this post was submitted on 01 Sep 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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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

They can limit their own greenhouse gas emissions, by doing things like subsidizing the conversion of homes which currently use fossil fuels for heating, hot water heating, and cooking to not do so, as well as subsidize solar panels on home roofs.

This won't lower temperatures from where they are now, but it does reduce the future increase.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Also, it let's people know the issue is serious. If places like Florida that are suffering the effects of climate change already don't take it seriously, when it's to their benefit now, why should other places do anything when it doesn't affect them yet.

Of course they should, and it will.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In all honesty, it sounds nice and I am not against the idea, but I really have a hard time seeing it having any measurable effect.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Each tiny drop on its own raises the water level an imperceptible amout. Together they fill a lake

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If they would extract heat from the air or even the water, it would actually help. Not by leaps and bounds but it would at least be carbon negative.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not to any meaningful degree: the heating from CO2 emitted when your burn coal for energy is about 100000x more than the heat produced from the burning.

That's why the big action which needs to happen is to stop burning fossil fuels.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I was thinking about heat pumps. 300% efficiency

They are electric and could be carbon negative depending on the source of electricity

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Unless it's BECCS, the best they're going to be is not adding CO2 to the atmosphere. That's better than burning stuff, but not actually removing CO2