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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?

#61

Post by lm28469 »

watwut wrote: post #43
lm28469 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because homes are also generally heated for other uses than work I've never heard of anyone heating their home when not in it, given the other comments it seems like it's the norm, weird

> The most common way of heating here is that you have radiators set up Most people here would need to actively tweak it every time the leave the house and every time they come in. And do it separately for each room. Just from the way how heating works - you have valve in each room that you turn in order to adjust heating. Of course no one does it every day twice.

That's the system I have and that's how I do it, same for my family, we never leave it blasting if no one is home

> Of course no one does it every day twice.

Why not ? it takes like 5 seconds

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

#62

Post by mcv »

watwut wrote: post #43
lm28469 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because homes are also generally heated for other uses than work I've never heard of anyone heating their home when not in it, given the other comments it seems like it's the norm, weird

> The most common way of heating here is that you have radiators set up Most people here would need to actively tweak it every time the leave the house and every time they come in. And do it separately for each room. Just from the way how heating works - you have valve in each room that you turn in order to adjust heating. Of course no one does it every day twice.

I do. I turn up the heat in the morning and turn it down again in the evening. Smart thermostats can do that automatically, but my home office doesn't have a smart thermostat.

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

#63

Post by alistairSH »

lm28469 wrote: post #37
rg111 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

500 individual houses would be heated anyway.

Why would you heat a house if you're not in it. Do people really do that ?

Typical American house uses a heat pump (basically an AC run "backwards") with a single thermostat (bigger houses might have multiple complete systems).

If you turned the heat off at 7am as you left for work, the house would probably be below 60 when you got home, and take most of the evening to reheat, only to be turned back down again at bed time. I don't know anybody who manually does any of this - at best, they have a smart thermostat that lets them schedule home/away time or uses cell phones as presence sensors. And even then, they'll lower the heat 5-8 degrees, not turn it off completely.

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

#64

Post by rybosworld »

The initial covid lockdowns did result in a large drop in global emissions. Somewhere around ~2 Billion tons or about 5% drop for 2020.

2021 emissions were about equal to 2019 emissions. So there may be not much of an effect from remote work.

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

#65

Post by version_five »

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.

Thanks for putting this concisely.

I used to live in a small apartment and walk to work. Then when my wife and I both had to work from home, we ended up renting a big house because we still needed offices to work. Maybe there are some jobs & personal situations that allow one to wfh without additional space and costs - really though it's just shifting space around, often very inefficiently.

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

#66

Post by bluGill »

hayst4ck wrote: post #15
luminouslow wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about you but we still use the internet/zoom etc. in the office so you still need datacenters >lack of commuting incentivizes un-environmental and inefficient suburban sprawl I dont understand this point, IMO commuting leads to more suburban sprawl? Also i think this is a very USA-centric problem.

Sure zoom is still used, but I would be surprised if it's on the same order of magnitude. I'm not trying to argue that commuting is more environmentally friendly, it's very likely not, only that I need a bit more substantiation than "it's obviously true," and I particularly would want substantiation on the long term. I also would want to understand if electric cars are being accounted for. The reason not to live in t…

> The reason not to live in the suburbs is a long commute to your office. Living in the city might make a commute walk-able. So a commute dis-incentivizes suburban sprawl.

Not anymore. Most jobs in a city are not in the center, they are in the suburbs as well. If you want a short commute you have to live in the suburbs.

Note that in most cases (US - other countries are different!) there are zero places to live within walking distance of the office. Suburbs don't have mixed use zoning so it is illegal to live near where you work. While city centers might allow it (not all do) in theory, in practice rent is so high in the city center that common people cannot afford to live within walking distance of a job there. At least the city center has a form that supports transit, but you still can't walk there from home.

Note that I said form not not density. Suburbs have plenty of density to support transit, but the way things are built mean a transit can't get to enough people.

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

#67

Post by justaman »

lm28469 wrote: post #37
rg111 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

500 individual houses would be heated anyway.

Why would you heat a house if you're not in it. Do people really do that ?

In northern states people have to leave their heat on during the day to avoid plumbing issues or to keep pets comfortable.

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

#68

Post by rr888 »

tluyben2 wrote: post #32
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…

That seems more a US thing though because of how things are laid out? I picked my multiple places of living (EU) to have everything walking distance and I managed that for the past 30 years with wfh, city or not. We don't touch the car (or anything else) for weeks on end.

Definitely USA and Europe are built differently. I'd class most European city centers are medium-high density where smaller towns are still quite dense. Compare this to NYC where I am and Manhattan is higher density, but 2 hours drive away its normal to have a 4+ bedroom house on a big piece of land with bears and deer roaming around for a quarter of the price.

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

#69

Post by m000 »

humanrebar wrote: post #41
m000 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, working from home would reduce the demand for the train routes. This in turn would mean that the route would be scheduled more sparsely, or even discontinued*. Which would force more people to use a car. *And this is why management and operation of public utilities should be policy-driven rather than profit-driven.

If they're not commuting, they're also using the car less.

Yes, but those who can't WFH and used to commute by train may find themselves having to use a car again. Not to mention that this will force the use of cars for everything else, in addition to work commute.
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