Comment by jlangenauer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jlangenauer | Hacker News Reader

Although it has become fashionable to decry making personal changes as "irrelevant" and "ineffective" with the lie that since everyone isn't doing it, there's not point in anyone doing it, making changes to how you and your family live is still very important.

Things you can do:

1. Find an energy provider who sells green energy - here in Germany, it's possible (and common) to buy 100% green energy, but I don't know what it's like where you are. Even if it costs more, get the green energy - it's a big change you can make that won't affect your lifestyle one bit.

2. Reduce the amount of red meat you eat. The environmental costs of this are well known. Give it up if you can, but if not, at least reduce it.

3. See if you can fly less. If you fly intercontinenally, then the CO2 from that will dwarf almost anything else you do. Again, this is something that's easy to say, but it's something that's very effective.

Those are the changes you can make in your personal life. There are plenty of other good suggestions here as to how to make systemic changes.

> it has become fashionable to decry making personal changes as "irrelevant" and "ineffective" with the lie that since everyone isn't doing it, there's not point in anyone doing it

I think it's very short-sighted for people to say that. While there may be no direct effects of certain personal changes, there are still indirect results.

Such change may make me more self-conscious about our environment. If I made a hundred irrelevant small changes, then perhaps it'll be more likely for me to even realize the need for a big change, when it comes.

Same way, other people who see my small changes might be more likely to even start thinking about our environmental impact.

I still have a problem with this. It's similar to voting. In my opinion, one vote / one person changing his habits is not going to do a meaningful difference.

I mean, maybe if you not only change your habits but become vocal about it - encouraging your friends to follow suit, you can make some difference. It needs to become fashionable to be green, and people need to be ostracized for emitting C02.

But this problem is very hard to solve. There is a problem in economics called Tragedy of the commons, and there was one famous woman economist Eleonor Ostrom that proved that people can overcome most of these problems that arise locally with cooperation without government. But for global warming, I think the only way to solve it is governments forcing citizens to change their behaviors.

David Mackay (Physicist and author of Sustainable Energy - without the hot air http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html):

'Have no illusions. To achieve our goal of getting off fossil fuels, these reductions in demand and increases in supply must be big. Don’t be distracted by the myth that “every little helps.” If everyone does a little, we’ll achieve only a little. We must do a lot. What’s required are big changes in demand and in supply.'

He was amazing - probably one of the greatest British living scientists before his untimely death.

I read his book on Sustainable Energy in my Physics degree and later his book on Information Theory when studying Machine Learning. Truly impressive to have contributed to so many different fields.

But yeah - after reading his book I came to the conclusion that the greenest thing we can do is to support Nuclear Power.

Was going to mention meat. If you take public transportation for your job and only drive occasionally (let's say to visit family, friends, and shop) it easily dwarfs any gas you use. Like 2-4x the pollution you cause via gas.

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