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Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?

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Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?

#41

Post by piocho »

diafygi wrote: post #29

> Is there anything I, a normal person, can do to actually help? Absolutely. I work in cleantech, and you should, too! Solar and wind are economical, so now the biggest issue is scaling them up. That means tons and tons of problem solving, which means great engineering jobs! If you think about it, the switch to renewables means we need to deal with situations where the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, ye…

> Absolutely. I work in cleantech, and you should, too! Solar and wind are economical, so now the biggest issue is scaling them up. That means tons and tons of problem solving, which means great engineering jobs!

Economical right. But can it replace nuclear power plants ? Because we need a LOT of power (datacenter, electric cars ?).

Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?

#42

Post by duchenne »

Climate research relies heavily on simulations. You could probably work in a climate research institute to improve the modeling software. This kind of coding of also interesting from a technical point of view: very big computation, lot of data, parallelism.

source: a climatologist friend.

Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?

#43

Post by vikaskyadav »

Libbum wrote: post #38

What country do you live in? I work at a climate research institute and have connections all over. I could perhaps put you in contact with a local research team. Sadly, I'd say that a lot of current research tools are pretty shoddy when it comes to implementation. Not that they give incorrect results, more-so that there is no way to really interop systems with any ease. No standards, only a small culture of open sour…

any good contact in India or Asia Pacific?

Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?

#44

Post by konschubert »

I justed wanted to say hi because I'm totally in the same boat. Since I was 12 I've been watching this and my fears have been confirmed.

I also wanted to say that changing individual behavior isn't going to fix it by much. The fuel I don't burn, others will burn it instead.

The only way to fix this is 1) technology to make C02 emissions less profitable than green tech and 2) policy.

As a technologist, I try to focus on 1).

Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?

#45

Post by glastra »

ppseafield wrote: post #22

Reduce your meat consumption or go vegetarian or vegan. A major cause of deforestation is to grow corn / soybeans to feed to livestock. The forests, natural carbon sinks, are lost, and the livestock increase the amount of methane in the atmosphere. It takes 9 times the amount of land to make beef vs. growing plants. It uses a lot more freshwater to grow the food, and much more to give to the animals.

What about environmentally conscious farming? I mean pastured, free-range, etc.

Also, what would you say is the difference between massive industrial plantations intended to feed livestock vs those intended to feed humans with a less than ideal diet?

Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?

#46

Post by tomhoward »

Here's one factor to consider, which might be controversial to some...

You can use your skills to earn as much money as you can, so you can purchase clean energy/goods, and invest in clean-tech assets.

The reason carbon emissions are still such a problem is that carbon-emitting fuels are still generally the cheapest.

Clean-tech purchases like domestic solar panels and electric cars are still quite costly, because they're still in the immature stages of development and market growth.

The way to drive down the prices of these kinds of items is to increase demand, which you can help to do by purchasing them.

The more people do this, the cheaper they'll become, and then the more affordable they'll be for less wealthy people.

This is controversial as people tend to equate commerce with environmental harm. There is some truth in this, but it's only a partial truth: environmental harm comes from commerce that is powered by dirty fuels (or that has other harmful externalities).

By increasing our commercial activity that has little or no negative environmental impact, then re-investing the gains in goods that have a further positive environmental impact, we can each make a solid contribution to undoing the damage.

Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?

#47

Post by pxtail »

tomhoward wrote: post #46

Here's one factor to consider, which might be controversial to some... You can use your skills to earn as much money as you can, so you can purchase clean energy/goods, and invest in clean-tech assets. The reason carbon emissions are still such a problem is that carbon-emitting fuels are still generally the cheapest. Clean-tech purchases like domestic solar panels and electric cars are still quite costly, because the…

Very well written, additional ideas:

* don't buy new phone every year - if it's not cheapest model then nowadays there is almost no difference between 1-2y old phones and most of them can easily last 3,4 or 5 years.

* repair devices instead of throwing away and buying new ones,I you must buy repairable high quality devices

* this might be hard but: consume less, create more - nowadays almost _every_ service is expecting that you'll consume and it's not limited to physical goods - twitter, twitch, facebook, netflix, pinterest, youtube - all of them wants your attention ,you just need to scroll down, refresh, watch watch, read constantly, consume.

* teach your relatives, friends to consume less - this will be insanely hard and you'll be judged as freak so better don't do it ;-)

Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?

#48

Post by wilsonnb3 »

pxtail wrote: post #47
tomhoward wrote: post #46

Here's one factor to consider, which might be controversial to some... You can use your skills to earn as much money as you can, so you can purchase clean energy/goods, and invest in clean-tech assets. The reason carbon emissions are still such a problem is that carbon-emitting fuels are still generally the cheapest. Clean-tech purchases like domestic solar panels and electric cars are still quite costly, because the…

Very well written, additional ideas: * don't buy new phone every year - if it's not cheapest model then nowadays there is almost no difference between 1-2y old phones and most of them can easily last 3,4 or 5 years. * repair devices instead of throwing away and buying new ones,I you must buy repairable high quality devices * this might be hard but: consume less, create more - nowadays almost _every_ service is expect…

I could buy a thousand new phones every year and it wouldn’t make a noticeable difference.

Climate change is a problem with such a massive scale that any individual action taken to combat it isn’t going to matter.

Re: Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help?

#50

Post by raptorraver »

vitovito wrote: post #6

Bret Victor thinks so, and outlines ways individual technologists can improve the situation, by helping others understand it and what needs to be built: http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/

Thank you for this link. It should be on the first page of HN everyday.
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