this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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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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Opinion | Relax, Electric Vehicles Really Are the Best Choice for the Climate (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 10 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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We got the first to replace our 10-year-old, gas-powered Subaru, and after only two years of driving, the E.V. has created fewer emissions over its lifetime than if we had kept the old car. It will take our second E.V. only four years to create fewer emissions over its lifetime than the 2005 hybrid Prius it replaced. That’s counting the production of the batteries and the emissions from charging the E.V.s, and the emissions payback time will only continue to drop as more emissions-free wind and solar power comes onto the grid and battery technology improves.

The author of course did not look at having one less car, and substituting an ebike or mass transit for part of their driving, which would have lowered emissions by a larger amount.

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[–] Kata1yst@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

There are places in the world outside of urban spaces. Some of us even visit and/or live there.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 16 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Some of us even visit and/or live there.

"Some" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. In the US about 80% of the population is urban, which means we even if we only fix things for the urban folks and ignore the rural ones, we still solve 80% of the problem and that's pretty damn good.

Frankly, I'm really starting to get sick and tired of the "but I'm a special snowflake, what about me" rebuttal -- it's disingenuous, reactionary and misses the big picture, which is that folks with exceptional circumstances just don't fucking matter all that much, by definition. Sorry not sorry.

[–] Kata1yst@kbin.social -1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Cite your source. Pew Research reports that as of 2018 the mix was

  • 25% Urban
  • 43% Suburban (where I am)
  • 30% Rural

Which puts your entire point in the shitter, by your own logic.

Edit- And if you cite Census.gov you should be aware they don't recognize a distinction between suburban and urban, and we both know that for walking and mass transit they're entirely different worlds.