
Ask HN: I'm just a programmer worried about climate change, how can I help? - y3k
Hello everyone.<p>Since I was a teenager I&#x27;ve been worried about climate change, this led me to reduce my CO2 emissions, consumerism, and waste as much as possible; I do the best I can to not use my car, plastic bags, straws or bottles, re-use water and many other actions that I think can help.<p>However, every couple months I still read a new article stating that we are even closer than we thought to the point of no-return, even a few say we are already past it.<p>As a father I&#x27;m really worried about my children&#x27;s future, and cannot avoid feeling overwhelmed by the fact that even if I do my best I just cannot fight against huge corporations that does not want to do the best they can to help climate change.<p>A couple days ago I read this http:&#x2F;&#x2F;carbon.ycombinator.com&#x2F; in HN&#x27;s frontpage and got amazed about such creative and smart solutions, and cannot stop wondering what can I do to proactively help any of those, or any other idea, become true and help to repair the damage.<p>Sadly I&#x27;m just a Software Engineer and I feel that I cannot help as, for example, a Genetic Engineer to make those ideas become true. I&#x27;m not a genius, nor a millionaire philanthropist, neither a clever startup founder.<p>Is there anything I, a normal person, can do to actually help?<p>Thank you for reading me.
======
vitovito
Bret Victor thinks so, and outlines ways individual technologists can improve
the situation, by helping others understand it and what needs to be built:
[http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/](http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/)

~~~
y3k
This is an amazing resource, I didn't know about it.

Thank you for sharing it, I'm reading it already.

------
jlangenauer
Although it has become fashionable to decry making personal changes as
"irrelevant" and "ineffective" with the lie that since everyone isn't doing
it, there's not point in anyone doing it, making changes to how you and your
family live is still very important.

Things you can do:

1\. Find an energy provider who sells green energy - here in Germany, it's
possible (and common) to buy 100% green energy, but I don't know what it's
like where you are. Even if it costs more, get the green energy - it's a big
change you can make that won't affect your lifestyle one bit.

2\. Reduce the amount of red meat you eat. The environmental costs of this are
well known. Give it up if you can, but if not, at least reduce it.

3\. See if you can fly less. If you fly intercontinenally, then the CO2 from
that will dwarf almost anything else you do. Again, this is something that's
easy to say, but it's something that's very effective.

Those are the changes you can make in your personal life. There are plenty of
other good suggestions here as to how to make systemic changes.

~~~
random_moonwalk
David Mackay (Physicist and author of Sustainable Energy - without the hot air
[http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html](http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html)):

'Have no illusions. To achieve our goal of getting off fossil fuels, these
reductions in demand and increases in supply must be big. Don’t be distracted
by the myth that “every little helps.” If everyone does a little, we’ll
achieve only a little. We must do a lot. What’s required are big changes in
demand and in supply.'

~~~
alexgmcm
He was amazing - probably one of the greatest British living scientists before
his untimely death.

I read his book on Sustainable Energy in my Physics degree and later his book
on Information Theory when studying Machine Learning. Truly impressive to have
contributed to so many different fields.

But yeah - after reading his book I came to the conclusion that the greenest
thing we can do is to support Nuclear Power.

------
diafygi
> Is there anything I, a normal person, can do to actually help?

Absolutely. I work in cleantech, and you should, too! Solar and wind are
economical, so now the biggest issue is scaling them up. That means tons and
tons of problem solving, which means great engineering jobs!

If you think about it, the switch to renewables means we need to deal with
situations where the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing, yet still
keep the lights on. That means you have to build in a ton of storage and load
control, which means good communication and analysis, which means software!
Something like half of the impact of the energy transition will be done
through software optimizing the deployment and operation of clean energy
assets.

Anyway, please check out my previous comments on recommendations when looking
for climate impact work. Overall, the biggest impact per unit time spent is
working as a regulator[1]. Next is working at a cleantech company[2].

[1]:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/8l5yhw/whats_the_be...](https://www.reddit.com/r/energy/comments/8l5yhw/whats_the_best_way_for_an_engineer_to_make_a/dzdeptb/?context=3)

[2]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15127154](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15127154)

~~~
y3k
This is more like what I meant.

