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Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

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Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#191

Post by seydor »

paulcole wrote: post #77
seydor wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The companies? they care about their ESG image. "We support green, remote work" would be a nice touch The employees? Isn't that the whole point of the "corporate culture" BS? - The mind of those people who can't live without the daily commute to office

What do companies care about more? Their ESG image or money? The employees don’t need to be advertised remote work software. They either like remote work or they don’t. An ad for “Slack is good for the environment” doesn’t change anyone’s mind.

By the same token "EVs are good for the environment" wouldn't change anyone's mind

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#192

Post by cableshaft »

eloff wrote: post #153
raxxorraxor wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is really stupid, and I hate that people tend to cut random liberties because they could maybe affect the environment ever so slightly. In reality this is so insignificant, it looks more like a panic than an attempt to a solution. You also loose political capital for serious undertakings. Truth is that composting your tea bags isn't that relevant. We have to look at the large picture and see if we can curb the lar…

Even just encouraging fracking (cheap gas vs coal means 2x reduction in carbon), or stopping to subsidize fossil fuels would make a massive difference.

Fracking is not sustainable (you're not going to be able to frack forever, we've already tapped a lot of the 'cheap gas' wells, future wells will eventually get prohibitively expensive, it already is very expensive and not even that profitable[1], and got a lot more expensive this year thanks to it requiring a specific type of sand that's now 3x the cost[2]) and is harmful to freshwater, not only by using a ton of it (average of 45 millions of gallons of freshwater per fracking well) but also because it mixes tons of chemicals in with the water it uses, making the wastewater toxic[3]. It also leaks a lot of methane[4], which is 80x worse for warming than CO2 emissions in the short term (CO2 stays in the atmosphere longer).

"To determine the potential impact of fracking in the U.K., a group of Manchester scientists ranked it and other energy sources, such as coal, wind, and solar, after considering environmental, economic, and social sustainability. Of the nine energy sources examined, the scientists found that fracking ranked seventh in sustainability.

To make fracking as sustainable as energy sources higher up on the list, such as wind and solar, there would need to be a staggering 329-fold reduction in environmental impact, according to the researchers."[5]

[1] https://www.barrons.com/articles/why-are-natural-gas-prices-...

[2] https://sports.yahoo.com/sand-fracking-now-3-times-114500960...

[3] https://cen.acs.org/environment/water/Wastewater-fracking-Gr...

[4] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/frack...

[5] https://futurism.com/fracking-among-most-harmful-forms-energ...

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#193

Post by ako »

osigurdson wrote: post #152
bilbo0s wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. We need to learn that corporations care even less about the environment than they care about remote work. Invoking the environment to gain their support of remote work is just misunderstanding their priorities. The game is to make remote work attractive to them. You think Elon Musk wants to hear your spiel about the environment? Or does he want you to get back into your office and work a 16 hour day? If we want…

>> Or does he want you to get back into your office and work a 16 hour day? I'm OK with working 16 hour days on something that matters (obviously burn out needs to be kept in check - it can't be done forever). I realize that I might be "wired" differently than others as I care a bit less about work life balance and more about accomplishment (not proud of it). I see no reason why this can't be done at the beach house…

Not sure how a 16 hour workday fits if you also need to sleep, shop, cook, clean, take care of the kids, keep in contact with your friends and family, and exercise.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#194

Post by chitowneats »

itake wrote: post #114
chitowneats wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of productivity I lose when trying to work this way, hunched over my laptop screen in a public place, is immense. An office, downtown or at home, is absolutely necessary. Are you a software engineer?

I am SWE and Engineering Manager. I find open offices to be way more distracting b/c people discuss topics relevant to me (project work or even good morning hellos). Public libraries are quieter than my office and coffee shop noise is background noise. Lack of external monitors is a fair concern, but I found external monitors to be too distracting. I only need to look at one thing at a time. I don't want random thing…

It's not the external monitor I'm looking for. It's single monitor larger than a laptop screen and a usable keyboard. I fold my laptop screen closed.

Also, I want to be around for relevant conversations. Context switching is not an issue for me as long it's not unrelated to work (or something unobtrusive like "hello").

