this post was submitted on 28 Apr 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:

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

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Renewable energy just broke a 100-year-old streak | Coal’s century at the top of the world’s power mix is over. (www.vox.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[–] DahGangalang@infosec.pub 14 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

renewable sources produced 33.8 percent of the world’s electricity last year, compared to 33 percent for coal.

I mean, I'm all in for renewable energy and this does seem like an alright milestone, but that's comparing one source (Coal) to at least two sources (Solar and Wind*).

If we're going to do that then I'd be more comfy when renewables cross the mark and beat out ALL fossil fuels generation and/or when one of Wind or Solar beats Coal.

Also a little bothered that they don't enumerate the remaining ~33% of power generation. It seems fair to assume its mostly other fossil fuels with a small but not quite negligible chunk for Nuclear?

* = I assumed they would lump Hydro + Geothermal into "renewable", but they only explicitly mention wind and solar

[–] morto@piefed.social 6 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

They also don't show the actual numbers, so we don't know if coal production had any reduction, or if renewables just grew faster. The rest of the article makes it seem like the latter

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] morto@piefed.social 5 points 2 weeks ago

Thank you. It says there was a small reduction globally of 38 TWh (-0.2%) in 2025

[–] DahGangalang@infosec.pub 2 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, with the anticipated electrical demand of the near future, I don't see coal generation decreasing substantially soon.

Does make me wish we'd come harder on nuclear over the last 4-5 decades. I know nuclear isn't perfect, but its a good deal better than fossil fuels.

[–] ParlimentOfDoom@piefed.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Wind is just solar with extra steps.

[–] Malgas@beehaw.org 7 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Technically so are fossil fuels.

…lots and lots of extra steps.

[–] logi@piefed.world 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (2 children)

That's all just nuclear fission with even more steps.

Are there perhaps only two primary power sources: fission (in stars for now) and fusion (on Earth)?

[–] Egonallanon@feddit.uk 5 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Other way around. Stars produce energy through nuclear fusion, nuclear reactors produce energy through fission.

[–] Malgas@beehaw.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

And if we want to be really precise about where energy comes from, it's worth noting that all elements heavier than hydrogen (i.e. all if them) are the result of stellar fusion. Up to iron in the main phase, and anything heavier in supernovae, neutron star mergers, and possibly other extremely violent events. So fission is extracting the stored energy of dead stars.

Ultimately, it's probably all just residual energy from the Big Bang.

[–] logi@piefed.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Right, sorry, slip of the ginger.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Potential energy and tidal are gravitational.

[–] logi@piefed.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Tidal is really feeding off the momentum of the planet, but yeah, that's not nuclear.

Potential energy... that's more a storage medium.

Perhaps we need to add the original energy of the big bang to nuclear. That threw things apart so they could have potential energy, and it gave a lot of matter a lot of momentum which gets topped up occasionally by a nuclear exploding star.

[–] Aurenkin@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

All energy is solar with extra steps really

[–] Coldcell@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago

I was about to point out nuclear, but I suppose in a way that's just going straight to the source.

[–] Nighed@feddit.uk 1 points 2 weeks ago

All energy is nuclear with extra steps.

[–] NotEasyBeingGreen@slrpnk.net 0 points 2 weeks ago

Written like someone who lives in a sunny place... 😉

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today -1 points 2 weeks ago

5 years later.... Bro, you can't ignore the huge 10% gap represented by oil...

[–] melsaskca@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 weeks ago

Fuck trump but I gotta thank him for speeding up the whole EV development industry.

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Nope: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-primary-energy

Perhaps you should just stop looking at just electricity.

[–] NotEasyBeingGreen@slrpnk.net 1 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah a lot more work needs to be done for all energy.

The trends are the same, I think, but a few decades behind.

[–] supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 4 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

In a more just reality this would be being celebrated right now in a massive wrestling showdown show called COAL SMACKDOWN that brought together activists, scientists and of course pro wrestlers.