What is climate change?

Answered

I am incredibly naïve about climate change. What is climate change? What is the relation with climate change and nuclear plants and coal mines? What are nuclear plants and coal mines? And what does all this have to do with Germany?

My curiosity has been sparked by this photo and the top comment

Posted Oct 19, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

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MikeKrombopulos•

Certain gases in the atmosphere make the air warmer by absorbing the heat radiating off the warm surface of the Earth. Without these gases, the heat would radiate off the surface and into space, and the Earth would be a lot colder. The most prevalent one of these greenhouse gases (GHGs) is CO2 aka Carbon dioxide. We need some amount of CO2 to stay warm, but too much and the planet gets too hot and the climate becomes inhospitable for us and other species. Extreme weather, rising sea levels, mass extinction, ecosystem collapse.

CO2 is emitted by a lot of things in the natural carbon cycle, and it is eventually reabsorbed by natural processes such as trees and certain sea organisms. The problem is the unnatural CO2 emission: the emissions by us humans. Burning things (namely petroleum products, coal, and natural gas aka methane) produces CO2 which then gets released into the atmosphere.

Humans have been doing this at an ever increasing rate for a couple centuries now. We burn petroleum for our vehicles and for electricity production with coal plants, gasoline-burning plants, and natural gas-burning plants. In doing so, we have increased the level of CO2 in the atmosphere by a staggering amount, far beyond the natural level. This is causing a lot of problems for the planet and for us. Agriculture is disrupted, seaside property gets flooded, people die in "natural" disasters, species die off, etc. This trend will continue for the foreseeable future, and it will get worse and worse.

About nuclear plants... nuclear energy is one energy source that does not emit carbon like the others listed above. It's one of several clean sources of energy. What makes it controversial is the view among many people that it is dangerous and/or bad for the environment in its own way (nuclear waste). These fears stem mainly from disasters like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Germany is relevant to the nuclear debate because the country is staunchly anti-nuclear, partially due to them being downwind from Chernobyl; many Germans still remember having to stay inside their homes because of the radioactive contaminants in the air.

In my opinion, we need nuclear. Not only nuclear, we also need wind, solar, and hydro where it's viable. But those energy sources have some gaps: the sun only shines half the time at best, it's not always windy, and not all areas can feasibly have hydroelectric dams. I personally think that nuclear can fill in these gaps and that the fears of nuclear power are overblown. 3MI was relatively minor (didn't kill anybody, just some livestock died), and Chernobyl, while terrible, was such an extremely odd and unlikely circumstance that it will surely never happen again, especially given that the reactor type is almost entirely out of use now (and the fatal flaw was fixed in the couple of RBMK reactors still in use in Russia).

5
SexualPapercutOP•

This was an absolutely amazing breakdown. Thank you very much! :)

1
mikey_weasel•

Climate change is a shift in climate. Climate is a way of describing weather in the long term. So you can have a "desert climate" or "coastal climate". Its usually a year-long pattern of weather. So if it changes, it might stop raining at the right time in the year to support crops. Or cause more "extreme weather" like hurricanes. Basically its the type of thing that will cause a lot of damage and havoc.

Coal plants (as well as a lot of other things) put carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This traps heat on the planet. This additional heat causes climate change (not always hotter temperatures, but those are often part of it).

Nuclear plants do not. They do create Nuclear Waste but that's a different problem (and much less urgent). So they are often looked at as an option to delay or mitigate climate change.

That's me trying to do a relatively quick answer but this is the sort of thing you can easily spend hours or days learning about. Or study it for years as a scientist.

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SexualPapercutOP•

Thanks a lot for that breakdown! And thanks for not judging me haha

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mikey_weasel•

No worries and happy cakeday!

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SexualPapercutOP•

Oh it is my cakeday I did not even realise hahaha. Thanks!

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lordTigas•

Climate changes is, as the name suggests, a change in our climate caused in this context by human activities. One of the main issues of climate change is the rise in the world average temperature. This rise in the temperature can make the south and northern ice caps to melt, rising the sea level and flooding all coastal cities through out the world.

