this post was submitted on 18 Feb 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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[–] rimu@piefed.social 15 points 1 day ago

It's almost as if the globe is warming. We should think of a term for this phenomenon.

[–] decapitae@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What if we stopped using oil cold turkey? Sure, still wouldn't reverse things immediately, but sure as heck wouldn't continue to make things worse....

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Coal, oil, and gas, all three need to be stopped. They are the bulk of the problem, but not all of it; we also need to end some industrial chemicals like SF₆ stop deforestation, and sharply reduce methane production in agriculture.

Cold turkey will kill a lot of people as existing food systems depend on fossil fuels for everything from nitrate fertilizer manufacturing to food delivery.

A managed phase-out is far preferable because of that.

[–] Tiresia@slrpnk.net 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Stopping meat and dairy would instantly take care of deforestation, methane excess, and fertilizer shortages, and it would free up a massive amount of logistical capacity. Most of our agriculture is dedicated to feeding farm animals, mostly with stuff we could eat too.

This could be done cold turkey in literal hours, redirecting soybean shipments from factory farms to groceries and letting everything else collapse abruptly.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 2 points 12 hours ago

That at least is physically possible. Its also well under half the problem. So things get worse a bit more slowly if that’s all we do. It takes a lot more to actually stabilize temperatures

[–] decapitae@sh.itjust.works 1 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

The proper handling of municiple waste (not direct sewage application) could easily replace fossil fertilizers and ramp up time could be 3 weeks if the right process is used, so the fossil argument that a lot of people will die is really just a death cult hopeful excuse for mayhem and destruction. A good cover. But here we are - 2026 and tRump is still somehow inexplicably in office, trampling the constitution and citizens rights...... It's possible this particular end is deserved 😓

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Sri Lanka decided to ban imported fossil fuel derived fertilizer and failed to adequately replace it a few years back.

It is really possible to mess this one up, and that's only one of many places fossil fuels are used in agriculture