this post was submitted on 11 Feb 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] 39 points 9 months ago (2 children)

We're barreling headlong toward global famine but, sure, it's the environmentalists that want to make you eat bugs.

I suppose they are, in the sense that they want everyone to be able to eat...

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago

The reason doesn't matter. It's an emotion thing.

Reading to children is great. Drag Queens reading to children is horrible!

Adopting children is great. But if it's gay couples it's terrible!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Environmentalists want you to eat legumes.

Green capitalists want you to eat insects.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago

“Who benefits [from renewables]?” thundered United Australia Party Senator Ralph Babet. “The globalists benefit! You don’t benefit. The Chinese Communist Party benefits!

My favorite is how they can spout absolute bullshit and never have to defend it. Their supporters make no demands of them other than to feed their fears.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"They're gonna make me eat bugs! Now let me enjoy this shrimp scampi appetizer before I have a lobster."

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Shrimps is bugs reference?

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

Shrimp are arthropods and so are bugs

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That's not how it works, but if it will encourage people to be less squeamish about eating bugs.... Sure.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How is that not how it works? Insects are arthropods. So are crustaceans, including shrimp. Is it because they live on land that makes people squeamish?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Insects are arthropods but it doesn't mean all arthropods are insects. Much like how squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

"Bugs" is a generic term for everything from insects to arachnids and other things like Pillbugs - a crustacean and close relative of shrimp. Aquatic crustaceans may not typically be included, but the point is the distinction is arbitrary.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

You're really stretching here.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Is there any argument to be made that edible crustaceans aren't bugs that doesn't boil down to 'ew gross'? I simply don't see how this is a stretch in any way.

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

Absolutely. 'Bug' refers to insects (and, more colloquially, some other small invertebrates such as spiders and centipedes). Crustaceans are not insects.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Crustaceans are as closely related to insects as spiders and centipedes are. You're splitting antennae here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I doubt that pill bugs taste like lobster, despite the minor similarities.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

150 years ago Lobster was considered disgusting trash food only eaten by the poorest Americans. This isn't about taste, it's about perception and the availability of meat. The main difference between a Pillbug and a shrimp (in terms of edibility) is the size. Most small bugs don't have enough meat to be worth preparing in a way where it's not obvious you're eating a bug. It's pretty much just aquatic arthropods that can escape the limitations of air breathing to get large enough to be a more appetizing food source.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

That's a highly exaggerated myth.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I doubt that pill bugs taste like lobster, despite the minor similarities.

Shrimp.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago

Yes, but if some arthropods are edible then it makes sense that others are edible.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

So they are going to make us eat bugs!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago (2 children)

And that's why we can't wait for boomers to die.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

You are going to be sorely disappointed when that doesn't solve our problem and people remain people. Ever spoken to a young liberal?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Or anyone that uses Facebook or any other platform of misinformation. There are some fucked up 20 year old climate change deniers at my work and I work in the environmental industry! What are they doing there?!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Psychological warfare victims

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

And that’s why we can’t wait for boomers to die.

You are going to be sorely disappointed when that doesn’t solve our problem

No, see... we'll get to eat the boomers.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Neither Bernie Sanders nor Donald Trump are boomers, yet they are basically as different as people can be.

Much is being made of the climate denialists, anti-vaxers, anti-trans, and white supremacists. Take a look at their membership and the people who show up to the marches. The vast majority are younger than boomers.

To put some more names on the non-boomers seemingly intent on destroying society: Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Pierre Pollievre (looking like he might be Canada's next Prime Minister).

I'm under no illusions regarding the damage that my generation has done, but let's be clear: it's the stupid and the rich, powerful, greedy, and just generally miserable excuses for human beings in every generation ever that have wrecked the world and continue to do so.

Whoever came up with "generational psychology" must have been intent on finding yet more ways to divide and conquer. We need solidarity of purpose, not infighting based on artificial or statistical constructs.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Bugs are alright man, I've had several different preparations and enjoyed most of them. The ice cream was particularly good! Though I am not enthusiastic about trying the roach bars from Snowpiercer the way these fearmongers would like you to conceive of entomophagy. A total ecological collapse would have many more things to worry about than just your nutritional sources.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

aye, no idea what the fuss is about. had grasshoppers and mealworms as snacks. nothing mind-blowing but surprisingly tasty for all the infamy. salty snacks, so went great with beer. turn them into flour and use for falafel/köfte, I'm thinking it'd probably build very well with the slight umami. bad side though would be that if you're allergic to seafood, you're probably allergic to these critters as well

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

My only problem with insects as a necessary part of our nutrition is that it's basically the last stop before all we have left are vats and mats of algae.

When Europeans came to the east coast of what is now Canada, they were in awe of the cod. They said things like "we can walk across the sea on their backs" as a way of helping to visualize the teeming billions.

Where are the cod now? The fishery collapsed because of over harvesting. It will likely never be restored to anything like its original state, despite the pressure to kill the nonhuman predators that feed on them.

"The fishery should have been better managed" you say?

Pray tell, what were we doing with the cod? Were we killing them the way we killed bison, to make way for high-speed, high-volume transportation of freight and people, favoured species, and starve the native populations? No, unlike with bison, we were shipping cod "home" and then across the country and around the world to feed an ever growing population.

"Better management" would have meant making decisions about who got to eat and who didn't. Unlike with bison, nobody set out to destroy anything.

We're busy destroying insect populations right now, both deliberately and as a side effect of other activities. We have not yet added them to our food supply. What do you think will be the outcome of becoming dependent on them to meet our nutritional needs?

How about a prediction? As with every natural resource, some species will be favoured and farmed to the detriment of every other species. Eventually, that won't work anymore, and we'll be living off algae. And when that doesn't work anymore?

@[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I'd rather eat algae from the get go. They're plants, greens. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a big future for algae for both food (way too high in protein) and fuel. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnut.2022.1029841/full

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Of all the conspiracies. Like we live in a nightmare dystopia and are still largely unfree. you have to keep running to stay in place and everything is set up for the bourgeois.

But yeah sure, the kinda ineffective body begging people to not destroy the world is a malignant shadowy conspiracy pulling all the strings for... something?

We have never reduced year or year emissions so far, some conspiracy lmao.