I follow most, if not every, advise about lifestyle, but I also belive that is
not enough.

My current work consist in helping a company get more money, and while there's
nothing wrong with that I would certainly preffer to work on something that
along making profit helps fight climate change.

Will read both links given, thank you.

~~~
diafygi
Great! Mind if I ask you to email me your resume? My email is in my HN
profile.

------
yassam
Get involved in grassroots politics, e.g. [https://350.org/](https://350.org/)

Personal action (such as reducing your own CO2 emissions) is good but not
enough. Collective action to put pressure on governments to regulate CO2
emissions is what's needed.

We already have the tech to reduce emissions to safe levels. What we lack is
the political will to use it.

~~~
cm2012
TechForCampaigns.com is also great.

------
throwaway9382
If you're a typical tech employee/well-to-do person - travel less. Air travel
is likely the single largest component of your carbon footprint, and with high
quality communication tools and good management, travel for work is not as
important. (Plus I think if folks introspected they'd admit fun is a
significant motivation for their work trips.)

~~~
y3k
I already do that, I travel only once every 2 years or so. I'd be able to do
it way more frequently, but preffer not to.

------
tomhoward
Here's one factor to consider, which might be controversial to some...

You can use your skills to earn as much money as you can, so you can purchase
clean energy/goods, and invest in clean-tech assets.

The reason carbon emissions are still such a problem is that carbon-emitting
fuels are still generally the cheapest.

Clean-tech purchases like domestic solar panels and electric cars are still
quite costly, because they're still in the immature stages of development and
market growth.

The way to drive down the prices of these kinds of items is to increase
demand, which you can help to do by purchasing them.

The more people do this, the cheaper they'll become, and then the more
affordable they'll be for less wealthy people.

This is controversial as people tend to equate commerce with environmental
harm. There is some truth in this, but it's only a partial truth:
environmental harm comes from commerce that is powered by dirty fuels (or that
has other harmful externalities).

By increasing our commercial activity that has little or no negative
environmental impact, then re-investing the gains in goods that have a further
positive environmental impact, we can each make a solid contribution to
undoing the damage.

~~~
pxtail
Very well written, additional ideas:

* don't buy new phone every year - if it's not cheapest model then nowadays there is almost no difference between 1-2y old phones and most of them can easily last 3,4 or 5 years.

* repair devices instead of throwing away and buying new ones,I you must buy repairable high quality devices

* this might be hard but: consume less, create more - nowadays almost _every_ service is expecting that you'll consume and it's not limited to physical goods - twitter, twitch, facebook, netflix, pinterest, youtube - all of them wants your attention ,you just need to scroll down, refresh, watch watch, read constantly, consume.

* teach your relatives, friends to consume less - this will be insanely hard and you'll be judged as freak so better don't do it ;-)

~~~
wilsonnb3
I could buy a thousand new phones every year and it wouldn’t make a noticeable
difference.

Climate change is a problem with such a massive scale that any individual
action taken to combat it isn’t going to matter.

