this post was submitted on 13 Mar 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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The "conservative" war on reality finds new depths to sink to

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[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, couldn't CARE less. Autocorrect took a stand there...

Is lab grown meat more efficient? Not really. Is it cheaper? Not even close. Is it more ethical? Maybe?

Embrace the bean. Have a steak now and again... Make it an event.

Bean is protein. Bean is life.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I want my beans

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Crawford said that legislators had heard from NASA, which expressed concern about the bill’s impact on programs to develop alternative proteins for astronauts. An amendment to the bill will address that problem, Crawford said, allowing an exemption for research purposes.

Opponents of the ban have said governments shouldn’t interfere with a nascent industry because of unfounded fears over safety concerns.

The carve-out for NASA doesn't make this bill any better. The bill is obviously stifling.

That said, I really do want some extra checks that whatever agar-like substrate meat is grown in does not leech excessive quantities of hormones (think: rBST) or other chemicals into the packaged product. I would happily eat lab-grown meat, but I want to know that it is well tested for safety.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago

State legislators from Florida to Arizona are seeking to ban meat grown from animal cells in labs, citing a “war on our ranching” and a need to protect the agriculture industry from efforts to reduce the consumption of animal protein, thereby reducing the high volume of climate-warming methane emissions the sector emits.

The same reason that they hate solar energy and other alternatives to oil. It's a "war" on oil sector profits. The environment be damned.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

I’ll bet you can’t guess which ones!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

So cheaper and cleaner meat for my state. Score.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 months ago (2 children)

What’s the point of capitalism without competition? Hypocrites

[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago

The entire point of capitalism (for the capitalists) is to be the last person standing, and have the market all to themselves.

To believe otherwise is delusion.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 8 months ago

"Competition is for suckers"

~Peter Thiel

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

life begins at polymerization! /s

[–] [email protected] 55 points 8 months ago (3 children)

The best way to fight back against this is to make lab grown meat so cheap that it is uneconomical to compete with it. Hit them in the bottom line and they'll be hurting.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 8 months ago

Animal products are only cheap because they're heavily subsidized

[–] [email protected] 12 points 8 months ago

Sounds great, hope they can do it... But it usually isn't that simple. I work in a different but simular field. Most of these fake meat companies, especially the quality ones, run very low or negative profits until they can massively scale up into international companies. We also lose money despite we are a good amount more expensive than cheap meat.

Lab grown has the same problem, and it isn't that it is soooo expensive, it's that meat is far too cheap. The real cost of meat is massive but is subsidized in most all processes. In addition to many other issues.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 8 months ago

That's how it would work in an actual free market - the thing Republicans pretend they support. But...

Months in jail and thousands of dollars in fines and legal fees—those are the consequences Alabamians and Arizonans could soon face for selling cell-cultured meat products that could cut into the profits of ranchers, farmers, and meatpackers in each state.

The point is precisely to prevent anyone being able to compete with lab-grown meat, no matter how cheap it might otherwise be.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Okay ban real meat too then.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 8 months ago

But that harms the environment! Republicans only fight against things that help.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes, because as we all know money can only ever come from long-running, well established companies and never new ideas with merit.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 8 months ago (1 children)

These same states also banned the sales of cars unless the carmaker has an authorized dealership in the state. Phew, saved the middlemen.

This is why Tesla has little shops in the mall with a single car in them if you ever wondered.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

As a Texas resident, I’m well aware.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 8 months ago

It is disgusting what people do to protect their profits.