this post was submitted on 04 Jun 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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[–] [email protected] 58 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Why is there no "controversy" about destroying the planet, ongoingly with petroleum products?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago

It’s the WaPo. They report to you the republiQan talking points in their best liberal-npr-radio voice.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Because we're being wise enough to question if this might have unintended consequences. For example, it might just shift the problem elsewhere and cause more severe draughts for someone else. Just a hypothetical to point out why people might not be immediately onboard with this.

Tho, fun fact, California has been doing this kind of stuff since at least the 60's. It's called cloud seeding and we've had numerous programs running. They just never got much attention. But technically, the chem trails conspiracy is based in a bit of truth. It's just not every airplane, but it's happening. A quick Google search will give you tons of government pages about it. It's not a secret.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Genuine answer: This is controversial because it is to intentionally alter the climate. We use fossil fuels for energy, not to alter the climate. The climate stuff is a negative side effect of fossil fuels.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Once you know the side effects of something, if you continue doing it, that's intentional. So I don't think that distinction makes much of a difference.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

It makes a massive difference. It's the reason why one of them is considered a controversial new technology.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yes. There's no possible way this could go wrong.

/s

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Starts frantically building a train to house what's left of humanity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Pretty sure Snow Piercer is a train...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago

Your train will rust away in the salty rain..

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I agree that the focus needs to be on cutting emissions, and I share the concern for unintended consequences. But I don’t know if that concern justifies shutting down an experiment that would help identify those consequences.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago

Sounds like someone got confused with seasons and seasoning.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Watch it work and cool the planet...but then we get salt water rains and it kills all vegetation that it touches resulting in an even worse fate.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

First thought I had reading that article was "soil salinity."

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

That's not how precipitation works.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Didn't that just happen with the Tonga eruption? I guess they wouldn't be adding all the water though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

Tonga pumped water into the stratosphere, not just the troposphere.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Well no. But… it would kill all plants so thats a bonus

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (3 children)

The idea is to increase the amount of salt in the air over the ocean. It probably won't kill all plants.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

Clouds move ya know. I'm not exactly sure why, but I've heard people on the television call it 'weather', or something like that.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Things you put in clouds or water will come down to earth

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

They do. And done right, it'll come down over the ocean, and have a rather minimal impact in the amount of salt being transported to land.

There are other reasons this is a really bad idea; this is one where the harm is probably limited.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

And done right....

See, we don't have the best track record on that particular aspect of this.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

That actually sounds good, I just dont know how they will spread salt periodically over the millions of square kms needed to make a difference on the Pacific's albedo without a huge carbon footprint.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Aizoaceae has entered the chat..