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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

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How to Ditch the Biggest Fossil Fuel Offenders in Your Life (www.nrdc.org)

submitted 4 days ago by BoycottPro@lemm.ee to c/climate@slrpnk.net

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stabby_cicada made an interesting comment on how personal choice and leading by example can be combined with politics to effectively address climate change. This is a good article that combines the two approaches, it shows you some changes you can make along with reminding people the importance of voting, and being involved politically. The article mentioned the biggest user of fossil fuels in homes may be a gas fired furnace so if it's time to replace your furnace you may want to consider an electric heat pump.

One thing not mentioned in the article is if you have any incandescent light bulbs that receive regular use consider replacing them with LED. The payback period can be pretty fast for example if you replace a 60w light with a 10w LED assuming you use it for an average of two hours a day and you pay $0.20 kw/h you'll save $7.3 per year. This was calculated as follows:

(60 energy usage of old bulb - 10 energy usage of new bulb) * 2 hours per day average usage * 365 days in a year / 1000 to convert from watts to kilowatts * 0.2 cost per kwh = $7.3.

Over a 10 year period that's $73 in savings.

If the light bulb cost $2.5 to buy you'd break even in only 125 days (a little over 4 months) if we use the same usage assumptions.

Payback period can be calculated like this:

$2.5 cost of light bulb/(50 our energy savings*2 hours of average use)*(1000kw /0.2 price per kwh)

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[–] stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I think AI regulation is a great example of what I was talking about in my comment (and thanks to OP for the shout-out).

Banning or regulating AI takes collective action.

But (fantasies of green authoritarian dictatorships aside) we can't enact collective action without public support.

People who use AI regularly, who rely on it for their jobs or hobbies or side hustles, or who just enjoy the "convenience" of asking ChatGPT or Google a question and getting a clear simple (often wrong) answer, who are afraid of AI regulation because it could take away tools they use, will be more likely to side with Big Tech out of self interest.

People who don't use AI won't suffer any harm from AI regulation. They don't have to choose between their personal benefit and other values, like the environment, or user privacy, or how easy it is to exploit AI for harmful ends. And because they won't be afraid AI regulation will harm them personally, they'll be more likely to support regulation and less likely to buy into industry propaganda.

So the more we encourage people to make the individual choice not to use AI, the more likely collective action regulating AI becomes.

And of course telling people the reasons they shouldn't use AI personally also helps motivate them to vote for AI regulation - and if the reasons are compelling enough, people will share them and spread them and build the anti-AI movement even larger.

I think that's one of the reasons Big Tech is so aggressively shoving AI into every product. The more people use AI as part of their everyday activities, the more they rely on it, the less likely they'll be to support regulation.