
What can a technologist do about climate change? - michael_nielsen
http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/
======
chaosphere2112
I work on climate software at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory[1]. My
team works with big data and visualization. We support ACME[2] (the Department
of Energy's climate modeling program), PCMDI[3] (a team that's been evaluating
climate models since 1989), and a number of other projects and groups.

If you are interested in what _you_ can do for the climate, we need all the
help we can get. Our code may not be the epitome of hygiene (think decades-old
python with docstrings that haven't been touched in that long), but in the
time I've been here we've gotten loads better. All of our code lives on github
([4] and [5]), we have way more funding than we know what to do with, and we
have more work to do than people to do it.

If you're interested, shoot me an email (in my profile). I'm still hunting for
the job application link.

EDIT: Job link found! [http://careers-ext.llnl.gov/jobs/4494026-software-
developers...](http://careers-ext.llnl.gov/jobs/4494026-software-developers--
2) Don't worry about all of the skills listed, it's a generic one. Feel free
to shoot me an email if you have any questions.

[1]: [https://www.llnl.gov](https://www.llnl.gov) [2]:
[http://climatemodeling.science.energy.gov/projects/accelerat...](http://climatemodeling.science.energy.gov/projects/accelerated-
climate-modeling-energy) [3]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_for_Climate_Model_Diag...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Program_for_Climate_Model_Diagnosis_and_Intercomparison)
[4]: [https://github.com/ESGF](https://github.com/ESGF) [5]:
[https://github.com/UV-CDAT](https://github.com/UV-CDAT)

~~~
adenylyl
"Anticipated Clearance Level: Q (Position will be cleared to this level)."

... why would someone working on climate modeling software need a clearance
for nuclear weapon design information?

~~~
chaosphere2112
The lab clears basically all salaried employees at L or Q; if there's any
chance that you might look at classified data some day (IE: if you want to
interview at another group internally, or have some useful expertise that can
be leveraged somewhere else), it saves everyone time and energy if you're
already a Q. There's some financial reasons not to do it, but I think the math
works out in favor of not running multiple levels of background check on every
new hire (if they were to give you an L and then a Q).

~~~
prbuckley
I worked at LLNL 2001-2005 as a mechanical engineering. It was a very nice
place to work. I had to go through the clearance process and that was the
weirdest part. They sent people to interview a camp councelor I had when I was
10 years old! I also had to list every address I had lived at and every
country I had ever visited with cooresponding dates.

Given the huge amount of personal data the government now has on me it was
quite concerning when the OPM had 21.5 million government employees
information hacked, [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-
eye/wp/2015/07/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/federal-
eye/wp/2015/07/09/new-opm-data-breach-numbers-leave-federal-employees-
anguished-outraged/)

------
davedx
I did considerable research into jobs where I would have the opportunity to
help with climate change while I was a freelancer. I came up with a short list
of companies, evaluated on a somewhat subjective basis of "effectiveness". (I
read an essay by Bill Gates where he explained his investment strategies to
"making the world a better place" were based on applying financial input where
it had the most leverage.)

Most of the companies were here in the Netherlands, one was in the USA. I
applied to them all, and got 3 interviews. I ended up choosing a utility
startup called Vandebron based in Amsterdam.

Vandebron ([https://vandebron.nl/](https://vandebron.nl/)) means "from the
source" in Dutch. They're an AirBNB-style marketplace for renewable energy.
Customers choose the supplier ("generator") they want to buy their energy
from. They're growing quickly!

I've been there a little less than 3 weeks, and I feel like it's the best
career decision I've ever made. I've never felt so motivated before. I
encourage anyone wanting to join the effort against climate change to dig
deep. Find the company you think will make the most impact. Get yourself in
the door. Most companies are happy to find talented IT people.

~~~
tomp
May I ask, how did you go around searching for companies like this?

~~~
davedx
Of course.

1\. I Googled, a LOT. "cleantech jobs", "cleantech netherlands", "green tech
jobs", etc. etc. etc.

2\. I started reading sites like cleantechnica.

3\. I got a few leads from this site: [http://www.climate-
kic.org/](http://www.climate-kic.org/)

4\. Jobs I'd found already, I looked up the companies I already knew about
then followed the "companies like this" links on LinkedIn.

5\. Followed lots of people in clean tech/environmentalism on Twitter. Not
sure if I found anything this way, though.

------
mouly
Bret Victor has provided a first principles approach to solving climate
change. I work at SolarCity we take a similar systems thinking approach and
tackle the problems at their fundamental level. We have been vertically
integrating the business from manufacturing highest efficiency solar panels,
mounting systems that enable fast installation, electrical systems that can
work with the grid, financing for homeowners that don't require any
downpayment.

Our Software engineering team specifically works on improving efficiency of
our sales workflow, geo spatial systems that support our installation crew,
grid systems that monitor and work with the grid, and providing the best
experience for our customers.

I'm happy to talk to anyone who is interested in joining us. Shoot me an email
at mkumaraswamy@solarcity.com

Our career's page: [http://solar.solarcity.com/careers/software-
engineering/](http://solar.solarcity.com/careers/software-engineering/)

~~~
hobolord
I applied to SolarCity for similar reasons, because I'd like to hopefully do
something about climate change. Hope I hear back soon

------
cies
Great piece. I was thinking: "what programmers can do?" And came up with the
"use compiled languages" answer.

I compare Ruby and Haskell, as that's what I have experience with; but I
expect it to hold true for any Ruby/Python/Java/etc vs
C/C++/Haskell/Go/Rust/etc shootout.

Just some typical numbers:

Disk space to house one app deployment: 800MB Ruby/Rails vs 80MB
Haskell/Yesod. Memory consumption of one instance: 350MB Ruby/Rails vs <1MB
Haskell/Yesod. Time (CPU bound) needed for a request: 80ms Ruby/Rails vs 8ms
Haskell/Yesod. Startup time of app: 30sec Ruby/Rails vs <1sec Haskell/Yesod.

