Ask HN: What do you do for global warming?

23 points by flopska 7 years ago | 25 comments

After a lot of discussions with my girlfriend about global warming we are still wondering what we can do to help fight the problem.

Some Background: There's evidence [0] that we will reach a point of no return regarding the climate change soon. Reaching this tipping point implies we create a self-reinforcing feedback loop where the whole 'Earth System' becomes destabilized which in turn leads to an increase in temperature of up to 50° in the next 100 years. See [3].

We think its clear there is reason to act now. There's some 'simple' points one can personally do to help:

* no flights * use public transport * use less energy * buy local groceries * cut back on dairy products

However, the largest impact on climate does not come from e.g. flights [1] but from the energy industry. One can only impact this indirectly.

Lots of the general public (including politics) seems to be oblivious to the problem at hand - ignoring the problem fully or at least partly. With Fridays for future [2] there is (at least in Germany) work done in this regard. At the same time it has just been decided there won't be a tempo limit on german autobahns and no CO2-emission tax.

It looks like the best might be to improve education on the topic - but it has to happen fast. If more people try to reduce their emissions it might force the 'bigger forces' to reduce their emissions, too.

This whole topic has a very negative ring to it - "Life is probably over in 50 years" is not something everyone wants to be confronted with. At the same time everyone has to acknowledge this and has to react accordingly.

So, really, I'd like to spark a discussion what one can do, what has been done and what you are doing. Also, what can give hope :) ?

tldr; We are fucked, what can we do?

[0] https://www.pnas.org/content/115/33/8252 [1] check emissions by sector (link too long) [2] https://fridaysforfuture.de/ [3] https://www.azimuthproject.org/azimuth/show/HomePage

overcode 7 years ago |

Very often these personal efforts are simply virtue signalling or a way for people to feel better about themselves. Doesn't mean that you should be wasteful with your resources or actively damage your environment but please, don't pretend to be saving the earth by drinking less milk.

Where a difference can be made:

- politics - if you are in politics yourself, or you can lobby and exercise some pressure to dictate policy, that can go a long way

- industry leaders can actually make a difference but don't have the incentives for it

- research and innovation - if you're an engineer this is probably where you can make the biggest difference even if you're unlikely to be one of the few people who have a breakthrough - renewable energy, alternative materials, new ways of food production and so on - you can put in work to improve the technology behind any of these to the point where they make more economic sense

prometheus76 7 years ago |

I read this: https://www.minitab.com/en-us/Published-Articles/Weather-For...

And I extrapolated the results into forecasting the climate for 100 or 1,000 years from now and drew the conclusion that we are trying to model a complex system that can be affected drastically by small changes to the inputs of that system, and that we don't even come close to 1) understanding all the inputs into our climate, 2) do not understand the proper weighting of those inputs in a prediction model, and 3) even if we knew parts 1) and 2), our computational ability to account for both properly and produce a reliable prediction model doesn't exist.

Because of the nature of complex systems, making predictions on them is mathematically impossible. They're a non-reducible emergent behavior.

Aromasin 7 years ago |

My attitude is, do everything I can and take personal responsibility for everything I do. If in 50 years we've reached the tipping point, at least I won't be filled with regret of things I could have done differently. Blaming corporations for problems just adds another voice to the crowd, whereas lifestyle changes can help - if only minutely.

1. Diet - been vegan since reading the catastrophic effects animals agriculture has on the environment. Currently 2 years in and feel healthy as an ox.

2. Transport - run everywhere, cycle if necessary, drive and fly almost never.

3. Consumerism - live minimalist to a point where I'm happy and fulfilled enough to live happy, but not living as a pauper. Being happy allows me to work more efficiently, so it's a cost-benefit thing.

4. Investment - use the money saved from said minimalism to invest in carbon positive businesses and charities. Turns out that when you stop spending money on things and live on rice and beans, money starts coming out of your ears.

5. Career - currently in the process of transitioning from a career in the aviation industry, to one in the renewable energy industry. I'll take a pay cut, but at least my skills can be put to better use. So yes, you can impact the energy industry directly. Provide talent, research better alternatives to fossil fuels, try to become an industry leader and change that industry.

In my eyes, saying there is nothing you can do is a cop-out. There is always something you can do. When people say there's nothing they can do, what they really should say is 'it will be exceedingly difficult to put into action the things I want to change'.

