this post was submitted on 12 Aug 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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The key chartis this one:

What's going on is that California has for several decades prioritized energy efficiency; with a host of rules about how homes are built and how appliances work so as to lower electrical use. Added on top of this is a law requiring a total shift of electrical generation off of fossil fuels, with a 50%-renewable requirement in 2025.

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[–] OlPatchy2Eyes@slrpnk.net 6 points 2 months ago

I think this is an unfair article, and it reads like someone who's obsessed with right-wing talking points substituting their political allies and enemies with Texas and California.

The real relevant section is the one right before you posted the chart. Texas is bringing people building data centers, Bitcoin mines, and has a high demand for air conditioning, therefore it has a massive power demand that California doesn't have. It's unreasonable to expect Texas to compete with California on a metric of Clean GWh per Total GWh when California has less than half the power demand. The fossil fuels infrastructure is already established so of course it is going to be relied on in a place like Texas to support their ventures into data centers etc.

I think a better perspective is to notice how, despite a reliance on free-market forces (and as another commenter mentioned, a relationship between politicians and oil companies) Texas' clean energy scene has grown to be the biggest in the country. It clearly indicates that there is an apolitical nature to the inevitability of clean energy. Anyway I prefer that conversation to getting swept up in whatever Matt Walsh has to say.