this post was submitted on 02 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:

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I tried to live for 24 hours without using oil-based products. It was ridiculously impossible (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[–] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 70 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Interesting read.

I think what she is missing here though is the relative quantities of the petroleum and carbon involved. Using a bamboo toothbrush or even a polyruethane foam matress is totally neglectible if you still use planes, daily drive a car, or regularly eat meat.

Decarbonization is a numbers game.

But yes, we should become more aware how much is made from plastic and is not really needed. Especially packaging.

[–] pomegranatefern@sh.itjust.works 50 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

To paraphrase a saying from memory, it is better to have 100 people doing zero petroleum imperfectly than 10 people doing it perfectly.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 31 points 3 weeks ago

Save the oil we have for things that actually kinda need it, at least stop burning it for personal transport.

[–] superfes@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago

Agreed, additionally, reusable products count towards sustainability, or at least I'd like to think it helps some.

[–] ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Why does meat use oil, except for cooking?

[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.vg 10 points 3 weeks ago

The whole production process from growing plants down to delivering it to the last commercial freezer.

Here's a podcast introduction to this (several episodes): https://www.tabledebates.org/fueltofork

[–] KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 6 points 3 weeks ago

Not OP but pretty sure the implication is that the carbon foorprint from eating meat is ridiculously higher than what you'd save through either of the two examples they gave. Had nothing to do with oil, but they mention petroleum and carbon.

[–] Sheldan@lemmy.world 42 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

This is like oil propaganda.

I remember a 'not just bikes' video on which he showed a video from the 80-90s that was literally this setup: a teenager suddenly has to live without oil products, and they pick specific large impact things to get the pre determined result: the teenager is happy for all the oil products.

Yes, we are using it for a lot of different things. A lot of industries just don't want to find some large scale replacement, because why would they without incentives. We do have alternatives for a lot of things, just not mass produced or optimized. The goal should not be to get rid of it completely (because that is incredibly hard, and might be overly complex), the goal is to get rid of things as much as possible and some products primarily, because burning petroleum is probably the most stupid way of usage.

[–] plactagonic@sopuli.xyz 32 points 3 weeks ago

You probably mean this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVrg5eRJVTA

And yes burning it as fuel is the most stupid way of using it. The message shouldn't be "We can't live without it" but "If it is soooo useful, why we just burn it?"

[–] teslekova@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I think it's a fascinating premise, and it should be discussed more widely. Clearly she is making a point about what we use oil for that isn't massively contributing to climate change. Clearly the goal should still be to stop burning the stuff, and the methane that is produced as a byproduct of petroleum distillation in such great quantities that most of it is just set on fire.

But using it in plastic packaging isn't so straightforwardly bad. It's a huge volume of waste, yes, and it is burned in many places around the world, making it a carbon pollutant. However, if it is stuck in landfill, it largely stays there and does not increase atmospheric carbon levels, certainly not to the extent that burning fossil fuels does.

If we can solve the microplastic problem, which doesn't seem impossible, and if we can make sure it mostly ends up in landfill instead of littering the environment (which is a big ask) there's no reason plastics cannot be derived from oil for a long time to come, and not do that much harm.

This will allow us to minimise the damage we cause before we develop the ability to cheaply make plastics from the atmosphere itself, through bioplastics or directly through some chemical synthesis.

Even with carbon-neutral plastic production, we will still need to not litter it all over the place, because it won't degrade immediately. So we should definitely work on that with current plastics too.

[–] nymnympseudonym@piefed.social 3 points 3 weeks ago

TBH microplastics worry me a lot more than CO2

[–] vividspecter@aussie.zone 4 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

I'm now realising that the Simpsons zinc video was probably a parody of said oil propaganda video.

EDIT: The oil video was later by the looks of it. Life imitates art?

[–] phutatorius@lemmy.zip 8 points 3 weeks ago

Long-lasting items are less impactful than short-lived items such as fuel.

[–] StillAlive@piefed.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Fertilisers are made from oil. Kinda hard to eat something that is grown without fertilisers.

[–] Sheldan@lemmy.world 15 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

There are fertilizers without oil production, it's just not scaleable in comparison and fell out of favor due to other stuff. But organic products without these kinds of fertilizers exist.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Then you get into herbicides and pesticides, both of which are majority oil. Even organic products use propane to control weeds.

[–] Sheldan@lemmy.world 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't think they use these two particular things, but different countries have different Standards. If you want to go that route, they also use tractors or other machinery using oil in some capacity.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Which two particular things? Organic farms use propane because they have to burn the weeds, they can’t do it any other way.

[–] Sheldan@lemmy.world 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

There are other ways, in general.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 1 points 3 weeks ago

What other ways?

[–] jafra@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 weeks ago

Propane isn't the problem, at least here in germany. I used burning weeds only for some irrelevant cosmetic weed control.

But preparing the soil was done with a small 2cycles mortiser.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Everything I grow is without synthetic fertilisers. Though not easy to scale up.

Is it made of oil? Thought it was gas to produce the hydrogen, so it's only used because it's currently cheaper.

As renewable production ramps up and we get more time with free/very cheap energy, that might change the economics behind hydrogen production. So at least from a technical perspective it should be a fairly easy one to move off fossil fuels once we have more alternative energy sources.

[–] veganpizza69@lemmy.vg 7 points 3 weeks ago

The plastic is stuff is even weirder when you realize how useful it is -- meanwhile most of that oil is turned into fuel to be burned away.