this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2026
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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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Nation’s Largest Reservoirs Are Drying Up, Threatening Life in the Southwest (www.nytimes.com)
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Agriculture is the biggest user of the Colorado River, with alfalfa and other sources of livestock feed accounting for nearly half of the water consumed. Municipal water systems use about a quarter.

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[–] Kind_to_Everyone@slrpnk.net 2 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

"They" is also the Saudi government which uses the water to grow alfalfa necessary to raise dairy cattle.

[–] ToastedRavioli@midwest.social 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I thought the Saudis grew Alfalfa in the US to send back to SA for fancy horses IIRC. Not even for cattle that will be eaten

[–] The_v@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

600,000 dairy cows...

https://dairynews.today/milkypedia/country/sa/

They built up the herd size by growing alfalfa in the desert by pumping water from ancient aquifers. They have used up a significant portion and now import over 80% of their feed. They need to import 100% of the feed to meet their needs as their water dries up.

They bought ground in Arizona because it is grown in conditions like what they have experience with. They have been using the same alfalfa varieties.