Climate Change is real and you can prevent it. Be the change
dev.to
dev.to
* Get a job in cleantech.
I got into the climate-change fighting industry 6 years ago when I became a project engineer for a commercial solar company, then eventually I started my own cleantech software company. By working in the industry, I have had orders of magnitude more impact on fighting climate change than adjusting my lifestyle to be more carbon neutral.
Luckily for the HN crowd, there's a huge need for software and other tech skills (data science, sysadmin, etc.) needed for the energy transition. With the deployment of so much "intermittent" generation like solar and wind, we need tons of software and communications infrastructure to run a new "flexible" grid.
So if you're thinking what can you to help fight climate change, the best thing you can do is get a job in the climate change fighting industry. Start googling around for jobs with climate change keywords ("solar", "wind", "clean energy", etc.). Start showing up to clean energy events (if you live in the bay area, check out my bayareaenergyevents.com). There's so many people in this space who came from other sectors, and it's incredibly easy to move up or start your own company doing some specific thing you think is needed for the fight.
The best thing for anyone to do is to support/organise direct political action to change our actions at a global scale. Personal initiatives can only go so far.
We have a limited time left (I apologise for not backing this with a citation but this is a rushed reply) to act, and personal sacrifices here and there won't help. Our carbon emissions are still growing overall and we need to reduce them somehow.
Also some of these points aren't entirely correct. Reusing plastic bags will probably have a lower carbon footprint than using cotton (I owe you a citation for this but it's out there). Also, there's a conflation between climate change and plastic pollution throughout - let's be precise in addressing these topics.
https://issues.org/climate-clubs-to-overcome-free-riding/ ; https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.15000001
For governments to do anything, individuals need to do at least one seemingly ineffectual thing: vote. But voting is a poor signal. You vote in most cases for representatives and these representatives stand for many things. To improve the signal you need to show this is why you voted, and that you will do it again. By doing the small, seemingly ineffectual things you can do as an individual you are signaling your preferences to people who can do more.
And more than this, by doing something, anything, you are in effect voting for the behavior you think is acceptable in your society. You yourself are more likely to do another small thing. Your neighbors will be a little less enthusiastic to be seen doing nothing. People, everyone, is looking for an excuse to pamper their present selves at the cost of other people and their future selves, but few people are so thoughtless and selfish that they will do this in all circumstances. By making this choice a little less comfortable for yourself and others, you shift the ratio: how much burden you and others will take on now versus how much you put off on others.
The truth of the matter is that if everyone would just do the little, seemingly ineffectual things we wouldn't need the government to compel us or engineer our incentives. The fix we find ourselves in is the cumulative result of many individuals doing small, seemingly ineffectual things that made things worse.
Fridays for Future and Extinction Rebellion are examples of such things - I think there's scope for much more across various politicals affiliations and leanings.
I definitely agree with reusing plastic stuff, but how many times do we do it. Rather than it is cheap and easily available, how many we throw them daily? How many times can you reuse them? Cotton bags at least are not made by destroying the plant (I think) and they are reusable many times. If they are torn we can stitch them or throw it in the earth they will degrade. Is that the case for Plastic ones.
I know politicians and corporations have power. But for some time let us stop pointing things towards them and do what we can do.
I'd ask you to go through each point and calculate the impact at a likely scale of participation. You won't achieve enough in the time needed. Massive political pressure is required (look at how little is being achieved right now, even in Germany where the was a large swing to the Green party).
Whether you agree with their methods or not, this is what's driving movements like Extinction Rebellion right now: https://rebellion.earth/the-truth/the-emergency/
Read through the research they cite and you'll get an understanding of the scale and urgency of the issue.
Corporations and governments will take notice when individuals change behavior, if you stop buying products that contain lots of single use plastics, companies will stop making them. If you divest our pension and savings from any company with an interest in fossil fuels, they will notice and change. If you half your meat consumption and eliminate beef, it will be noticed and a change will happen.
There is massive power in consumer action, particularly for those of us in countries that are really the problem (the rich ones).
But no this will not prevent climate change and it’s best people don’t get the idea that they are “fighting climate” change by any of these measures.
There is one thing that matters: organized political action. That’s it. If the worlds political establishment doesn’t prioritize this, we are cooked.
Here is what you can do:
* Learn about climate change * Talk to your friends and family about it * Make it your top voting issue
Most people don’t understand the danger we are in
- Do you need the government to start issuing flight hour quotas before you start flying less? - Do you need the government to ban short flights before you start using alternative transport methods more? - Do you need the government to impose a high meat tax before you start consuming less?
You can do both, you can start doing your part AND push for political action. Saying "this is meaningless" is just a justification to not do anything yourself and put the blame on someone else. An excuse for inactivity.
The individual action idea is dangerous because it:
- Blames the victims. This problem is being caused by fossil-fuel companies and the policies that support them. We must stop them from emitting and from poisoning the public dialog on these issues
- It's classist and priveledged. Only rich people have these kinds of choices - poor people can't always make these kinds of choices in their lives.
The only solution is massive collective action that drives us towards a net-negative world.
I'd rather have somebody drive a Yukon and vote for people who will put in a Green New Deal than someone who eats vegan and votes for Jill Stein.
It's been a trend for some time to build-in obsolescence (not to mention, cut corners), but adding 'smart' to things seems to me to greatly worsen the situation, even if the smart controls claim to save energy etc.
The smarts, particularly the UI elements, will certainly become obsolete, and are often the most likely part to fail (often simply the tact or bubble switches, etc). Well, after built-in batteries, perhaps.
Having some smart, and exposing a simple and standardized/open lower-level interface would be much better, and have the UI, except the absolute basics, like on/off, on external devices of your choice.
