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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?

#91

Post by the_other »

iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote: post #31
perfunctory wrote: post #3

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…

I would argue the opposite, that its mainly a technical problem that has been coopted by a political movement. The technical problem should be (roughly), how can we continue to enjoy our lives and the standard of living we have achieved, and continue to bring more of the world to that level, in a way that is sustainable long term. There are lots of promising routes to making this happen, and we have already seen lots…

I agree that we could be more creative in approaching the quality-of-life/resource-use balance (including in favour of improving quality of life). However, we could have started that conversation and research back in the 1970s when the science started to tell us we needed to. But we didn’t. This is absolutely a problem of politics and power above a technical problem.

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

#92

Post by ironmagma »

perfunctory wrote: post #3

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 a very big problem, in that it touches a lot of different sectors. One of those sectors is tech. There can be technical solutions to climate change; they are in the category “necessary but not sufficient.” There must ALSO be business and political solutions, but reducing wasted ocean traffic by 20%, for example, could have huge consequences.

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

#93

Post by troyvit »

perfunctory wrote: post #3

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…

I don't think this is an answer to their question though. They didn't ask your opinion what the problem is, or even how to solve it, but rather what companies are trying to do it. I'll add that there are plenty of organizations that aren't looking for a technical solution but still need technical people.

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

#94

Post by tticvs »

I work for a sustainability startup in Berlin that is focussed on helping businesses analyze their carbon footprint to become neutral through reduction and offsetting.

We are looking for frontend (react), backend (python mostly), and data engineers.

If you're interested let me know how best to contact you!

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

#95

Post by christiansakai »

ben_w wrote: post #82
christiansakai wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about safety and nuclear waste?

While I am also concerned about safety (there’s always something that can go wrong, and the energy density and the conversion factor from energy to risk are both very hazardous here), the waste is a surprisingly small issue: The actual quantity of material, thanks to the energy density of the fuel, is tiny and easily managed.

Interesting. How about the supply of the Uranium. As far as I know it is not renewable?

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

#96

Post by ben_w »

christiansakai wrote: post #95
ben_w wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I am also concerned about safety (there’s always something that can go wrong, and the energy density and the conversion factor from energy to risk are both very hazardous here), the waste is a surprisingly small issue: The actual quantity of material, thanks to the energy density of the fuel, is tiny and easily managed.

Interesting. How about the supply of the Uranium. As far as I know it is not renewable?

It’s not renewable, no. Exactly how much uranium is economical to extract isn’t clear, even before the last decade of tech development caused renewables to reduce to about 1/10th the price of nuclear.

My opinion is: keep any current reactors running while they’re in decent condition, but don’t bother trying to plan new reactors for electricity because PV is faster and cheaper to deploy even if you have to add LiIon batteries. (I’d be fine with making new reactors for big new cargo ships, but I believe someone tried something like that already and it didn’t work out).

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

#97

Post by marakv2 »

perfunctory wrote: post #3

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…

I disagree, partially. We, (and I mean you guys as I'm an amateur here), can help build tools to inform and help spread information.

Parse information in a way which helps people fighting climate change is helpful.

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

#98

Post by user-the-name »

iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote: post #70
user-the-name wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, what is myopic is demanding that a problem be solved without you having to put any effort into it yourself. To demand that things carry on as normal in the face of oncoming catastrophy. That is myopic in the extreme.

Not sure who you're responding to that advocated for that. But the closest I can see is the original post suggesting the that people join a protest group. Lobbying the government to force others to behave as you want, and not proposing an actual solution, is pretty close to demanding that a problem be solved without putting any effort in yourself.

> But there are people that want to move backwards, to reduce our standard of living

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

#99

Post by culopatin »

imtringued wrote: post #65
iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue the opposite, that its mainly a technical problem that has been coopted by a political movement. The technical problem should be (roughly), how can we continue to enjoy our lives and the standard of living we have achieved, and continue to bring more of the world to that level, in a way that is sustainable long term. There are lots of promising routes to making this happen, and we have already seen lots…

> I would argue the opposite, that its mainly a technical problem that has been coopted by a political movement. I don't see it. You just deploy some existing technology that is slightly more expensive upfront but cheaper in the long run. You turn off old technology that is not compatible with the goal. You can make the technology cheaper by simply putting more money into it and deploying it more. There is literally…

It’s like if your home is flooding and you ask your family/roommate to help but you decide against it because instead of just doing it for their own sake of survival, they charge you an hourly rate and it’s just too expensive, so you both die.

We always talk about money but money won’t mean anything without the people to use it.

I am personally willing to devote part of my time to work for free towards building a solution that is being ignored just because someone said it’s too expensive.

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

#100

Post by the_only_law »

olalonde wrote: post #36

You are passionate about a "catastrophe" that doesn't exist: https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2020/6/29/on-beha...

Fascinating. They claim to have data from respectable sources and yet don't link them. They only link news stories of people talking about negative effects of climate change and an Amazon link to their book.
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