this post was submitted on 03 Dec 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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[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The storage part is a big issue with current plans for CCS and DAC. If they end up turning around and repackaging the CO2 into something that can be released again, it's only better than pumping out new petroleum and not a true reduction.

But the title is a bit wrong. It should be "Pulling CO2 out of the air alone won't stop climate change". Even if we dropped the CO2 level to preexisting levels (280ppm or even lower) there are still some feedbacks already in play that wouldn't suddenly stop their contribution. It would be far better than continuing to add to CO2 for sure, but there is still going to be some climate change and adaptation needs regardless of how well we act. And of course, we are not acting very well.

[–] _different_username 2 points 1 week ago

Mineralization. There is a paper from Nature estimating a capacity of 10,000 - 100,000 Gt CO₂ for mineralizing CO₂. This is more than sufficient for the 1,000 - 2,000 Gt CO₂ that we will need to remove from the atmosphere once we reach zero emission. Needless to say, mineralization to a solid carbonate would remove the threat of fugitive emissions permanently.

People can complain about DAC as expensive etc., but it is the fastest way to bring down CO₂ once emissions have ceased. Without it, we will be stuck with the climate effects of increased greenhouse gas emissions - severe storms, erratic climate events - for hundreds of years. The fact that it is expensive just means that we will need to know what our target CO₂ level is and how how fast we want to get there.

Often, it's said, "Just plant trees." However, trees are not a sufficient solution for greenhouse gas reduction. A 2022 article in Environmental Research Letters predicts a "121 Gt C increase in carbon in forests over the course of this century." That's great, but it's not enough to get GHG down to an ideal level. Of course, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't engage in sustainable agriculture and reforestation - we should, but we should not rely on it as a climate restoration strategy because it cannot deliver those kinds of GHG reductions.

[–] pennomi 16 points 1 week ago

Yes… unexpected. Surely we couldn’t predict that people would lie about their climate progress!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ambiguous carbon accounting sounds like a shady tax fraud scheme

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

Why not both

[–] Oisteink 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Just pack it up and ship it off the earth

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

Better to make stuff with it. Like diamonds, graphene, or carbon nanotubes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

How about wood?

It grows on trees, and if we bury it under anerobic conditions it won't rot and release the stored carbon. No need for sealants or preservatives, the wooden piles that the city of Venice was built on are still intact after hundreds of years buried in mud.

Bonus, we can drive wooden piles vertically into the earth to stabilize it. That will help us address the landslides that have become more common due to the changing climate.

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

Ah yes, the Elon solution.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

That would be a solution for Elon though

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

If only we could use massive floating solar arrays anchored over the Mariana Trench, and use that power to create carbon fibre from atmospheric CO2. Some could be used in industry, but let’s scale that up until we are creating solid spheres of carbon 1-2m in diameter and dropping those into that subduction trench. It will take some time, but most ought to be pulled down into the crust via subduction, and return carbon to the mantle where it ought to be locked away for several hundred million years.

Keep doing that until we have gotten things back down to under 200ppm.

[–] uberdroog 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

We are fucked guys ... details unessesary

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

The world will get warmer and the weather crazier, but there are still upsides to intelligent predictions and coordinated response. You should prepare for the worst, but the not-worst also requires preparation.

[–] uberdroog 2 points 1 week ago (2 children)

There will be no coordinated response. There will be very little if any preparation.

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

If COVID taught us anything, it's that humanity is unable to deal with matters of this scale. Anyone relying on the worlds governments to save them, are in for a rude awakening.

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

Ok, but you don't get to act disappointed if you never had any expectations.