Especially for large scale apps this makes a difference. Just through metal at
it, is not a sustainable answer. The Googles and FBs know this; and they
compile a lot.

I think going compiled is going green with your software in many cases;
especially on scale.

~~~
pjc50
_800MB Ruby /Rails_

What, really? How much of that is the app source? As a byte-shaving embedded
developer I have zero experience with Rails.

On the other hand, unless you're scaling really big, the CO2 cost of the
computers is probably dwarfed by the cost of the developers commuting to work.

~~~
cies
> How much of that is the app source?

Little. Most is libs.

> [...] unless you're scaling really big, the CO2 cost of the computers is
> probably dwarfed by the cost of the developers commuting to work.

Yups. That's why I mentioned "scale". Personally I cycle 7 mins to work :)

------
Pxtl
I'm disappointed that the one item most accessible to the software/consumer-
electronics world: telecommuting, doesn't appear much in the article.

Giving people the tools to properly manage a remote team (including non-
experts that are unaccustomed to remoting) is something we can do and that
will take commuters off the roads.

~~~
api
Telepresence and telecommuting is a big one. The energy savings that could be
realized are staggering, and it's _so far_ probably one of the Internet's
greatest failed promises.

The Internet was supposed to break the tyranny of place, reducing not only the
need for constant energy-guzzling commutes but also reducing the need to
cluster in overpriced 'centers' like... well... Silicon Valley and San
Francisco for example.

The reality almost seems opposite. The Internet seems to have intensified geo-
centralization of industries, with the Internet itself being chief among
these. The fact that the whole tech industry must huddle in the Bay Area is a
clear demonstration of this failure-- these are the people who are best at
using the net, and they can't use it this way.

So yeah, this is a big one and is a very worthy target.

~~~
cableshaft
Doesn't help when many of the big tech companies -- that other companies are
influenced by and model their cultural and corporate infrastructure on -- have
decided they absolutely HAVE to have in person spontaneous communication
because it _might_ result in some random problem being solved or new idea that
saves them millions of dollars, so no one can work remotely and they have to
relocate to Silicon Valley or be fired.

Yahoo and Facebook and Reddit are a few companies I've seen announcements of
new policies that have shunned remote work in the past few years.

------
pdeuchler
This is really awesome, both layout wise and for it's data visualizations. I'm
a huge fan of Brett's work and this seems like it fits right in with his other
exposes.

That said, anything that doesn't discuss the global shipping industry (or more
abstractly, emissions due to globalized trade), nuclear power, _and_ solutions
for developing countries* is missing more than half of the discussion (I'd
personally argue it's almost missing the entire forest for a couple of trees).
I'd be very careful to follow any conclusions or suggestions that don't factor
any of that in.

* This is the biggest annoyance for me when climate change is discussed in general. Moving the US and other developed countries to clean/renewable energy is mostly a matter of time and money. But developing countries like, say, India, have neither the money, infrastructure, or time to do so (not even broaching the fact that some don't even have the human rights framework to maintain an environmentally sustainable economy). Furthermore there's a moral issue, in that US/China led development essentially set the stage for global climate change. Is it morally acceptable to punish developing countries for following the same route? Fossil fuels are essentially the only way these companies can begin to compete... and after all it's the developed countries that took us, at a dead sprint, to the edge of the cliff.

~~~
HiLo
Sorry, but the global shipping/maritime industry is only responsible for like
5%, maybe less, of emissions, as nasty as bunkers are, so it looks like you're
the one staring at a tree.

Like you mentioned, the real concern here is China and India's ability to grow
their power generation stack using renewables rather than fossil fuels.
Whether or not some more voyages take place will be trivial compared to the
impact of China/India's power generation.

------
haxel
I look at the human-caused part of climate change as a billion or so smaller
and easier-to-solve (but still hard) problems. Each one of these billions of
problems is a person like you and me who acts without truly knowing what they
are doing. Not in the sense of faking our way through life, but that we have
only a superficial awareness of the consequences of our habitual or
culturally-driven actions. This makes climate change an information problem,
and technologists do information splendidly.

It's an information problem because we base much of our behavior on feedback
loops. When we get a big electricity bill, we take a closer look and perhaps
rely less on our heaters or air-conditioner. When we see the odometer on our
car hitting big numbers too soon (and repair bills looming), perhaps we look
into a job closer to home. There's thousands of examples, many of which have
an impact our our environment.

So if we focused on developing a tool whose sole purpose was to give us
quantified feedback on the consequences of our actions - much like how we use
utility bills - we might be able to make a real dent in the big problem of
climate change and others like it. We already have the pieces for a tool like
this (Internet, computers everywhere, software libraries) along with the
skills of technologists, so what's needed is the vision and the demand.

I recently wrote these ideas in long form:
([https://medium.com/@SteveHazel/we-re-drowning-in-low-
quality...](https://medium.com/@SteveHazel/we-re-drowning-in-low-quality-
information-cf9566d407a9#.v3nzyp18m))

~~~
rmchugh
I think it's problematic to focus exclusively on individual responsibility for
averting climate change. Climate change is a massive global problem,
intimately related to the structure of the global economy. The scale of the
problem and the changes needed to mitigate it are thus far beyond the reach of
any individual consumer. Problems at this scale can only be addressed by
nation states and transnational actors, as was done for CFCs for example.
Unfortunately these actors have been dragging their feet for decades. I am
skeptical that they will be able to get their acts together in time to avert
catastrophe.

~~~
haxel
You say global economy and then you say far beyond the reach of individual
consumers. Yet the global economy is by definition composed of the demands of
individual consumers.

You also say that top-down hasn't been working very well and so we may be
running out of time. Isn't that a strong signal that we should look at a
different approach?

As technologists, we can plainly see the power of our mobile computers and the
influence they have over our behavior. Advertising is huge because it works.
But what if its influence drives us to disproportionately purchase products or
services that contribute to climate change?

If advertisement works, and technology works, and people's behavior is already
being directed, then why can't we direct it another way?

