this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2025
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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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Yes, this means a ton of carbon ends up in the atmosphere instead of in the trees. The right move would be thinning and prescribed burns, but this administration isn't going to do that.

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[–] Knoxvomica 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Holy shit, America, you are so fucked at this point.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

It only the damage was contained within the USA's borders.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 days ago
[–] [email protected] 69 points 3 days ago (7 children)

America is a dumpster fire lol, they have all these "checks and balances" but then one guy can just make all the trade policy and land use decisions by decree. What even is the point of their congress

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 days ago

The problem is that Congress is controlled by people who are Trump sycophants — the Republican Party kicked out everybody who wasn't.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Checks and balances all died with citizens united….only one left is the second amendment

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

All governments at some level run on the honor system. When the whole government colludes to not honor the system, you get this.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 3 days ago (1 children)

My body is not ready for the amount of alcohol and dancing I am going to force myself to take part in on the day this motherfucker dies and goes to hell.

Literally, the most destructive and evil human on the planet since Hitler. I can't wait until the worms get him. I kind of feel bad for them, but I guess it's part of the job.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

A hundred years from now the planet will be in a pretty good shape, forests have been regrown and the seas will have been cleaned up and repopulated with fish, except for the US which is a giant hole. Not from bombs exploding, but from strip-mining the whole place for resources.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The USA will resemble Russia, China and Mordor.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

RIP My first thought. Seems appropriate.

Just fyi, I'm pointing out Trump's similarities to an evil villain. I'm not using this to agree. I'm very much against this, having grown up in the woods (practically raised by my local forest, as my mother was an awful drunk and single parent) and I spent most of my youth walking through the peace and quiet of the trees.

I grew up with my mother seeing nothing but my father in me, and was abused for it. Those trees gave me the shelter I needed and I would have been 100x more a mess if I didn't have them. So no. Don't take my fucking trees en masse.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago

March '23 Trump gave a soundbite for his billionaire bosses about building "Freedom Cities." Clear-cutting national forests, then signing an order that makes the area exempt from regulation? Sounds about right.

If they're coming for all federally governed land, indigenous reservations will be on the menu as well (always are).

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Finally, a good move by Trump. Those trees are taking up incredible amounts of water. This is water that could be used for more productive things, like being mixed with Kool-aid powder on a hot day. Moreover, the trees emit large amounts of oxygen, a dangerous corrosive gas. Don't listen to liberals -- tree hugging is a dangerous activity that can lead to abrasions from all the bark.

If there's anything I learned from Dr. Seuss' "The Lorax", logging can lead to impressive industrial and commercial activity and has no downsides.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago

It's insane that I'm 99% sure this is sarcasm, but that 1% has a voice telling me I can't discount Maga being that stupid. This is the age we live in, incredible stupidity.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (3 children)

🙏🏼✝️🔯☯️🕉️ Gods of the universe that ever existed real or fictional Please hear our prayers and please peacefully take this man home. His destruction is too much for the good people of earth to bear. Please consider taking Putin and Netanyahu too Than You. Amen

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

God here (taking temporary control of a random human as I don't have a mobile device, or thumbs for that matter): I gave y'all free choice - and I'm not talkin' 'bout the vote. Turn off the telly and go start a revolution! (or join an existing rebellion, if you prefer) All my love, God(s)

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I predict that any company that participates in destroying the parks will end up even worse off then Tesla. I've been a hiker my whole life and I've met a lot of retired military on the trail.

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[–] [email protected] 258 points 4 days ago (14 children)

These are our forests. They belong to the US people. They're being stolen from us. For private profit of a few.

[–] [email protected] 66 points 4 days ago

It's an American tradition.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Gee, why wouldn't I want to cede my country to American management and become the 51st state? You guys are knocking it out of the park, no pun intended.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

Already bad enough here in Ontario with Doug "I'm a big Republican" Ford's Ministerial Zoning Order addiction, gutting environmental protection agencies, trying to sell off the Greenbelt, using covid recovery bills to get his dirt done, etc.

Any rein we've been able to keep on the timbit would dissolve into nada if we allowed the US govt to run their game here. I can't even conceive of much worse they'd make the tar sands in Alberta. 90% of the fisheries would just be trawlers digging up seabeds. Plus the dizzying amount of toxic waste they're already legally dumping here and in Mexico?

