this post was submitted on 11 Sep 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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What Biden has done is to cut the issuance of drilling leases to the minimum required by law, pass the Inflation Reduction Act, enact a regulation to force vehicle electrification, and similarly force fossil fuels out of most power plants.

What Biden has not done: stop issuing drilling permits or impose export restrictions on fossil fuels. The former has some serious limits because of how the courts treat the right to drill as a property right once you hold a drilling lease, and the latter is simply untested.

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[–] pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It's doubtful curbing CO2 output will put a stop to it now. We're already seeing the beginnings of feedback loops kicking in, and with them runaway climate collapse.

[–] query@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Right, we need net zero emissions, no further destruction of nature, and then we can start doing something to undo what we've already done.

[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

There is no undoing what we’ve done. The icecaps will soon be gone and once they are gone they are gone for good

[–] Tavarin@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

The icecaps didn't always exist, and they can reform. It will take a long time mind you.

[–] pinkdrunkenelephants@sopuli.xyz -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Putting up a solar shade would artificially cool the Earth enough for the ice caps to refreeze.

We really ought to collect all of that meltwater and distribute it to drought-stricken regions anyway.