this post was submitted on 23 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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Minnesota is paying to expand ethanol infrastructure. Some experts say that’s a mistake (www.mprnews.org)
submitted 18 hours ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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“Ultimately, we want to use less fuel, not more, and so we should be looking at increasing vehicle efficiency more,” he said. “We should be looking at public transportation options.”

The article doesn't get into it much, but an acre of solar panels provides a lot more vehicle-miles than an acre of corn turned into ethanol.

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[–] science4life@mander.xyz -3 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

No it's not.

Consume the limitless solar energy? Oh no. What will the sun do?

They already use corn stalks. The whole plant is used. And no.... Wild grasses aren't as fermentable as corn.

Distillation is low sugar ferment costs mush more.

[–] kata1yst@sh.itjust.works 7 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (1 children)

Energy is consumed in watering, fertilizing, harvesting, shipping, and then the processing and fermenting.

Ratio is estimated at 1.34 for the whole system. Which is fucking terrible.

https://www1.eere.energy.gov/bioenergy/pdfs/energy_balance_of_corn_ethanol.pdf

And that doesn't even touch on the horrific water consumption of corn. Or the greenhouse gasses released in the production. Or the pesticide usage.

EDIT: while I thought the source I first linked had many valid points, I did some digging and found that the funding and politics of that source were suspect.

Here's a more reputable paper with deeper analysis of the water issue.

https://itspubs.ucdavis.edu/download_pdf.php?id=1467

[–] science4life@mander.xyz -5 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Can you be less hysterical?

[–] stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

It's not hysterics. It's fact.

Ethanol burns more fossil fuel than it replaces. It turns more fuel into less fuel and pisses away irreplaceable topsoil in the process.

Facts don't care about your feelings.

[–] kata1yst@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 hours ago

I made a claim based on research and facts.

You said nuh-uh.

I sourced my claims.

You accuse me of hysteria.

I don't think you're here for an intellectually honest conversation. Do you think you are?