this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2023
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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.

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Questions of social and economic class must be at the centre of our response to the climate crisis, to address the huge inequalities between the carbon footprints of the rich and poor and prevent a backlash against climate policies, the economist Thomas Piketty has said.

Regulations will be needed to outlaw goods and services that have unnecessarily high greenhouse gas emissions, such as private jets, outsized vehicles, and flights over short distances, he said in an interview with the Guardian.

Rich countries must also put in place progressive carbon taxes that take into account people’s incomes and how well they are able to reduce their emissions, as current policies usually fail to adjust for people’s real needs.

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[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 16 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

We absolutely should, but it's not going to make much of a difference overall.

Transportation is 14% of ghg emissions

Overall co2

Aviation is 13% of that in the EU (I couldn't link the US one, but it's similar)

EU transportation co2

Private jets are about 0.2% of total aviation emissions.

This absolutely should be done, but it's not necessarily going to do a whole lot overall, just low hanging fruit.

[–] magnor@lemmy.magnor.ovh 5 points 9 months ago

I understand Your point, but private jets also are a symptom and symbol of the ultra high emissions lifestyle of the super rich. This 0.2% only benefits a two digits number of people. This is insane in and of itself. One day of "normal use " of one of those has a carbon footprint most of us would struggle to reach in a whole year.

The global impact is not the issue here. What matters is how few people it benefits.

[–] moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 9 months ago

You are killing the symbol of travelling on airplane. It makes the railway growing up and mechanically shrinking the car use. People using the train to travel will use more public transportation in their daily life.

It's really about changing the mentality.

[–] ReadyUser31@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago

It's the same argument as banning private schools - if the rich have to use the same infrastructure as the rest of us, they've got less incentive to dismantle it.