~~~
krageon
If everyone did it, it'd make a noticeable impact. That impact isn't enough to
fix things, but thinking "oh well I won't do anything because _they 're_ not
doing anything" is not the kind of thinking that will get us to a solution.
Act to your capacity and trust that everyone else will do the same. Either you
will be right and things improve quite a bit, or you will be wrong and things
improve very little. In both cases at least you've stopped making it worse.

~~~
mbrock
Coming up with a convincing argument for individuals to adopt locally
subsignificant choices—a new, credible golden rule—might be something for an
entrepreneuring philosopher.

It’s the same problem as getting people to vote...

------
jefflombardjr
This may not be a popular opinion here, but I feel like engineers disease is
actually contributing to the problem. [0] Every time I see a new carbon
sequestration startup I die a little at the arrogance of the engineers that
they think they can beat nature at that game. Let alone in the time span of
~30 years that we need it to happen. If those brilliant engineers had spent
time working with domain experts (i.e. "talking to your users") I feel like
some of the effort might be better spent elsewhere. This family of plants is
incredibly efficient at sequestering carbon:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaceae](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaceae).
At a minimum, why not have a startup that exploits something like this and use
nature's ability to heal itself instead of trying to reinvent the wheel? The
mere perspective that we need to "save the environment" is a fallacy. We live
in the environment, and we need to care for it, it's not something to be
blocked and cordoned off.

My point is, yes you can help, but it might not be by writing software or
engineering a product. A lot of brilliant people have been aware of this
problem and working hard to combat it, it is arrogant to think we can disrupt
something we don't fully understand, instead of doing something solo, try to
join up with others already fighting the good fight. You want to help try
reading and learn from experts in the field. Then with your programming
background you might see something in a different light. Talk to people and
ask questions from your perspective!

For anyone who is interested in combating climate change I highly suggest
these three books, they have been perspective changing for me:

1\. Permaculture By Bill Mollison (or this free online course
[https://open.oregonstate.edu/courses/permaculture/](https://open.oregonstate.edu/courses/permaculture/))
2\. The Hard Rain By Timothy Egan (Think SFO is relatively green? Think again
the 'clean' power projects have been wreaking havoc on the ecosystem in the
PNW) 3\. Rethinking the War on Invasives By Tao Orion

In addition to that as others have indicated, reduce meat consumption. Don't
think it matters? Read about the dust bowl, and those areas of the country
covered in sage brush? Yeah a-lot of that is from overgrazing.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10812975](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10812975)

------
ppseafield
Reduce your meat consumption or go vegetarian or vegan.

A major cause of deforestation is to grow corn / soybeans to feed to
livestock. The forests, natural carbon sinks, are lost, and the livestock
increase the amount of methane in the atmosphere. It takes 9 times the amount
of land to make beef vs. growing plants. It uses a lot more freshwater to grow
the food, and much more to give to the animals.

~~~
y3k
Thank you for your advice.

We're already doing that. Not gonna lie, we love meat, but understand it isn't
the best choice for the planet, so far we've reduced our meat consumption
about 50%.

~~~
piocho
We love meat too. What I do is trying to not go to McDonalds or fast food so
often where meat are mostly sh*t, but rather go to a local farmer and buy
fresh meat. Maybe twice a week.

~~~
ppseafield
Local meat and McDonalds factory farm meat still require the same amount of
cow. Buying the same amount of meat from a different source incurs the same
environmental costs.

------
DrNuke
May you volunteer a couple of hours afterwork in your week to some
environmental charity at local or regional level? As a STEM professional very
able with computers, your skills might help a lot without touching hard-nosed
activism or politics.

~~~
kat
This so much. Something like setting up mailchimp for a nonprofit, setting up
a crm system to track volunteer data, how to read google analytics for their
webpage, or even as simple as getting email signatures setup for the office
workers. I've spent a lot of time proving basic IT support and basic "this is
how you effiently use a email" types of deals.

------
justaaron
devise an alternative to "proof of work" blockchain ledgers.

cryptocurrencies are sucking down electricity at a rate larger than many
nations, and all for literally doing NOTHING useful...

(majorly non eco activity...)

