Ask HN: What can I do as a software eng to help global environmental problems? - doitLP
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leon_sbt
Make an app that gives push notifications to users about their energy
consumption on a real-time/daily/weekly/monthly basis. All this is tied into
regional gasoline/electricity prices, that way you can output $ figures for
everything. Release it for free. Think Google Analytics for personal energy($)
consumption.

Tie in data from home via sense.com sensor, car travel data via google
location services and a user selected vehicle.

Then give tips to user on better habits. Such as putting home in "eco" mode
when you leave via Nest, or converting house to LED, etc.

Like if you change your Ford F-250 to a Civic, you will save $2000 a year
based on your driving habits and distance.etc.

Or after driving your car. It says you spent about $10 in gas and 30 mins by
driving just now.

The thing that inspired me was was the real time MPG gauge on my Honda Civic.
It single handedly had the greatest MPG increase for my car. Since I felt the
"pain" ($$) of smashing the throttle every time.

When people use their electricity at home, they don't feel " real time pain"
when they turn on their 5kw AC unit or 3kw water heater. It's a crazy amount
of power. They only feel once a month, when they get their energy bill for
$200+ a month.

In conclusion, game-ify the hell out of dropping an end user's individual
energy consumption number. By reducing energy demand at the source, then it's
much easier to swallow eco friendly options.

For example, with poor energy consumption habits you may need a 10kw solar
array @ a cost of 20k). But if you drop the user's average energy consumption.
You can have the same quality of life at 5kw solar installtion @ $10k.
Spending $10k is easier to swallow than $20k. (I made up all the $ numbers,
I'm not sure where pricing is at now)

Well these are my random thoughts, I hope they inspire you.

~~~
doitLP
Thanks for this. I don't own a house and I live in a poorly insulated
apartment building that gets full sun all day most of the year. It's a great
candidate for solar panels but mostly out of my control. I already drive a
civic and work from home, eating as sustainably as budget allows.

I'm wondering if there are some ideas out there on tackling the deeper cause.
People are living longer, population is still growing and even if we were all
100% on renewable energy we would still be destroying the planet; the bugs are
disappearing, the oceans are overfished, the bees are dying and we're even
extracting an unsustainable amount of _gravel_ for goodness sake.

Something along the lines of changing the economic incentives to consume and
expand, because short of terrible war or calamity, people in developing
countries are still going to want refrigerators, cars, and beef and people in
developed coutries aren't going to want to get rid of those.

~~~
shoo
> I'm wondering if there are some ideas out there on tackling the deeper
> cause.

One rough way to think about it is I=PAT, where I is total environmental
impact, P is population, A is affluence per capita, and T is environmental
impact per unit of affluence.

Population has grown exponentially, per capita affluence has grown
dramatically, and reductions in the last factor T haven't been able to keep
up.

Worse, if you consider the "goals" of our major systems of economic
organisation - or at least the observed behaviour - they aren't set up to
minimise I, or even really consider it - it's more like our ways of large
scale cooperation are focused on economic growth, i.e. roughly trying to
maximise P*A.

If you live in an affluent western "free market" democracy it is probably
politically difficult to push for major reduction or limits to population P or
affluence A.

In terms of what can be done, it's probably better to focus on smaller
scope/smaller scale problems. Not realistic for one person to solve the whole
world's problems. If you can help push politically to regulate environmental
impact in your area of local politics, that's probably very helpful. Not
necessarily aligned with skills as an engineer, but this is probably more
valuable than building something within current political/market framework.

If you're able to set up a small business or not for profit that is able to
help others save money with side effects of reducing environmental impact,
that's probably also helpful. This is less ambitious and isn't tackling the
main root causes, but is something that is more in your control.

------
Mz
I think anything that promotes or supports any of the following in some
fashion would be good:

Passive solar design or solutions

Pedestrianism (walking, biking and using public transit instead of driving
everywhere)

Eating lower on the food chain

Living more spartanly

FWIW, this was my idea of how to save the planet with potty humor and a
website:

[http://peeonatree.blogspot.com](http://peeonatree.blogspot.com)

No one actually cares and I have no idea how to develop it or measure impact.
It is going nowhere fast.

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neilsharma
1\. aggregate a list of services that do free electronic and chemical waste
pickup. I have to wait to get a flyer in the mail telling me someone would
come by in the wee hours of the morning to do a special pickup. Would be
helpful if this info were more handy.

Or better, get a community running locally to do these pickups every week
across the neighborhood.

2\. Buy LED bulbs, environmentally friendly household cleaners, etc in bulk
from china, and sell them at cost on Amazon. Don't try to make a large profit
on environmentally friendly products -- just make them more affordable.

3\. Gardens these days are oddly biased toward aesthetics rather than local
vegetation. Gather the advice of local botanists and educate folks about what
trees/flowers they should plant in their yards. Insect life is decreasing, but
with the right gardens, some of it can come back. For flowers, you can arrange
a service to have households place pre-orders during the winter months, and
then hire a local nursery to grow saplings specifically for them to plant in
spring.

4\. Make a vegetarian/vegan yelp. I can't rely on yelp reviews since most
folks eat meat, and their opinions on food taste/quality aren't very useful.
The only reviews I can trust are those for restaurants called "Veggie House"
or some similar variant. Vegetarian food isn't a marketing strategy, its just
food that can be served everywhere.

5\. E-commerce site for environmentally friendly clothes. Jeans, for example,
are incredibly polluting (over 1k gallons of clean water, loads of pesticides
used in cotton, artificial dyes, etc). I'm not loyal to levi's, calvin klein,
or whatever. Those are just the brands on the racks. Give me healthier
alternatives.

6\. Aggregate quality articles on environmental issues. That research paper on
insect life dropping by 75% in 27 years has been making the rounds this week.
There should be more of it. NASA has a ton that aren't outdated. Start off
with a weekly newsletter -- I'll subscribe If people get enough exposure to it
over time, they'll start to change their minds (or tune it out, but that's
always the risk)

7\. Work for the government. Immigration checks at US borders rely on shitty
software that goes down often. Hundreds of trucks coming in from mexico are
literally waiting for hours in the heat as their cargo rots. Same with at
harbors -- $Bs in food waste.

~~~
PerfectElement
For #4, there is happycow.net. It's great for finding vegan/vegetarian food in
a neighborhood you are not familiar with.

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itamarst
[http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/](http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/)
has some ideas.

~~~
doitLP
great piece, thanks

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horofox
Become vegetarian

~~~
aj_g
This. If you want a direct, measurable impact/reduction in impact, go veggie.

~~~
matt_the_bass
I think the idea of going 100% or subscribing to label scares off a lot of
people. Just reducing meat consumption has an impact. See my comment above.

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tmaly
I was thinking about this the other day.

You could get involved with a tech company that has the potential to reduce
carbon emissions. Say if Uber or Lyft decided to create an eco option for
electric cars etc.

I did see [https://preciousplastic.com/](https://preciousplastic.com/) posted
on here a few days ago. That is a great way to individually contribute to
helping.

You could also build a side project that helps in some way.

~~~
doitLP
Nice, I didn't see their posting. Interesting idea.

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Boothroid
You could contribute to open source projects with an environmental focus. I
don't have any particular recommendations unfortunately.

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erkanerol
by writing efficient code

