this post was submitted on 26 Aug 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] 43 points 2 months ago

While making laws preventing abusive homeownership right? Right?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago

I live in a progressive city in a progressive state, that claims to believe climate change is real. We just spent the last 10 years rebuilding the seawall that protects our precious iconic waterfront district. It was rebuilt exactly 0 inches taller than before, because increasing the height did not create short term profits.

We deserve what’s coming.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This really saddens me. I've lived within a few miles the coast basically my whole life and I've seen the floods get worse; Friends' houses getting ruined. The river that flows by my house to the sea regularly consumes the nearest neighborhood to it now, once a year or so. Noone is moving because of it. People are moving here, in fact, and all the new houses are on stilts with first floor parking. I know it's gonna keep getting worse, and when it finally gets bad enough, where are these people gonna move. All the "nice" towns a little further inland are entierly single-family zoned and woefully unprepared for all the people who will have to move. My town's population is like 6 of those "nice towns", and like half of it is gonna be underwater or so flood prone that you can't live there. It's gonna be really bad.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Look on the bright side - in the future those nice inland towns will get to enjoy coastal life too!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

just sell your houses when everything gets flooded, duh!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Ireland has a long coastline but most of it near mountains, so there is fortunately scope to gradually retreat uphill. The large flat part is in the middle - the central Shannon basin is only 35m above sea-level, but unless East Antarctica goes too, that's safe for the moment. As for temperature rise, it's a cool country that may expect relatively little warming, due to the cold blob south of greenland, at least while ice continues melting. So, Ireland may need to prepare for large influx of people escaping heat elsewhere.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Until the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation stops, plunging Ireland's temperatures by an average of 15°

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

It slows down, an effect of cold water from melting ice passing south of greenland, which has a local cooling effect, while the atlantic as a whole gets warmer. Consequence is a greater heat contrast along that front, which may intensify the sequence of low pressures bringing wind and rain, which is what Ireland has just experienced this summer. But the high-resolution models do not show that AMOC stops abruptly, that was a feature of simpler models designed to replicate palaeoclimatic changes at the end of the ice ages, when the amount of ice available to melt was much higher.

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

As a Canadian with Irish grandparents I look forward to claiming my Irish citizenship.

15° cooler (C or F) would be lovely.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

I should have clarified 15°C, which would be a shift of 27°F. It's hard to overstate how devastating that would be to the ecology of Northern Europe, potentially sending Ireland near permafrost territory and ending agriculture and pastoralism as they know it

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Yeah there's a bit to go before the sea goes over the cliffs of Moher for sure.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

So many doomed cities

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

chuckles in Japanese I'm in danger.

/ well, I live a few km inland and outside of tsunami risk for now. I probably won't live long enough for that to change too much since I'm already in my 40s.

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

Until Miami literally goes under and insurance companies force closures nothing will happen. Once it does all those decrying it will suddenly change tune to why we haven’t been doing something since forever.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You laugh now, but wait until the entire population of New York and Florida are knocking at your door. That is, the population that doesn't see the writing on the wall and leave for Colorado first.

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

Please as if we haven't been dealing with an influx from the coast driving up our prices for the last decade already.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Well, they will just have to move a bit further. Like Georgia, or something.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

We have geo-engineered our way into this climate crisis

Well said.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Yes, yes indeed.

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

This will only compound the population problem.