this post was submitted on 02 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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[–] jhonmu648@discuss.tchncs.de 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Honestly, the whole concept of "recycling" plastic feels more like a PR strategy than an environmental solution. If it were genuinely effective, we’d see investment, innovation, and accountability—like we do with metals. Instead, we’re handed the guilt while corporations keep pumping out garbage.

[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Much like the concept of a carbon footprint, it exists solely to make consumers think they can make an individual difference so they won't push for regulations

Yeah I especially love that one everytime I fly. I get to choose the environmentally friendly option with lower carbon footprint for more money. Who the fuck they think they are kidding? We are all in the same plane burning fuel at 10000 m.

[–] surph_ninja@lemmy.world 28 points 6 days ago (11 children)

And this is how capitalism eats itself. Nothing can be done without a market incentive, including not suffocating our planet to death.

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[–] RumorsOfLove@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 5 days ago

Dont forget the goal of disrupting actual leftist movements into confusion

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 14 points 6 days ago (5 children)

The sad thing is, only types 1 & 2 plastics are recyclable in any real fashion, and sometimes not even then.

That means types 3 through 7 are better disposed of in the trash, where at least they’ll be sealed into a landfill instead of being shipped overseas to end up somewhere far less environmentally secure.

These types are the numbers inside the recycling symbol. Many things are mixed and matched - a plastic bottle might be a type 1 (recyclable), yet its screw-on cap is typically a type 5 (largely non-recyclable). Always try to find the recycling symbol and dispose of anything not a type 1 or 2 in the trash.

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 5 points 5 days ago

I noticed a bottle was recyclable but the label wasn’t, was annoyed that they would do that because I doubt there are many who would read the label to know that

But even recycled plastic just gets shipped to SEA for them to deal with instead of actually being recycled so I guess it doesn’t matter

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[–] Spacehooks@reddthat.com 21 points 6 days ago (3 children)

How to get politicians to change views:

Plastic causes ed and shrinkage

[–] KingPorkChop@lemmy.ca 7 points 6 days ago

They'll blame woman for being too slutty and fucking everyone BUT THEM.

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[–] Tja@programming.dev 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Treating waste water? Water treatment plants cost so much that they will never compete with dumping raw sewage into the river!

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 6 points 6 days ago

Which is why my local water treatment plant built a brand new pipe so they can dump directly into the river rather than the local nature reserve.

I'm so glad we privatised that...

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago

I wonder how much the oil industry subsidies are responsible for making recycled plastic more expensive than the new one...

[–] Aeri@lemmy.world 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Honestly if it was up to me I'd just ban plastic flat out unless you got some kind of "this is actually really important and NEEDS to be made of plastic" cert

[–] Echolynx@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 days ago (5 children)

There are tons of single-use plastic medical supplies - syringes, wrappers, etc.

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[–] ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world 13 points 6 days ago (3 children)

The good news is that global warming (I prefer to call it Anthropogenic Runaway Global Heating because of the acronym) is going to completely fuck us all anyway, to the extent that plastic in the environment isn't going to matter by comparison. At least oil turned into plastic and buried isn't oil turned into CO2.

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 11 points 6 days ago

The two problems have a decent amount of overlap though. For example, I recently learned that car tyres are a huge contributor to microplastic pollution. This means that improving public transport infrastructure will reduce CO2 emissions and microplastic pollution.

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

But we still have microplastics in our brains, which does warrant some concern I think.

[–] toastmeister@lemmy.ca 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Thats just the microplastics talking, go back to sleep.

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[–] max_dryzen@mander.xyz 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Interesting to compare aluminium recycling with plastic recycling

When the true aim is to recycle material, industry comes to the party and you get a refund scheme, even purpose built deposit facilities that can be set up locally

When the aim is to misdirect public attention toward a non solution you get government mandated plastics recycling bins and penalties for "contamination" plus never ending messaging (gotta keep the lie alive with constant repetition lmaooo). Coercion is just a lowkey admission that the material isn't worth recycling

The real question isn't how to get the plastics industry to change, it's how to make the ruse no longer a tenable position for governments

[–] AntelopeRoom@lemm.ee 4 points 5 days ago

Its basically impossible to avoid too. Anything you buy comes packaged in plastic for the most part.

[–] PumpkinSkink@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago
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