this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2023
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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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Architect here. How can I be the most helpful? (lemdro.id)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I am a registered architect. As an active contributor to one of the most damaging industries to our climate (construction & building systems), I often daydream about pivoting careers into something more productive for the planet. I'm not talking about stuff like green washing or ~LEED accreditation~. Even sustainably-focused jobs are hard to come by and usually pretty regionally specific. Architects have a broad set of skills, and it's not always clear where I can take those skills and put them to better use.

Any thoughts/insight would be appreciated as I hop into my mid-life crisis before 30.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Is there a set of standard guidelines for people who are retrofitting their own houses to use to make them as energy efficient as possible?

When I briefly looked into the space, nothing seemed accessible, lots of snake oil selling of products, but no overarching wiki energy doing cost comparison of each solution. Especially given that different markets have different item costs

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

two areas to look into – for the low tech approach, traditional building in your area and passive solar building – for the high tech approach, Passive House

for actual application, usually more a matter of focusing on generalizations

  • insulation (and superinsulation) – thick walls, extra insulation, air gaps, double- or triple-pane windows
  • avoiding thermal bridges – ie. direct connections between inside and outside allowing heat to conduct into the house in summer or escape the house in winter
  • thermal masses (“heat batteries”) – thick slabs to store heat during the day and release it at night
  • window overhangs that still allow natural sunlight in winter but shade windows in summer