this post was submitted on 16 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:

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Americans should be reminded that our 45th president withdrew us from the Paris agreement. https://2017-2021.state.gov/on-the-u-s-withdrawal-from-the-paris-agreement/

[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Biden brought the US back into the Paris agreement on his first day in office.

https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-officially-rejoins-the-paris-agreement/

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ahh the US, the country where international accords are more of an on/off thing, depending on the election cycles mood.

[–] neanderthal 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Speaking as a US citizen, you aren't wrong. I wouldn't make agreements with the US unless it is February of an odd numbered year.

ETA: Late January of odd years is when we get a new president or a new Congress. I say February so there is time for the transition.

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

Thank you for the follow up. I probably should have added that.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Didn't mean to sound passive-aggressive, sorry if it came across that way. I just don't want people to throw their hands up in despair. We need to fight back, and know that fighting back works.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Eh I didn't catch it that way. I just wanted Americans to have the facts. You're right, the way I wrote it seemed pretty defeatist, considering I left out that we reaccepted the agreement.

But this is why the fediverse is supposed to be great. You filled in more facts for me that I failed to include! Now hopefully others well read this and be more informed! 😁

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I really appreciate this rational, reasonable exchange. Thanks for giving me hope for humanity, you two.

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

See [email protected] it's working! 😜

[–] WhatAmLemmy 34 points 1 year ago (4 children)

2100!?! Did Shell or Exxon write this? Who the fuck is pulling these wildly optimistic fantasy scenarios out of their asses?

We'll be at 1.5 within the next several years, and 2.5 probably by 2050.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

2.5 is on the 'optimistic' side of things, but not unreasonable. I check the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) once or twice a year, I think they summarize current projections pretty well. Our current "policies & action" is around 2.7 or 2.8 degrees. Which would be really bad.

https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/

I'm not completely sure but I think the "1.5" number is regarding a long-term trend, not one portion of one year. We're at around 1.2 now according to the CAT thermometer (select Global -> The CAT Thermometer). You can look at specific countries like the USA as well.

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

Most of the world wants to be at net zero by 2050, which means if they take these pledges and policies seriously they have to start to cut emissions right now. We also can see multiple countries making real progress in reducing emissions. Solar is already the fastest growing form of energy production ever just ahead of wind. A good number of countries also have passed laws or signed agreements to phase out combustion engine vehicles Also all continents, but Africa have a below replacment total fertility rate today. By 2050 a lot of regions will start to loose population.

Just to say it 2050 is in only 27 years.

As for real progress:

  • Coal consumption is done in many countries all over the world. At this point China is responsible for over half the worlds coal consumption. Given how much renewable generation China is installing, the only thing needed is a proper economic crisis to slow down Chinas electricity consumption and coal drops by a lot.
  • Oil consumption just say a big dip due to covid, but it recovered. At the same time there is a drop in new car sales in all of the G7 countries besides Germany and electric cars are taking over. Also the oil price is high again.
  • Gas just saw one of the biggest market shocks ever with the Ukraine war. EU demand fell a lot and the purchase of a lot of LNG by the EU from other countries created a massive market shock across the world. However demand is propably still rising.
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Didn't we already hit 1.5 this year? I'm sure I saw artcles here about this recently, like within the last week recently.

Hang on I'm going to go look.

Ok yeah so after a quick search, I think what I saw was this bbc article about us hitting 1.5c warming for a third of 2023 so far.
I'm going to keep looking though, I don't have much faith in the beeb these days.

[–] Nudding 2 points 1 year ago

We're already at 1.5, I think we're fucked. And long before 2100, more like 2050 lol

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

I'm not to worried about 2100. I think we'll have our shit together by then. it's the next few decades I worry about

[–] DTFpanda 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Anything above 1.5degC will cause a negative feedback loop that will fast track us to well over even 3.5degC

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think I've seen compelling evidence for that

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

It's more like anything above 3-3.5 will catapult us to 6 and beyond based on what I've read.

Considering we may well hit 3, or be underestimating the tipping points, that's quite dire.