To each their own I suppose.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#195

Post by agentultra »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #187
agentultra wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the land use is that much more productive. High density cities pay for suburbs which are a net-drain on city finances and are terrible for the environment. The numbers in North America are pretty staggering. There are plenty of examples around the world where dense urban living can be rather pleasant. You can walk to get your food, kids can cycle around town, and you can sit and gather in public places that a…

That can always be an argument. You could place all humans in Great Britain easily. Would perhaps be more productive as well. Imagine all the biotopes that could strive again. But it isn't a question about productivity and I believe the vast majority live in high density setups for utility. At least I do. It is nice enough but it remains a compromise. Not from the US, but expect this story about high density areas pa…

The solution is to enable more mixed-use zoning and enable more dense development. The situation in North America is that we can only build low-productivity, high-cost, environmentally damaging suburbs. Which, in turn, leads to noisy, polluted cities with high levels of traffic congestion, collisions, and massive amounts of unproductive parking lots.

Plenty of European and Asian cities are good examples of how one can transform modern cities to be better balanced and pleasant for humans to live in.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#196

Post by JTbane »

Someone1234 wrote: post #46

Because 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).…

It's kind of depressing that greenwashing is so effective: see companies like ConocoPhillips getting stellar ESG ratings despite their business models.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#197

Post by chitowneats »

adql wrote: post #92
chitowneats wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely agree. Ever since WFH started I'm feeling this gravitational pull away from the city center because of cost of living and space considerations. If salary takes a nosedive this will become untenable for many. Mountains of research show that this will increase total emissions. It would be one thing if the U.S. was developing medium density suburban cores, but that seems to be on the table in very, very few…

If you could 100% WFH moving to just smaller city (instead of to suburbs of a bigger city) is always an option.

U.S.A. really doesn't have walkable smaller cities outside of college campuses. If anyone has any suggestions I'm open to them.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#198

Post by closeparen »

osigurdson wrote: post #122

There is nothing more illogical in modern society than commuting to an office every day. Employees waste 2 of their 16 available waking hours in the non-productive commute while incurring significant financial costs (lease/insurance/fuel/energy) in order to support this patently absurd activity. Employers waste time and energy negotiating leases, re-arranging offices, purchasing AV equipment for meeting rooms, etc.,…

New York has one of the worst commute situations in the country, with an average of 36 minutes each way. The US average is 27 minutes. People commuting two hours a day are extreme outliers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/22/realestate/commuting-best...

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#199

Post by throwaway2037 »

onion2k wrote: post #49
rr888 wrote: post #26

I live in a small apartment a short train ride from the office. It isn't big enough to work from home. If I worked from home I'd get a big house in the suburbs, and buy a car to get around. My environmental footprint would be much bigger. Edit - if I didn't have kids I'd totally have a beach house and a mountain house to live in. Maybe in different countries too.

If I'm reading this correctly, you choose to live in a small apartment, suffer the commute on a train, and work in an office you'd prefer not to be in, just so you don't have to move to a big house in the suburbs with your kids.

The GP wrote: >

You then transformed it into >

I'm confused about that.

Re: Ask HN: Why isn't remote work advertised as a pro environment initiative?

#200

Post by foobiekr »

goosedragons wrote: post #50
simonmesmith wrote: post #7

Similarly, I often wonder why cities don’t promote local telecommuting over building expensive public transportation infrastructure. Building one kilometre of subway costs anywhere from around $100 million to $1.6 billion ( https://marroninstitute.nyu.edu/events/how-much-does-it-cost... ), and then requires subsidies to run. Why not use this money to provide incentives for people to telecommute? And while some might…

Yeah let's increase car dependence. Great idea. If people are mainly working from home then we can redirect public transit from business parks or whatever towards places people still want to go (e.g. shopping, nightlife, events) but without a car. Starving already often underfunded public transit is not the answer. Why not use the hundreds of millions spent on highways to subsidize people to work from home instead? M…

Subsidizing people in affluent, remote-work jobs is not a good allocation of resources. By all means, work from home, but subsidies should mostly help the people in the bottom two thirds of the income ladder.
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