this post was submitted on 28 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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A call to replace air conditioners with heat pumps in California (www.canarymedia.com)
submitted 5 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[–] Goodtoknow@lemmy.ca 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

What are the environmental impacts of manufacturing of replacement heat pump units to replace functioning A/C units vs keeping them?

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net 26 points 5 months ago

This is about a regulation for new construction, so it's kind of a moot point.

The key question is going to be whether refrigerant in the old unit is properly disposed of. Likely a net benefit so long as it is.

[–] vividspecter@lemm.ee 11 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If the existing A/C don't support heating, then presumably heat pumps are displacing far inferior gas or resistive electric units (or even wood burning heaters). Heat pumps absolutely destroy them in terms of efficiency, and it's hard to believe the embodied emissions plus ongoing emissions would be worse with a heat pump. And just as importantly, the fossil fuel industry needs to be made unprofitable as soon as possible, and anything that gets people off gas is therefore a good thing.

[–] Uranium3006@kbin.social 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

we need to mandate that any AC unit also be a heat pump to sell it here, it's like one valve difference just mandate it 5 years out. also ban gas lines to new buildings

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 months ago

Water heaters can work via the refrigeration cycle as well.