~~~
rmchugh
I don't think advertisement works that well. While you may convince a small
minority of consumers to consume in a climate conscious way, I sincerely doubt
that it would appeal to the vast majority. For example, you would need to
persuade people not to eat meat, not to fly, not to purchase fresh food that
has been transported by air, not to drive cars driven by fossil fuels etc etc.
These are all things that make people's lives more enjoyable (for the most
part), so you are asking people to act against their immediate self-interest.
I don't think advertising is sufficient for this. What would be more effective
is a carbon tax on consumer goods, which would drive the price of such goods
up dramatically. But this would require government action.

As for solutions, I don't claim to have all the answers. I do think that the
divestments movement is a very good idea, as is direct action against the most
polluting industries (for example, a recent action to shut down Europe's
largest coal mine).

~~~
haxel
Ah, I meant advertising in the sense that we're seeing tons of advertising for
cheap meat, air travel, factory food, new gas cars, and whatnot. A good
question to ask might be that if corporations _didn't_ advertise so much, how
much less frequently would we buy those types of products/services? Would we
still need them? I think the advertisers know what would happen, and so they
have to keep it up.

Now, if we decided to throw a few environmental ads into the current mix, I
think you're right that they'd have little effect. But we can't forget how
much advertising we see for stuff that's harmful in many ways, regardless of
how temporarily satisfied we are with our purchases. Because so much of what
we buy has serious negative (but hidden) consequences, advertising is causing
us to act against our (non-immediate) self-interests.

------
guscost
While I don't really agree with the premise, my initial impression is that
this should get ten upvotes for being so well reasoned and executed. Amazing
work, I'm confident a lot of good will come of it.

One recommendation, at your earliest convenience do something about this:

> I didn’t mention nuclear because I don’t know much about it.

~~~
pjc50
Nuclear generates a lot of controversy. On paper it looks great; in practice
there it turns out to be very expensive or have nasty problems buried in the
details. For example, molten salt reactors have corrosion and reprocessing
problems.

I don't blame the author for refusing to take a position on nuclear.

~~~
guscost
If that was confusing, all I'm recommending is to learn more about it for now,
since he says he does not know much.

My reasoning is that any technology that can produce an enormous amount of
energy without burning hydrocarbons is worth more than a little consideration,
even if it presents serious engineering and regulatory challenges, and
especially to anyone who is concerned about carbon emissions.

~~~
eggy
I agree, and I think regulatory is the key word with nuclear. Cost overruns
and delays are due to the public's and government's ignorance on nuclear
energy precipitating disproportionate regulations and hurdles. Nuclear, by
far, represents the way forward if people could get over the irrational fears
tied to the words "radiation" and "nuclear". It could be developed safely and
less costly if we put up the resources. We need more nuclear physicists and
engineers in the U.S. and the world.

------
Zach_the_Lizard
The best you can do is lobby for denser development and ending the rules that
force a suburban character. Suburbs are more wasteful than cities. Riding a
bike to work generates less pollution than a car. Buildings themselves are
more efficiently insulated when it's 100 units on a block vs. 100 single
family homes on 50 acres. Deliveries can use more efficient and less polluting
forms of transport, such as rail, more often or for more of the trip. Delivery
trucks can stop on the block

While that's going on, lobbying for a carbon tax would be a great way to lower
emissions from industrial or other sources.

~~~
greggman
How do you convince the supposedly "green" SF population that SF should really
look more like Hong Kong?

~~~
Zach_the_Lizard
It doesn't have to look like Hong Kong. Paris isn't as dense as Manhattan, but
it's something like 2/3rds as dense despite relatively few tall buildings. SF
could allow mid-rise European style development and grow quite a bit denser.

If SF had Parisian density, it could fit something like 2.5 million people.
Other places in the bay could also not make suburban living mandatory.

Housing affordability and environmental problems are a national issue. IMO the
best solution is a Federal law that makes it impossible for cities to mandate
suburban living. That avoids the problem where one city liberalizes land use
and then sees huge development while others keep their doors closed.

------
greggman
I'll probably get downvoted but I'm honestly interested in some thoughts on my
dumb thinking.

This is an amazing presentation and I've loved Bret Victor's other
presentations but, and I'm making an assumption here, I kind of assume he's
rich or at least financially independent given where he's worked and when he
worked there. Assuming I'm right I find it a little hard to listen to the
advice which sometimes sounds like "Consider saving the planet but with a high
possibility of a financially challenged life. I've already made my money so
I'm free to give you this advice in comfort and security".

Of course that doesn't mean you can't get rich following one of these
solutions. It also doesn't mean that money = happiness or anything like that.
It's only this nagging feeling that the reader is being asked to sacrifice
something the author themselves has not and that the author has forgotten
where they are in their lives relative to most of the people they are asking.

If I knew all my financial needs (health care, retirement, family) were
already well met I'd have less trouble dedicating my time to worthy causes
like say Bill Gates apparently is. But, I'm not there yet. I do have to worry
how I will retire, how much I'll need to spent on healthcare as I age, etc...
Sure I can still make the decision to chase financial independence or chase
worthy causes but it's just, I guess maybe the word is frustrating, to be
asked to make that choice but someone who I assume doesn't need to choose.
They've already achieved financial Independence and therefore the choice is
far easier. (maybe one more reason for basic income).

