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Ask HN: How can I as a coder contribute to climate change?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I as a coder contribute to climate change?

#2

Post by FroshKiller »

This isn't the first time you've posted this. Here is the response I decided not to post last time.

You will probably never write a magic thousand lines of code for this. You'll probably have a far greater impact if you do a few simple things we should all be doing anyway:

* Turn off lights you aren't using.

* Turn your air conditioning up or down by a few degrees.

* Turn your water heater down a few degrees.

For computer-specific stuff:

* Don't leave computers running when not in use.

* Dim your displays.

* Use your laptop's battery rather than leaving it plugged in all the time.

I know it's not exactly interesting stuff, and it certainly doesn't build your CV, but neither of those things is actually important when it comes to climate change.

Re: Ask HN: How can I as a coder contribute to climate change?

#5

Post by afarrell »

Make videochat work reliably so people don't need to get in airplanes to conduct business across continents.

Make it easier to model genetic engineering so we can produce crops with less use of the Haber-Bosch process.

Make public transit easier to use.

Make it easier for people to coordinate life without a car.

Make inexpensive FLIR cameras for people to find leaks in their home insulation. NOTE: if this becomes widespread, it will be legal for police to use those same devices to look into people's homes.

Re: Ask HN: How can I as a coder contribute to climate change?

#7

Post by peller »

To actually understand what we as individuals can do, I recommend reading the Sustainable Energy book.[1] It's free online.[2]

As a developer, you can educate and help people conserve energy. Heating and cooling are enormous culprits. Learn to be comfortable at 60-65 in the winter, and 75-80 in the summer. Transportation is a big culprit as well. Buy a bicycle and use it for everything under 10 miles. Of course green technologies are helpful, and I don't mean to discount them, but the reality is that our cultural attitudes towards consumption are just as much of the problem.

To visually see what I mean, check out this graphic from the book: http://www.withouthotair.com/c18/page_109.shtml The red bar on the left represents a typical Britain's consumption (which, mind you, is statistically less than the typical American's). The green bar on the right represents the pie-in-the-sky most insanely optimistic output of all the green technologies. Like, if they covered the entire country in solar panels and surrounded it with windmills and tidal power. It's basically a completely unreasonable estimate of the top-end of green energy production, and it doesn't even match the consumption bar.

[1] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4070074-sustainable-energ...

[2] https://www.withouthotair.com/

Re: Ask HN: How can I as a coder contribute to climate change?

#10

Post by jordicostal »

peller wrote: post #7

To actually understand what we as individuals can do, I recommend reading the Sustainable Energy book.[1] It's free online.[2] As a developer, you can educate and help people conserve energy. Heating and cooling are enormous culprits. Learn to be comfortable at 60-65 in the winter, and 75-80 in the summer. Transportation is a big culprit as well. Buy a bicycle and use it for everything under 10 miles. Of course green…

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