Have you considered becoming vegan?
Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?
11–20 of 105 posts
Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?
#12Volunteer or donate to the Veterans' Greenhouse non-profit. They're applying recent advancements in computer science to agriculture specifically to reduce carbon output and water consumption by industrial agriculture. https://veteransgreenhouse.org
Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?
#13Host with AWS. They are 50% powered by renewables and have a long-term goal of 100%. They’ve also helped build solar and wind farms generating 250+ gigawatts of renewable energy.
Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?
#14devise an alternative to "proof of work" blockchain ledgers.
cryptocurrencies are sucking down electricity at a rate larger than many nations, and all for literally doing NOTHING useful...
(majorly non eco activity...)
Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?
#15Get involved in grassroots politics, e.g. https://350.org/
Personal action (such as reducing your own CO2 emissions) is good but not enough. Collective action to put pressure on governments to regulate CO2 emissions is what's needed.
We already have the tech to reduce emissions to safe levels. What we lack is the political will to use it.
Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?
#16Get involved in grassroots politics, e.g. https://350.org/ Personal action (such as reducing your own CO2 emissions) is good but not enough. Collective action to put pressure on governments to regulate CO2 emissions is what's needed. We already have the tech to reduce emissions to safe levels. What we lack is the political will to use it.
TechForCampaigns.com is also great.
Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?
#17Don't despair that you're not part of the vanguard.
Take the opportunities and make the necessary changes to your own life as they present themselves - which you appear to be doing already, ie. leading by example.
Something I found effective, which is obvious in hindsight and I only found out by accident, is quantifying the financial benefits - because this resonates with people. I purchased solar panels a few years back, and mentioning my power bills in comparison to those without solar panels does draw attention.
I just wanted to be able to quantify it to myself, and ended up documenting on a website so I could point interested parties to it: http://electricity.atcf.com.au/economics/ (hasn't been updated in a couple of years...)
This is a single example, and quantifying it took planning and effort that doesn't translate to other things like not using plastic bags or straws. Overall, leading by example is the first step, and then making that example publicly available is a second step that's likely easily accessible to an HN'r.
I think if you're able to quanitfy your savings from minimising car usage, THAT would provide interesting financials that would attract attention.
Write an instructional and experiential blog, mention it to your friends and family, let the influence expand at its own pace, maybe linking to it in related HN comments ;)
Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?
#18Sounds like the work at a startup team could get together with the carbon.yc team and help route software engineers into jobs.
Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?
#19Host with AWS. They are 50% powered by renewables and have a long-term goal of 100%. They’ve also helped build solar and wind farms generating 250+ gigawatts of renewable energy.
Doesn't Google do something similar? I don't know the exact figures, but I know they made a push for renewables a little while back.
Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?
#20Yes, you can do something.
1. Basic principles: Do a bit of philosophy. Figure out some things that would be more sustainable, more accessable, more energy efficient. Software has a sizable impact on many processes, though public discussion tends to discount it. Consider how to align your career against those goals. Test your goals for coherence: You want to get them all aligned together so that you're constantly propelled in a good direction.
2. Plan a specific design: You might not be able to make the system you envision, but you can probably find some kind of leverage on the problem, whether it's collecting information, creating a prototype, contributing to an existing project, or marketing a better solution.
3. Create a feedback loop: Your first attempt is not likely to solve climate change. So your purpose in trying something is not to immediately solve it, but to find feedback that will guide you or others towards that goal. For example, if you think you have a technical solution that will reduce energy usage, you need to find a benchmark that you can use to measure and improve that solution. Ideally you develop a feedback mechanism like a workout log, where you can easily see your progression in training volume and intensity.
Historically, many breakthroughs result from this kind of effort distributed across many people, attacking different angles of a problem. A lot of the individual aspects like "recycle your waste" are effective when there's broad enforcement measures that make it the optimal or only option - it was less than a hundred years ago that taking your trash to the backyard incinerator was a common practice in all industrialized cities, and less than two hundred that dumping it out the window and onto the street was acceptable. We have plenty of things to improve still!