this post was submitted on 16 Nov 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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Controversies of carbon dioxide removal (www.nature.com)
submitted 1 year ago by anzich@feddit.de to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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Various methods of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) are being pursued in response to the climate crisis, but they are mostly not proven at scale. Climate experts are divided over whether CDR is a necessary requirement or a dangerous distraction from limiting emissions. In this Viewpoint, six experts offer their views on the CDR debate.

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[–] Dogyote@slrpnk.net 5 points 1 year ago

This is really something that we need to perfect. Rapidly pulling carbon out of the atmosphere and getting the level back down to a reasonable number sounds like a worthy goal (assuming CO2 removal will still have positive effects when it's fully developed). I like to think this kind of tech can be researched, implemented, and the end effects realized in 200 years. Humans may even be capable of dialing in an "ideal" CO2 ppm based on super accurate climate models.

This kind of tech should never be used as an excuse to keep burning stuff. That needs to stop asap and the excess that's already in the air needs to be removed.

Also, I'm not interested in what any doomer naysayers have to say about this. I'm invested in the future and am part of the effort, you clearly aren't. Keep your pessimism to yourself.

[–] Dagamant@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Trees. Plant trees. Keep studying other methods of CDR but plant trees. I’m sure most of these CDR things are just grant grabs to get money and appear to be helpful but they are all less efficient than just spending the money on planting trees.

[–] 768@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

Actually, do not plant every tree everywhere, because wrong trees at the wrong place might cause more emissions than regular succession.

[–] Rhaedas@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

I'm all for (re)planting forests, but for the purpose of biodiversity loss. It won't put a dent in our carbon problem. It can't...we've released millions of years of plant life carbon collection in a century. Which is why CDR is also a fallacy as a solution, it cannot scale to even balance out yearly emissions, much less what's already in the air and oceans that's driving all the problems we face.

Prediction - we as a global society won't change until we're forced to by necessity (probably scarcity of resources), and even then we'll try and fight it with measures like geoengineering to keep doing things a little longer. As individuals we just have to do the best we can locally to prepare and adapt for a changing future, don't expect help from the powers that be or some future tech that circumvents physics.

[–] mambabasa@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 year ago

  1. There will never be enough trees to absorb all the carbon emitted from fossil fuels.

  2. There isn't enough land to plant all the trees we need to capture all the carbon emissions.

  3. Planting trees in the wrong biomes would degrade the biome and release stored carbon.