Same thing if I eat water intensive crops or meat. I can keep the tap open as long as I live and I would not waste the water spent on all those cotton clothes, rice and burgers.
Solution to climate change can't be individual responsibility. Climate change is driven by huge corporations, I'm pretty sure that 50% of the population halved their CO2 footprint it would still be a drop in the bucket compared to corporation spending.
Moreover the corporations are also just collections of people that might not be able to make big decisions but make a difference with tiny decisions, if that makes any sense :)
While you’re correct that individual actions will ultimately decide our fate, what you’re not accounting for is this: The economics are stacked against anyone trying to do the right thing.
It’s actually cheaper, less time consuming, and more convenient to kill our planet.
To properly recycle I would have to spend 15 to 30 minutes a day.
If wanted to recycle food (compost), add another 15 to 30 minutes.
So per week, that’s about 4 to 7 hours. Time that could be spent working or sleeping.
With regards to plastic shopping bags: Yes, I can avoid it. But then I need to buy plastic waste bags anyway, because I’m required to package my waste.
With regards to meat: I don’t go crazy with meat, but in terms of cost most Western societies have masked the cost. Fresh produce is more expensive per calorie than a slab of beef per calorie.
Or how about electronics? It’s insane that it’s generally cheaper to buy new consumer electronics, rather than have someone fix it.
Or packaging: There is zero economic reason for businesses to minimize the amount of plastic packaging. Plastic has the advantages of low weight and tensile strength, so any company that tries to change would be at an immediate disadvantage.
To fix these imbalances we need social policies (with teeth) that force a new, market-driven optimum for both companies and individuals.
For that to happen we need leadership that have the courage to undertake a long, hard battle against vested interests.
Meat, plastic and electronics are the problems I agree completely.
We can change the packaging slightly. I already heard a lot about some vendors in Germany are going PET-less solution, TamilNadu (a state in India) also started banning plastics and packaging.
My core idea is social policies will not change unless people are willing to accept it. When your locality goes zero-plastic bags, you will start seeing the influences that it creates on your local supplier and then it expands. It is how nature works and definitely, it takes time and effort but slowly it will (may) change the world. But in the end, it will remain at least we tried.
By lose out, I mean they will lose political and economic influence.
If people who care have a significant overhead compared to those who don’t, guess who expands and has lobbying money and time?
At a company-level, a 1% overhead can be rather steep cost.
Really, my individual effort isn’t enough. Just look at littering. I don’t litter, but there are too many people around me that do.
And this is with an action that has almost zero cost to individuals!
The way to ensure we don’t kill ourselves is by tilting the market to favor sustainable approaches.
Steeper Import taxes. Removal of certain subsidies. Adding other subsidies. Tax breaks to encourage repairs. At-purchase disposal fees. Packaging taxes. Etc.
The scale of the problem involves billions of individuals.
The scale of the solution must match, and must not favor cheaters or don’t-care organizations. Or it will fail.
The China emits 29% of the global CO2 emissions, a country of 1.4 billion people where most of our goods are manufactured.
The US emits almost 15%, half of china, with less than a fourth of the population were most of the goods are imported. This lifestyle is not sustainable.
I can clean my dishes in 10litres of water. On the other hand dishwashers on an average requires 12-20 litres of water. The tip is do not use running tap water.
What's the correct technique to ensure the dishes end up being clean, and not just thoroughly immersed in a bacterial growth medium that's made of water and dissolved food? Or am I being too paranoid about sanitation here?
But yeah at times I have the same thing running on my head.
I was able to reduce my water bills by almost 30% just by manually cleaning the utensils and reducing the washing machine usage.
It is naive to assume that people everywhere will read articles like this and educate themselves and the problem will disappear. Only the government can force corporations to behave in a way that is sustainable.
In general you see a lot of advise for dealing with symptoms of our over consumption, not the cause. Buy less (toys, food, clothes, cars, travel, whatever). What you own, use it for longer, fix it, do without.
This is a well meant post with some solid advice that I wish more people would follow, but some points are just conflicting, confusing and possibly wrong.
Recommending to replace paperback books with an electronic device that is made up of plastic, while telling the reader to use less electricity and not to use plastic bags and avoid plastic packaging just doesn't add up without providing some extra context.
Plastics are cruel, but at the very least we can ask the manufacturers to use something else and those devices mostly don't end up in the trash day 1. We definitely need to find a way but papers are even more cruel.
But again that is subjective.
[citation needed]
More and more forests are deforested for agriculture - for both growing plants and pastures for animals. Paper production is a combination of forest-sourced trees, but also recycled paper, wood waste from other industries, and trees planted specifically for paper manufacturing. I get conflicting breakdowns of the proportions, but a random source[0] I'm looking at says something like this:
"However, 39 percent of the fiber used for papermaking comes from recycled paper. Most of the remaining wood is obtained either through forest thinning (removing slow-growing or defective trees) or from lumber milling residues – materials that otherwise would go unused. Only 36 percent of timber harvested in the United States is used directly to make paper and paperboard."
That's not to say we shouldn't reduce our paper use, but I wouldn't sweat it too much when it comes to buying that book (especially if it's print-on-demand), or printing that article or code listing. Paper is a ridiculously powerful cognitive and productivity multiplier, still unmatched by digital solutions. I'd argue that paper use might be essential for humanity figuring their way out of this crisis.
If you want to cut down on wasteful paper use, fight advertising. The subsection of the industry dealing with physical advertisements is literally one giant machine for moving cellulose from trees into landfills.
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[0] - https://theconversation.com/is-the-paper-industry-getting-gr...
For politics, I encourage everyone to look at Climate Citizens' Lobby [1]
For tech, there are now a few communities creating projects like climatechoice.co [2]: [3][4][5]
[1]https://citizensclimatelobby.org/
[3]https://climateaction.tech/