~~~
piocho
Agree ! If only more people could thing like you.

~~~
mbrock
Secure proof-of-stake is a huge topic in blockchain research! It won’t have
the same characteristics as PoW—worse in some ways, better in others—but it’s
not like nobody’s thinking about it.

------
BLKNSLVR
Don't despair that you're not part of the vanguard.

Take the opportunities and make the necessary changes to your own life as they
present themselves - which you appear to be doing already, ie. leading by
example.

Something I found effective, which is obvious in hindsight and I only found
out by accident, is quantifying the financial benefits - because this
resonates with people. I purchased solar panels a few years back, and
mentioning my power bills in comparison to those without solar panels does
draw attention.

I just wanted to be able to quantify it to myself, and ended up documenting on
a website so I could point interested parties to it:
[http://electricity.atcf.com.au/economics/](http://electricity.atcf.com.au/economics/)
(hasn't been updated in a couple of years...)

This is a single example, and quantifying it took planning and effort that
doesn't translate to other things like not using plastic bags or straws.
Overall, leading by example is the first step, and then making that example
publicly available is a second step that's likely easily accessible to an
HN'r.

I think if you're able to quanitfy your savings from minimising car usage,
THAT would provide interesting financials that would attract attention.

Write an instructional and experiential blog, mention it to your friends and
family, let the influence expand at its own pace, maybe linking to it in
related HN comments ;)

------
piocho
Here is a link to another thread on HM regarding the same problem :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18276987](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18276987)

I definitely think that we can't do anything as developers (maybe optimizing
process to consume less, but that's not obvious). And here is why :

\- we used computers/servers/hard disks/etc that are made of rare-earth metals
(which required a lot of energy to be extracted and are a environmental
disaster (first link in google :
[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-
ra...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-
village-pollution)). \- big datacenters, in which our compagnies are involved
into, require a fabulous amount of energy to work (cooling système,
electricity, etc), proably more that average cities.

However, what you (and we) could do as citizen could be : \- buy from
local/bio producers \- do not buy shitty products coming directly from china
that will last 1 week and then will be broken for no reason. \- think twice
before buying new product (not only electronic ones). do I need this new
smartphone (which, by the way, his cost is half a salary or a all salary for
most of the people ?) can I repear it ? \- do not buy big companies' products
(coke,nutella,etc). They are destroying environement (mexican vilages have
less and less water because of coca-cola, nutala are heavily using palm
oil...) Those are only 2 examples.

Easy to write, not to do ...

> Sadly I'm just a Software Engineer and I feel that I cannot help as, for
> example, a Genetic Engineer to make those ideas become true. I'm not a
> genius, nor a millionaire philanthropist, neither a clever startup founder.

Most of us are in the same case. I'm actually reading Gunter Pauli's books
regarding the "Blue Economy". ->
[https://www.theblueeconomy.org/](https://www.theblueeconomy.org/) There are
plenty of "simple" ideas that might be "easy" to implements in our life as
side-projects.

------
jungler
Yes, you can do something.

1\. Basic principles: Do a bit of philosophy. Figure out some things that
would be more sustainable, more accessable, more energy efficient. Software
has a sizable impact on many processes, though public discussion tends to
discount it. Consider how to align your career against those goals. Test your
goals for coherence: You want to get them all aligned together so that you're
constantly propelled in a good direction.

2\. Plan a specific design: You might not be able to make the system you
envision, but you can probably find some kind of leverage on the problem,
whether it's collecting information, creating a prototype, contributing to an
existing project, or marketing a better solution.

3\. Create a feedback loop: Your first attempt is not likely to solve climate
change. So your purpose in trying something is not to immediately solve it,
but to find feedback that will guide you or others towards that goal. For
example, if you think you have a technical solution that will reduce energy
usage, you need to find a benchmark that you can use to measure and improve
that solution. Ideally you develop a feedback mechanism like a workout log,
where you can easily see your progression in training volume and intensity.

Historically, many breakthroughs result from this kind of effort distributed
across many people, attacking different angles of a problem. A lot of the
individual aspects like "recycle your waste" are effective when there's broad
enforcement measures that make it the optimal or only option - it was less
than a hundred years ago that taking your trash to the backyard incinerator
was a common practice in all industrialized cities, and less than two hundred
that dumping it out the window and onto the street was acceptable. We have
plenty of things to improve still!

------
flukus
Write fast, efficient low level code and don't put developer experience above
users. The carbon cost of modern bloat is immense.

------
titojankowski
Come join the Carbon Doomsday project, we need backend help!

[http://carbondoomsday.com](http://carbondoomsday.com)

[https://gitter.im/giving-a-fuck-about-climate-
change/Lobby](https://gitter.im/giving-a-fuck-about-climate-change/Lobby)

~~~
y3k
Looks pretty good! Will join.

