this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025
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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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[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 days ago (2 children)

That point was passed decades ago.

[–] Catoblepas@piefed.blahaj.zone 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This isn’t just doomerism, this is ahistorical and unscientific. Changing course in 2005 or earlier would have us in a completely different world.

Feeling despair when the planet is burning is understandable and normal, but this is a prime example of a cognitive distortion. Every ton of greenhouse gases that doesn’t enter the atmosphere is harm reduced. 2.9 degrees C is better than 3.0, which is better than 3.1, and on and on.

Most importantly, the message being given out by actual climate scientists in this very article is that action is most important now, in the next decade, not that everything is already over. Insisting we’re already cooked is like laying down to die when you can see the end of the tunnel.

[–] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 1 points 1 day ago

Completely different world, yes. Preventing irreversible climate impacts, no.

Of course the most important thing we can do from now on is always action now rather than looking back on what could have been, but IMO it's critical to the credibility of climate scientists to be honest about the damage that has already been done. Articles like these make it sound like it's all made up because the window has been "rapidly closing" since 1960.

The average life expectancy will drop by a decade compared to where it is now in 2025. It is too late to prevent that. Over a billion people will die from famine, climate disaster, or the disease and war that result from people trying to escape hunger and climate disaster. We have to make peace with that and make clear that these deaths are the result of people's inaction.

If we continue the current course for even just the next decade, life expectancy will drop by another two decades. Billions more will die. That is worth fighting to prevent with every fiber of our being.