this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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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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[–] WhatAmLemmy 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Haha. 50 years is naively optimistic. There's going to be widespread civil unrest due to food costs and shortages within the next 20 years, in most countries.

Agricultural productivity requires stable, predictable weather. As the weather and seasons continue to grow more extreme and less predictable, the global output of most crops will fall. This can only lead to inflation unless demand reduces proportionally to supply (many tens/hundreds of millions of excess deaths per annum). When I plan for retirement, I assume a rate of inflation double what it has been the last 30 years at the very least - that's my most optimistic scenario.

If the rain stops falling where the farms are, or where the lakes and dams can capture it, we're fucked. We can't desalinate the amount of water agriculture or cities require, without releasing significantly more GHG's, anytime in the foreseeable future.

[–] The_v 7 points 1 year ago

These models always used flawed projections. They always assume that the amount of land we are using now is required to feed the population.

We need less than 20% of the land we are currently using to supply the entire projected maximum earth population in the next 70 years. Of course it's extremely expensive and will require commited effort and consensus to achieve.

So we are fucked.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Id be shocked if this doesn't happen in 20.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Experts: "this could happen within 50 years."

Randos on the internet: "hah, half that."

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

And guess whose usually right.

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

Scientists: people will say we’re overreacting if we give the media the most likely figure, give them the best case scenario number.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Pretty much. It's a statistical thing though, so sooner isn't impossible; it's just not likely.

[–] Anamnesis 6 points 1 year ago

If only there was some kind of union they could join that could help them deal with this and protect them from ending up as a starving, powerless backwater of a country.

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

Stock your freezers with the rich now!

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

And the longer the Tories remain in power, the more guaranteed that fate is.