this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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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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[–] spongebue@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

It takes less energy to move heat than it does to produce it. A heat pump basically runs an air conditioner backwards, so rather than moving heat from inside a structure to outside, it moves heat from outside to in. With the right units, this works even in cold weather for the same reason a freezer gets warm on the outside - it's moving heat from inside the (freezing) unit out.

Geothermal energy takes this concept a step further by putting the outside unit underground. Underground temperatures are more stable and moderate, so it's easier (more efficient) to expel/collect heat, but also much more involved to install.