One of the main responsible for the climate change is the burn of fossil fuels, like oil and coal, which releases a bunch of gases in the atmosphere that cause what's called the Greenhouse effect, which speeds up even more this rise in the temperature.

Coal and oil are usually burned to generated electricity Another way of generating electricity is through nuclear power plants, which are considered "clean", because they don't release these gases that cause the Greenhouse effect.

Germany had a plan (I'm not sure at what point it is) to erradicate coal plants and rely only on nuclear power.

So the memes is a joke saying climate change won't hit Germany because it uses this clean energy. What in my opinion is a misconception, since climate change is a world wide event and will affect everyone, unless all countries cooperates.

I hope that was clear :)

2
SexualPapercutOP•

Thanks a lot for that breakdown! And thanks for not judging me haha

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170rokey•

Climate change refers to the change in global weather conditions - which have been changing faster than they ever have in Earth's history. This is mainly thought to be caused by humans' emissions of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

The photo in question is suggesting that nuclear plants can stop climate change. This is because they can produce energy without emitting harmful greenhouse gasses into the air - other sources like gasoline and coal also produce energy but as a byproduct, they create lots of greenhouse gasses.

As for Germany, they have historically produced a significant portion of their energy from nuclear power. (22.4% of German power was from nuclear in 2010, source). However, from 2017 Germany decided to phase out nuclear power slowly, due to concerns with safety after the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

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SexualPapercutOP•

Thanks a lot for that breakdown! And thanks for not judging me haha

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WEEEBBER9999•

Climate change is just another manufactured crisis to take our eyes off what's actually happening. Just like the oil shortage of the seventies. The ozone layer of the '80s. The weapons of mass destruction of the 90s. None of these came to fruition. 20 years from now neither will this.

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skyderper13REDACTED•

Yeah Germany really fucked up that one and now we are sitting here with nuclear plants that will be shut down in a couple of years and planning to shut down our coal plants till 2030. Great fucking plan of you ask me. Power outages I'm comming...

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lordTigas•

I don't know why Germany fucked up or why the nuclear plants would be shutdown though

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whomDev•

Its the equivalent of what happened after Jaws was released, people lived in anxiety & unrealistic peril

1
lordTigas•

Oh no.. it's one of those..

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[deleted]•

[deleted]

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Come out of your cave and watch the mainstream news channel channel liberal preferably and and you will soon find out about climate change

1
teetaps•

This video will perfectly address the exact issue you want to know about, specifically if/how a change to nuclear will affect our current climate change trajectory: https://youtu.be/EhAemz1v7dQ

Generally, just remember that “climate” is how we describe weather on earth in the long term, kind of the general conditions under which most of us live over many many years. Climate change is when there’s a significant change in those conditions. One example of climate change was when the first organisms on earth started consuming CO2 and expelling O2. This caused the temperature on the entire earth to shift — climate change.

Now, it turns out that’s happening again, and this time it’s because humans have gotten so good at technology that most of our activities — building things, driving vehicles, feeding people, powering homes — expel a lot of CO2 into the air. So much, that it’s causing the climate to shift.

Long story short, if we don’t start looking for different ways to do the things we do, there’s going to be so much excess of CO2 (and other gases) in the air that the damage will be irreparable and we won’t be able to go back to the climate we’ve known for thousands of years. The climate we will have instead will not be pleasant, and we have already seen examples of how. Nuclear is one such alternative option for producing energy. Is it worth it? Effective? Will it even work? The video may address that.

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SexualPapercutOP•

Thanks a lot for that breakdown! And thanks for not judging me haha

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whomDev•

I'll tell you what it's not : what the alarmists say....

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lordTigas•

Quick question... What's your take on covid vaccines? Just want to check something

1
whomDev•

Something big pharma never even dreamt of : something that could wash their past sins away

Also saved lives of the vulnerable, but also money Grab / good PR

Also alarmists are as bad as the deniers

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Rednex141•

You some kind of ignorist?

1
whomDev•

Alarmism rarely leads to Decisive action

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Rednex141•

Neither does ignorism

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whomDev•

yeah right , anybody who isnt an alarmist is a denier now

jfc we dont livein a binary world mate

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