this post was submitted on 22 Jul 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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[–] HappyMeatbag@beehaw.org 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Not “forcing”, no. Nobody has shown up at my home with a gun, and demanded that I buy a new car. It’s “only” strongly encouraged by the consumerism that corporate interests have made sure is prevalent in society.

Corporations could have invested more in fuel efficiency, alternate fuels, and electric vehicles, but haven’t. They could stop lobbying in favor of policies that are against the public interest. The government could take a much tougher stance on this, but it’s too corrupt.

Maybe they haven’t “forced” us. They’ve just gone out of their way to reduce our choices.

[–] Ni@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

I think you can have cultures, cities and places built to encourage non car use. We have a lot more of it here in the UK, especially with public transport. It doesn't seem quite so simple with the sheer distances in a lot of America.

We do need to build lives that are compatible with a healthy environment and life.

[–] monobot@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I agree it us not simple problem, but corporations will do anything to earn money. Their goal is not to destroy nature, but just to get more money.

If people were not buying those huge cars, they would not build them. Not to mention that I think we should forbid them or heavy tax them.