this post was submitted on 18 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.

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To be clear: there's a night-and-day difference between Biden and Trump, with the former having actually taking significant action, and being likely to take more if reelected. Trump will look to maximize both extraction and consumption of fossil fuels in a way that Biden simply didn't and won't.

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[–] hglman@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You're correct. Anyone spinning the "lesser of two evils" about climate change does not understand the risks. Inaction today will kill millions. Biden's half-measures are fundamentally inadequate, and as you said, pretending otherwise is delusion or malice.

Climate change is the most severe threat to the safety of everyone everywhere. To treat it with anything other than total urgency is to promote harm. If you cannot find it in you to call out the short fall of the Democratic party on this issue you are part of the problem.

[–] LibertyLizard 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Voting for the lesser of two evils can still be part of a strategy that acknowledges the inadequacy of mainstream political solutions. But it needs to be combined with other, more activist political activities.

[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I don't disagree but was responding to the use of the phrase "significant action"

As well as "night and day" when it's more like "midnight and sunset"

[–] LibertyLizard 4 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I agree. The phrasing of this “largest in history” narrative depends strongly on the fact that the US has done almost nothing to address climate change historically. This should be thoughtfully criticized but I worry this will discourage people into thinking that nothing can be done.