this post was submitted on 17 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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[–] juliebean@lemm.ee 14 points 11 months ago

one thing they don't mention in this article, is that bikes also cause essentially no wear and tear on road surfaces compared to cars and trucks, and re-paving is a pretty oil intensive and expensive process. the long term oil savings of reducing car usage in favor of bikes should therefore be even greater than their numbers suggest.

[–] Roastchicken@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Anyone know what bike that is? Edit: looks like a Eunorau cargo bike

[–] thejevans@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 year ago

The top photo is a Tern GSD or HSD

[–] NathanNayte@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 year ago

Décathlon have a similar one.

[–] lntl@lemmy.ml 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

they're illegal on the US interstate system. i don't say this because i think riding from Chicago to NYC on a ebike would be fun or is a good idea but because lots of people use the interstate to go one of two exits from the suburbs into the city.

the interstate system needs a bike lane

[–] bassad@jlai.lu 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yes, or a nice "green lane" separated from interstate but as efficient.

In Europe we layed out intercity bikelanes on secondary roads, it is very efficient as there are less traffic lights than roads.

Plus, I would prefer not to breathe gas vapors and tires wear during my daily commute, especially with kids to bring to school or activities

[–] lntl@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago

In America, we layed out highways to segregate and displace minorities and maximize economic gains related to the consumption of oil.

[–] CCatMan@lemmy.one 2 points 11 months ago

Riding a bike on I-95 would be miserable due to the noise and wind, but also amazing biking past all the traffic.

[–] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

NGL I'm really close to convincing myself to buy an electric bike

In all honesty I'll probably do it this spring once there's less ice

The cycling infrastructure sucks where I'm at so weather is something I have to factor for

But even riding it only 2-3 days a week it'd pay for itself surprisingly quickly in gas savings

[–] LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

How far do you travel and how much is your gas that you're going to save 5 or $600 quickly on 2-3 days a week?

[–] bluGill@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

It is reasonable to save $5/day on gas alone. So $1000/5 = 200 days, or 100 weeks. That is just on gas savings alone, you will save on maintenance costs as well.

If you can get rid of a car completely, then there is much more because you are not paying insurance and license fees (these are generally fixed costs that you pay even if you don't drive), and most people don't have a paid off car so even more savings (plus the income from selling the car).

Note that I said sell one car, not all cars. Most families have more than one car, so bikes can enable you to keep one car for those trips where the bike won't work, and be majority bike. (this is important to point out as you don't want people to feel like there is a war on their cars)]

I haven't tried to quantify the health benefits of a bike, but they are there too.