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Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
171–180 of 508 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#172Because corporations are doing the majority of that pro-environmental advertising. I mean that both in terms of companies making changes (both real and greenwashing) and the News/Media corporations reporting on it. Telecommuting could be absolutely massive for reduced emissions, could bring down urban house prices, improve inter-family relationships, and revitalized suburban neighborhoods (e.g. more walkable areas).…
> and revitalized suburban neighborhoods (e.g. more walkable areas) Without other changes, this would not happen (in the US at least). The default would be every more cookie-cutter suburban sprawl, with the cul-de-sac-y construction of these neighborhoods creating a more labrynthian, difficult-to-walk place to live. Until there is more mixed-use zoning in the US, with high enough density to justify frequent public tr…
I disagree, yes zoning changes could be needed, but the presence of more daytime workers at home in suburban areas creates new opportunities for restaurants, coffee shops, and other conveniences that cater to those workers.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Employees waste 2 of their 16 I suspect that you don't commute to a large city (either via car or mass transit). It's more like 4-6 hours. Crazy.
The average commute in a large city is definitely not 2-3 hours one way .
When I lived in New York. I left for the train at 545 and got to work between 830 and 9.
I don’t think this is the average commute, but millions of people do this every day.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#174I actually don't know the answer to this question and what baffles me the most is hearing what urban/transport activists have to say about that - those I talked with either ignore it completely or argue that it's worse because it "induces sprawl". I have quite a few people in my social circle who moved out to the suburbs/countryside and remote work was by and large considered only after they moved and found that they…
> I talked with either ignore it completely or argue that it's worse because it "induces sprawl". But, sprawl is only a problem because of commutes. If you had sprawl with lots of small, local commercial outlets, then that's just perfect. No long commutes to work and no long commutes to get life's necessities.
> But, sprawl is only a problem because of commutes.
I agree to an extent.
To be completely fair it is less efficient than densely packed cities in terms of energy and cost of providing services like sewage/garbage disposal.
That being said I see it as a tradeoff like any other and believe people should have the right to choose how they live as long as they bear the costs of that.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#175FWIW: I'm sure that heating and cooling my 3rd floor office negates some of my impact from telecommuting. I also have extra equipment in the office, and at home, that goes mostly unused.
I've been working ~90% remote for about 8 years. It works for me, because I'm disciplined and honest, and because I have a job that can be performed remotely. It also works for me because I've been able to find good ways to have facetime with the people I work with; but I'm normally shy and prefer to work in isolation.
Not every job can be performed remotely. Even jobs that can be performed remotely need facetime for helping people early in their careers start. Some people, unfortunately, aren't disciplined enough to work remotely.
Other people are extreme extroverts and really, really need to be around a large group of people for most of their day. A good friend of mine, who works in a hospital, used to love his job until he was assigned work-at-home work. He hates it now, just because he's a major extrovert.
There's another post in this thread from someone who lives in a small city apartment and commutes by train a few stops to their office. That's also environmentally friendly.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I talked with either ignore it completely or argue that it's worse because it "induces sprawl". But, sprawl is only a problem because of commutes. If you had sprawl with lots of small, local commercial outlets, then that's just perfect. No long commutes to work and no long commutes to get life's necessities.
> But, sprawl is only a problem because of commutes. I agree to an extent. To be completely fair it is less efficient than densely packed cities in terms of energy and cost of providing services like sewage/garbage disposal. That being said I see it as a tradeoff like any other and believe people should have the right to choose how they live as long as they bear the costs of that.
Yes, there are some inefficiencies with sprawl. There are also mental health issues with dense cities.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#177Back in 1964 Arthur C. Clarke predicted [1] that by the year 2000 cities as we know them would no longer exist. We would live in a world of instant communication where we could contact anyone on Earth without leaving our home. This technology would make it possible for many people to conduct business without having to be present at a specific physical location. Today, we know the technology Clarke was talking about as the Internet. And while his technological predictions could not have been more correct, he severely underestimated the pace of social progress.
Despite modern office jobs being done entirely on a computer, most workers are still expected to get up in the morning, battle the daily commute, and physically congregate at the office to work. Companies have given innumerable arguments for why this must be so, and until recently there wasn’t an empirical way to test any of them.
Unfortunately, it’s often difficult to tell whether an argument holds water without running an experiment since ideas that sound great on paper can spectacularly fail in practice. However, the pandemic presented a unique scenario where it was no longer safe to continue following these practices resulting in a forced experiment of mass remote work across the world. We now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that remote work was possible all along, and a recent study shows that there is no loss of productivity associated with it. It would appear that the main barrier to remote work was the desire to stick with the familiar. Now that this valuable experiment has been run we shouldn’t simply discard the results. Office workers should demand the ability to continue working remotely. There is no longer any justification to keep up the daily commute.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#178[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#179Because people don't actually care about the environment, the vast majority just say they do - until it's inconvenient to them.
Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?
#180I actually don't know the answer to this question and what baffles me the most is hearing what urban/transport activists have to say about that - those I talked with either ignore it completely or argue that it's worse because it "induces sprawl". I have quite a few people in my social circle who moved out to the suburbs/countryside and remote work was by and large considered only after they moved and found that they…
The goal of remote work is not to drive everyone out of the city. It's a success if we allow enough people to move to the suburbs. Everyone benefits, including people that love the city life. Plus, remote work is still not the norm in every company, so it's difficult for someone like you and me to move to the suburbs even if we wanted to, because we can't be 100% certain our next jobs will be remote.
> Everyone benefits, including people that love the city life.
That's what I've been saying, but I'm met with an attitude that doesn't accept anything short of what I see as a human pile-up with only the very rich owning real estate.