this post was submitted on 22 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.

Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:

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Why Britain Is Struggling With Nuclear Power | The government wants more nuclear plants to help tackle climate change, but delays and soaring costs are complicating the effort. (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 8 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[–] OmnipotentEntity@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

We don't have to choose between solar now and nuclear later. We can do both. Perhaps it's the case that the best time to build a fleet of new nuclear power plants was 15 years ago. But the second best time is now.

[–] JoBo@feddit.uk 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Fifteen years ago we would never have dreamed that renewables would work so well. Fifteen years ago we would not have known what to spend the money on instead. Now we do and more renewables make much more sense.

[–] OmnipotentEntity@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Can you honestly tell me, in your heart of hearts, that you truly think by 2039 the US will be supermajority solar and wind power and that the nuclear power plants coming online won't be useful to displace the remaining coal plants?

[–] JoBo@feddit.uk 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Of course they'll be useful. Because the money spent on them was not spent on renewables. Renewables would be a bigger, better, and quicker return on investment.

[–] OmnipotentEntity@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago

Well, realistically, what we're doing now is much closer to what you want than to what I want, so I earnestly hope you're right, and I don't have to say I told you so.