this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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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.

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It begins: Ethiopia set to become first country to ban internal combustion cars | automobiles cannot enter Ethiopia, unless they are electric [Edit: Strong indications this is unreliable] (electrek.co)
submitted 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Edit: It's looking like this wasn't reliably reported

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

That is absurd on its face.

ICE cars haven't significantly improved in close to a century, electric cars are becoming more affordable, efficient, and sustainable every year.

ICE cars are much more trouble to maintain and cost more to maintain, and as of this year, produce.

ICE cars release more pollutants, while electric cars are annually decreasing and can continue to decrease their pollutants.

There's a huge difference between electric and ICE, don't let some imagined ideal stop you from supporting a practical leap in the right direction.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

ICE cars haven’t significantly improved in close to a century

Let's see, power steering and seatbelts became standard around half a century ago, the OBD2 port became standard in the 80s, radios got significantly better, starting as a simple AM Radio to then also putting in an 8 track player, and in the 90s and 2000syou could get multiple disc changer radios (I had a 2005 Ford Escape I got for next to nothing a few years agp which had a 5 cd changer stock) then in the last 20 years fuel efficiency has improved dramatically. And this is all just what I can think of as someone who sometimes walks through car shows to look at the pretty cars but has no clue what he's looking at.

I get what you're saying about EVs being a brilliant step forward from ICE vehicles. Technically I think an all-electric drivetrain should be the way forwards on all vehicles, including hybrids (seriously if it's good enough for basically every diesel locomotive out there, it's good enough for a car) but you have to be honest in your arguments

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

I agree that car accessories like radios, seat belts, and CD players have improved significantly, but that does not translate to ICEs themselves being significantly improved.

Combustion engines:

1923 - 14 mpg

1966 - 13.5 mpg

1991 - 16 mpg

2019 - 25mpg

Electric cars:

2009 - 85 mpge

2019 - 113

Drivetrains, fuel efficiency, sustainable fuel (solar panels built into the body of the car), battery tech improvement, and so on.

Electric cars have all of the accessory improvements you're talking about related to ICEs, but are also rapidly minimizing all the relevant material, environmental, and even maintenance costs of manufacturing and operating vehicles to become more sustainable at a much more rapid pace than ICEs have.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Those numbers will go down once everyone is driving 4wd EV Suburbans with half-inch steel plate armor (you know, just so they feel their kids are safe) :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 7 months ago

I'm hoping the current lack of sedan/small car options and growing bad press surrounding large vehicles will lead to a resurgence of small cars in 7-15 years, but I doubt it will in reality

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago

Haha, yeah, we'll have to see the balance between technological progress and the burden of American ego.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes, radio, the main issue why cars kill the environment that much. Or was it the number of Ethernet ports in old OBD connector? I can't quite remember what issue contributes more to climate change

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

Cars are shit for the climate regardless of the drivetrain. Electric cars are here to save car manufacturers, not the world.

My comment has little to do with climate friendliness and everything to do with improvements in just the last half century with vehicles when the poster I was replying to tried to say that there's been zero improvements in vehicles for a century