My philosophy is, if everything fails it's utterly my fault and no one else's - but, it's alright to fail and I likely will multiple times. The only thing I can change is myself and my actions.

mempko 7 years ago |

During your everyday life, you are given a range of choices you can make. Within that range is moral/immoral choices. However, you are limited with what you can do given the range of choices. The most effective action is to shift the range of choices so that even the most immoral choice is tolerable given the scope of the problem.

Groups like the Extinction Rebellion are having the correct approach. The problem isn't solvable through individual action but via collective action. We need to change the range of choices everyone can make instead of picking the moral choice within a small band of possibilities.

So what I think will work is to get into politics and civic life.

a) Join and help political parties make climate the #1 issue.

b) If you are in the USA, join the Bernie Sanders campaign as the climate is at the top for his campaign.

c) Do civil disobedience, Join groups like Extinction Rebellion.

e) Talk to people about the problem and have them join the fight.

d) Write software to help a,b,c, and e!

superflit 7 years ago |

I do convince people to use public transportation and being vegan to reduce their emissions.

So I don't need to.

I eat meat and use my SUVs but since I already convinced several people to do otherwise I do think I am entitled to some privilege. --> BUT I use the "ECO" function on my SUV.

Same as my colleagues ecologists that always travel by plane, buy a lot of disposable stuff but claim it is ok because they ar are spreading the message.

Samewise I do as voting I just need to convince 2 people of opposite party to not vote (mostly I do a big BBQ at home) and then I don't need to vote AND we reduce carbon emissions but kind we offset it on BBQ (using charcoal..)

I think the secrete is to balance and being a net positive.

I am doing my part we need more people doing it.

potta_coffee 7 years ago | |

This is a great strategy. I for one burn as much fossil fuel as possible. The sooner we run out, the sooner we can stop releasing that carbon into the air. I'm doing my part to reduce the finite supply of fossil fuels.

kleer001 7 years ago |

I minimize my daily commute, recycle most things, that's about it, try not to worry about it too much. The anxiety available to everyone that I reject would be far too expensive for the potential benefit on a personal or global scale. This all started well before I was born and will continue far after I'm dead.

Settle down, we're not fucked. Lots of smart and motivated people have been, are, and will be working on it. (does this justification of inactivity have a formal name?)

Want to join them? Find them first, then prove you have something to offer. It's not an informal team fixing things at the neighborhood level, distributed among internet commenters. It's a huge and complicated inter-related set of disciplines filled with experts running at full steam around the world working with leaders and millions of dollars.

swah 7 years ago |

I don't use languages with garbage collection, which are a big waste of energy.

grecht 7 years ago |

I personally have a small carbon footprint, considering I live in Europe. But I know that it’s no more than virtuous wishful thinking if I were to start a vegan diet out of love for the environment. What we need is practical, economic solutions that actually make a difference - and to get there we need an unemotional discussion based on facts.

A tempo limit on the German Autobahn wouldn’t have a big positive impact on the environment. I'd support a general CO2-emission tax (there‘s already a europe-wide emission tax for some industries [0]), but not as big and grand as Fridays for Future demands it - it'd make a lot of things much, much more expensive, and mostly low-income households would be affected, while the green upper middle class would just pay the premium.

However, like Greta Thunberg said: The fast and emotional exit from nuclear power for example in Germany was a wrong move. It could’ve been the best transition to renewable energies. Now, energy in Germany is crazy expensive, but thanks to coal they’re even further away from reaching the paris agreement.

It’s a good thing that Fridays for Future caused lots of discussions and that young people are getting active in politics. But scaremongering does not help. The whole thing smells like climate-populism.

Who says life will be over in 50 years?

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets_en

shoo 7 years ago |

One aspect of climate change that I found/find difficult is being forced to think about mortality of myself & mortality of "civilisation". But on another hand: this isn't specific to climate change: personally, I was always going to die at some point, of something. At a larger scale, historically, all civilisations eventually collapse. When civilisations collapse, this does not mean that all individuals involved perish, although some may. Other individuals involved switch to new patterns of living, when the costs of being involved in the civilisation exceed the benefits offered.

So from one perspective, as individuals & as societies we are all living on borrowed time anyway.

> Life is probably over in 50 years

I suggest that this is an exaggeration.

Personally, I find it very frustrating to deal with things that I have little control over -- when I focus more of my time & energy on things I can largely control, I can see results from my efforts relatively quickly & directly. I don't personally feel responsible for "saving civilisation". This isn't a particularly moral or ethical position to take.

But, enough philosophising, what actions to take?

