shouldn't this be titled "Climate Crisis"?
Cataclysm?
YC Office Hours for Startups Tackling Climate Issues
21–30 of 43 posts
Re: YC Office Hours for Startups Tackling Climate Issues
#22FFS. The apotheosis of disaster capitalism. Fiddling while Rome burns while demanding a hefty appearance fee.
I agree that we're all kind of watching ourselves die a slow death, but at least they're putting their money where their mouth is. What do you think a reasonable thing for them to do is? Even if yc divested from every company they have a stake in and donated it to climate efforts, would that make a dent?
Fund lobbying and political campaigns for candidates who support climate change mitigation efforts. YC will have no impact unless they get governments (with resources orders of magnitude greater than that of YC) set in the right direction.
No startup is going to solve climate change. The scale of the problem is simply too large. You need public policy to internalize the externalities of carbon emissions.
Re: YC Office Hours for Startups Tackling Climate Issues
#23I'd really like to listen to the session that makes the best use of those 15 minutes. How do you prepare for and make the most out of such a short time?
1 minute pitch
4 minutes descriptions of problems
10 minutes of back and forth?
Interesting constraints!
Re: YC Office Hours for Startups Tackling Climate Issues
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree that we're all kind of watching ourselves die a slow death, but at least they're putting their money where their mouth is. What do you think a reasonable thing for them to do is? Even if yc divested from every company they have a stake in and donated it to climate efforts, would that make a dent?
Fund lobbying and political campaigns for candidates who support climate change mitigation efforts. YC will have no impact unless they get governments (with resources orders of magnitude greater than that of YC) set in the right direction. No startup is going to solve climate change. The scale of the problem is simply too large. You need public policy to internalize the externalities of carbon emissions.
Successful ventures in this field make for more convincing lobbying
Re: YC Office Hours for Startups Tackling Climate Issues
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fund lobbying and political campaigns for candidates who support climate change mitigation efforts. YC will have no impact unless they get governments (with resources orders of magnitude greater than that of YC) set in the right direction. No startup is going to solve climate change. The scale of the problem is simply too large. You need public policy to internalize the externalities of carbon emissions.
Successful ventures in this field make for more convincing lobbying
Then get out there and support Tesla and your local wind turbine/PV solar installer/commercial developer. Those are who are driving out fossil fuel and petroleum use at scale (BYD is arguably doing quite a bit of that with electric busses, but as a Chinese company, that’ll be a harder hill to climb in the current political climate). You must destroy demand for CO2 producing activities, and renewables and EVs do just that.
There is no need for a startup to deploy EV chargers at homes, condos, apartments, and public facilities. This requires community involvement instead, as there is little if any profit to be realized from the activity. But this is crucial for EV uptake. Someone has to do the legwork (I am working on automation for this, but alas, there are only so many hours in a day).
The tech is already proven. It’s all up to public policy now to nudge people in the right direction (renewables, EVs, carbon offsets for anything else where you absolutely cannot avoid CO2 emissions).
Re: YC Office Hours for Startups Tackling Climate Issues
#26I don't know if we're solving climate issues, but at conserve.org[1] we're trying to make it easier for everyone to pitch in and conserve land so plants can do their part via carbon exchange (and save habitats for fluffy animals). Conserve land, one acre at a time. All revenue right now goes right to our Land Trust partner. This is a nonprofit. [1] https://conserve.org
This looks great, and I wish you all the success in the world. The domain is your key asset, IMHO.
1) When did you start, and how long does it take you to sell an acre?
2) How do you plan on "releasing" more regions? Is the next region going to be (drumroll) the adjacent 160-acre square? Do they want you to complete one square before opening up the next? Does anyone actually keep track of which acre belongs to whom? How difficult is it to get more land trusts on board?
3) I'm looking to offset my emissions, so my key metric is $/t – how much does it cost to sequester a ton of CO₂ that otherwise would have stayed in the air? Any rough estimates?
Re: YC Office Hours for Startups Tackling Climate Issues
#27Smack in the middle of SPI (Solar Power International/Energy Storage International) seems like an odd choice of time.
Re: YC Office Hours for Startups Tackling Climate Issues
#28IMO, looking for a high tech solution to a low tech problem is a dead end (possibly in the literal sense!) This is a human behavior problem. Consume less; ie growth at all costs is not a long term strategy for the planet. Don't define your happiness with things. I was reviewing the US tariff lists and was thinking, what if all these items were just completely unavailable forever? I couldn't find any examples in the l…
>The size of the “global middle class” will increase from 1.8 billion in 2009 to 3.2 billion by 2020 and 4.9 billion by 2030. The bulk of this growth will come from Asia: by 2030 Asia will represent 66% of the global middle-class population and 59% of middle-class consumption, compared to 28% and 23%, respectively in 2009, according to the figure below http://oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/3681/An_emerg... H…
I don't think it matters what anyone thinks. The reality will hit the poor hardest. Those of us who ignore the root causes, continue the same behaviors and expect different results, and look for some magical solution are culpable.
I sincerely hope you are right and there is some wonderful tech solution to this. Meanwhile I am not buying land 90m from current sea levels.
Re: YC Office Hours for Startups Tackling Climate Issues
#29this is a fool's errand. You ain't gonna fix anything with startups in this field, you fix it with policy and frankly a collective, long, stern look in the mirror and almost inevitably war and a lot of dead people.
Re: YC Office Hours for Startups Tackling Climate Issues
#30Applied!
We don't deal with climate change, but we have a product to enable non-profits and political campaigns to run GIANT volunteer networks. I'm not sure if that fits their criteria, but if they want to create a mass movement that movement needs tools, right?