this post was submitted on 17 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:

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[–] Chainweasel 24 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Currently, the things driving climate change are extremely profitable. Oil companies make billions if not trillions of dollars per year in profit. And some companies have even made climate change itself profitable by selling things like carbon offsets (which are just tickets to keep polluting) and does nothing to actually address the problem.
We're not going to see any meaningful push for climate mitigation until climate change starts hurting wealthy people in their wallets.
The problem is, by the time these investment properties start getting swallowed up by the sea the ball is already rolling too fast to do anything about it.
When the rich start panicking about climate change we know we're fucked.

[–] Iampossiblyatwork 5 points 1 week ago

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/010715/worlds-top-10-oil-companies.asp

Data is 6 months old but total profit at the time for TTM was $350B across all ten top oil companies.

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

I'd prefer that climate change happens abruptly rather than gradually so that we take as many insurers down with us as possible.

[–] fluckx 6 points 1 week ago

Even if that were the case, there is a big chance of a government bailout if too many of them get hit.

We had terrible floods a few years ago and most of the insurance agencies pulled their hands off. Eventually the government agreed to split the cost 50/50. God forbid they had to pay what was defined by their contract.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Majority of mortgages are not originated by "banks" lol

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Banks are not real, they cannot harm you.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Ideas aren't real, either, and they've hurt a lot of people.

[–] Iampossiblyatwork 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Can you elaborate what your point is?

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

Headline mentions banks "realizing"

  1. In the US most mortgages are not originated by the retail banks but rather shady companies like UWC or Rocket Mortgage etc Rocket alone originates more than than WF and BoA combined.

  2. Also, the only mention of this fact within the article: "some banks are starting to highlight climate risk to borrowers. HSBC’s UK website, for example, has a page about how climate change could affect people’s mortgages."

This provides zero indication that they are realizing anything. Realizing would require them to include this factor in the underwriting process... maybe they are doing it but author provides zero evidence of this.

  1. Followed by: "And yet, plenty of people are still buying US coastal properties,"

Just slopping writing that neither understand how mortgage industry operates, jurisdictional differences or how to connect headline to the thesis properly.

People will buy coastal properties as long they can get insurance and mortgage to do so clearly "banks have not realized jack shit vis a vis climate change.

[–] Iampossiblyatwork 3 points 1 week ago

Yeah. I don't think banks will give a shit as long as the properties are insured. The banks worry is probably shifted to making sure that the insurer has enough capital not to go under in the event of a single catastrophic event where the insurer goes bankrupt.