
What Can a Technologist Do About Climate Change? (2015) - midko
http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/
======
sitkack
Technology will play a role in affecting a perilous recovery, it won't in the
way most technologists think. We don't have time to "invent a fix", we can't
bank on having fusion power magically suck carbon from the oceans and skies at
the last moment. Or a sunshade to prevent the tundra from erupting in methane.

Technologists can help organize (via online tools), educate and show (via
charts, graphs, simulations). This is ultimately a social and political
problem that requires the full force of governments. Individual efforts are
largely symbolic. Not that we shouldn't do them, but convincing your
legislators to enact real reforms is where we avoid life ending catastrophe.
We can have a huge impact, we just have to find the areas where we can have a
1000:1 advantage vs a 1.5:1 advantage.

~~~
titojankowski
We have time to invent a fix. We can’t continue to wait for a policy change to
change the world.

Technologists have the opportunity to build new solutions, improve renewable
energy efficiencies, hack direct air capture. Technology holds the keys for
10,000:1 advantages.

Anyone who is interested in this...shoot me an email.

~~~
eledumb
Hubris, or a get rich scheme.

~~~
titojankowski
Why not both?

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theptip
The section on "model-driven debate"
([http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/#media-
debate](http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/#media-debate)) describes (and
provides an example of) a mode of conversation that I have long wished was
more common.

In particular it seems that the web should facilitate such model-driven
debates, since these dynamic calculations can be embedded in the fabric of the
conversation (the posts, articles, and documents that are being shared), where
they would be more awkward to include in verbal/visual
presentations/conversations.

I would love to see more of this, but alas it seems like an incredibly niche
way of presenting ideas.

------
dang
Thread from February:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19259106](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19259106)

2018:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16505675](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16505675)

2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10622615](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10622615)

------
8bitsrule
Brilliant article. Four years have passed.

"Everything about today’s power grid, from this centralized control to the
aging machinery performing transmission and distribution, is not suitable for
clean energy."

Had the U.S. started on this 10 years ago, like China did, we'd be well on-
the-way to ready. The author again calls for WW2-scale effort. The clock is
ticking.

------
helen___keller
Frustrating that the author parrots the wishful thinking "But once the grid
cleans up, not only will electric cars be cleaner than gas cars, they may be
more efficient than mass transit." while later admitting "Reducing the need
for personal transportation via urban design. Among other reasons, this is
important to counter the likely tendency of autonomous cars to increase urban
sprawl, which has been strongly correlated with emissions."

The two are strongly linked. Mass transit is necessary because when you have a
highly dense city (i.e. when you fight against urban sprawl) you need a higher
throughput mode of transit than roads could ever provide. Good luck moving
literally 9 million people per day as the Tokyo subway does with a system of
automatic electric cars. In this lens of thinking, the solution we need is
innovating more efficient mass transit.

The other approach is to increase density but in a distributed manner, a
system of "small towns" if you will. Dense small towns are charming and, more
importantly, can be walkable so that neither mass transit nor cars are needed
for the average citizens' day-to-day. The issue with this approach is that
modern civilization is currently demanding the opposite - despite internet
technology, we are becoming more centralized in fewer megacities. Find a way
to somehow make companies _prefer_ remote work and we might reverse this
trend.

------
omarhaneef
Had not seen this though I am interested to anything Victor says, and climate
change.

This looks like a lot of work went into it, and it seems to contain a lot of
information. I wonder if there were an easy way to rank the innovations on
various axes (most impactful for the environment, easiest, most profitable
etc)

------
pjkundert
Answer: quit Grievance Studies, enrol in Engineering. :)

~~~
pjkundert
Seriously! We’re not going to plant a trillion trees in the next few years by
complaining.

We’re going to do it by inventing and executing.

