Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

stripe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 217 posts

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#171

Post by xoraes »

enraged_camel wrote: post #107
titojankowski wrote: post #72

For people really into carbon removal --- Check out AirMiners, the largest community of entrepreneurs, researchers, and funders exploring opportunities in negative emissions and carbon removal. Folks from every major carbon removal startups like Climeworks, Global Thermostat, etc. Join 320+ of us on Slack! Apply here to join: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12L8drO9a6OZf3-I9578PieBI0fw... There's also a public meetup…

Let's say I'm a regular web developer and know nothing about climate science, carbon removal, or any related science or technologies, but might be interested in donating my time and and skills. Do you have any recommendations?

Here is an article that perfectly addresses your query: http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/

Sorry I would like to type an elaborate response, but I'm on phone for the day.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#172

Post by perfunctory »

brunoTbear wrote: post #7

I'm surprised by the size of the commit. If $1M is the floor for what a Stripe-sized org is willing to spend, how expensive would a carbon tax actually be? Are there good estimators for my impact as a consumer and how much I need to commit to this? Basically I want to know how much it costs to feel ok about my flights to go skiing.

Sorry if I sound too negative but I think carbon offsetting is the very quintessence of what one would call green washing. There is no way around changing our life styles. If you don't want to feel bad about flying, take a train.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#173

Post by perfunctory »

chrdlu wrote: post #111
brunoTbear wrote: post #7

I'm surprised by the size of the commit. If $1M is the floor for what a Stripe-sized org is willing to spend, how expensive would a carbon tax actually be? Are there good estimators for my impact as a consumer and how much I need to commit to this? Basically I want to know how much it costs to feel ok about my flights to go skiing.

I've been posting about this a lot, but check out Project Wren! ( https://projectwren.com/ ) It costs me $40 a month to offset my own carbon footprint, but I take a lot more flights than the average person.

Do you know if their projects are audited by independent 3rd party?

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#174

Post by ElKrist »

Beltiras wrote: post #161
godelski wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To your sequestration comment. No one is saying don't plant trees. Fuck yeah, plant all the trees! But that won't wont be enough. Sequestration will get better, but one of the big things it helps with is locality. CO2 isn't homogenously spread across the globe. It also doesn't spread very well. Concentrations vary drastically over the year and so do plants' ability to capture carbon. Carbon can build up in certain re…

Trees will actually do the trick. I looked for an international business that would plant a 1000 trees for me which would offset my entire carbon footprint for my entire life. Didn't find anything except a local one in Iceland [1] in Icelandic only (good luck with Google Translate). I can offset my footprint for 800$/year and I think it's going to be my New Years resolution. No more carbon from me. Finding land and p…

Please also include a resolution to reduce your carbon emissions.

Remember that planting trees only work if you have the guarantee that in the future these trees will not be burned. Also, some natural decomposition also emits CO2

Planting trees can delay/slow down climate change. What happens in a decade when planting trees does not scale anymore and we've kept increasing our emissions in the same time?

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#175

Post by Beltiras »

ElKrist wrote: post #174
Beltiras wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trees will actually do the trick. I looked for an international business that would plant a 1000 trees for me which would offset my entire carbon footprint for my entire life. Didn't find anything except a local one in Iceland [1] in Icelandic only (good luck with Google Translate). I can offset my footprint for 800$/year and I think it's going to be my New Years resolution. No more carbon from me. Finding land and p…

Please also include a resolution to reduce your carbon emissions. Remember that planting trees only work if you have the guarantee that in the future these trees will not be burned. Also, some natural decomposition also emits CO2 Planting trees can delay/slow down climate change. What happens in a decade when planting trees does not scale anymore and we've kept increasing our emissions in the same time?

I am about 50 years old. Planting trees scales for at least 50 years. Something on the order of 1000 trees will offset the entire footprint of a upper-middle class non-jetsetter (eats meat, travels 2-4 times per year, car, modest house).

