this post was submitted on 13 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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I flew propeller planes for 17 years – here's why they're making a comeback (inews.co.uk)
submitted 2 weeks ago by Sunshine@lemmy.ca to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Tell me how much we haven't done because it's impossible, and how much we haven't done because we haven't tried?

There's aspects of each when it comes to electrical aircraft. I know that taking a normal commercial jet, dropping in batteries instead of a fuel tank is not going to work. But there are real aspects that we are making incremental gains, and we will have to sacrifice in other areas, at least initially (e.g. using low-flying propellor planes instead of jet engines, regional range rather than transcontinental). I believe it's you who is jumping to the conclusion that because we can't go from a 2 person electric plane to a 60+ today means we can't, ever, and ignoring all the middle steps.

you assume as if these issues are just problems that just need an already existing solution

There are some solutions that we haven't discovered or put into practice. We'd have to try and find out to know if they would be commercially viable and safe.

What's the formula, study or principle that prevents this physically (i.e.: how could we have both 2-person electric and fuel-powered planes, but designing a bigger one isn't possible due to physics)?

I get that it's difficult, for a larger capacity you need a larger body, a larger body means larger weight, and with today's tech the energy required for takeoff might scale up faster than the space you get from the body after the required batteries are installed (I have no source for this but I imagine this is your thinking). But even if we couldn't improve battery tech at all and doesn't compare to fuel, I am not aware of any physical limits to how either the body and wing layout and shape, propulsion mechanism and other operating aspects couldn't be further optimized given research and tech advancements that would allow us to compensate for that. If there are such limits, do enlighten me. I would also appreciate a linked source.