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:

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

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There has always been a range of estimates of how much warming we'll get for a given amount of dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. What I think is going on is that as we get closer to the boundaries of maybe-not-crashing-civilization levels of warming, the consequences of reality matching one estimate or another has become salient.

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Your choices do not exist in a vacuum. Earth is an interconnected community of living and non-living things says ethicist Patrick Effiong Ben of the University of Manchester. African philosophers like Jonathan Chimakonam and Aïda Terblanché-Greeff have a helpful concept for thinking through the weightiness of your decisions: complementarity.

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Collection of the basic data about temperature, pressure, precipitation and the likes that goes into weather forecasts and becomes climate data is an inherently international affair.

Archived copy of the article

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Recovering South Korean shopaholic-turned-climate activist Lee So-yeon used to buy new clothes almost daily – until a $1.50 winter coat triggered an awakening that stopped her shopping entirely.

While looking at the ultra-cheap padded jacket at an H&M shop in the United States, where she was working at the time, Lee asked herself how any item of clothing could be sold so cheaply.

The 30-year-old embarked on a deep dive into fast fashion production methods and was horrified at the human, social and environmental toll hyperconsumerism is having on the planet – and on the mental health of women who make and buy cheap clothes.

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The reason the clothes are so cheap, Lee learned, is because the women who sew for companies are paid little, while the business model itself is causing significant environmental harm.

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Lee now organises clothing swaps with her friends and family, and has written a book to promote the idea of valuing garments for “the story behind it”, rather than chasing ephemeral trends.

She is part of a small but growing global movement seeking to promote second-hand clothing and help people – especially women – opt out of the cycle of over-consumption.

The app Lucky Sweater provides a platform for users to trade items from their closets with each other, focussing on sustainable brands, founder Tanya Dastyar [said].

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This post uses a gift link which may have a view count limit. When it runs out, there's an archived copy of the article available

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The newly installed director of the Energy Department’s loan program, John Sneed, told agency officials in a meeting last week the effort will be retooled to focus on technologies favored by the new administration such as nuclear power and liquefied natural gas, according to the person who wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

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As the Trump administration moves to shutter international humanitarian aid efforts, a host of environmental and climate programs have also been impacted.

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