this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
152 points (96.3% liked)

Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.

5222 readers
524 users here now

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:

Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

While a Trump presidency couldn’t slam the brakes on the E.V. transition, it could throw enough sand in the gears to slow it down. And that might have significant consequences for the fight to stop global warming.

top 26 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 43 points 5 months ago (1 children)

How much greenhouses gasses could be reduced if we just glued Trump's mouth shut?

[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Honestly, his mouth is his biggest asset. If he didn’t have that mouth, more conservatives and independents would vote for him.

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I think you mean liability unless I’m just being a dummy

[–] hddsx@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Sorry, I was being sarcastic when I said asset. My sarcasm let go half way through the post

[–] BolexForSoup@kbin.social 2 points 5 months ago

Ha all good

[–] tsonfeir@lemmy.world 33 points 5 months ago

If you slam the brakes on an EV, it’s just going to generate more electricity. Good luuuck

[–] Hugh_Jeggs@lemm.ee 14 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"Slam" and "shred" in the same headline FFS

[–] General_Shenanigans@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

“Slam” was used too acceptably, so they had to come up with another.

[–] LifeLikeLady@lemmy.world 11 points 5 months ago (5 children)

I own a Volt. But let's stop saying that EVs are going to stop global warming. Do they help after years of being on the road? Sure a little. But until China stops burning coal, Saudi Arabia quits drilling for oil, factory dairy farms shut down.

People over paying for a car isn't doing a damn thing.

Are they fun to drive? Yes. Can you save a few bucks on gas? Yep sort of. (Thanks new registration taxes) But other than that EVs are not saving the world. That's not even thinking about the mining required to make batteries, or the copper needed for the motors.

We need to hold these super polluters accountable, and stop expecting the little guy to bail us out of the problems they created.

[–] br3d@lemmy.world 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And you don't see any link between ditching your ICE car and "Saudi Arabia quits drilling for oil"? Better to ditch your ICE car for no car, of course, but if you HAVE to have one, the smallest EV you can get away with is a step towards stopping that oil drilling. If everyone did it, that drilling would change dramatically

[–] fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de -2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Do you think it will work that way?

The more people switch to EVs the cheaper fuel will be, which incentivised people to drive ICE vehicles.

[–] nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Fossil fuel extraction is an extreme economy of scale. This is only true to a point.

[–] br3d@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

More people driving EVs won't make (oil-based) fuel cheaper. Every person getting off oil makes producing oil-based fuels more expensive, as the economies of scale are reduced.

Go to extremes if that helps picture it: imagine you're suddenly the only person on Earth driving an ICE car. How much would you be paying for a fill-up, which now involves finding, extracting, shipping and refining fuel just for you: more than today or less than today?

[–] fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Fuel prices halved during covid when everyone stayed home.

All the infrastructure is in place, the fuel needs to be sold.

Reduced demand will only reduce production of fuel from more expensive wells, like where the oil is more difficult to reach.

[–] spacesatan@lemm.ee 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah but nobody retired a marginally profitable fuel refinery that became unprofitable during covid because they knew demand would return soon. The effect isn't instantaneous, but all the infrastructure has operation and maintenance costs. With fewer overall consumers all the overhead has to go somewhere eventually.

eventually

Yeah, but I think you might be waiting longer than you imagine.

There might be a long tail of barely profitable wells with low output, but I suspect the vast majority of current production can sustain a significant reduction in retail price and still be more profitable than simply capping the well.

Every person that switches to an EV increases the demand for electricity and reduces the demand for fuel.

[–] zurohki@aussie.zone 13 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That’s not even thinking about the mining required to make batteries, or the copper needed for the motors.

Yeah, but... that stuff isn't going away. In a couple decades when an EV's worn out, all the materials will still be there ready for recycling. It's not like coal and oil where we dig them up and then set them on fire and they're gone.

[–] Frozengyro@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago

Don't worry, that coal and oil is still there too. Just hanging around in the air.

[–] SacralPlexus@lemmy.world 12 points 5 months ago

You’re totally right I just want to mention one of their benefit which is the markedly decreased emissions from a smog standpoint! Some cities really struggle with this problem.

But from a climate change perspective you’re right.

[–] fadhl3y@lemmy.one 6 points 5 months ago

Can EVs reduce local emissions, and lead to improved air quality? Is air quality something we should be concerned about?

[–] Muffi@programming.dev 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

EV's are also just as devastating to collective infrastructure as CE cars. They also won't change the fact that most packaging and plastic is still made from oil. They are a temporary patch, not a solution.

[–] Hildegarde@lemmy.world 9 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Does he mean he's going to shred the 100% tariff? That seems to be core of biden's ev policy.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

The core policies are:

  • A subsidy which targets cheaper EVs to not-super-rich and limits it to cars with key components made in the US
  • An emissions rule which will effectively force a significant fraction of cars sold to be EVs in a few years
  • subsidies for new factories

Trump will surely get rid of those.

The tariff he hasn't really weighed in on; he seems to think of himself as a mercantilist, so he might keep it.

[–] Maeve@kbin.social 3 points 5 months ago

Until bird flu somehow gets called Chyna virus.

[–] TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 months ago

To be fair maybe he will also reverse the part where Biden removed eligibility from EV’s for the Tax credit that aren’t sourced from America.

Only bad thing he could do is remove the emissions regulations which weren’t even harsh.

[–] Varyk@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 months ago

Great, let Trump and musk blow each other

's ambitions to hell.