this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
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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:

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Biden’s green energy law is turning out to be huge (finance.yahoo.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're technically correct on the surface. But people who get an EV are also probably more likely to get solar in their roof to charge that EV. I think your point though is that some states (I think Idaho?) power homes with fossil fuels, and buying an EV there will give the illusion of making a difference when it's really about the same.

I don't think most states are as bad as that though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think your point though is that some states (I think Idaho?) power homes with fossil fuels

what? The US in general gets most of its electricity from fossil fuels by a huge margin.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The US is about 60/40 fossil vs non-fossil, with much better ratios in the places that the most EVs are being sold right now. This is also likely to greatly improve over the useful life of any new vehicle sold today.

On top of that, EVs are much more efficient at turning electricity into motion than fossil cars are in turning gasoline into motion, so you end up with a reduction in emissions even in fossil-fuel-heavy parts of the US.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

As an EV owner, I don't have solar panels but I do have a 100% renewable electricity provider. I have a feeling a good portion of EV owners do something similar, either with solar, 100% renewable electricity, or both