this post was submitted on 29 Aug 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] 43 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm 38 and I think I'll see this in my lifetime.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Imagine being 10 years younger... Smh

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Bit younger than that but hi. There's a reason I'm not having kids

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

am teenager ._.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

It's a brutal contrast of the world we grew up in , the only certainty seems to be that the next year will be worse than the last , and death . Which doesn't seem so bad all things considered.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Same! Woooo! Let's ride this turd to hell!

[–] [email protected] 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Reminds me of a bit that George Carlin did regarding climate change: “The planet’s gonna be fine. The people are FUCKED!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Just want to point out for all the people who say things like "We didn't know how bad it would be..." George did that bit in 1992, and everybody knew exactly what he meant. Jimmy Carter warned of climate change while he was president.

We've known for nearly 50 years, and we did almost nothing to stop it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Sounds conservative to me. I feel like to cap it to a billion we'd need massive agriculture overhaul and renewable energy investment, and neither of those are valued in profit or political capital.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It will be a few more than that. The global demand for fresh water will be 40% over capacity by 2030, if we even make it that long.

We're losing massive amounts of polar ice daily and if the next 5 years are as hot as 2023, the Blue Ocean Event will happen in 2027.

Source on ice loss in weight.

Another on ice loss with km sq.

What the Blue Ocean Event is

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

27,000 deaths a day approximately. According to the WHO 150,000 people die every day right now. 385,000 people are born every day. I mean it sounds bad, but in this context it doesn't sound that bad....

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Exactly, and it's not like it's going to be me dying. It will be someone else. Thanks to denial, I'm immortal.

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

Don't look up

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

Yeah, honestly I think the estimate may be low, or perhaps white the death toll is not what is expected the actual quality of life is going to take a huge bit.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

@ConfuzedAZ "385,000 people are born every day"

For now

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

Yeah. Don't blame people at all for not having kids. Frankly the planet probably needs less humans.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The planet can absolutely support more humans.

We'd just have to be something that even halfway resembles responsible about it. Good luck with that part

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

The planet can absolutely support more humans.

As the world becomes more industrialized and its citizens desire more of the "first world life", I'm starting to be wary of that view.

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

I can't imagine that birth rate keeping up much longer.

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

Causing 15% of deaths is a big deal. Maybe not as much a big deal as Doomsday Next Tuesday, but a big deal nevertheless.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You cannot compare this number and the current population. It's not the same unit. We have humans/time and humans.

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

What are the most likely causes of death? Are we talking average life expectancy drops by a couple of years, but quality of life remains constant? Or are we talking famine and war due to a loss of areable land?

I assume it’s a little of both, but it’s useful to know which sides the scales tip.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

It's an estimate of premature deaths based on CO2 emissions.

"Pearce and Parncutt found the peer-reviewed literature on the human mortality costs of carbon emissions converged on the "1,000-ton rule," which is an estimate that one future premature death is caused every time approximately 1,000 tons of fossil carbon are burned.

"Energy numbers like megawatts mean something to energy engineers like me, but not to most people. Similarly, when climate scientists talk about parts per million of carbon dioxide, that doesn't mean anything to most people. A few degrees of average temperature rise are not intuitive either. Body count, however, is something we all understand," said Pearce, a Western Engineering and Ivey Business School professor.

"If you take the scientific consensus of the 1,000-ton rule seriously, and run the numbers, anthropogenic global warming equates to a billion premature dead bodies over the next century. Obviously, we have to act. And we have to act fast.""

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Afaikt the paper refernced in the article is The Human Cost of Anthropogenic Global Warming: Semi-Quantitative Prediction and the 1,000-Tonne Rule. .

From the abstract:

The carbon budget for 2°C AGW (roughly 10^12 tonnes carbon) will indirectly cause roughly 10^9 future premature deaths (10% of projected maximum global population), spread over one to two centuries.

The key part of this being that it specifies 2C of warming. According to the climate action tracker, with current policies are on track for 2.7 degrees of warming by 2100. So assuming no further polices to move back to 2C or less, the 1 billion deaths could be larger.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

This doesn't account for the fear of rich humans as the poorer humans aggressively seek relief and/or completely justified revenge.

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

That sounds low enough to ensure a dystopian future. It could be much higher and still get there easily.