Ask HN: What are you doing to fight climate change?
Worldwide we keep seeing record temperatures, droughts, and other impacts of climate change. My country (Canada) is on fire and my city has a 300+ hectare fire burning uncontrolled a few kilometres from town, all the result of an ongoing drought due to climate change.
I’ve done what I know to do (installed solar, switched to a heat pump, minimize vehicle use, eat primarily vegan), but I want to do more.
I am interested to hear what the HN community is doing to fight climate change? Beyond what I’ve listed, what else can I do to have a greater impact? I want a better future for my kids.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadI bought an earth bermed home in a cool climate but that might not even be enough if the talk about climate change is real. I am considering putting the entire home deep under ground correctly as the underground temperature is about 50F year-round vs. the -25F to +90F swing throughout the year. That means I can make up the 15 degree difference using sparse solar heating and heat batteries. The biggest challenge is the cost of steel and high pressure concrete right now is quite high and finding reliable contractors in a very rural area is not easy. I may end up just doing it myself knowing I will miss out on many tricks of the trade.
Companies can do more to fight climate change than most individuals can.
https://globalwarmingtax.com/
Income tax is a global warming tax.
Personal action has failed every year for decades. We need global co-ordinated action.
That won't happen as long as people (wrongly) believe they can fix this by buying a hybrid or doing meat-free mondays. In fact, I think many people are NOT supporting action in the hope OTHER people will solve it for them.
So I am refusing to do anything until the problem is actually taken seriously.
me going vegan is not going to stop the forests from burning.
One of the great advantages of democracy is that people FEEL they have a say. But individuals actually have no input at all. And that's just nationally. This is a truly international problem.
We cannot just "hope and try" our way out of this issue any more than we could solve an asteroid impact by each building our own little rocket.
I believe we won't see real action as long as people who care limit themselves to personal action and wishing and trying to inspire 8bn others to "do the right thing" simultaneously.
Sorry, that sounds personal when I read it back, I'm honestly not sure how else to say it.
One of the few rays of hope for me in all this is the Extinction Rebellion group here in the UK. Because they have embraced this. It's time to act on a huge scale or die. Everyone doing their own thing is just dying but with more steps.
I reduced my consumption of everything by a lot. I own a car, but rarely drive -- instead, I bicycle. I prefer to do business with companies that are at least somewhat conscientious about environmental effects. I vote.
I'm not sure what more I can really do, honestly. Most of the things we as a species do that are problematic aren't really things individuals have a lot of control over.
I live in a streetcar suburb that has a high quality rail link into the nearby major city, but the stations are all surrounded by parking (despite the walkable downtown) and lots of people drive to them from under half a mile away. Making it comfortable enough for more people to bike to the station and to shops downtown feels like low-hanging fruit here. :)
Personal actions are great to demonstrate to others that living differently is possible, but we need to funnel some energy into influencing government action too. Start going to your local city/town council meetings and advocating for what you think the town should be doing. Especially if you live in a smaller town, because it's likely you'll actually be able to talk to your elected officials. In a town of say 13,000, there will probably only be 4 or 5 people at those meetings - so you'll have a stronger voice than most others who don't show up. (Or email them, if you don't have the time to go to meetings in person!)
At this point in my career I've helped build over 200 wind turbines, 3 solar installations, restored a good stretch of wetland, and been involved in two dam removals.
In short, I started out as a laborer in construction at 18, and have worked my way up through foreman, crew superintendent, and now a project engineer. Thanks to my family (yay nepotism) I started in a fairly niche field, and networking has led to one opportunity after the other.
My current job is with Recoolit -- https://recoolit.com -- which is not only tackling a big climate issue, but also depends on concerned individuals and organizations to fund our work (through voluntary carbon credits).
I like using biodiesel when possible and don't eat meat or commute. These are lifestyle choices that would be made regardless of environmental impact, though
In the UK, we have a plastic bag tax, and I'm hopeful we can go further by adding a single use plastic tax to encourage more sustainable alternatives or for people to bring their own reusable coffee mugs.
For me personally, the plastic bag tax changed my behaviour, even though it's a small cost, it's still a cost so instead of just overspilling to plastic bags when my backpack is full, I just carry a couple of lightweight reusable canvas bags.
I have been doing this for several years now, and probably this has saved a hundred or more single use plastic bags just for me alone, and I hope that others can report a similar experience.
If you work on climate tech and want free help... be it pitch deck building, extra hand in marketing/positioning, basically anything related to biz dev/ops, I'm happy to chat (email in the bio).