------
gadders
You could try protesting in China? Especially about their power plants.

[https://www.wri.org/blog/2017/04/interactive-chart-
explains-...](https://www.wri.org/blog/2017/04/interactive-chart-explains-
worlds-top-10-emitters-and-how-theyve-changed)

------
meric
One example I can imagine you can help with: if your city doesn't have it, you
could put its train timetables in an app. There's one for Sydney, it's called
TripView. A train timetable available in a convenient manner will help people
rely on trains more and reduce CO2 emissions.

~~~
a-fried-egg
If you develop an API for it and everyone can use the data all over the place
freely and easily, that could help.

------
bigato
Going vegan is the single biggest way to reduce your impact on the
environment:

[https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-
families...](https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-
families/veganism-environmental-impact-planet-reduced-plant-based-diet-humans-
study-a8378631.html)

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-
meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth)

The next step would probably be engaging other people in veganism and in
spreading the word about it.

~~~
collyw
Not having children will have a bigger impact.

A plant based diet is moderately low down this list (again from the Guardian,
they could try to be a bit more consistent).

[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-
to-...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-
climate-change-have-fewer-children)

~~~
ppseafield
Why not both? The OP asked what they could do. It's an option.

~~~
paulcole
That ship has sailed. OP says, “As a father...”

------
Libbum
What country do you live in? I work at a climate research institute and have
connections all over. I could perhaps put you in contact with a local research
team.

Sadly, I'd say that a lot of current research tools are pretty shoddy when it
comes to implementation. Not that they give incorrect results, more-so that
there is no way to really interop systems with any ease. No standards, only a
small culture of open source etc etc. Having a software engineer on speed dial
to consult with when designing and implementing new frontier research tools
would be of immense help in my opinion.

~~~
y3k
Hi, sorry for being late.

At the moment I live in México / USA.

I would love to provide feedback to help standarize and design protocols.

------
wilsonnb3
The only thing that you can do that will matter is convincing other people to
do something.

A collective problem requires collective action. Anything you do alone will
not make a difference.

~~~
posix_me_less
Sometimes the best convincing is done by giving people a good personal
example, not merely by talking.

~~~
monktastic1
Yes. I'm reminded of a friend who agreed that going vegetarian was a great
idea. So he vowed to start a club to convince others to go vegetarian, but
wouldn't himself.

In the mean time, vegetarian friends of mine who are just generally good
people seem to have convinced a lot of people around them, without doing
almost any talking at all.

------
troyvit
_Tongue-in-cheek_ get a job in ad-tech. You'll get paid lots of money helping
to sell products that are at least 4 steps away from any real economic
activity, which means they are also very distant from creating anything that
requires a carbon footprint. As a bonus you might be able to work from home.
No driving means lower carbon footprint.

Yeah you're still helping data centers consume electricity but it's a lot
cleaner than working in coal.

------
chjango_u
We're a blockchain startup and while we're not directly solving global
warming, we are pioneering the bleeding edge technology for building in
economic incentives for applications like lowering carbon emissions, water
waste, or fossil fuel usage. We believe that through the clever use of
blockchains, we might create the incentives for a greener planet.

If you're a go, rust, or JavaScript developer, we're hiring--

tendermint.com/careers

~~~
stefaniam
What about the environmental impact of blockchain itself?
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/02/19/the-5-bi...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/02/19/the-5-big-
problems-with-blockchain-everyone-should-be-aware-of/#770fdf971670)

------
konschubert
I justed wanted to say hi because I'm totally in the same boat. Since I was 12
I've been watching this and my fears have been confirmed.

I also wanted to say that changing individual behavior isn't going to fix it
by much. The fuel I don't burn, others will burn it instead.