Elbows up.

[–] [email protected] 87 points 3 days ago (7 children)

Uhm, why can he just decide this? Not part of his expertise or departement.

[–] johncandy1812 49 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

Trump doesn't like that the US buys lumber from Canada. He's going to announce 34% tariffs on lumber from Canada in the next few days.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Some national parks might be protected by legislation, such as the Yosemite Act of 1864, but massive amounts of land were protected by the executive branch such as Teddy Roosevelt protecting 150 Million Acres of forest and Joseph Biden protecting 674 Million Acres.

Then you also have Treaties with native americans which can be considered law if Republicans actually acknowledged them as such (they don't).

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The absolute level of stupidity of this is ridiculous. Lumber mills are not designed for old growth trees in the modern era, so all these trees will not even become lumber. Logging has become very sustainable in recent decades. They farm trees and mill them when they reach the size that the machinery at the mills is optimized for. If we just cut down all the forests, the mills can't even process the logs even though it's better lumber. In reality, they'd just send the old growth logs to be ground for pulp which is a total waste. This video does a good job explaining it.

https://youtu.be/efs5-FCVWvg

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I think Trump is clearing land for the techno-fiefs that Project 2025 wants to create among the head fascists. He hands out land parcels, gets a reacharound from Thiel and company.

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[–] [email protected] 160 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Fuck. This kind of shit is why I feel the need for revenge on these people. They're slashing forests and impoverishing the population. It's not enough for them to lose an election. they need to pay

[–] [email protected] 54 points 4 days ago

I want my pound of fucking flesh.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I got a mod deletion the last time I said anything like this. Good luck and I fucking agree.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

didn't he say it would be like 0.5% of all federal land, or something.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 days ago (1 children)

One difference between the fascists and the rest of us is that for us, words have meaning, while for the fascists, they're only a tool for manipulation when spoken to somebody they see as inferior.

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[–] melsaskca 9 points 2 days ago

Drill, drill, drill! Cut, cut, cut! Slash, slash, slash! Burn, burn, burn! You guys carry on I have to go golfing.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (5 children)

So I just want to chime in here as an outsider. From what I searched, national forests are different from national parks in that, extraction of natural resources from national forests is permitted for commercial and personal use.

Trump's order cites wildfire, insect and disease outbreak as the reason for this change (Biden also sought more logging to combat fire but apparently timber sales did not change much during his tenure). While I agree that forest management is important, Trump had also put tariffs on Canadian lumber and cut down jobs for national park workers. It's not hard to question if there are other motivations other than wildfire prevention in this context.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Here is a good blog post on the nationalforest.org website. Posted in 2013 (according to archive.org).

https://www.nationalforests.org/blog/what-are-the-differences-between-national-parks-and-national-forests

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 days ago

That is just... Insane. Incredibly sad.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Those are our national Forests, they don't belong to fascist billionaires like Trump and Musk! Resist, fight back, and let's tell these Nazis they can't strip our environment, government, healthcare and democracy to give tax breaks to rich people...

[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Cutting down old growth Forrest take 50 years to repair the area after its stopped. What a mess.

[–] YesButActuallyMaybe 35 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Way longer than that. What grows back is not old growth

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Trump is speedrunning to aim for the lowest biodiversity index in North America.

Maybe if we stop ridiculously subisidising corn everywhere, some that gets thrown away because we have way too much, we could replace a couple dozen sq km of corn fields with more sustainable agroforestry, and thereby massively increase our logging output, instead of yk, cutting down the last wildlife sanctuaries? Not holding my breath tho.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 4 days ago (3 children)

We get 30% of our lumber from Canada. This is the inevitable consequence of shutting our borders to trade via tariffs - if these policies stick around for four years, sure, we may bring some manufacturing home at great immediate cost, but we'll also be bringing home the environmental burdens of manufacturing (the negative externalities) which we've been pushing onto other countries and ignoring for decades. In the meantime, other countries have started to learn how to handle those externalities, like China's big push for solar power. In America, we've got an idiot who is rolling back worker safety, health and environmental protections, the list goes on. So even if these tariffs worked, we're going to be living in a less healthy place, all in the name of jobs...

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