this post was submitted on 26 Sep 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:

Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.

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[–] SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 30 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This may be one of the health effects they're talking about.

[–] archomrade@midwest.social 16 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I shared this information with my inlaws once as a 'fun fact' and they haven't come back to my house since.

[–] SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not sure what makes them think your house is the problem

[–] archomrade@midwest.social 15 points 1 month ago

Likely because it's where i share most of my fun-facts

[–] JigglySackles@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Iirc i read that this is a mistaken fact. I wish I had saved the article but saw it recently.

[–] SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I've just done a quick search, and the only articles I'm seeing are reporting on 2 different studies, one about the olfactory bulb and one about brains, nothing about either being disproven.

[–] archomrade@midwest.social 28 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

"Stop drinking the tap water, it's contaminated from fracking"

"Stop drinking the tap water, it's contaminated by lead"

"Stop drinking the tap water, it's over-saturated with fluoride"

and now

"Stop drinking bottled water, there are microplastics in it"

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Just filter your tap water. Then you can drink it from glass containers instead of plastic. I spent about $100/year on filters for my RO unit and it delivers bottled water quality drinking water at home.

[–] ryannathans@aussie.zone 10 points 1 month ago (2 children)

What about amide nanoplastic from the RO membrane?

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago

Hell if I know

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Given the amount of variety of materials that water interacts with before it reaches your house and the fact that RO can remove the majority of organic and dissolved pollutants, it is probably still better to get a bit of plastics from the RO than the plethora of pollutants that are otherwise present. The benefits of this may vary widely based on the quality of the tap water.

[–] archomrade@midwest.social 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yea, we've got one. But when I lived in an apartment I wasn't allowed to install something like that, i'm gonna guess that most people aren't in a situation where they can use one.

I don't think there pitcher options that are as effective for fluoride or heavy-metals, but I don't actually know off hand

[–] Microplasticbrain@lemm.ee 5 points 1 month ago

They have countertop RO filters now

[–] steal_your_face@lemmy.ml 4 points 1 month ago

There’s countertop reverse osmosis filters

[–] SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Fortunately for me, I live in a city with pretty good tap water and I have newish copper pipes (post 2000).

The biggest concern we have right now is the potential of PFAS contamination, but its under the EPA and European regulated limits.

Which given what I know about most bottled water sourcing (generally, it's just tap water from somewhere else) it is really the best I can hope for.

[–] Skasi@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

Also if you want to drink something with a taste, always consider adding tap water to it. Most lemonades mix very well with tap water. Furthermore, not everything you drink requires carbonated water to taste good. Sirups that mix with water in a big ratio like 1 portion of sirup and 10 portions of water are nice too.

Carrying home 10kg of drinks every week seems like such a waste, I never understand people who do that.

Of course if tap water is contaminated because of a flood or some other accident it makes sense not to drink it. That said I think in many places tap water is usually cleaner than bottled water (some more so than others). I understand that I can't generalize, but I think everyone who hasn't should at least read up on the water quality of their region, ideally on official or trustworthy sources.

(edit: Note that I wrote the following paragraph without knowing tap water temperatures. Apparently it only holds true if your cold tap water is below 15°C.)

And since I'm already ranting: You don't need ice in your drinks! It doesn't make the drink tastier or more refreshing. It's just a waste of time and especially energy, and also a contamination risk. You also don't need tap water into the fridge. Just let your cold tap water run for a few second and it'll rinse out the stagnant water that warmed up to room temperature, replacing it with fresher, colder water. I guess in some place this might be more viable than in others. Always depends on the local availability of water and energy.

[–] williams_482@startrek.website 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yes, putting ice in water does make me enjoy it more, and no, letting the tap run doesn't do nearly as much to cool it down as ice cubes do.

[–] Skasi@lemmy.world 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

How is it more enjoyable to you? I don't get it. Do you enjoy the temperature or is it an actual taste thing? Letting the tap run makes water so cold for me that I usually wait for a couple minutes before drinking more than a few sips.

[–] williams_482@startrek.website 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Apparently your tap water is dramatically colder than any house or apartment I've lived in.

[–] Skasi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Alright this topic bothered me so I figured the onus was on me and looked it up. Apparently cold tap water temperatures in some cities around the world are usually around 15°C and can go as high as 25°C in summer. That's definitely not my experience, I'm pretty sure it's constantly below 15°C here. So then you're not a crazy maniac and the regional differences really are way bigger than I expected. Who would've thought!

[–] JoYo@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago

I carbonate tap water all the time, it works great.

[–] FireRetardant@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago

Most people i know that prefer bottled water prefer it because of the chlorine taste in their city tap water. Most bottled water goes through several processess including softening or reverse osmosis which can impact the taste quite a bit. They often remineralize the bottled water and add flouride as well. They do make undersink reverse osmosis systems for people who have taste or odor concerns from their tap water, essentially getting a similar quality to bottled out of a tap.

[–] QuentinQuiver@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 month ago

"Don't drink the water. They put something in it to make you forget"

-Random NPC in Half Life 2