I'm also aware it sounds stupid to even bring this topic up. There's all kinds
of ways to frame this and ignore the part of it I just mentioned. But, for
whatever reason I can't ignore it. I guess because I've seen my father too old
to get an engineering job he's qualified for and too poor to retire.

~~~
trop
At last report Bret Victor's research is supported by these folks:
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-29/sap-
looks-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-29/sap-looks-to-
xerox-for-r-d-inspiration-builds-idea-lab)

It's a hard question, what you ask -- should the techno-aristocracy pursue
worthy causes, while the rest of us toil to enrich them? Is the world so
fundamentally unfair that we're stuck without autonomy, doing tiresome tasks
for corporations which don't even offer us basic economic security in return?
Much less the opportunity to improve that world?

There does seem to be an option, at least early on: Labor for those who
respect neither their employees nor customers. Or find/create energetic work
which can make us and our surroundings better. Either decision feeds on
itself. The first path limits options, the second gives some chance for things
being better.

But I don't want this to be a blame-the-victim argument: that your father made
a poor early career choice, and that Bret Victor chose wisely. But one element
of Victor's argument is that our career choices (if we have them) have
consequences for the world as well as ourselves. If we can find work which is
not cynical and destructive, it may make the world better, and even set a good
example. If we struggle for work which is emotionally, financially, and
creatively unrewarding, then we're suggesting to others that that is the
world, and they may find it easy to make similar choices.

The recent essay (by a presumably enfranchised techno-aristocrat)
[https://medium.com/@ystrickler/resist-and-
thrive-1d36819853c...](https://medium.com/@ystrickler/resist-and-
thrive-1d36819853ca) covers a similar territory regarding career choices, also
pre-supposing that we have some autonomy. An argument there is that the
initial choice is harder, but the consequences are easier.

------
spenrose
(1) This is great.

(2) Political economy is a much bigger issue right now than technology. Most
of what we need to do is deploy, and the tech we have is good enough for that.

(3) Low-hanging fruit for self-identified "Technologists" is to reconsider
some of the blind spots caused by their social identities. David Roberts
explains:

[http://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9214015/tech-nerds-
politics](http://www.vox.com/2015/8/27/9214015/tech-nerds-politics)

~~~
spenrose
Also, I'd like to see "Tools for problem finding" augmented with "tools for
POLICY problem finding". The state governments of California and New York, for
example, do amazing work transforming the big beast of legacy systems. Bret
cites some of the former's, and notes the specific example of CAISOs plea for
grid storage. Better visibility of techies into policy could help a lot. Dave
Roberts has done great work on this:

[http://vox.com/authors/david-roberts](http://vox.com/authors/david-roberts)

------
jf
This is a masterpiece. I'm excited and overwhelmed after briefly skimming
through it.

I'm looking forward to the hours it will take me to work through this web page
and its hyperlinks.

~~~
skadamat
I legitimately hope this causes even a few technologists to shift their
attitudes & how they approach their careers (the way Inventing on Principle
did!)

------
oberstein
Buy iron, dump in ocean.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization))
Donate to geoengineering efforts and lobbying against insane moratoriums
against geoengineering efforts.

~~~
jbrande
Environmental 'solutions' have the unfortunate habit of being severely under
researched and causing further, if not greater, damage.

Besides, that is a solution for the symptom, not the disease.

~~~
oberstein
When you have treated all symptoms and stopped them from arising again, the
disease is effectively cured even if you still carry it. The final solution
will be complete mastery over our planetary weather, it's better we do that
sooner than later. Tsunami and earthquake deaths total far above terrorism
deaths, we only need funding to fight terrorism to the extent that they get in
the way of building to that final solution. Even if we "fix" the climate
change disease (say perhaps by wiping out industrial-era and beyond humanity,
the disease?) those other natural phenomena will still be killing many.

~~~
jbrande
You are vastly, VASTLY, overestimating our understanding of the biology,
chemistry, geology, & incredibly complex web of interdependencies and
relationships that make up the environment we live in.

Much simpler to solve at the source (whatever actions are directly causing the
damage) than the falacy of thinking we understand and have accounted for every
possible permutation of events that will cascade after dumping material A into
resource B. We don't even know what we don't know but this is the end game and
mistakes here don't get do overs.

The next step in your logic is our 'traditional' response at this point: drop
in another chemical/process that is supposed to 'fix' whatever mess up we did
before. Haven't we learned from that yet, Deepwater Horizon was just the most
recent example.

~~~
oberstein
No, I recognize it's a hard problem, that's why we should be devoting
significant resources to doing things now.

I get the point about unintended consequences with cascading problems (and
cascading solutions to the new problems)
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2743879](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2743879))
but the odds of screwing up here are much less than screwing up on AGI, whose
work has already significantly started and may be completed first anyway
making this whole discussion moot. Geoengineering is risky, but it's not as
risky as other things, including inaction, which as the status quo guarantees
loss of thousands of lives. Even if the climate change alarmists' greatest
fears come true we still easily have 50 years to try things on smaller scales
before time is up. Anyway I think it's a lot more feasible for a strong nation
to lead a technological solution than to convince all strong nations to curb
their development. Call it a plan B if you must, but at some point I expect
climate change alarmists are going to say something like "China and Russia and
India aren't playing ball hard enough, their emissions are still causing
global warming that will end humanity in x years unless they immediately
reduce to the levels of the USA and the EU whose combined efforts bought us y
years but it's still not enough, so it's time for war to make them."

------
nabla9
>Here’s an opinion you might not hear much — I feel that one effective
approach to addressing climate change is contributing to the development of
Julia. Julia is a modern technical language, intended to replace Matlab, ...

Well that was awkward transition.

