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Ask HN: What Can I Do a Software Developer to Help Curb Climate Change

9 points by TSiege ↗ HN
I'm wondering what I can do as a back end developer to help fight climate change. Are there any projects, companies, or niche industries I could work with? I'd like to work on something that has a direct impact, not like helping a campaign but a project that has direct, tangible benefits for the environment. I've been reading about 3DFS, and I'm wondering if there's more companies or open source projects like this that I just haven't been aware of.

16 comments

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anoncoward111
Port all unity projects to quake

Port all windows 10 features to lubuntu

Port all electron projects to html, js, php (lol)

tmaly
If you can create html, You should help raise awareness of companies using banned CFCs that burn holes in the ozone.
x220
Don't use Bitcoin
TSiege
I don't! I think it's a egregious project tbh.
cm2012
I know you said you don't want to work for a campaign, but the problems with fixing climate change really are more political than technical. You can donate your time through a company like Tech For Campaigns to help the democratic party of the US win elections.
amorphous
They are both. Without political change, there's little hope but this does not mean technical change doesn't play an important role too (sufficient technological progress could push political change)
swah
Only do manual memory allocation.
matt_the_bass
I wonder what the impact of SV tech is? What would happen if everyone got rid of their smart phones and stopped buying new electronic gadgets?
piocho
-> What would happen if everyone got rid of their smart phones and stopped buying new electronic gadgets?

That will change a lot, for sure !

amorphous
I'm very interested in this question as well. How can a developer use ones skills to make a positive change?

If you search on HN you'll find a few related postings. There's also a very good writeup on worrydream.

But so far I have not found anything concrete about what the current technical problems are that can be solved.

I started to reach out to a few companies in the cleantech space. My first impression is that it seems it's a rather secretive group not very open to (clueless) outsiders.

I'm pondering the idea to create a website where devs and companies fighting climate change could come together. I'm not aware of anything similar.

Obviously, you could try to get a job in that space and learn the industry from inside.

eeeelso
Waste lots of paper and don't recycle it. This puts carbon in the landfill and takes it out of the system. Then new trees grow up and suck more carbon out of the air.
jxub
Sounds interesting and contrarian but in fact there are lots of carbon emissions from the manufacturing process of said paper.
piocho
I ask myself the same question so many times.

As a dev it's very difficult to make anything to help curb the climate change. You are ("we" actually) working in a particular sector with computers, datacenter, IoT devices, and many more. (and every sectors relied on that). Each device uses a lot of electricity, runs 24/7 (most of them), is made of rare-earth metals, and so on. We are working on projects to always be ahead of our competitors, so we need faster servers, and so on.

I do not see anything we can do as dev ...

However, in the daily life, you can do a lot of things :

- buy food from local producers - don't buy sh*t products from China coming on container ships - change the way you are moving to go to work -> bike, public transport ? - thing twice before buying something (especially electronics one) : do I really need a second tv to put in my kitchen ? and a second ipad ? - ...