon credits for protecting forestry that aren't endangered to begin with. There is little to no oversight of this and is hurting our progress to fixing the issue.