~~~
emcq
Completely agree. I like Bret's stuff and love Julia but that section seemed
very weird and almost preachy. He seems a little out of his element because a
lot of physicists doing earth modeling use compiled languages like Fortran and
C/C++ for the big simulations and python for the smaller stuff. Julia is cool
though and a great substitute for the python stuff. It won't implicitly solve
distributed computing and the computational problems people have to create
large models. Unfortunately being closer to the metal can give big wins in
terms of communication (mpi), avoiding memory copies, using simd compiler
intrinsics and gpus, etc. and will continue to do so for the foreseeable
future.

~~~
tavert
> It won't implicitly solve distributed computing

Why not? It's out to explicitly address distributed computing -
[http://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/manual/parallel-
computin...](http://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/manual/parallel-computing/)

Julia is performance-competitive with C++ and Fortran, and productivity-
competitive with Python. It's out to do both. Julia code compiles to LLVM and
is incredibly "close to the metal" including SIMD, ref
[http://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/manual/performance-
tips/...](http://docs.julialang.org/en/latest/manual/performance-
tips/?highlight=simd#performance-annotations) and
[https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/vectorization-
in-j...](https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/vectorization-in-julia),
and GPUs [http://blog.maleadt.net/2015/01/15/julia-
cuda/](http://blog.maleadt.net/2015/01/15/julia-cuda/)

Try using Julia a bit before you talk about what it "won't solve."

------
tobr
Interacting with that graph of world carbon emissions and gradually realizing
what it is showing me. Stuff of nightmares (and fantastic interaction design).

~~~
skadamat
If you liked those interactions, I'd check out the iPad app Al Gore / Bret
worked on -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-edAGLokak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-edAGLokak)

------
briantakita
On a fundamental level, one can learn the discipline of systems thinking.
Permaculture is an example of systems thinking with the ethics of Earth Care,
People Care, & Fair Share.

It may also help you become a more effective & well rounded technologist.

~~~
jf
What books do you recommend for learning more about systems thinking? This is
the list that I'm using:
[http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/giftlist/11TF5E15VQZ82](http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/giftlist/11TF5E15VQZ82)

~~~
briantakita
Thank you for your list. The books on there look good.

Here's some books that I read & recommend re: applied systems thinking &
ecosystems.

[http://www.amazon.com/Permaculture-Principles-Pathways-
beyon...](http://www.amazon.com/Permaculture-Principles-Pathways-beyond-
Sustainability/dp/0646418440/ref=sr_1_1)

[http://www.amazon.com/Edible-Forest-
Gardens-2-set/dp/1890132...](http://www.amazon.com/Edible-Forest-
Gardens-2-set/dp/1890132608/ref=sr_1_1)

[http://www.amazon.com/One-Straw-Revolution-Introduction-
Natu...](http://www.amazon.com/One-Straw-Revolution-Introduction-Natural-
Classics/dp/1590173139/ref=sr_1_1)

[http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-
Colum...](http://www.amazon.com/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-
Columbus/dp/1400032059/ref=sr_1_1)

[http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-
Societies/dp/03...](http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-
Societies/dp/0393317552/ref=sr_1_1)

[http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-
Revi...](http://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Societies-Choose-Succeed-
Revised/dp/0143117009/ref=sr_1_1)

[http://www.newsociety.com/Books/D/Decline-and-
Fall](http://www.newsociety.com/Books/D/Decline-and-Fall)

[http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-
Kahneman/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-
Kahneman/dp/0374533555/ref=sr_1_1)

[http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Social-Brain-Michael-
Gra...](http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Social-Brain-Michael-
Graziano/dp/0199928649)

[http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Scratch-Making-Relationship-
Rules/...](http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Scratch-Making-Relationship-
Rules/dp/1934620130/ref=sr_1_1)

~~~
selimthegrim
Also wanted to add the invaluable [http://www.amazon.com/Sustainable-Energy-
Without-Hot-Air/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Sustainable-Energy-Without-Hot-
Air/dp/0954452933)

------
IanDrake
>Climate change is the problem of our time, it’s everyone’s problem, and most
of our problem-solvers are assuming that someone else will solve it.

I would change that to say, "Climate change is a problem that will always be
50 years away".

~~~
jf
At the bottom of the page, Bret says "at least for the next century, the
“problem” of climate change will not be “solved” — it can only be “managed”.
This is a long game. One more reason to be thinking about tools,
infrastructure, and foundations. The next generation has some hard work ahead
of them."

~~~
tertius
I view this as a very short term problem (i.e. the artificial effect on the
planet through our own doing.) And I'm not saying that it isn't a problem and
that we shouldn't be doing anything.

The planet naturally goes through warm and cool times. There's little we can
do to mitigate that, we'll experience another ice age eventually.

~~~
cpeterso
Climate change isn't a problem for the planet; it's a problem for the people
living on it.

------
brandmeyer
I have a controversial opinion on this topic: I don't think it is morally
ethical to use inefficient languages in high duty-cycle applications. By "high
duty-cycle applications" I specifically refer to environments which
consistently consume the bulk of available CPU resources: big web servers,
caching intermeddiate servers, etc. The common rationale is to trade off
engineering time for CPU time. But that trade also means trading engineering
time for carbon emissions, too.

~~~
orangecat
You're going to need actual numbers for this to be a valid argument. Data
centers use only 3 percent of global electricity production
([http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/12/17/under...](http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2014/12/17/undertaking-
challenge-reduce-data-center-carbon-footprint/)), and it seems unlikely that a
noticeable portion of that is caused by CPU-intensive software that isn't
already well-optimized.

~~~
brandmeyer
This isn't world-changing by any means. Just as individuals can reduce our
energy consumption with high-SEER HVAC systems, high-efficiency lighting, etc,
I think that programmers as individuals can reduce energy consumption by using
higher-efficiency computing languages.

~~~
orangecat
Amdahl's law applies here: some things are just not worth worrying about. If
you're Google or Facebook, you already have entirely selfish incentives to
optimize your code. If you're not, and the performance of your "inefficient"
software is acceptable to you and your users, the net environmental benefit of
rewriting it in C is likely indistinguishable from zero. It may even be
negative, if the increased development cost prevents you from improving energy
efficiency elsewhere.

------
xigency
Honestly, reading even a little bit of this article leads to the conclusion
that the only solution is to switch to nuclear energy as our primary source of
energy.

I'm sorry, but wind kites or wind blimps aren't going to substantially affect
carbon emissions.

