this post was submitted on 03 Dec 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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US joins in other nations in swearing off coal power to clean the climate (apnews.com)
submitted 11 months ago by silence7 to c/climate
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[–] MrMakabar 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If the alternatives are cheaper then it will change. Coal is mostly used to produce electricity, so when solar and wind can compete they will start lobbying as well against coal as a competitor. Combined with citizens working towards and end of it, that can really change something. That is also true for things like evs and oil, gas heating and heat pumps and so forth.

[–] sonori@beehaw.org 3 points 11 months ago

Except money is not the only factor. Solar and Wind may be cheaper, but they are paid for upfront while oil and gas are effectively subscription based. Nations and companies like having the ability to cut off and sanction poorer country’s power grid for instance, since even just the threat of it can keep them from doing anything too radical. While it may be a factor in politics, i really don’t see OPEC and the executives of major oil companies letting go of that power lightly.