this post was submitted on 12 Aug 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.

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[–] tobogganablaze@lemmus.org 30 points 3 months ago (4 children)

However, no one is born loving hot dogs or disliking broccoli and Brazil nuts; our food preferences are learned.

Sure, if you ignore the whole genetics part where humans literally evolved a preference for cooked meat and fermented foods.

[–] memfree@beehaw.org 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

However, no one is born loving hot dogs or disliking broccoli

But we ARE! Doesn't anyone remember the whole kerfuffle about the 'bitter' gene and PTC sensitivity?

[–] tobogganablaze@lemmus.org 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

But we ARE!

You just qouted my qoute, I'm not saying that. I agree with you. It's a bit similar to arachnophobia. There seems to be a genetic inate behaviour to avoid certain creepy crawlies. And it can be unlearned. But it's absurd to deny that it's there.

[–] memfree@beehaw.org 6 points 3 months ago

Sorry, I was trying to add my support. You gave good evidence for a meat preference and I wanted to back it up with evidence of genetic aversion to the specific vegetable mentioned in the original article.

[–] toaster@slrpnk.net 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

This is one study. Both the author of this article and you should not be so quick to draw strong conclusions.

For instance, the idea that early humanoids took the form of "cavemen" who ate a ton of meat is debated, and largely built on assumptions made from finding hunting tools.

More recent evidence of the oldest known fossilized human feces has shown very amounts of dietary fiber - much more than our modern diet. The amount of meat eaten in the USA today is not historically common.

[–] tobogganablaze@lemmus.org 2 points 3 months ago

Yeah, it's just one study but it's part of a bigger picture.

Once humanity discovered fire and basic techniques for preservation it became viable for groups of people to work together and produce a surpluse of highly nutritious food and the ability to store it for later. And the majority of very early human history is centred around either hunting or fishing communities. That's how most humans lived before we eventually came up with agriculture, which was just around 10.000 years ago. We were hunter-gatheres for like 200.000, maybe much longer. That's a timespan that allows for minor gentic adaptations like that, especially if there is a strong evolutionary pressure. Some extreme example would be early civisations in the arctic regions, which sometimes entirly depened on one food source (very often seals).

So I'm pretty confident in saying that taste not just "learned behavior". Of course there are genetic factors involved, it would be aburd if there weren't. We are just animals afterall.

[–] tobogganablaze@lemmus.org 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

2nd reply, because when I wrote my first one, your reply was just the first line.

For instance, the idea that early humanoids took the form of “cavemen” who ate a ton of meat is debated, and largely built on assumptions made from finding hunting tools.

I think they were highly seasonal. You had periods where you could gather a lot fruit and plants to eat, your hunting season and your "bare" season where you had to rely on surpluse and preservation. Diet would be highly variable depending on where and when and what resources and technologies were availbible.

The amount of meat eaten in the USA today is not historically common.

Not on average, for sure. But as I said in my first replies, there are examples of early communities that lived almost entirly of meat. Not even a side of fries.

[–] imgcat@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago

This is plain false.

[–] silence7@slrpnk.net -3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Cooked doesn't have to mean meat.

[–] tobogganablaze@lemmus.org 18 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I'm sure there are also preferences towards other cooked foods, but the study I linked is specifically talking about cooked meat.