this post was submitted on 05 May 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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New documents show oil executives promoted natural gas as green — but knew it wasn’t | It's the first evidence of an oil company acknowledging that gas wasn't as climate-friendly as promised. (grist.org)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago

Propane's a different thing. It's just trading in bottles. Those bottles will keep being available for a long time and are, frankly, not a major emissions source. Still one we should get rid of, but it's not a low-hanging fruit. Propane is also still one of the more climate-friendly refrigerants, so it's definitely sticking around.

As far as people in situations like that relying on fossil gas distribution infrastructure... one way or another they're going to be left holding the bag.

Electrified appliances are almost universally better for consumers both in quality and economics. Electrification and gas-free new construction will keep happening. Keep accelerating.

The infrastructure of gas is already built. It costs a lot to maintain it even as poorly as they do. As fewer ratepayers are using the system, the remaining ratepayers have to pay a larger and larger share of that cost -- making the gas even more expensive and an even worse choice for consumers. Inevitably, the poorest folks who cannot afford to replace their appliances but also cannot afford to keep using gas will be left behind. That's the reality of the privatized system we have.

I feel bad for all the people who are going to get fucked, especially since for many it was bogus that they were saddled with fossil gas in the first place (e.g., bribes to builders/subdevelopment managers).