this post was submitted on 11 Oct 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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How oil companies put the responsibility for climate change on consumers (theconversation.com)
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[–] Track_Shovel@slrpnk.net 0 points 1 year ago

Surprise surprise, I show up in a thread like this.

Lets get to it, shall we?

One particularly significant rhetorical strategy the oil industry has adopted is to place responsibility for climate change mitigation and adaptation on the individual.

It's classic divide and conquer. The whole argument is bullshit. It's like blaming someone for lighting a candle seconds before someone else throws a Molotov at their house.

Over the past three decades, the five biggest U.S. oil companies have spent more than US$3 billion on marketing and donations to boost their communications with the general public and political decision-makers.

Of course they have. I spoke a bit a few weeks back about how corporate reputation is a key driver to change, and a major consideration in how companies operate. This one has it added driver of political/regulatory influence.

Greenwashing” enables them to turn their role on its head and present themselves as genuine environmental saviours by investing in coastal restoration and promoting an eco-responsible, community-based industry.

Good! They should invest! It's a sign that reputational pressure is working! What we need to get good at here, is not buying the shit they sell in terms of results. Oh cool! You restored 0.023 ha of coastline and it worked well. Golf clap. Instead of eating their story up, we should say 'great we love that!, now what about the rest of the coast?'

Our influence is small, and individually we can't change them, but enough people calling them out and calling for specific changes and projects can drive them to consider further investment.