Ask HN: How do we save the planet?

14 points by moberemk 7 years ago | 16 comments

So, lately I find that I can't really sleep when I read news about how the planet will probably be unlivable within 100 years (https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-administration-climate-will-warm-by-7-degrees-by-2100-2018-10) if not even sooner than that because of unknown factors. Frankly this post is more me trying to find some kind of hope that this is a solvable problem, one day... And I'm not finding it around much anymore. Even moonshot projects are worth entertaining, because right now I don't think it's possible to argue that climate change isn't the single biggest threat we face as a species.

So: we've all fucked it up. How do we make sure humanity survives the next hundred years?

simplecomplex 7 years ago |

The biggest obstacle to responding to climate change is The Republican Party. No, I’m not being hyperbolic. They currently control climate policy for one of the largest polluters on earth, the largest economy, and most of international law.

Any help changing or defeating the Republican party’s dangerous anti-science anti-facts agenda would get us closer to being able to collectively deal with this issue.

phakding 7 years ago | |

I totally agree with you. The republican party is merely a middle man though. They have been doing the bidding of their corporate overlords. Same in other countries like Australia. "Clean coal" is being promoted, forests have been bulldozed and coral reefs ignored.

How do you deal with such reckless greed of uber-wealthy?

ssijak 7 years ago | |

Then just put better Democrat candidates forward for the start.

cimmanom 7 years ago | | |

That’s not enough when the way the country’s election districts are set gives the Republican Party a heavy advantage at the polls (even without district level gerrymandering - the state boundaries alone are enough to accomplish that in the House; and do far worse in the senate).

And then there’s the issue of all the citizens who have been misled into supporting Republican positions and are intensely ideological about them.

bjourne 7 years ago |

This summer it was over 30 degrees for a whole month and I could hardly think. Like, it became physically impossible to write non-trivial code or work on math problems. And it will only get worse in the coming years... I don't know what to do about it. I've decided to become a vegetarian, but clearly that is not enough and action must be taken on a global political level.

PerfectElement 7 years ago | |

At the individual level, decreasing or eliminating your consumption of animal products seems like the most efficient way to help. You can also support or work for companies that are changing things at a larger scale: https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/tacklin...

badpun 7 years ago | |

> I don't know what to do about it

Get air conditioning?

titojankowski 7 years ago |

cool! dont bother reading the negative crap, it's pervasive and people get addicted to it. just keep your eyes tuned for solutions and more will appear.

check out http://www.airminers.org/explore for some solutions, mining carbon from the air

GreeniFi 7 years ago |

Hi Mobermek,

I run a business that invests in climate change related solutions, particularly in the agricultural space. I deal with these issues on a day-to-day basis and I’ve had to develop some psychological coping mechanisms - because the reality is scary, the climate system is complex, and we don’t have much time to avoid serious equilibrium shifts. I have children, and in many ways I feel more concerned for them than I do myself. Anyway, these are my coping mechanisms: 1. Realise that your climate anxiety may be generalized anxiety fixating on climate. Right now, for most of us, climate shocks are less a threat than many other risks in our daily lives. 2. Our civilization will ultimately fail at some point, and so will humanity. In the greatest expanse is time, the sun will die and life on earth will cease. Beginnings and endings are in the natural order of things. It’s useful to me to see the bigger picture. 3. That said, whilst we are in the race of our lives, there is huge focus on renewable energy technologies and also climate adaptation measures. In the next 10 years we may turn the beast around, and we also might turn up technologies that are revolutionary. Don’t discount this possibility. 4. As an ultimate backstop, buy some fertile land and know that you and your family can retreat there if need be.

I hope the above is useful. If you can see a counselor, then do.

NeedMoreTea 7 years ago | |

> Right now, for most of us, climate shocks are less a threat than many other risks in our daily lives

Right there, neatly summarised, lies the problem.

When it is a direct threat to our daily lives it's surely way past too late to do anything about it. The time to start is long before it gets to that point.

We managed it with ozone.

GreeniFi 7 years ago | | |

Yes. We are extremely bad at managing distant threats.

marssaxman 7 years ago |

First, invent a time machine. Next, go back to the '60s and make a fortune on the stock market using your knowledge of the future. Finally, spend the '70s using your billions lobbying for something like the Paris treaty. Get it in place by the early '80s and you might be able to rest easy.

Short of that, there's little to recommend. We can't save the planet anymore, not as we know it; we've already pumped enough CO2 into the atmosphere that every ecosystem on earth will be permanently affected, no matter what we do from here.

Humanity will survive somehow. We do not appear to have any significant ability to deal with long-term, collective problems, but we're pretty good at engineering our way out of short-term crises. The worse the immediate problems become, the more attention they will get, and the more willing people will be to divert resources to their solutions.

I try to avoid worrying about things I can't change, and the fate of humanity is certainly one of them.

shoo 7 years ago |

> So, lately I find that I can't really sleep when I read news about how the planet will probably be unlivable within 100 years

> How do we make sure humanity survives the next hundred years?

There are things that are entirely in your control, partly out of your control, and entirely out of your control. I think that guaranteeing the survival of the human species is approximately entirely out of your control. So there is not much point in worrying about it. Easier said than done.

Focus on the aspects of your life that you have a higher degree of control over and where you can make a positive impact.

I doubt that global warming will cause the human species to become extinct in the next few hundred years. But we might see collapse of a few civilisations. It's happened quite often in the past to other human civilisations. Not the end of the world.

There's a philosophical perspective on this that struck a chord with me when I read it years ago - perhaps it may help you find peace:

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/10/learning-ho...

Habo777 7 years ago |

We spend millions of dollars on the few thousand people who have cancer when millions have no food we spend millions on them but we are killing our planet what we need to do is see the bigger picture.

jotjotzzz 7 years ago |

Bill Gates recently recommended this book by Hans Rosling called "Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think" and it is a great book to read to be a realist.

The world is NOT getting worse, it is getting better. The news is only picking up issues that sell, and fear and devastation sell, just like sex.

Solving global warming -- let's start with being mindful of our carbon footprint. I'd love to see every car on the road to be driverless, electric cars in the future. I think we are on our way.

In any case, don't read the news. Read books instead.

Odenwaelder 7 years ago |

Stop producing more humans.