this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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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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RELEASE: State of Climate Action Report Finds Progress Lags on Every Measure Except EV Sales (www.wri.org)
submitted 10 months ago by RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[–] MotoAsh@lemmy.world 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Oh good, the action that means the least.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 7 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Moreover, the action that's borderline-counterproductive because it helps perpetuate the car dependency we need to be moving away from.

Edit: I also wonder if the report is even bothering to include sales of electric bicycles as one of its metrics. Considering that e-bikes are actually selling quite well, I'm guessing not, which means it's a pretty big blind spot in the overall picture.

[–] HubertManne@kbin.social 4 points 10 months ago

they really should have had an ebike credit in the big environment bill.

[–] RvTV95XBeo@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

The report doesn't mention e-bikes, but while I admit I'm not super well versed in the subject, I'm guessing the industry & scientific community is still struggling to figure out how e-bike sales impact global emissions. Trading a bike mile traveled, or walked mile for an e-bike mile doesn't do much, but every VMT replaced by an e-bike is a big win.

While, as others have pointed out, EVs are the smallest possible step forward, the correlation with emissions is at least very straightforward and well studied.

It takes time to show a net decrease in VMT from e-bikes, and more impostantly that the effect is long-lasting

[–] AEMarling@slrpnk.net 3 points 10 months ago

This is why capitalism has to go. EV’s are capitalism’s solution to the climate crisis, and they are no solution at all.