this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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Climate

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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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Bacteria in the ocean are starting to eat plastic. Let's think about this (www.sciencedaily.com)
submitted 1 week ago by Dippy@beehaw.org to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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If there is a readily accessible hydrocarbon to metabolize, life will evolve a way to metabolize it. Bacteria, fungi, and even some insects have already shown scientists they have figured out how to do this with certain types of plastic. Where does this lead?

One great thing this leads to is an eventual future where microplastics are cleaned up by the tiny organisms beneath our notice. Yay the pollution will clean itself up. Unfortunately, that also means that those hydrocarbons will be broken down, turned into CO2 or Methane, added to the atmosphere. Will this be a significant amount? I am unable to answer.

More startlingly, the other conclusion i draw is that all plastic in the world will someday be food for bacteria, mold, and grubs. Look around and note where you see plastic. It holds our food, it is the siding on some houses, it could be your building's insulation, it is the insulation on the wires in your house and outside. It holds your car together to varying degrees. It is the structure of many decks, benches, mobility aides etc.

Someday, these items will all be eaten slowly, or perhaps quickly. When will this begin in force? When will it affect our daily lives and health? Will we be able to prepare?

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[โ€“] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That seems quite fast.

How long have plastics been around? A century? Less?

When lignin in wood first evolved and trees became a thing 400 million years ago, it took about 100 million years before fungi evolved the ability to digest it.

There was 100 million years where wood wasn't unable to decompose and just sat around or burned, creating all of our coal deposits.

100 years for something to evolve and decompose plastics seems lightning quick.

[โ€“] Dippy@beehaw.org 2 points 5 days ago

Well, its possible that the mutations necessary were very close to something they already had. Or very 'lucky' mutations happened, interpret that as you will.