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Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

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Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#12
https://www.energymeteo.com/about_us/jobs.php

> An exciting and ambitious job in a young company with horizontal hierarchies and flexible working hours awaits you. Here you will find a motivating environment where your ideas are welcome. In our dynamic team, you will be able to expand your practical knowledge and promote your personal development. You will get an insight into the growing renewable energy market and you will also be able to demonstrate your skills in the company's foosball table.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#14

https://www.energymeteo.com/about_us/jobs.php > An exciting and ambitious job in a young company with horizontal hierarchies and flexible working hours awaits you. Here you will find a motivating environment where your ideas are welcome. In our dynamic team, you will be able to expand your practical knowledge and promote your personal development. You will get an insight into the growing renewable energy market and y…

It's marketing speak but they do work in the sector and are expanding afaik.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#15

https://www.energymeteo.com/about_us/jobs.php > An exciting and ambitious job in a young company with horizontal hierarchies and flexible working hours awaits you. Here you will find a motivating environment where your ideas are welcome. In our dynamic team, you will be able to expand your practical knowledge and promote your personal development. You will get an insight into the growing renewable energy market and y…

It's marketing speak but they do work in the sector and are expanding afaik.

And do fully remote work.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#16
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that you're leaving out economic factors - when better and cleaner technology becomes cheaper than the alternatives, politics becomes largely irrelevant. And to get to that point economically, you need technological innovation.

Not gonna happen. This is a popular idea, I think people are a bit deluded by the fact that Wind+Solar got so cheap. Don't get me wrong: This is great. We'll likely be able to get rid of fossil-based electricity simply due to costs (even though it's too slow). But it's simply not plausible that you will find a cheaper technology in every area. Finding a way to fly a plane without carbon emissions is a challenge to be…

Thats why there is a need for a global Carbon Tax/Pricing System. This would internalise the cost of pollution and make engineering solution more important from a market perspective.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#17
Why so many people believe in climate catastrophe when multiple times the past climate theories proved to be incorrect? I really believe we have some world class problems to solve, like ocean pollution, that is a real thing and everybody see it. But climate catastrophe if really happens will not be something that humans can avoid, our influence in the climate is regional, not global, the world is constant changing since forever, we need to accept it.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#19

This question pops up quite regularly on HN. I am always giving the same answer. We, HN crowd, presented with a problem tend to reach for a technical solution. Unfortunately, climate change is not an engineering problem, it's a political problem. IT will not solve it. The best we, as engineers, can do is the same as for anyone else - step out of our comport zone and join a climate movement. Extinction Rebellion is my…

It's not like political organizations don't use IT. They have websites and databases.

More generally, political solutions are important but technical solutions are necessary too.

Bill Gates' new book goes into this in detail, with the concept of a "green premium," the percentage cost increase of going with a carbon-neutral solution in place of whatever we're using now. In some areas of the economy, the premium is quite large, and finding new tech to shrink it would help a lot.

Technical solutions won't make many green solutions cheaper than fossil in the foreseeable future, so we still need politics, but making the expensive stuff more reasonable makes the political task easier.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#20

This question pops up quite regularly on HN. I am always giving the same answer. We, HN crowd, presented with a problem tend to reach for a technical solution. Unfortunately, climate change is not an engineering problem, it's a political problem. IT will not solve it. The best we, as engineers, can do is the same as for anyone else - step out of our comport zone and join a climate movement. Extinction Rebellion is my…

We already have the solution: nuclear power.

The rest is the political problem of the anti-science attitude of one party in the US being spread to the rest of the world.

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