this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2024
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Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.

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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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Why Heat Pumps Are the Future, and How Your Home Could Use One (www.nytimes.com)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They haven't been standard in colder parts of the US — people use natural gas, propane, or fuel oil depending on where in the country.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I can believe that because many people choose the absolute cheapest solution rather than looking at the 5-10 year cost of ownership.

Technology connections YouTuber is in Chicago and chose a heat pump because it's cheaper. I have a relative in Minnesota and they are on a ground sourced heatpump because it's so much cheaper long term.

There's not much population in the US further north than the middle of Minnesota.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Last time I looked in to it I'd still need a supplemental heater for when it's too cold for the heat pump to be effective (there were a handful of weeks just this/last year where we would be in trouble) in Chicago.

Ground source makes a lot more sense for new construction where you're already digging.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Backup heat is standard with all whole house heat pumps. You pick electric or gas based on cost.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Also doesn’t help that a lot of houses in the US are just really old and still have their original fossil fuel based heating.