this post was submitted on 17 Aug 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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Joe Biden’s DOJ Is Claiming “There Is No Constitutional Right to a Stable Climate” (jacobin.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Folks in the comments are making assumptions about what's in the Constitution, so I decided to go take a look. If I were the petitioners, I'd point to section 1 of the 14th Amendment:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Depriving someone of clean air to breathe is depriving them of life. The medical conditions from being exposed to unclean air threaten property through medical bills in a country without universal healthcare. And finally, liberty cannot exist without life.

And since a lot of folks are going for the technically correct legislative analysis, remember that bad air causes autoimmune disorders, and thus abridge the immunities of the citizens of the United States. A stretch, but I'd say it qualifies if you're analyzing the law from a purely textual standpoint.

Can I just say I absolutely love the 14th amendment? It's not the Declaration of Independence, but it does a lot of heavy lifting for it in the Constitution.

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

Montana's young people have set a precedent. We can build on this and demand the same on a federal level.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/young-activists-in-montana-win-landmark-climate-change-lawsuit-against-state

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They built their case around a clause in the state constitution which guarantees the right to a clean and healthful environment. It takes something more to win at the US federal level where there isn't a clause like that.