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Ask HN: What can I do to actively fight climate change?

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Re: Ask HN: What can I do to actively fight climate change?

#61

Post by kiliantics »

0x000000001 wrote: post #23

Climate change can't be fought on a personal level. That's just propaganda to shift responsibility onto the individual consumer and there are plenty of bleeding hearts out there that eat it up and conjure up guilt for something out of their control on a macro level

This may be true when it comes to consumption, but we must definitely do something as individuals for anything to change systemwide. Participating in direct action for system change is still worth doing as an individual, where it's a contribution to a collective movement.

It won't happen by buying different stuff, but by spending our time working on projects with others that are not supporting the current system but are building a different one that is not as destructive for the climate.

Re: Ask HN: What can I do to actively fight climate change?

#62

Post by pacifist »

Don't be discouraged by posts in this thread. Yes, you can make a difference. I've been driving a biodiesel for 20+ years. I hardly drive these days anyway. As a dev you're in a good position to pull it off. Just stop driving(walking/cycling is good for you and good for the earth), don't fly, and no more babies. Do you really want to bring a child into what's coming down the pike?

I looked into the vegan vs locavore tussle and it seems to me they fought to a standstill. So I still eat meat(I'm low carb for health reasons). I buy from the farmers market and I'm lucky to have access to a local bison farm(carbon negative - look it up).

Re: Ask HN: What can I do to actively fight climate change?

#63

Post by gruez »

0x000000001 wrote: post #23

Climate change can't be fought on a personal level. That's just propaganda to shift responsibility onto the individual consumer and there are plenty of bleeding hearts out there that eat it up and conjure up guilt for something out of their control on a macro level

>That's just propaganda to shift responsibility onto the individual consumer

But it's the individual consumer that's ultimately responsible for all of the emissions? Corporations aren't emitting carbon for their own enjoyment.

Re: Ask HN: What can I do to actively fight climate change?

#64

Post by [deleted] »

unmole wrote: post #38
reducesuffering wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eggs, really? How does a significant portion of my food coming from grazing backyard chickens, and not transported thousands of miles, contribute to greenhouse gas emissions?

Do you think that is the case with the overwhelming majority of people?

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What can I do to actively fight climate change?

#65

Post by kiliantics »

throw63738 wrote: post #18
andrewljohnson wrote: post #9

Ignore the crunchy comments saying don't eat meat, don't have kids, and don't drive. You have no impact as a consumer or influencer. What you can do is: * a) find someone working on climate change, and help write software for them part-time as a volunteer * b) brainstorm an idea for a site/app, and build it yourself (and of course post it to HN) * c) quit your job, join an organization focused on climate change, and…

As consumer you have an impact, at least it sets an example and gives credibility. This reminds me of "climate activists" who fly around the world in private jets to preach!

Your biggest impact is as a worker. Most of us produce more than we consume (where the excess usually becomes investor profits). We really need to produce less or our consumption won't make a difference.

In the past, workers formed unions and collectively bargained with governments and employers to reduce working hours down to the standard work week we know today. We could reduce this further to a 4- or a 3-day work week.

We could also use collective worker power to demand many other things, such as stricter environmental standards in the workplace, just as we bargained for stricter health standards in the past. Or better environmental standards for children in schools or for public spaces, just as we bargained for children's rights and other standards in the past. (All these modern standards were fought for, they were not handed out freely)

Re: Ask HN: What can I do to actively fight climate change?

#66

Post by redis_mlc »

> I work as a software engineer at a big company and want to actively and directly in some way help fight climate change.

1) First ask yourself, "Why?" Nobody else cares enough to do anything, whether individuals or countries.

If it's some nebulous guilt, you're just misguided.

ie. China intends to ramp up pollution until at least 2030, and any climate change agreement they make is solely to solidify control of the South China Sea, not to reduce emissions.

2) To be more constructive, I'd look at doing something technical like a "craigslist for the environment" web site where individuals can learn what they can do locally to improve the envionment.

Some ideas are:

- coupons by zip code for refrigerator or water heater efficiency upgrades. This used to be a major program by PG&E, not sure if that's operating today:

https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/save-energy-money/savi...

- see what's happened with freecycle and either integrate or extend it:

https://www.freecycle.org/

- commercial freecycle for building materials in small qty., etc.

- report if your zip code actually does municipal recycling or if it's landfilled (you'd be surprised) and what the alternatives are to curbside pickup if the latter.

Re: Ask HN: What can I do to actively fight climate change?

#67

Post by muzani »

resonious wrote: post #32
wsc981 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having kids would help a lot in reducing future emissions and pollution though. Would reduce consumption. Bill Burr put it quite succinctly: “that’s not a family photo; it’s an environmental disaster and you’ve framed it!” [0] --- [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wq_edHqpdA

The tough part with these arguments is that's it's not "if you didn't have kids", rather, it's "if a very large number of people didn't have kids". If a small group of like-minded people decide to not have kids in the name of the planet, the effect would probably pale in comparison to the masses that don't hear and/or don't care about these climate change messages. I imagine the "real" solution would have to be one t…

I suspect most of these arguments come from people who prefer to be vegan or not have kids, trying to change someone else's way of life. As a form of activism, it would probably be more effective if it didn't feel so biased.

Re: Ask HN: What can I do to actively fight climate change?

#68

Post by kortex »

kstenerud wrote: post #41

The main issue now is how little time we have left. We're already past the tipping point, and there's about a 30-50 year horizon before it's too late to do anything at all. This means that the following are going to take too long: - "Doing your part", i.e. the regular "don't eat meat", "consume environmentally friendly things", and all those things that will only work over a horizon of 100+ years. - Accumulating a to…

Maybe the "too late to do anything at all" line is setting people off? I don't think it's hyperbolic in the least. There's a very non-trivial chance that some hammer falls in some way that too much damage is done too fast to prevent a snowball effect of war/famine/disease before we manage some big tech geo-engineering solution.

We are very reliant on industry/automation as an efficiency multiplier for sustinance. Really, anything that disrupts our ability to automate in the long term (power/water/comms/logistics/chip fab), disrupts our ability to farm industrially, which lowers Earth's carrying capacity. Which risks a large die-off, which risks more of the above.

Humans are really bad at anticipating cascade failures.

Re: Ask HN: What can I do to actively fight climate change?

#70

Post by eappleby »

pacifist wrote: post #62

Don't be discouraged by posts in this thread. Yes, you can make a difference. I've been driving a biodiesel for 20+ years. I hardly drive these days anyway. As a dev you're in a good position to pull it off. Just stop driving(walking/cycling is good for you and good for the earth), don't fly, and no more babies. Do you really want to bring a child into what's coming down the pike? I looked into the vegan vs locavore…

If anyone is curious, I looked up how bison farms could be considered carbon negative, and it appears to be because of their grazing habits (they produce roughly the same methane as cows, but they don't overgraze, which helps plants grow). Curious to learn if there is actually a net benefit and the amount of land needed per bison for it to be viable, but still interesting. https://regenerationinternational.org/2017/12/24/bison-lates...
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