this post was submitted on 05 May 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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[–] Mighty@lemmy.world 67 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Surely it's the shoppers fault. Can't be the fault of a system that rewards companies doing the most evil shit possible

[–] mojo_raisin@lemmy.world 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

False dichotomy, it's all of our fault. We are all perpetuators of the system, some small, some large. Just like with cocaine, placing all the blame on the producers and ignoring the massive demand and the reasons for it isn't how drug problems are solved.

For things to change, we all need to change, if your effect is small because you're just a person, the needed change is small, like buying less and making better choices. If you're a large perpetuator like a company, the needed change is large, up to and including stopping or radically altering operations because they are fundamentally unsustainable (e.g. Exxon).

In a capitalist world, if there's a demand it will be supplied consequences be damned.

[–] Mighty@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

You're right, of course. But people want to be convenient. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. If the most convenient path is one that funds "unseen" human misery and climate catastrophe, that's still gonna be the path a lot of people are gonna take. Especially if it results in the lowest costs. With the majority of people earning little money, the effect is gonna be predictable.

"Demand" is a very sketchy concept. People are gonna want what they can easily get. So the best solution is to penalize the negative production chains and reward the positives.