The only way to fix this is 1) technology to make C02 emissions less
profitable than green tech and 2) policy.

As a technologist, I try to focus on 1).

------
worldexplorer
Surprisingly no one mentioned about 3 R(Reduce, Reuse and recycle) which is
quite popular in India (don't know about other countries).

[https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange//kids/solutions/actions/w...](https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange//kids/solutions/actions/waste.html)

------
ex3xu
Here's an earlier HN post on carbon removal technologies, some of which seem
quite cost effective and promising:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18285606](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18285606)
Perhaps you can volunteer your time or other resources towards some of these
initiatives.

------
chadshaquery
Volunteer or donate to the Veterans' Greenhouse non-profit. They're applying
recent advancements in computer science to agriculture specifically to reduce
carbon output and water consumption by industrial agriculture.
[https://veteransgreenhouse.org](https://veteransgreenhouse.org)

------
ishikawa
Power companies have a great demand for software. By working with green
companies you are helping the world get cleaner. By working with coal or gas-
fired Power plants to manage, control and reduce their emissions, you are also
helping the world. I have worked for the past 13 years doing that.

~~~
y3k
That sounds ideal.

Any suggestion about where to start looking at? Sadly in my current location
neither goverment nor companies have too much interest on going green.

~~~
ishikawa
You can search for SCADA companies as well as others working with analytics
for wind power. For the second you will find more in Europe. Some names, to
mention a few, are: Greenbyte, CNTRAL (not a typo), Inductive Automation,
PCVue, Elipse Software, scadaHUB, Osisoft and Canary. Where are you and what
do you do?

------
duchenne
Climate research relies heavily on simulations. You could probably work in a
climate research institute to improve the modeling software. This kind of
coding of also interesting from a technical point of view: very big
computation, lot of data, parallelism.

source: a climatologist friend.

~~~
y3k
I would love to do that. I'm probably not experienced enough to find a work on
it though.

But it's something that I will research for sure.

------
taolg
Have you considered Tesla?

[https://www.tesla.com/careers/search#/?department=1](https://www.tesla.com/careers/search#/?department=1)

~~~
y3k
Would love to work there, I don't think I've either the expertise or the
contacts to get a job there.

------
siddhantin
Use highly optimized code, logical operators , small alias for variables and
it will save electricity, as every byte is processed by computing. saving
electricity = saving climate

------
runjake
Since nobody else said it: Write efficient code using efficient software
running on efficient hardware in efficient data centers.

It can really add up.

~~~
y3k
Already trying to do that.

However, I want to be more proactive against the climate change, got tired of
just do my best to improve my emissions, I want to actually help to fix what
we have done.

------
gargarplex
Sounds like the work at a startup team could get together with the carbon.yc
team and help route software engineers into jobs.

------
666lumberjack
Choose not to have (biological) children.

~~~
y3k
Already got one, not planning any more.

------
dreamdu5t
Host with AWS. They are 50% powered by renewables and have a long-term goal of
100%. They’ve also helped build solar and wind farms generating 250+ gigawatts
of renewable energy.

~~~
beatgammit
Doesn't Google do something similar? I don't know the exact figures, but I
know they made a push for renewables a little while back.

~~~
robinwassen
100% renewable:
[https://cloud.google.com/environment/](https://cloud.google.com/environment/)

------
paulcole
You already had kids. There’s nothing you can do now that can undo the impact
of that on the environment.

You can always stop eating meat, move to a smaller home, get rid of your cars,
etc. But only do it if you want. There’s really not much of a point.

------
bobxyz
Stop worrying about nothing. All the noise around ecology is only used to
legitimize new taxes.

Even the concept of vegetarianism is a sham. If everyone starts consuming
vegetable food, yields will have to be ensured by standardizing crops and
using pesticides.

Pollution does not come from everyone, but from the big industrial groups.

You will never have ecology by advocating a society based on economic growth.

It is a rude and dishonest lure.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

