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Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

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Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#71

Post by imtringued »

hannob wrote: post #47
imgabe wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't need to happen in every area. It just needs to happen in enough areas that the carbon output is brought below a threshold that the environment can safely absorb. Sure, maybe you can't make efficient electric planes. But maybe you can replace 90% of short range flights with trains and make electric planes unnecessary.

> It doesn't need to happen in every area. It just needs to happen in enough areas that the carbon output is brought below a threshold that the environment can safely absorb. That is actually a misconception. There is no such threshold, at least not for carbon dioxide (it's a bit more complicated for methane and some other greenhouse gases). It accumulates in the atmosphere. There is some uptake of co2 by natural pro…

The hope is that we buy ourselves additional time to figure out the truly difficult problems.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#73

Post by adrianN »

abyssin wrote: post #45
masta wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats why there is a need for a global Carbon Tax/Pricing System. This would internalise the cost of pollution and make engineering solution more important from a market perspective.

Why not simply make it illegal to exploit fossil fuels? The result is the same, except that making it illegal has a certain result, as opposed to a tax that is less direct. Of course it's very hard to make it illegal, but I don't think it's easier to enforce a carbon tax that actually works.

Making things illegal is roughly equivalent to putting a very high price on them. A steadily increasing carbon tax is the economically feasible way of stopping extraction.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#74

Post by imtringued »

user-the-name wrote: post #55

One of the very lowest-hanging fruit for reducing emissions at the moment is bitcoin. It is burning 0.1% of the entire world's energy for doing barely anything at all. Do all you can to make sure bitcoin is destroyed.

That's easy. Simply don't buy Bitcoin and tell everyone to not buy Bitcoin.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#75

Post by imtringued »

olalonde wrote: post #36

You are passionate about a "catastrophe" that doesn't exist: https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2020/6/29/on-beha...

Well, for all we know it doesn't exist yet. I personally dislike the idea of calling it a catastrophe. It will drive large cultural shifts against our will.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#76

Post by ampdepolymerase »

You should aim to grow out your e-commerce career. Companies like Amazon make the greatest difference to climate change as improved logistics benefits the entire supply chain. Mom and pop shops are great for romanticism and NYT hit pieces about the terrors of gentrification and white flight but their logistics are incredibly inefficient compared to efficiencies of scale offered by e-commerce. "Micro" low hanging fruit efforts like data visualization which these comment threads tend to favor make little difference. Grassroots won't solve climate change, you need changes in technologies that allow the emerging economies to no-strings-attached capture the value and benefits of economic growth without the side effects of pollution (that means convincing or forcing institutions like the World Bank/IMF to replace their onerous neoliberal funding requirements with only one: green technologies), you need systematic changes in federal policy, and you need restructuring of company operations to be more efficient. As a software engineer, the most effective thing that you can do is the latter.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#77

Post by [deleted] »

imtringued wrote: post #65
iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue the opposite, that its mainly a technical problem that has been coopted by a political movement. The technical problem should be (roughly), how can we continue to enjoy our lives and the standard of living we have achieved, and continue to bring more of the world to that level, in a way that is sustainable long term. There are lots of promising routes to making this happen, and we have already seen lots…

> I would argue the opposite, that its mainly a technical problem that has been coopted by a political movement. I don't see it. You just deploy some existing technology that is slightly more expensive upfront but cheaper in the long run. You turn off old technology that is not compatible with the goal. You can make the technology cheaper by simply putting more money into it and deploying it more. There is literally…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#78

Post by ampdepolymerase »

abyssin wrote: post #43
iujjkfjdkkdkf wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue the opposite, that its mainly a technical problem that has been coopted by a political movement. The technical problem should be (roughly), how can we continue to enjoy our lives and the standard of living we have achieved, and continue to bring more of the world to that level, in a way that is sustainable long term. There are lots of promising routes to making this happen, and we have already seen lots…

This is the best summary of why we're so well headed to a catastrophe. It seems that be definition, you won't accept any reduction of your standard of living. What if there's no way around it? Your standard of living relies on exploiting amounts of energy equivalent to several hundred slaves per person. That amount of energy can't be found in renewable sources only. How much of a slave master am I? https://jancovici.…

The arrogance of software engineers to believe that a few joules saved would make a difference. Humanity can spread to the stars and we still won't make a significant dent in the overall entropy changes in the universe even after billions of years. Energy consumption is a false herring for moral superiority and control. Replace the traditional Church with environmental activists and you have your modern climate change politics. Climate change is primarily due to increased heat capture caused by emissions. We have plenty of ways to generate clean energy without harmful emissions, nor excuses for social control.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#79

Post by user-the-name »

imtringued wrote: post #74
user-the-name wrote: post #55

One of the very lowest-hanging fruit for reducing emissions at the moment is bitcoin. It is burning 0.1% of the entire world's energy for doing barely anything at all. Do all you can to make sure bitcoin is destroyed.

That's easy. Simply don't buy Bitcoin and tell everyone to not buy Bitcoin.

If you get a chance to take an action that would crash the price of bitcoin, do it.

Re: Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

#80

Post by aweiland »

overallduka wrote: post #58
christiansakai wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide more explanation?

It's not first time the experts make mistakes in their catastrophic predictions: https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/50-years-of-failed-doomsday-e... And let's not forget our dear Al-Gore saying the ice on the artic would be vanished by 2014 :)

Oh look, AEI cherry picking.
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