this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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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.

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Coal's share in India's power generation capacity drops below 50% for 1st time since 1960s (economictimes.indiatimes.com)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago

India has the 5th largest hydroelectric power setup in the world, mainly because had poor access to fossil fuels and their extraction technology (even though it has vast stores of coal). It also acted as a good source of water for agriculture for a chiefly agrarian economy. As of 2020, 12.3% of power came from hydro, but fell in 2024 due to lack of rainfall. Which pushed up coal usage and emissions.

Ironic how climate change might push India to be less sustainable. However India is also investing heavily is solar, wind and nuclear, mainly as a backup for fluctuating geopolitics in Asia.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Unfortunately capacity is the first step, but its a step. I'll crack open a beer when it's consumption or production...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

Agreed. India is investing in a lot of sustainable energy sources, but more pragmatic than altruistic: they want energy independence. The good PR is a happy side effect.