The problem is caused by environmental impact of a very large number of people multiplied by the environmental impact per person. Someone with a high energy high pollution lifestyle in a developed country may have the same environmental impact as 20-30 people with much lower energy or lower impact lifestyles. Anything you personally do to change your behaviour or reduce your impact is essentially negligible. Taking actions that influence and reduce the impact of large numbers of other people seems more helpful. E.g. activism, or any helping roll out policies that reduce population growth, particularly in countries with higher per-capita environmental impact.

You may also wish to consider hedging: suppose the global economy & global human population keeps roughly doing its thing, business as usual, and not changing sufficiently quickly to limit climate change, how do you want to live your life? "Adaption" rather than "mitigation".

thedevindevops 7 years ago |

Our only serious options will be international efforts, e.g. United Nations Climate Change conferences, etc. but any significant impactful effort will be painful and climate change inequality will lead to quite a bit of resentment

warpspin 7 years ago |

Where's the exact source for the 50 degrees theory? I've head of a domino effect for 5 degrees, but never for 50. Or has this just been a typo?

mcdramamean 7 years ago |

Looking at the problem broadly, the issue is that we, as an entire species, are unable to commit to a single goal and execute. One of the externalities of this fact is we behave in such a way that makes our environment less inhabitable. This is one of the ways we need to reinterpret the problem. Global warming is a HUGE THREAT, but we can't solve it directly. Us being able to solve it directly means we can get the whole planet to agree.

We can't agree because of psychology (sorry for the rhyme). This immediately leads us to shadow work (Jungian depth psychology). As a human race, I think we all can agree, we have a VERY DARK shadow.

So I think our only hope to save the planet is to "save ourselves". Just think about it logically. Within 2 years, just in the USA, we have rolled back 8 years or more worth of efforts to stop global warming. The reasons are ultimately because of business, which is linked to consumers; who are consuming (mostly) because of.... psychology (be it from the consumer end/ or the producer end that jacks up prices). Unless the entire planet can agree on the course of action, we are going to have a bunch of great things get cancelled out by not so great things.

My hope in this comment is to get the conversation moved in that direction. How can we get the entire human race to commit to a goal that will take 10, 100, 1000 years to execute? And as daunting as that seems, it has to be WAY EASIER than figuring out the weather... and it should speak VOLUMES to all of us that we are more willing to figure out quantum physics, machine learning, AI, complex weather dynamics; but very few of us are willing to tackle this human condition that keeps the world going the way that it does. It's not enough to solve for scientific solutions; we have to develop solutions that appease our mental lives in ways that don't cause harm to ourselves or our planet.

I believe much of this come down to us developing a common mythos that makes us all feel (sorry for a lack of better words/terminology) like Marvel Superheroes; like Avengers. My case in point, look at how many people came out to see this comic book movie. If we felt the same way about our individual lives, we wouldn't feel the need to escape into movies or the numerous other outlets of consumerism that ultimately lead to global warming. This comes right up against our concepts and uses of religion, politics and anything else that we still consider sacred.

crypticlizard 7 years ago |

I make allot of noise and flap my arms but ultimately, unless I'm feeling generous, all I do is make it worse, or marginally less worse. The truth imo is that we are bit players and the real players are destroying the planet as fast as possible for reasons unknown.

It's not true everyone had to react to it, many of the ppl. who have the power have a fatalististic attitude or just don't care

sergiotapia 7 years ago |

Reminder that 100 companies contribute to 71% of global warming.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...

What you or I do is moot and a waste of time.

tannhaeuser 7 years ago |

What about getting serious about app carbon footprint metrics, standards, and requirements? Wouldn't that be a useful project for EEs and other bright people on HN?

prabhjeetsingh 7 years ago |

I plant more and more trees because its the only thing a person individually can do without asking others for any kind of help.

tomjen3 7 years ago |

Nothing. I no longer believe anything is possible, so we will simply have to deal with the changes.

incomestheflood 7 years ago |

Nothing. You can't have infinite growth on a finite planet

bjourne 7 years ago |

I live frugally, but I'm not so good at cooking so I eat a lot of take out food. I could improve on that by cooking at home more often. I also try to become a vegetarian. Cutting out beef was easy, but also not eating chicken or pork is harder. Last summer was a wake up call and this summer looks to become just as hot and dry. :(

I know, we environmentalists are all ants and the thing that matters the most is to get the Americans to not reelect Trump, which seem unlikely to be possible. But it is better to do something than doing nothing and just being a cynical bastard. On May 24, they will hold another global Climate Strike. See you there!

gesman 7 years ago |

I drive with AC on and windows opened.

justaguyhere 7 years ago |

I don't plan on having kids :P