this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2024
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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.

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Where Did the Snow Go? “A visceral feeling of what climate change looks and feels like.” (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 48 points 10 months ago (1 children)

JSYK one of the most progressive states, Vermont, has said that they see their snow season ENDING in 2050. Meaning we are in the throws of climate change already and have been for 20 years. OOPS!

The narrative will now be “we are in climate change, too bad, deal with it.”

We were led here by certain types of humans. The weak, stupid, billionaire water carrying, self righteous ones.

[–] kameecoding 14 points 10 months ago

I mean I remember building big ass snowmen in my childhood about 25 years ago and it being snowy all winter, nowadays we don't get more than 2 days of snow in a row and that happens like twice

It's astounding how little anyone seems to care

[–] [email protected] 45 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You can see climate change happening in our popular culture.

The poem "Over the River and Through the Woods" mentions sleigh rides at Thanksgiving in New England, and was written in 1844.

About a hundred years later, the film White Christmas has a New England ski resort that can't open because it hasn't snowed by late December.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (1 children)

That, and the East Coast is getting smoke for the first time this past year. 20 years ago, the west didn't burn like that. Didn't have smoke like that. That was a very recent development in the past 10 years or so. Now the east is starting to burn like us.

I lived in the west and moved for a number of reasons, but one of the reasons was that the city nearly ran out of water twice within a handful of years. One year was a bad drought that depleted the river. The second, rain melted all the snow at once and caused floods that destroyed the water intakes for the city. Nobody could purify the water and the city had a day (1) of reserve water.

I moved to a more climate resilient city, but not everyone will be able to do that. We gotta take care of the planet better, because there's not another earth-like world within a couple hundred years of us, at least.

[–] ChewTiger 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Just curious, but where'd you move from and to? What's the best way to go about choosing a climate resistant city? I'll probably be making the same choice someday.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

I moved to Washington. More expensive, but less risky and better set up to resist climate disasters since it's near the ocean but also not in hurricane alley.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

I don't like using snow as a measurement of climate change. Snow is weather. Global warming is not weather.

If the gulf stream closes, we're going to have ice ages in Europe and scorched earth and soup like oceans in the Americas.

It's bad, m'kay.

The consequences aren't if we're going to have white Christmas or how well the financial reports are for skiing resorts. It's literally the doom of most life on earth. Don't give me the "The uh planet will be fine". I don't give a shit about a planet in space. I care for the living beings on the planet. Fuck.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago (1 children)

There are in fact meaningful trends in snow cover

[–] [email protected] 0 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Thanks, more data is always appreciated, but of course there is trends in snow coverage. Global warming is going to affect everything. Including snow coverage. I'm not worried about snow coverage.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago

And I'm sure none of the ecosystems or communities that rely on snowmelt for drinking water are worried about it either, so it's fine.

[–] Feathercrown 3 points 10 months ago

Ok but people that we should be recruiting do care about it, so get caring

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

Snow is very noticeable. It's weather that is very pretty and visual, but also impacts your daily life.

I remember how many snow days I had back in school, and how kids now often don't have any

It's very visceral and memorable weather - most other things are vague and easy to write off, or they're a life changing catastrophe that is basically up to luck.

If snow is what makes people understand, viscerally, "things are changing very, very fast", then that's fine

That's where we are right now. People generally believe it's happening, but only intellectually - they have no sense of scale or urgency. Most still think they'll be gone by the time it gets bad, and that it's a long term problem.

Any and every way you can make people understand this is a "right now" problem helps

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Up to this point, the winters where I live have definitely been getting warmer.

When I was a kid, it wasn't uncommon to have stretches of -30°c, and we used to hit or almost hit -40°c once or twice per winter. It seems like that dropped. Now, the stretches are around -20°c and we hit the -30°c once or twice per year. Instead of snow, we've been getting lots of freezing rain.

It used be be rare to hit 30°c in the summer, but we've been getting many more days that hit around 40°c. Last summer was brutal, and I hadn't seen smog from wildfires up until then. It was practically unheard of where I live.

Just wait for another handful of years. The weather is already becoming increasingly more difficult to predict.

I saw a forecast earlier where the weather person was saying that either the models are broken, or that certain parts of North America will hit historically cold temperatures. If it was accurate, parts of California might drop down to almost -40°c.

People need to learn that climate change isn't only extra heat in the summertime. It's a very complex system with lots of variables. I wish more people actually took the time to learn a bit about it. Freaky shit.

[–] CodingAndCoffee 1 points 10 months ago

I'd appreciate a link to the report about California if you can find it

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Yeah I'm living through it right now. We've never had this much snow since I was a kid. I encourage my kids to go out and dig into it like I dug in to it forty years ago and I'm trying to explain and hope that they understand the oddity of it and not just taking it for granted whether or not it comes again every year or never again from here on.

[–] Ottomateeverything 4 points 10 months ago

The difference is, educated and rational people understand the gulf stream closing and it's implications. Those people are already on board and get it.

There are many people holding us back that don't get it and will hand wave this type of stuff away and continue holding their position. They'll come up with any excuse and reason they can, and it's easier to do so when it's something more abstract.

That's not as possible when it's "I can show you pictures of this or you can go there yourself and movies are already covering the effects." Things like New England not having snow for months is something literally every New Englander can look outside and see for themselves. It's way harder to argue against and will convince more people.

While you are right, that has been the case for a long time and we need to get more people on board. It's not one or the other, and we need to broaden the approach or this is going to continue being the educated minority vs the uneducated majority and it will continue to not change.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

Yeah, in Southern Germany, we've had some of the heaviest snowfall in a long time this year, because of a local dip in temperatures below freezing (likely caused by gulf stream shenanigans), in combination with the rest of the planet boiling.

All the hot oceans were evaporating lots of water and when that wet air reached our cold pocket, it all just precipitated on top of us.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Climate change is scary only because it affects our way of life. Get over it, humans are like that. And the rich fucks who could change things (or at least not make it worse) were raised to have no empathy; they don't care for nature or if the world is liveable after their death.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

Our way of life ? Like breathing life?

Yes life will continue. For the methane breathing bacteria. Humans not so much.

The rich won't survive either. Money and all the bunkers in the world are worthless in what is to come by continuing the pursuit for money.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yet anyone I speak to is thrilled to not have winter weather to deal with. I have to bite my tongue to stop ranting about how it's not good.

(Sample of people: doctors, nurses, cashiers, neighbours)

[–] [email protected] 16 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Similar thing is happening where I live too. Living on the Great Lakes, we're usually being dumped on with -20 to -40 degree temps. Right now, we're barely below freezing and there's no snow on the ground. The Lake is struggling to freeze and we're at that time of year where it should be close to 100 percent ice cover by now.

We have a lot of events this time of year that are dependent on ice (Ice fishing tournaments, ice races, marathons where you hike across the frozen bay), and I think all of them have been canceled. It's crazy, I've never seen anything like it

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago

Yeah I'm in southeast Michigan, and I'm missing wintertime. I really don't like summer, so I'm screwed.

[–] HipHoboHarold 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I hope they keep that in mind during the summer. I don't know about where you live, but I'm in Portland, Oregon. I remember a decade ago people freaked out when it got above 90°F. Now we usually have at least 1-2 days where it reaches 110-115°. And we don't have AC, because historically it was never needed.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

@HipHoboHarold @bloopernova It's been nearly 2 years since we've had any meaningful snow accumulation in Pittsburgh.