this post was submitted on 20 Dec 2023
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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.

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In a win for the climate, urban speed limits are dropping | Slower traffic speeds protect pedestrians and cyclists, helping more people access climate-friendly transportation. (yaleclimateconnections.org)
submitted 10 months ago by silence7 to c/climate
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[–] frankPodmore 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You're right that we need more than just lower speed limits, and the article acknowledges that.

That said, lower speed limits are a good place to start. They make roads safer and also make them feel safer, which encourages more walking and cycling. With more walking and cycling, you have more people using the associated infrastructure and it's then easier to advocate for more of it.

[–] bigschnitz@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I couldn't disagree more. A better place to start would be outlawing yank tanks and vehicles that immediately kill pedestrians and cyclists even at low speeds. Reducing the speed limit from 50 hm/h to 40km/h literally does nothing for cyclist safety if they are hit by an SUV, nor does it address that larger vehicles have inadequate visibility and reducing speed limits without changing road design will likely increase distracted driving.

Removing vehicle capacity without providing a viable alternative will not reduce number of vehicles committing but will increase unpredictable behavior, the best option is to provide an alternative to driving first, once that is established, you can add disincentives for driving.

[–] frankPodmore 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think we broadly agree here! I think lower speed limits are an incentive to walk or cycle. Collisions at lower speeds are significantly less dangerous, and roads with lower speed limits feel a lot safer, too.

Lower speed limits are also not really a disincentive to drive, because they don't make journey times much slower. And, of course, they make things safer for motorists, too.

I totally agree that you need to introduce whole packages of measures. Speed limits are an important measure, but not the only one, and not the most important.

[–] bigschnitz@lemmy.world 2 points 10 months ago

Yeah we absolutely agree talking big picture! I meant I couldn't disagree more with the place to start haha.