this post was submitted on 12 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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U.S. Bets on Small Nuclear Reactors to Help Fix a Huge Climate Problem (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 11 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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In a major setback last week, the first serious effort to build small reactors in the United States was abruptly canceled amid soaring costs. While other projects are still moving forward, the industry has consistently struggled to build plants on time and on budget.

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[–] lntl@lemmy.ml 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

it's strange that we have money to subsidize aviation fuel, motor vehicle production/use, natural gas extraction, funding wars in foreign land, etc

but we don't have money for this

it's just strange

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It is producing electricity just like solar and wind turbines. Both of which are profitable today. So it would be smarter to use government money for some green projects without a viable cheaper alternative. That is also happening on a fairly large scale.

[–] lntl@lemmy.ml -1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I think you missed the point, why's cheaper even a thing?

[–] MrMakabar@slrpnk.net 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The green transition is the biggest transformation of the worlds energy system in human history. We have to replace huge parts of the electricity system, transportation, materials with stuff like plastics, heating of our homes and change the food system across the world.

Obviously parts of that stand, but emissions are still going up, so we are clearly not doing enough. So we need to put more resources into it and we have to do it in a smarter way. We are nearly at a collapse situation, so especially rich countries have to think about shrinking the economy to not emit as much anymore. Wasting time and resources is just not a thing we have the luxury of today.

[–] lntl@lemmy.ml 0 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

there's this idea that we have to be frugal and fiscally conservative when addressing the climate. when it comes to subsidizing war, fossil fuels, and motor vehicle use a different argument applies.

that's the point.

we don't need to be fiscally conservative with respect to the atmosphere. it's too important