this post was submitted on 29 May 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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Individual responsibility: a red herring that lets the fossil fuel industry off the climate catastrophe hook (www.bmj.com)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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This is why I say politics matters more than individual action.

Yes, changing the lightbulbs in your house from incandescent to LED is great but it's just a drop in the bucket. Politicians can mandate energy efficient bulbs for everyone as an example, at scale this makes a huge difference.

We all have 24 hours in a day and a lot less of that is free-time, use it to contact your politicians and urge other people to do that.

I really hope after reading this post that you'll consider sending an email, calling or faxing at-least one politician. Your message can be really simple.

For example this could be your message:

Dear (politician),

I'm really worried about the effects on climate change. I believe it's hurting the economy much more than the cost of transitioning to renewable energy such as solar and wind. I'm calling for ending subsidies for fossil fuel companies and a faster transition to renewable energy.

Thank you so much for your consideration,
(Your name)

See that wasn't so hard was it? Sending an email could take just minutes a day and you're message could have a huge impact.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's a very good point you bring up! I totally see what you mean and agree!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

There’s also the fact that we vote with our wallets - if green products become more profitable, companies will pivot toward them, and visa versa. However, I feel your original point holds water inasmuch as making these issues out personal responsibility remove the onus of responsibility, and often the spotlight, from companies whose practices cause pollution. The plastic industry is a case in point - the idea that us recycling will solve the issue was put forward by the industry so that they wouldn’t have to take responsibility for their shitty actions. Quite often individual responsibility is pushed where national/international legislation is needed