~~~
xigency

      > Nuclear power
      > I didn’t mention nuclear because I don’t know much about it. 
      > See Stewart Brand’s book Whole Earth Discipline for an optimistic 
      > take from a recent convert. (Ironically published five months 
      > before Fukushima, but his points still stand.)
    

I haven't read the book (Whole Earth Discipline), but it seems to have been
published at least a year and a half before the Tōhoku earthquake. In any
case, advocating nuclear power before an earthquake or tsunami would only be
ironic if the author were advocating building new reactors near coastlines or
fault lines and allowing them to lapse on safety mechanisms.

The alternative would be to argue for the whole city of Tokyo to drastically
alter its energy profile so that an entire nuclear reactor weren't needed, in
addition to other plants, to power the city.

------
Shivetya
I still think that in addition to storage work needs to be done with super
conductors in order to one day circle the earth with various power lines that
fed from where energy is being produced to being used where generation is
currently lacking. Before writing it off, it would not have been that long ago
that wrapping the world in cables for communication would have been seen as a
pipe dream either.

I am not a fan of the idea of lithium or current tech batteries being stacked
in mass. I just think that there would be bigger environmental concerns long
term with these as servicing is a big issue.

Still as a technologist two things. First never consider the science of the
climate as settled. As soon as you do you close so many doors in your own mind
that you will hamper yourself. Second realize the one big area we are truly
short on isn't the technology but the people who can service it. From
electricians, hydraulic engineers, and mechanical. Get people interested in
those careers too. For many who might not have the technical chops to create
such systems many more are far more capable of maintaining them

------
lexcorvus
This is well-done, but I wish such treatments spent more effort establishing
that climate change projections are (a) reliable and (b) catastrophic. Those
two points are the essence of the case, and yet they're usually just assumed.
(Note that whether climate-change is anthropogenic or not is utterly beside
the point. That so much attention is paid to this peripheral issue is a major
red flag.)

------
cpr
I still like Burt Rutan's take on the AGW question
([http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/EngrCritique.AGW-
Science.v4.3.pdf](http://rps3.com/Files/AGW/EngrCritique.AGW-
Science.v4.3.pdf)).

He looks at it as an engineer, using generally-accepted data. His conclusion
is that the alarmists are wrong.

~~~
XorNot
So from slide 2 of that link:

 _Note, the green life along the Nile river and the dead desert elsewhere.
When co2 is greater in the atmosphere, plants need less water to thrive. When
dinosaurs roamed we had 3 to 5 times current co2 and planet was nearly all
green, pole-to-pole Near catastrophe when co2 declined to 180 ppm, since below
150 ppm plants, then animals die. If you promote a green healthy planet, then
you should lobby for a co2-fertilized atmosphere, not a co2-starved
atmosphere._

If that's the argument you open with, then _as an engineer_ you have missed
the point entirely.

~~~
Brakenshire
> When dinosaurs roamed we had 3 to 5 times current co2 and planet was nearly
> all green, pole-to-pole ... If you promote a green healthy planet, then you
> should lobby for a co2-fertilized atmosphere, not a co2-starved atmosphere.

Genuinely embarrassing as a key argument. He neglects to mention that sea
levels fluctuated 50-150m higher during the period of the dinosaurs!

God knows how many major cities around the world are coastal.

This is the effect on the San Francisco Bay Area of a 1.5m sea level rise plus
1m storm surge:

[http://sfist.com/2015/07/31/mapping_the_projected_8_foot_sea...](http://sfist.com/2015/07/31/mapping_the_projected_8_foot_sea_le.php)

~~~
gd1
What's genuinely embarrassing is that you think there is enough ice on the
planet to raise sea levels 150m.

~~~
DanBC
Clearly a typo for 150 cm.

~~~
Brakenshire
It's not a typo, historic changes in sea level are in the hundreds of meters,
from over 100m below current levels (in the relatively recent history) up to a
maximum of perhaps 200m. A lot of that is to do with shifts in geology -
configurations in the continents, levels of continental shelfs etc, but
there's about 75m of potential increases which are locked into ice-sheets,
glaciers, etc, and/or dependent on thermal expansion. Of course, even under
the most catastrophic scenarios seeing increases on that scale would take
thousands, probably tens of thousands of years.

I'm just trying to illustrate how absurd it is to say "oh yeah let's return to
the climate in the Cretaceous, everything would be lovely".

------
beatpanda
If you're an engineer and you want to help enable sustainable deployment of
solar power infrastructure, my company Genability is hiring for all kinds of
roles right now.
[http://genability.com/careers/work_with_us.html](http://genability.com/careers/work_with_us.html)

------
jessriedel
I'd think there are better sources for reading about climate change than an
author one who must admit "I didn’t mention nuclear because I don’t know much
about it."

~~~
vox_mollis
You consider an author honestly assessing the scope and limitations of his own
knowledge, and disclosing it, a negative? Really?

I'd wager that a good chunk of our problems today originates from policymaking
on the basis of people who don't know, or don't admit, what they don't know.

~~~
jessriedel
Huh? I'm not criticizing the inclusion of that sentence, I'm criticizing the
claimed scope of the piece. It's great to know lots of stuff about renewable
energy, but its impossible to have a sufficiently informed opinion on climate
change to start making claims about how our industrial society should re-tool
without knowing about nuclear. Proper intellectual modesty does not shield you
from this.

If the author wrote a long piece about how the best way to solve climate
change was to quintuple the number of nuclear power plants and mentioned "I
really don't know much about the solar industry", would you consider that an
authoritative piece? Should we be reading it?

------
spot
The model-driven section (ability to write models, publish models, and for
them to become the standard for public decision making) is important to me and
I am working on solving it through the Beaker Notebook, an environment for
data modeling, visualization, communication, and publication.

Check out [http://BeakerNotebook.com](http://BeakerNotebook.com) and
especially
[https://pub.beakernotebook.com/#/publications](https://pub.beakernotebook.com/#/publications)

The final step of making authoring and execution work in the cloud is still
under development...

------
kushti
So what can I do as a software developer? Any OSS written in Haskell / Scala /
Java / OCaml I can contribute to?

------
davidw
Ride your bike to work and encourage others to do likewise. Might be a small
gesture, but it's something you can do tomorrow.

