Ride your bike to work and encourage others to do likewise. Might be a small gesture, but it's something you can do tomorrow.
What can a technologist do about climate change?
161–170 of 293 posts
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
By my quick math you'd need at least $500k to live off the interest. Are you investing in a plain way (ie. index fund or similar) and just have a really good salary? It sounds like you're banking upwards of $75k/year.
Yes just index funds, making about $200k/year pretax if I count salary+stock+bonus+401k match. I'll admit, not everyone makes $200k this early. But most people could be financially independent much sooner than they think if they realized that spending doesn't make them happier and started saving instead -- so I suggest this when I get the chance. :) Lots of people have no idea where their money is going because they…
Totally - I have a happy frugal lifestyle as well and try to spread the word. I just don't make anywhere near that much :) My target is 35 and relies on buying land to cut a huge chunk of my annual expenses.
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#163I work on climate software at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory[1]. My team works with big data and visualization. We support ACME[2] (the Department of Energy's climate modeling program), PCMDI[3] (a team that's been evaluating climate models since 1989), and a number of other projects and groups. If you are interested in what you can do for the climate, we need all the help we can get. Our code may not be the…
1. Your email is not in your profile.
2. The job link throws a certificate error, and then 404s if I ignore it.
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#164I work on climate software at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory[1]. My team works with big data and visualization. We support ACME[2] (the Department of Energy's climate modeling program), PCMDI[3] (a team that's been evaluating climate models since 1989), and a number of other projects and groups. If you are interested in what you can do for the climate, we need all the help we can get. Our code may not be the…
1. Your email is not in your profile. 2. The job link throws a certificate error, and then 404s if I ignore it.
fwiw, the job link worked for me...
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
In the time honoured tradition of shooting ourselves in the foot by making better the enemy of best? Neither concrete, nor uranium mining have to burn fossil fuels (and CO2 sequesting concrete is a real thing). They are decoupled from their fuel source, but the lack of incentives to improve that situation at present (due to the near entirety of electrical generation being fossil fuels) is the bigger problem.
Making cement by its nature releases a large amount of CO2 and accounts for 5% of total emissions [1]. I do agree that we are not really creating the right incentives to improve things. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_conc...
But note from that page: energy use is 40% of the CO2 expense of concrete. So assume we can pretty much eliminate that by other means.
That leaves a 50% chunk due to chemistry. For that we have things like eco-cement, or carbon sequestration technologies.
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#166I work on climate software at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory[1]. My team works with big data and visualization. We support ACME[2] (the Department of Energy's climate modeling program), PCMDI[3] (a team that's been evaluating climate models since 1989), and a number of other projects and groups. If you are interested in what you can do for the climate, we need all the help we can get. Our code may not be the…
1. Your email is not in your profile. 2. The job link throws a certificate error, and then 404s if I ignore it.
Sorry, didn't realize that my email address didn't automatically show. Added it. As for the job link, there's not a lot I can do.
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes just index funds, making about $200k/year pretax if I count salary+stock+bonus+401k match. I'll admit, not everyone makes $200k this early. But most people could be financially independent much sooner than they think if they realized that spending doesn't make them happier and started saving instead -- so I suggest this when I get the chance. :) Lots of people have no idea where their money is going because they…
Totally - I have a happy frugal lifestyle as well and try to spread the word. I just don't make anywhere near that much :) My target is 35 and relies on buying land to cut a huge chunk of my annual expenses.
I'm happy for you! Having the option of retiring at 35, and being happy in the time until then, is a sweet deal. :)
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ahem, > The volcano released approximately 0.15 million tonnes of CO2 each day, but the massive reduction of air travel occurring over European skies caused by the ash cloud, saved an estimated 1.3 to 2.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere by 19 April 2010. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_the_April_2010_Eyja... > The grounding of European flights avoided about 3.44×10^8 kg of CO2 e…
One small volcano vs all European flights. Now look at this: | Year | Volcano | Mean Sulphurous Output | Source | Est. Carbon output during year(s) of eruption | | +----------------+--------------+------------------------+-------------------------+-----------------------------------------------+--+ | 1883AD | Krakatoa | 38 MtSO2pa | Shinohara (2008) | 26.14 MtCpa | | | 1815AD | Tambora | 70 MtSO2pa | Shinohara (2008)…
So you're bringing up the Toba eruption (circa 71,000BP!), probably the largest eruption in the past 100 thousand years, which was so extreme that some scholars suspect that it created a "genetic bottleneck" in human DNA by killing off the majority of humans.[1]
According to your list, it emitted 494.24 Mt of carbon.
By comparison: "Since 1751 approximately 374 billion metric tonnes of carbon have been released to the atmosphere from the consumption of fossil fuels and cement production. Half of these fossil-fuel CO2 emissions have occurred since the mid 1980s. The 2011 global fossil-fuel carbon emission estimate, 9449 million metric tons of carbon, represents an all-time high and a 3.4% increase over 2010 emissions."[2]
Fun fact: "In 2014, about 136.78 billion gallons (or 3.26 billion barrels) of gasoline were consumed in the United States."[3] Gasoline's density is 719.7 kg/m^3, so this is roughly 372 Mt of gasoline, of which most is carbon.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory#Geneti...
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#169I work on climate software at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory[1]. My team works with big data and visualization. We support ACME[2] (the Department of Energy's climate modeling program), PCMDI[3] (a team that's been evaluating climate models since 1989), and a number of other projects and groups. If you are interested in what you can do for the climate, we need all the help we can get. Our code may not be the…
It show a 404.
BTW this is open for remote work? devs outside USA?
Re: What can a technologist do about climate change?
#170I work on climate software at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory[1]. My team works with big data and visualization. We support ACME[2] (the Department of Energy's climate modeling program), PCMDI[3] (a team that's been evaluating climate models since 1989), and a number of other projects and groups. If you are interested in what you can do for the climate, we need all the help we can get. Our code may not be the…
It show a 404. BTW this is open for remote work? devs outside USA?
Nope, no remote work. We hire foreign nationals and will facilitate immigration processing, but it tends to only be for truly exceptional people (though the bar is a lot lower in my group than most).