this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2025
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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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Help Me Comprehensively Understand The "Big Picture". (lemmy.ca)
submitted 1 month ago by Canconda@lemmy.ca to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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There's just too much going on for any one person to understand it all. Never mind accounting for the geopolitical, economic, and cultural factors of every situation. Than there's the rapidly changing contexts. New technology, new science and physics, new species of bacteria/fungai. Rediscovering of ancient practices. Regional problems and solutions. I could go on and on.

I advocate for "futuristic solutions" but I acknowledge that transition will not be overnight or always linear.

So what is going on out there? That's what I'm asking c/climate@slrpnk

  • What's going on in your local region / etc and what is the political or economic context.

  • Which solutions are being implemented or developed

  • Who is organizing and leading their community towards solutions

...

As a Canadian I'm aware that we're expanding our LNG/Fracking, mineral mining, and oil... First Nations groups are providing some pushback against those projects, but we can't expect them to hold the line on ecological protection (There's a clear fiscal incentive for them to give in).

https://davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/top-10-reasons-to-say-no-to-lng-in-b-c/

https://www.ief.org/news/how-to-make-mining-more-sustainable#%3A%7E%3Atext=The+mining+industry+has+identified%2Cand+efficiently+can+prevent+disasters.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/leaders-french-debate-indigenous-pipelines-1.7513421

Canada also has and ongoing protest to stop old growth forest logging, which has gotten out of control. I honestly don't know what to think about our forest management, because I'm under the impression that logging can be done in an environmentally friendly way; but it isn't.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_Creek_old-growth_logging_protests

https://naturecanada.ca/news/press-releases/logging-emerges-as-canadas-third-largest-climate-polluter/#%3A%7E%3Atext=Unceded+Algonquin+Territory+%E2%80%94+Ottawa%2C+ON%2Ca+2024+peer-reviewed+article.

Canada also has a lot of old hydro-electric dams which are bad for the rivers and their immediate environment. https://www.ucs.org/resources/environmental-impacts-hydroelectric-power

I'm hopeful Canada's growing role as a global commodity supplier will allow us to set higher international environmental standards.

I've also read online that there are already climate refugees from both rising oceans and regional droughts upending agriculture in the middle east.

https://www.climate-refugees.org/why

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/from-bad-to-worse-climate-migration-in-middle-east

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[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 6 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The big picture:

What we need to do

  • Generate all electricity without burning stuff
  • convert things that currently burn stuff to run on electricity
  • stop doing the things we can't electrify
  • substitute a few industrial gases

How we are doing

  • we know how to do the electric generation, with wind, solar, storage, and a bit of geothermal and nuclear
  • we aren't making that switch fast enough, and the US in particular now has policies to slow things down even more
  • weve figured out how to do transport and steel making without fossil fuels and it works
  • same as above, not moving fast enough in much of the world
  • emissions are increasing more slowly than they would have without the effort, but we are ona trajectory which makes loss of major ecosystems quite likely and threatens the viability of agriculture as a basis for civilization
[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

stop doing the things we can't electrify

Or eliminate the problem in the first place. For instance walkable cities reducing transportation demand overall.

substitute a few industrial gases

What and why?

steel making without fossil fuels and it works

This is interesting! Can you please elaborate or provide a link? Where is it being adopted?

emissions are increasing more slowly than they would have without the effort, but we are ona trajectory which makes loss of major ecosystems quite likely and threatens the viability of agriculture as a basis for civilization

This is where I'm coming from. Outdoor agriculture is both harming the planet and about to become significantly less viable as the planet heats up.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

As far as industrial gases, there mostly ones with fluorine in them. SF₆ and refrigerant are the biggies.

For steel, the big one that exists at pilot scale is the use of hydrogen to reduce ore instead of carbon. Seems to work OK and makes a good enough product for most use.

Indoor farming only really is viable for specialty crops like drugs and a few vegetables. I dont expect to see it used for the grains that feed most of the population. The room to lower the amount of agriculture comes from reducing meat consumption and the use of food crops as motor vehicle fuel.

[–] PoisonedPrisonPanda@discuss.tchncs.de 3 points 1 month ago

technical readiness level for hydrogen production is lacking. adoption is slowed down by chicken egg problem (steam methane reforming vs pyrolysis/electrolysis)

but yeah. I sign your points.

[–] Canconda@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago

pilot scale is the use of hydrogen to reduce ore instead of carbon

Ooh it's being done in Canada! https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/arcelormittal-dofasco-decarbonization-update-1.7309360

Indoor farming only really is viable for specialty crops like drugs and a few vegetables.

Yes and no. I garden. Hydroponically grown produce in my experience is higher quality, has long shelf life, and grows significantly faster. While cash crop commercial scaling may not be viable outside select crops, smaller household grows certainly are.

I fully agree though that mitigating livestock cultivation and biofuels are our biggest opportunities at present.