~~~
musesum
Yep, in the 1973 Scientific American, they compared Kcal/Kg/Km of different
modes of transport. Bike vs 40x over a Car.

------
codeshaman
Fantastic article with so much information.. I feel humbled when I see how
much work people put into these things and how great the result looks like !

Haven't read it all yet and forgive me if I'm repeating what's already
mentioned there, but I would also add the following..

I think that climate change is the consequence of people _doing_ too much X.
One way to curb it would be for people to do _less_ X or do (more) Y instead.
No governments, no grants, you and me - the people, aka users.

But that involves changing the people's behaviour, which is very hard. Or is
it ? Well, advertising works quite well and we've become very good at
manipulating and determining people to do (buy) all kinds of things.

What if we used all that ad tech and all that exposure that tech corporations
have and implement a global 'climate change' propaganda ?

This can be done starting tomorrow.

Microsoft Windows popping up an alert "Do you really need all your lights on
in your house ?"

Facebook wall containing ads encouraging people to be less wasteful, respect
nature and think about the future (we can do incredibly cool ads nowadays!).

iPhones displaying "plant a tree !" on the home screen with the button to
actually schedule it in the calendar.

Google search returning a 'sponsored' link to climate-healing projects ...

There's so much, we, the tech people working at the big corps can do _today_
.. We don't need startups for that, we already have most of the eyeballs of
the planet in our operating systems, social networks or search engines.

It's a matter of delivering the right information and people will follow. We
all want to do this, regardless of country or race or religion.

So, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple , etc - why not allocate 1% of your UIs
to fixing the climate ?

You can reach everyone on the planet and we are ready to do it, just give us
some pointers, remind us to do the good stuff and we will, because that's how
advertising works !

I'd happily discuss this more, so let me know if anyone's interested ;).

------
jbrande
I like the increasing focus on climate change but what about any one of of the
other really damaging things we are doing? Acid Mine drainage, for one, is
heavily related to the tech world with the ever growing demand for more
materials to build our hardware.

Let's figure out how to build electronics & devices in a manner that enables
systemic recycling and has more reasonable power costs. As it is, we just bury
our old tech under a pile of trash and go mine some more. That is not a
sustainable or in my opinion, sane, practice.

------
protomyth
The simple answer to the question is to create source of power and
distribution that are cheaper, easier, and as reliable as gas, oil, and coal.
Add to that a cheap solution to remove carbon from the air and oceans and you
solve the problem. Anything that requires sacrifice of the first world or
impedes the third world's progress is not going to be adopted.

Swing for the fences since we need the homerun.

~~~
rwallace
We already have energy sources that are much cheaper than coal when you take
all the costs into account. If you start demanding that renewable energy must
be cheaper than coal when coal gets huge effective subsidies and renewable
energy gets none, that's an artificial constraint that makes the problem
unsolvable.

~~~
protomyth
Why does China use coal? If you truly want India and China to switch sources
then you need to check all the boxes. No one is going to sacrifice when they
are bootstrapping.

~~~
rwallace
Why has China started investing heavily in renewable energy? For one, they
want the status of a modern country that's leading the world in important
matters; they don't want to be a shitty third world country stuck in the
nineteenth century. For another, they're tired of constantly choking on coal
smoke.

~~~
protomyth
> they want the status of a modern country that's leading the world in
> important matters

Yes, their military spending and quest for a blue water navy is number one on
that list.

They continue to use coal as the main source of energy because it is what the
west did and its a know quantity, reliable, and cheap. They are increasing
their attempts at other energy but a lot of that comes from their desire to
stay dominant in all forms of manufacturing. If they can subsidize and crush
the manufacturing in other countries (such as the US), they will do it.

------
blondie9x
Beautiful. Thanks for sharing Michael. A really through look at how we can use
data and technology to help in preserve stable climate.

------
bborud
Develop products and technologies that are better for the environment while at
the same time more attractive than what it replaces. People don't want to
sacrifice: they want better. So real change is about better alternatives.

You need a long planning horizon. Be prepared to spend decades for the
problems that matter.

------
ilaksh
I actually believe 'climate change' is a type of cover for geopolitical issues
related to the petrodollar. I believe that humans affect the climate, but the
real scientific basis for that being the primary driver of climate change
isn't there. But they are using 'da earf is melting' as a substitute for
another truth that is just as scary.

That truth is that the United States and its closest allies use about twice as
much fossil fuel as the rest of the countries, and being able to continue that
is completely dependent upon a massive military campaign that stretches
thinner as the years go by.

[https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~paul20i/classweb/AFP2008/middleas...](https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~paul20i/classweb/AFP2008/middleastmap.jpg)

Technologists can work on education and preventing the spread of war
propaganda, which is rampant in Western television and media. Notice how the
terrorists always seem to be loudly explaining which currently most strategic
middle east country they come from.

If you want to believe the main problem is just that 'da earf is melting' or
climate change or whatever, the root of the problem is still fossil fuel
dependency.

The massive amount of fuel used for moving 3,000 pound vehicles to and from
offices everyday, for work that probably 75% or more can be done over the
internet with Skype or whatever, is the most obvious low-hanging fruit.

Another thing is, as the dollar hegemony fades, what replaces it, and what
sort of conflict arises during that transition? Something like bitcoin might
be a good alternative to WWIII.

We can also look toward alternative technological frameworks for society that
support decentralization. Named-data networking, IPFS, Ethereum, etc.

