
Ask HN: What can we do about climate change? - erdaniels
After reading up on the current state of climate change and what we are doing to mitigate or reverse the effects, it felt like there is a sense of lost hope for the world coming back from this. Beyond sitting back and letting the events unfold, does anyone think there&#x27;s something that the people of HN can do with our varied skill sets? This may sound naive but I do wonder if there&#x27;s more we could be doing that could have a multiplier effect on the effort to mitigate the factors that are causing climate change.
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open-source-ux
Someone asked a similar question recently and I suggested an indirect option:
use fast, energy- efficient languages and software.

It sounds ludicrous and you can decide for yourself if it is, but consider
that there are _millions_ of servers (and desktop and laptop computers) in
operation daily. Can you imagine the sheer volume of energy consumed globally?
The tech community cares not one iota for such matters - in stark contrast to
other industries that have strived for reduced energy-consumption. No, it
won't stop climate change, but such wasteful energy use is an important issue
that deserves more attention.

Anyway, rather than repeat myself, here's my original comment from the
previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17762466](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17762466)

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yesenadam
Well, the MBs of ad-related (and other) JS loading with many/most webpages
seems the most obvious low-hanging fruit there.

And writing this, my screen is shining white. How much energy would a default
black instead of white save if used everywhere?

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ajaxaddicted
Going vegan or drastically reducing our animal product consumption might be
the biggest impact we can make on a personal level. It slashes the energy
impact we have on the environment by a factor of 10 - less polution, water
usage goes down, forests are not destroyed (90% of the amazon deforestation is
to raise livestock). As a bonus - it is good for our health

~~~
yesenadam
And most of the plastic in the oceans is nets and stuff dumped by fishing
boats apparently. Not to mention severe 'over-fishing'.

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itamarst
1\. Support political groups challenging capitalism, since unrestrained
capitalism is what is causing this problem.

2\. Plenty of work needed to build alternative infrastructure. So you can work
for companies doing stuff ranging from public transit planning
([https://www.remix.com/](https://www.remix.com/)) to alternative energy
deployments.

3\. Work on the open source scientific infrastructure that researchers rely
on.

4\. Local political activity to get more public transit and bike
infrastructure built, to get people off cars.

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oldsklgdfth
I'm not a fan of capitalism, but do you think capitalism and environmentalism
are mutually exclusive?

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itamarst
Very hard to say. Certainly the current form seems pretty contradictory.

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sdx23
Multiplier effects are the one thing. Personal choices are the other.

 _Everyone_ can make concious decisions about:

\- transportation, especially flying,

\- food, especially eating meat; also exotic food from far away,

\- consumption: do you really need that new thing you wanted to buy? Will it
actually improve your live?

just to name some, imho most influential ones. Also, be informed, e.g.
[https://www.drawdown.org/solutions](https://www.drawdown.org/solutions)

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danieltillett
You might like my talk from a few years ago [0].

0\. [https://www.tillett.info/2015/12/13/preventing-global-
climat...](https://www.tillett.info/2015/12/13/preventing-global-climate-
collapse/)

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amorphous
Such an important question. I wonder how I can use my skills for it. Not easy
to answer. I'm trying to get into cleantech, looking for a job currently.

