this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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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.

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The emissions from the EV are largely because we've not yet gotten fossil fuels out of electric generation.

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[–] socsa@piefed.social 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And what about a normal sized EV?

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Even better of course. Not that there are many on the market in the US; automakers are increasing the size of every model.

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Doubtful. Smaller cars are ~~more~~ aerodynamic and much higher fuel economy.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 0 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

The same drop in energy needs applies to the EV too, along with sharply reduced emissions associated with manufacturing it.

[–] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 months ago

Nope, that's not how physics works. SUVs are insanely inefficient. A box on wheels. 11MPG vs 50. Likewise, all electric vehicles have more mass than their engine equivalents. And that mass is constant. Aerodynamic shit cars are simple piles of metal that ingest a chemical and produce range. Not even getting into the human and environmental cost of battery production.

Gas propulsion cars need to die, no question. Only because their fuel is finite and there are much better options now. However, there is no easy Apple keynote solution. It is complex and sometimes doesn't make sense.