There are a lot of technology promises on the horizon that will hopefully solve the next inflection point, but that's not my climate crisis, it will be the next generation. Hopefully by then the human race will have developed fusion or other energy technologies.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#176

Post by titojankowski »

xoraes wrote: post #171
enraged_camel wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's say I'm a regular web developer and know nothing about climate science, carbon removal, or any related science or technologies, but might be interested in donating my time and and skills. Do you have any recommendations?

Here is an article that perfectly addresses your query: http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ Sorry I would like to type an elaborate response, but I'm on phone for the day.

heck yeah! "what can a technologist do about climate change" is my daily mantra.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#177

Post by ed312 »

azernik wrote: post #169
semi-extrinsic wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aha, so it's targeting "CCU". Then OK, I can maybe see there is a point initially, but not at anything near the scale we need. Global graphite production from mining is at 1 megatonne/year, while synthetic is a few hundred kilotonnes/year. We need CCS to operate at tens of gigatonnes per year, that's four orders of magnitude beyond all the graphite the world needs. This is the problem with anything CCU - there just a…

I'd imagine extra graphite is pretty easy to store, though?

We could put it down in empty mine shafts... or build entire mountain tops out of it!

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#178

Post by titojankowski »

jrv wrote: post #129
titojankowski wrote: post #72

For people really into carbon removal --- Check out AirMiners, the largest community of entrepreneurs, researchers, and funders exploring opportunities in negative emissions and carbon removal. Folks from every major carbon removal startups like Climeworks, Global Thermostat, etc. Join 320+ of us on Slack! Apply here to join: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/12L8drO9a6OZf3-I9578PieBI0fw... There's also a public meetup…

I'm really interested in the topic and would love to just lurk and read what people say on there for a while, but the text in the signup form makes it sound like a person like me wouldn't be accepted, since I don't have super concrete plans to make that my next profession (although I'm generally interested in exploring this field if I really started thinking that my skills would make sense there).

Hey jrv, here's 2 resources for you to get more inspiration: http://bit.ly/airminersresources http://airminers.org

this is you: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ABg0c_E7OOI

looking forward to your application once you finish your training.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#179

Post by titojankowski »

adrianN wrote: post #156
titojankowski wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Politicians are powerless without good technology options. Today, the technology options are not good. but good options are within sight. As a technologist, let's go make better tech. Climate change is a technology problem and a marketing problem. YC's carbon site does a great job marketing for these crucial technologies: http://carbon.ycombinator.com/

The technology options today are good enough. We can start building wind turbines and solar panels right now . We can insulate homes right now . We can replace oil and gas heating with heat pumps right now . Storage only becomes a problem when a quite significant chunk of the generation is intermittent. But even then, today's batteries are good enough for overnight storage, and for longer term storage we can use powe…

heck yeah let's do that! Solar tech has gotten so much cheaper and better, my friend is replacing what used to be $30k of panels for $2k.

Re: Decrement carbon: Stripe's negative emissions commitment

#180

Post by kfk »

chrdlu wrote: post #110
Areading314 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big polluters, like airlines, energy, transportation, and chemical companies are the ones that will have to take these steps to see any effect. Every bit helps, of course, but the cost of implementing something like this is doable for some, while for many would mean extinction, or fundamental changes to their business model.

Individuals matter too! Netflix made had $5.8B in revenue from small $10-20 subscription users! Today, for $20 a month you can offset your own carbon footprint! This matters because the more resources that goes into fighting climate change allows innovation. Even by generating more demand for carbon credits and offsetting, new businesses can thrive and grow by fighting climate change! I've been super obsessed with ht…

It’s a great project but they could be more clear about that 20% cut they take and why it’s double what they partners take. How does it scale? 20% makes sense when you are dealing with, say, 100m of donations, but not so great when it’s 1B. At 1B they’d be taking 200m for what? Hiring the best talent in the world, to do what exactly? I don’t know, I wish them well and hopefully they get more clear about their cut and lower that over time. I think if you are really going to make an impact you must be targeting few billions of donations and 20% is just unreasonable.
Post reply on HN