I rarely drive anymore which contributes to saving the earth from my gas-guzzler not only in the gasses it lets off but also doing my part not driving on roads with a multi-thousand pound vehicle for no reason. Cars destroy roads over time and in that way are a huge contributor to climate change is simply paving/maintaining roads.
Finally I want to promote planting more trees not only for the carbon capture they help with but more importantly how they help cut down on the heat-island effect which plagues so many cities including my own. Again, my neighborhood has these huge trees that cool the area so much. Meanwhile other parts of my town people are required to rely on 24/7 AC units to cool them off, contributing more to climate change.
(And not accepting jobs that require a commute).
- not owned nor operated a car for 8 years, relying on public transport and car pooling as much as possible.
- live sparsely, buying way less disposable junk, buying more expensive well built things that last (but only if they are absolutely needed and will be used)
- lower meat consumption to around 250gr per week. Could probably go lower.
- put money where my mouth is; sponsor foundations and initiatives that are helping to restore ecosystems (I would recommend 'Mossy Earth').
- also related to money and my mouth; put funds into certified green investment funds. I can't say if you can be sure they are green where you are based, but mine are government certified so I trust it.
- push against comments from friends, family and coworkers that hint at futility of, or lack of responsibility for, our own individual action in the face of this crisis. Help them to see that our collective actions are numerous and can extend way further then just to something like recycling.
- buy food stuffs from outlets that allow you to bring your own container rather than getting it wrapped in disposable plastic.
> vote for political parties that take the climate catastrophy seriously and have actionable locally related action on their agendas.
In Canada at least we have on party (conservatives, natch) who either deny it or otherwise obstruct all efforts to counter it, and two parties that talk a big game but take no real action and do counterproductive things like buy pipelines.
So while I agree with the sentiment, there is no viable party that makes it a serious point that they’ll take action on. And from what I can tell the same seems to be true in most countries. Politics is broken.
This is the most annoying and concerning narrative; "It doesn't matter because China has coal plants", from groups that traditionally tout " personal responsibility" and "individual action". The U.S. is full of entrepreneurial, innovatives leaders - movements start with individuals, businesses start with an idea, but they want to quit without trying.
But the amount of laziness displayed when arguing this way does make my blood boil sometimes, it's almost insulting.
Laziness is one of the reasons I think we are in a very bad position. Humans need immediate rewards to do anything, at most it has to be a couple of months away. The rest are an infinitesimal exceptional population, the mass is what counts.
To save ourselves (and the planet) we need to: 1. Sacrifice for a long time, with no rewards before a very long time. 2. Trust that everyone will sacrifice as much without being able to check or, alternatively, accept some will just not do their share.
All things humans are historically really really bad at. Although I hate it does, this makes be all doom&gloom I must admit...
For some reason the american political hegemony the world suffers under has convinced everyone that global culture is driven by the most superficial almost cartoon-like identity or introverted politics and not hardcore resources, class war, and realpolitical games adhering to a global physical reality.
It's a trick. And it's working because people look inwards when they should be seething with rage at the elite and the systems that have put us in this mess. Hint: Someone did something to community organisers from the 60's until now.
There is only trying to go against the bizarrely powerful lobbying groups, the open doors between industry and politics, the shadowy networks of power, or if not interested in parapolitics try to move towards various scientific adaptations for an extremely uncertain future.
The world is a huge cybernetic system and human culture or something as irrelevant as personal consumption patterns is 100% downstream from physical resources, technology, and the resource and class wars plus geopolitical games to control them. These were the known targets for all successful mass movements but that has been obscured.
Grow your own food, cuts out industrial ag and the massive transportation required to move the food.
If you have a lawn, turn it into a garden. The yields will be more than your family can eat and you can share it. Unless you don't want to put any sweat in and just want some easy feel good solution..
I think you meant to say YOU aren't denying anthropomorphic climate change. One of my hobbies is arguing with climate deniers on the internet and people absolutely are denying anthropogenic climate change.
Believe me, you are not making difference you think you are doing. All the wealthy people I know don't care. I know a guy who flew more than 50 times last year, private jet and most of the times only he, the pilot and a third person. The less wealthy, who also emit a lot, don't care either as they can't afford to save the planet. Just look at Billionaire's row in NYC.
For personal impact: vote, support core green innovation like Charm Industrial, Recoolit, etc., and do whatever you can to disempower the oil lobby.
2) I am strongly advocating continued nuclear energy development. That is one thing that everybody should be able to agree on regardless of their stance on climate change. It's mystifying to me that the people who vocally care about climate change the most seem to resist this the hardest.