Suburbia is a prime target for reform. Here is my idea:
[https://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/](https://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage/)

~~~
sloppycee
Shockingly, passenger vehicles make up 43% of US greenhouse gas emissions. [1]

Your comment made me look into it since my intuition was that you were wrong
(that personal transportation does not contribute _that_ much).

1\.
[http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/climate/documents/420f13033a.pdf](http://www3.epa.gov/otaq/climate/documents/420f13033a.pdf)
(page 2)

~~~
FiatLuxDave
Check your link. Passenger vehicles make up 43% of the 27% of US greenhouse
gas emissions which are from the transportation sector, or 11.6% of total US
emissions.

------
suyash
Do you find that navigation in the middle annoying, specially since user has
to scroll to find it again. Content is great but design didn't quite do
justice to the research.

------
cozzyd
Many workplaces are built in suburban wastelands. Perhaps if enough people
refused to work in such a hostile-to-any-mode-other-than-car environment, that
might help.

------
super-serial
Build mining robots. Those robots can mine olivine, crush the rocks, and
spread it all over the oceans. We can offset all human CO2 emissions with this
method.

------
mildweed
re: "Coordination (consuming when?)"

Z-Wave already has ADR (Automated Demand Response) capabilities.
[http://z-wavealliance.org/energy-
management/](http://z-wavealliance.org/energy-management/)

So the protocol (OpenADR2.0a) is defined, the messaging is available (from a
DRAS), and the consumer client is listening (Z-Wave). We just need more
appliances to build ADR integrations to Z-Wave.

------
frankiechh
Seriously?

Technologists have a hard time being employed past a certain expiration date.

------
mkesper
I always wonder who might invest in and how much CO² could be saved by
bringing the Americas to 230V. Due to half the voltage, the current needs to
be doubled for the same power at 110V leading to much higher losses due to
resistance (U=I*R²).

~~~
brandmeyer
Very little. This isn't just the last mile, its the last 10-100m. Transmission
losses at this level are miniscule, especially relative to the capital cost of
changing over to a higher voltage.

------
jonesb6
Writing more efficient software?

------
Jemaclus
I've asked this question a few times but haven't really gotten a satisfactory
answer. There are a lot of what I might call "epic problems" out there.
Malaria, homelessness, HIV, refugees, war, climate change, income inequality,
gender inequality, hate crimes.

I don't know anything about creating vaccines or cures for malaria or HIV. I
don't have a degree in social work or behavior science. I don't have any
experience with economics outside of personal investment and filing my income
tax paperwork each year. I don't have billions of dollars to fund a company to
focus on these things.

I make a small salary relative to what's required for these things and have
very limited knowledge.

I'm a programmer and a manager. So how do I contribute to these problems? How
can I take the skills I have and get homeless people the help they need? How
do I take my web development skills and reduce income inequality? How do I
help stop the next Trayvon Martin incident?

I have no idea. This article goes into great detail about climate change, but
I finished reading it and still have no idea. I don't even know where to
start.

~~~
jerf
There is absolutely, positively nothing wrong with making "lots" of money in a
conventional manner, and donating it to an effective charity taking on the
target task. In fact, in the spirit of the Kantian imperative, if everybody
actually dropped their "merely productive" jobs and then tried to "directly
solve poverty", we'd have just made the poverty problem much, much worse!

You may want to Google the term "effective altruism".

~~~
jacobolus
Funny enough, there’s a link at the top of Bret’s essay here to an article
describing how the community/movement excited about “effective altruism” has
gone off the deep end worrying about the singularity and strong AI (not to
mention proselytizing / self promotion) while ignoring more obvious concerns
like poverty or climate change.

[http://www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9124145/effective-altruism-
glob...](http://www.vox.com/2015/8/10/9124145/effective-altruism-global-ai)

> _Effective altruism (or EA, as proponents refer to it) is more than a
> belief, though. It 's a movement, and like any movement, it has begun to
> develop a culture, and a set of powerful stakeholders, and a certain range
> of worrying pathologies. At the moment, EA is very white, very male, and
> dominated by tech industry workers. And it is increasingly obsessed with
> ideas and data that reflect the class position and interests of the
> movement's members rather than a desire to help actual people._

~~~
MichaelDickens
According to the 2014 effective altruism survey [1], about 80% of effective
altruists surveyed donate to global poverty and only about 5% donate to
organizations working on AI risk.

[1]
[http://eahub.org/sites/effectivealtruismhub.com/files/survey...](http://eahub.org/sites/effectivealtruismhub.com/files/survey/2014/results-
and-analysis.pdf)

------
jrcii
The whole climate thing has become so politicized I'm suspicious of anyone
who's passionate about it either way

------
DHJSH
Weather resistant building design, for example, concrete dome construction.

------
ommunist
Technologist can do approximately the same thing about the climate change,
that our Sun can do about the average temperature in the Milky Way. Keep calm
and carry on! Humanity is not a geological force on this planet.

UPD: Lovely stockpile of relevant information though. But I have a better one
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfeytbHBPFM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfeytbHBPFM).
Snows always melt. Look at glaciology data, dudes!

~~~
cjcenizal
You're absolutely wrong. Here are two examples of human activity having
global, negative effects:

1\. Our use of CFCs caused global ozone depletion:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Antarctic_ozon...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion#Antarctic_ozone_hole)

2\. Our use of leaded gas caused global lead poisoning:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#History_of_cont...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#History_of_controversy_and_phase-
out)

~~~
nmrm2
Apparently there are _STILL_ people who think 1 is uncontroversially false --
see the slide deck posted by cpr on this page.

------
masterponomo
First determine the ideal temperature and climate conditions. Then, if the
ideal is cooler than the current temp, wear the same clothes twice as long
between washings; if the ideal is warmer than the current temp, wear them half
as many times. But I cannot overstate the importance of Step 1 before taking a
potentially irreversible action. Coup de Grace: Apply the same calculus to
your every energy-consuming/heat-generating activity, and lather/rinse/repeat
(metaphorically).

