this post was submitted on 31 May 2024
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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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Colorado’s Bold New Approach to Highways — Not Building Them | The state has made it harder to widen highways, and transportation officials are turning their eyes to transit. (www.nytimes.com)
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In Colorado, that new vision was catalyzed by climate change. In 2019, Gov. Jared Polis signed a law that required the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent within 30 years. As the state tried to figure out how it would get there, it zeroed in on drivers. Transportation is the largest single contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, accounting for about 30 percent of the total; 60 percent of that comes from cars and trucks. To reduce emissions, Coloradans would have to drive less.

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[–] fireweed@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Too bad Colorado's Front Range (where most of the state lives) has some of the most sprawling land use in the country. The state's second largest city (Colorado Springs) is basically one giant suburb surrounding a tiny downtown core. You can put in all the transit you want, but it won't matter if you can't resolve the last-mile problem (which in Colorado is more like the last-ten-miles problem).

[–] aniki@lemm.ee 6 points 1 month ago

Yeah Colorado is a hugely car-brained state. It's infuriating because I want to bikepack there but after spending a whole day just getting out of the metro area, I find better places to travel now.