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

Ask HN: IT jobs fighting against climate catastrophe?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 101 posts

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

#21

Post by imgabe »

hannob wrote: post #10
superbcarrot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that you're leaving out economic factors - when better and cleaner technology becomes cheaper than the alternatives, politics becomes largely irrelevant. And to get to that point economically, you need technological innovation.

Not gonna happen. This is a popular idea, I think people are a bit deluded by the fact that Wind+Solar got so cheap. Don't get me wrong: This is great. We'll likely be able to get rid of fossil-based electricity simply due to costs (even though it's too slow). But it's simply not plausible that you will find a cheaper technology in every area. Finding a way to fly a plane without carbon emissions is a challenge to be…

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.

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

#22

Post by truckerbill »

To add to the advice that it's a political problem - you should think of ways of using your tech skills to provide leverage to campaigners. Build a proof of concept and approach NGOs and campaign organisations to see if they would sponsor you. There may also be PR firms with ethical agendas (if that's not a contradiction).

Some ideas off the top of my head - visualisation tools (mapping large offenders and their carbon footprints, tools for unearthing dirty money flows). Ways of reaching potential converts more effectively. Ways of linking people to green energy sources and products.

The 'greed camp' have been using tech very effectively to convince people nothing bad is happening. Use their own tactics against them.

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

#27

Post by roter »

Buildings take up a major proportion of the carbon and energy budget. Consider contributing to EnergyPlus[0]:

> EnergyPlus is a whole building energy simulation program that engineers, architects, and researchers use to model both energy consumption and water use in buildings.

There are a ton of open issues...

[0] https://github.com/NREL/EnergyPlus

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

#28

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

perfunctory wrote: post #3

This question pops up quite regularly on HN. I am always giving the same answer. We, HN crowd, presented with a problem tend to reach for a technical solution. Unfortunately, climate change is not an engineering problem, it's a political problem. IT will not solve it. The best we, as engineers, can do is the same as for anyone else - step out of our comport zone and join a climate movement. Extinction Rebellion is my…

Climate change will require a combination of technological advancement, policy change, and market incentives and alignment for it to be fully change. We need to make green energy cheaper to use than other forms of energy.

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

#29

Post by marcosdumay »

hannob wrote: post #10
superbcarrot wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that you're leaving out economic factors - when better and cleaner technology becomes cheaper than the alternatives, politics becomes largely irrelevant. And to get to that point economically, you need technological innovation.

Not gonna happen. This is a popular idea, I think people are a bit deluded by the fact that Wind+Solar got so cheap. Don't get me wrong: This is great. We'll likely be able to get rid of fossil-based electricity simply due to costs (even though it's too slow). But it's simply not plausible that you will find a cheaper technology in every area. Finding a way to fly a plane without carbon emissions is a challenge to be…

> In some areas like cement the only option seems to be carbon capture and storage. There's no way whatsoever that a cement plant + a ccs plant is cheaper than a cement plant alone.

Yet, improving the cement plant and the carbon capture one makes it much easier for a government to intervene and require zero emissions.

We'll get aviation and steel production to use synthetic fuels in due time, and we will have plastics produced from captured CO2. Yes, those are more expensive, but nobody is saying that the solution should be left entirely to the market. But neither of them make any sense right now, and that's because the technology isn't there.

Post reply on HN