this post was submitted on 30 May 2026
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Climate

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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:

Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.

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Which of your climate actions make the biggest difference? Here’s how to find out (theconversation.com)
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[–] BorgDrone@feddit.nl 0 points 1 day ago

You cannot have a human that has zero environmental footprint. The world population has exploded over the last 100 years. There is no point in lowering your ecological footprint if we’re outbreeding any progress in a few year time.

But if you're going to drive giant trucks powered by oil, eat red meat every day with a glass of milk, use and abuse plastic for everything, and be a massive consumerist, then sure

You misunderstand the scale of the difference. You can do everything in your power to lower your ecological footprint, recycle at your optimum, don’t eat meat, get rid of your car and only use a bike and public transport, etc. etc. If you have 2 kids and teach them to do the same your ecological footprint will still be many times higher than someone who eats steak every day and drives 3 hummers to work while rolling coal and throwing styrofoam pellets out the window. It’s that big of a difference.

A few numbers to illustrate, the savings in tonnes of co2 equivalent per year.

  • recycle: 0.21 tonnes
  • replace car with hybrid: 0.51 tonnes
  • eat a plant-based diet: 0.82 tonnes
  • only use green energy: 1.47 tonnes
  • live completely car-free: 2.4 tonnes
  • have 1 child less: 58.6 tonnes

It’s not just your kids, it’s also your kid’s kids, and your kid’s kid’s kids’s. etc.