Ask HN: How do we save the planet? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How do we save the planet?

#11

Post by GreeniFi » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 2:32 AM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #10

GreeniFi wrote: post #9

Hi Mobermek, I run a business that invests in climate change related solutions, particularly in the agricultural space. I deal with these issues on a day-to-day basis and I’ve had to develop some psychological coping mechanisms - because the reality is scary, the climate system is complex, and we don’t have much time to avoid serious equilibrium shifts. I have children, and in many ways I feel more concerned for them…

> Right now, for most of us, climate shocks are less a threat than many other risks in our daily lives Right there, neatly summarised, lies the problem. When it is a direct threat to our daily lives it's surely way past too late to do anything about it. The time to start is long before it gets to that point. We managed it with ozone.

Yes. We are extremely bad at managing distant threats.

Re: Ask HN: How do we save the planet?

#12

Post by jotjotzzz » Wed, Oct 03, 2018, 8:50 PM UTC

Bill Gates recently recommended this book by Hans Rosling called "Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think" and it is a great book to read to be a realist.

The world is NOT getting worse, it is getting better. The news is only picking up issues that sell, and fear and devastation sell, just like sex.

Solving global warming -- let's start with being mindful of our carbon footprint. I'd love to see every car on the road to be driverless, electric cars in the future. I think we are on our way.

In any case, don't read the news. Read books instead.

Re: Ask HN: How do we save the planet?

#13

Post by cimmanom » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 11:07 AM UTC

ssijak wrote: post #5

simplecomplex wrote: post #3

The biggest obstacle to responding to climate change is The Republican Party. No, I’m not being hyperbolic. They currently control climate policy for one of the largest polluters on earth, the largest economy, and most of international law. Any help changing or defeating the Republican party’s dangerous anti-science anti-facts agenda would get us closer to being able to collectively deal with this issue.

Then just put better Democrat candidates forward for the start.

That’s not enough when the way the country’s election districts are set gives the Republican Party a heavy advantage at the polls (even without district level gerrymandering - the state boundaries alone are enough to accomplish that in the House; and do far worse in the senate).

And then there’s the issue of all the citizens who have been misled into supporting Republican positions and are intensely ideological about them.

Re: Ask HN: How do we save the planet?

#14

Post by marssaxman » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 5:39 PM UTC

First, invent a time machine. Next, go back to the '60s and make a fortune on the stock market using your knowledge of the future. Finally, spend the '70s using your billions lobbying for something like the Paris treaty. Get it in place by the early '80s and you might be able to rest easy.

Short of that, there's little to recommend. We can't save the planet anymore, not as we know it; we've already pumped enough CO2 into the atmosphere that every ecosystem on earth will be permanently affected, no matter what we do from here.

Humanity will survive somehow. We do not appear to have any significant ability to deal with long-term, collective problems, but we're pretty good at engineering our way out of short-term crises. The worse the immediate problems become, the more attention they will get, and the more willing people will be to divert resources to their solutions.

I try to avoid worrying about things I can't change, and the fate of humanity is certainly one of them.

Re: Ask HN: How do we save the planet?

#15

Post by Odenwaelder » Thu, Oct 04, 2018, 7:07 PM UTC

Stop producing more humans.

Re: Ask HN: How do we save the planet?

#16

Post by badpun » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 11:38 AM UTC

bjourne wrote: post #4

This summer it was over 30 degrees for a whole month and I could hardly think. Like, it became physically impossible to write non-trivial code or work on math problems. And it will only get worse in the coming years... I don't know what to do about it. I've decided to become a vegetarian, but clearly that is not enough and action must be taken on a global political level.

> I don't know what to do about it

Get air conditioning?

Re: Ask HN: How do we save the planet?

#17

Post by Habo777 » Fri, Oct 05, 2018, 1:13 PM UTC

We spend millions of dollars on the few thousand people who have cancer when millions have no food we spend millions on them but we are killing our planet what we need to do is see the bigger picture.