this post was submitted on 18 Feb 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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[–] zzzzzzyx 1 points 4 months ago

I read the article and the method of sequestration they have been using is extremely limited, it's main benefit being minimal long term sequestration by some leafy build up. Even their timber cultivation is a lacklustre effort as timber is often burnt after its limited lifespan. Burning the place down was likely the best thing that could have happened for their long term sequestration goals (sequestration in the form of charcoal). Long term sequestration is best done in the form of hummus, with cellulose and lignin as the carbon holding elements. I don't know where they get the "carbon saturation". Optimum carbon is a 1:7 carbon soil ratio, so over that area we are talking about millions of tons which is not something they could have achieved.

The idea that animal protein as a food source is not viable is largely a correct one however there are significant portions of the earth's landmass that are unsuitable for commercial cultivation. In these places animal grazing is still the best means of calorie extraction from these regions.

The CSIRO among other organisations have long been investigating macroalgal solutions to in rumen methenogenesis. Possibly reducing green house gas emissions from cattle to between 85-99%. That is to say as little as 2 grams of a seaweed cultivar could solve the methane problem, in conjunction with sound diet practices. The linked article (within the linked article) talks about "lacklustre reduction" but utterly ignores other studies achieving 99%. A minute of googling shows achievable results possible on a commercial scale.

The idea of decreasing the time to market of these animals is the opposite of what is needed, it is the grossly intensive feeding regimens of the cattle industry that causes excess methenogenesis. Excess protein causes methanogenesis.

Biological nutrient cycling allowing there is a world of global warming negative (carbon sequestering) beef/dairy in the not too distant future.

For a number of reasons these methods are unlikely to be embraced by the beef/dairy industries as they require mass silviculture which is largely incompatible with current practices.

As usual commercial industry is barking up the wrong tree, trying to amend their inherently flawed method rather than begin a new less intensive, sustainable method.

With that said there is a debate to be had about the phasing out of animals proteins as food to benefit human health but the b12 problem has to be overcome.