As the effects of climate change continue to worsen, it's essential that we explore all possible solutions. One area where technology is making a significant impact is in software engineering and programming. From energy-efficient systems to smart grid technologies and public awareness campaigns, software engineers are using their skills to combat climate change. By leveraging our technical expertise, we can create a more sustainable future for all. Let's discuss how technology can help mitigate the effects of climate change and what we can do to promote sustainability.
Ask HN: Can software engineering help combat climate change?
1–10 of 49 posts
Re: Ask HN: Can software engineering help combat climate change?
#2No.
It's lipstick on a pig, it's a way of feeling important while making no difference. The way you combat climate change is by reducing carbon dioxide output and increasing biomass creation and therefore uptake and sinking. You can't write code that does that.
Adding complexity to everything is what software developers do best, only the most skilled ones manage to reduce complexity, and adding complexity to this situation isn't going to help anyone. Don't stick your fingers in the pie, this one's not for you unless you want to build some different skills.
Re: Ask HN: Can software engineering help combat climate change?
#3Highly unlikely.
Re: Ask HN: Can software engineering help combat climate change?
#4I liked a write up from Bret Victor on this: http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/
Re: Ask HN: Can software engineering help combat climate change?
#5Sure, donate an integer percentage of your software engineering salary to organizations directly fighting climate change, or buy capture/removal credits from a reputable source.
Re: Ask HN: Can software engineering help combat climate change?
#6stop running servers computing hashes that don't contribute to society? btc cough /s
I used to work for a tech company that used big data to convince large swaths of people to become energy efficient. One of the company metrics was how much energy was saved, accounting for our footprint as well; it was fun and gratifying when we crossed the saved more than 1TWh threshold, which also reduced the need for fossil fuel peaker plants. So these companies do exist, but the tech isn't sexy nor complex/hard/challenging ~ way more of a business and social component to these systems, and tech is only a small tool here.
Said company was acquired by Oracle and still running and doing well!
* https://www.oracle.com/industries/utilities/products/opower-...
* https://www.cnbc.com/2022/07/14/how-opower-sold-to-oracle-ha...
Re: Ask HN: Can software engineering help combat climate change?
#7Probably will have better luck turning your heating down
Re: Ask HN: Can software engineering help combat climate change?
#8Directly, probably not.
I will try to come up with a few examples anyway, in no particular order:
1. You could write software which improves the efficacy of an organization who is working on climate related problems.
2. Low level optimizations in algorithms could conceivably result in reduced processing resources expended when executed billions or trillions of times (though realistically all that will happen is more stuff will be processed)
3. Stepping away from software engineering specifically and looking toward electrical engineering, you could make sizeable contributions to reducing emissions by working on “green” computing architectures. This one is sort of like 2 in that very small improvements in TDP on CPUs add up substantially. I had a professor who worked on this sort of thing.
Re: Ask HN: Can software engineering help combat climate change?
#9No. It's lipstick on a pig, it's a way of feeling important while making no difference. The way you combat climate change is by reducing carbon dioxide output and increasing biomass creation and therefore uptake and sinking. You can't write code that does that. Adding complexity to everything is what software developers do best, only the most skilled ones manage to reduce complexity, and adding complexity to this sit…
There's plenty of greenwashing in tech, but I don't think it's hopeless. On an ops call this morning I heard about a team switching to a server type that saves ~40% on power, and their fleet is ~50k instances. Opportunities exist if you have the skills and this is an issue you care about.
Re: Ask HN: Can software engineering help combat climate change?
#10All the negative nelsons aside, AI for materials science comes to mind. Better carbon capture, batteries, solar panels. I imagine nuclear reactors require pretty significant control systems. How easy is it to permit all of the power plants we will need? I bet software could help there.