this post was submitted on 29 Dec 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:

Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago (8 children)

I find the people with hope genuinely confusing at this point.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago (5 children)

Because the alternative is to become a pessimistic doomer and tune out pretending it's all hopeless?

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Oh the earth will recover eventually! It's even possible humanity survives in some form!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Oh yeah Earth will be fine. It's survived worse than us and will be here long after we've died, almost certainly by our own hands. We aren't even the first mass extinction event to come from a mistake from within instead of an external force like a meteor but instead of runaway, macro-metastatic evolution. There was a blight of early trees in the carboniferous period that stored too much carbon leading to an ice age because the means of their efficient decomposition had not yet evolved, causing the opposite of what we're doing, leading to an ice age.

Life on Earth suffered, many species went extinct, as some do constantly even in good times, but Earth always recovers. We sadly fashion ourselves masters of this word rather than children and subjects, but we couldn't sterilize this planet if we wanted to. There's life in acid pools, in crevices we can't find, in depths we can't reach. Until the Sun's output changes enough in a couple billion years, life will most likely find a way here.

I take comfort, just as George Carlin did, in knowing that we will just be an evolutionary cul-de-sac, quickly forgotten by the living Earth we tried to dominate and rape as our private property.

The funniest bit to me is that for all the idiotic religions people kill one another over, demanding theirs has the largest penis and other believers of gods with smaller penises must convert or die, it was a rare thing indeed for humans to actually respect their actual God, their actual creator, the real one they can and do see every single day, the one we are, in objective fact, made of. Oh the dark irony of desperately seeking approval from a fictional "sky daddy" creator that we often anthropomorphize out of vanity to look and act and think like us, while raping, plundering, polluting, and defacing our true God as thoughtlessly as breathing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

Crabs will dominate the Solar System after any trace from our "developed society" is long gone.

Maybe they will have an religion of crab gods, but if gods go through evolution too, they are probably actually crabs.

Crabs rule!

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

I don't have any hope, but I'm sure as hell not going to roll over and take it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Same reason I vote for least cruel of two cruel options.

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

To lose hope for a better tomorrow is to roll over and accept the worst

I'll fight to my dying breath for a better tomorrow because I have hope in achieving that goal

Even if that better tomorrow is only slightly better than no change or if that better tomorrow is making sure that those I care about aren't completely up a creek if shit goes sideways

Anything is better than rolling over and letting the world go to shit like a loaded up semi with no brakes down a mountain

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago

I bought CO2 sensors for an Arduino project. The firmware is calibrated to 400 ppm. It is rapidly becoming in accurate because baseline keeps going up.

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

This is impossible to fix with capitalism. Capitalism demands infinite growth. We're going to have to start working on antigravity now to escape this dead planet (the plot to interstellar).

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Fuck yes, straight into the wall full speed. Don’t even tap the brakes.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Why it should be otherwise? It's not like we're sentient creatures, capable of influencing our own habits. We're just mindless biological automatons, oblivious to the fact that we're marching to our horrible, painful and IMMINENT demise. It's not like I care about that either. Give me entertainment, give me food and comfort and I won't give a duck about future. Why give an effort of thought to such amorphous things when I have so much to enjoy in the present? Clearly, that would be a fool's errand, and I'm not a fool.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Only positive thing I can see there is, that the last few years seem to be linear growth instead of the exponential before...

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

Our masters prefer profit much much much more than planetary survival.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I got one word for you: Vote.

Corporations like BP push individual responsibility and personal carbon footprint[1] to try to neutralize you from achieving real policy gains which would have a much greater impact than your individual action. Time spent trying to convince people to vote for politicians who take climate change seriously is far more productive than time spent trying to educate people about their so-called carbon footprint. Of course we all play a part but seeing this chart it's clear we need more action and that's why I'm saying this.

[1] https://www.nprillinois.org/2023-12-18/how-big-oil-helped-push-the-idea-of-a-carbon-footprint

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (2 children)

vote

Stopped reading right there.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago (2 children)

No shit, right? Cuz, I mean, it's clearly making a difference and all, just look at the graph! 🙃

I feel like I'm taking fucking crazy pills anymore, i swear

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

The whole point is that not enough people are voting. Look at how many people stayed home in the most recent US election.

What I'm trying to say if people wanted to make a big impact on climate change they should organize and rally around people who want to stop climate change.

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

I mean, you got a better, actionable, idea?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

But you could have gotten to the NPR link.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago

politicians who take climate change seriously

lol

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

Incapable until directly affected

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

There is no dent at all. 3+ppm increase in CO2 is faster than 10 year average. Even as energy transition is progressing globally, war on Russia, forest fires and drought is going to make emissions sticky.

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