Ask HN: How can I, a programmer, help with the fight against climate change? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can I, a programmer, help with the fight against climate change?

32 pointsnarush56 comments

Hey HN. I'm a (somewhat) competent programmer looking to put my free time to better use then watching whatever the YouTube algorithm decides to feed me. Specifically, I'd like to do my part in taking active steps to help fight climate change.

I do stuff outside of programming for the environment (not as much as I'd like, but that's a bit of a separate issue), but I'm wondering if anyone here has thoughts on ways I can use my skills to contribute a cause that is matters a bit more.

I've considered contributing to OS projects - but I have no idea what might be impactful and useful to the world generally. Anyone have thoughts on projects / specific ways I can put my free time to use programming in this direction?

Thanks for any thoughts :)

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Firstly, audit your emissions and make some changes for the easy wins. You can make large savings without committing to 0 children, 0 meat, 0 petrol cars.

Next, act horizontally: help other reduce their emissions.

Repeat. Stay ahead of the curve to avoid hypocrisy.

As a technologist, you have lots of options to help horizontally.

Technology will play a role in mitigating climate change, and it's not ready yet.

* Profile your machines for energy usage. Try to maximise power saved. File bugs and write patches. As an example, GNOME does not support suspend-then-hibernate, and nor does secure boot.

* Build an open database of vampire devices. How can consumers decide which devices to avoid? Are there cheap workarounds?

* Help make the transition to clean sources by improving software for controlling and graphing inverters.

* Build tools to allow people to measure and reduce their consumption.

* Build a HTML5 version of https://www.withouthotair.com/ . Put it on GitHub and allow people to contribute country-specific figures.

* Work on cycling routing apps.

* Build a site to crowdsource requests for electric vehicle charging stations.

* Tell others about what you do.

Err towards action over picking the perfect project.

If you don't have the capacity sustain a project, contribute to an existing one instead.

Take energy saving technology that is usable by 0.5% of users, and make it usable by 5% of users.

Build these tools into your life routines, so you use them as a user.

I love this approach and think you're totally right:

> Err towards action over picking the perfect project.

Lots of really cool ideas here. Thanks for posting all of them - I really appreciate it :)

If one moves towards net zero emissions as my country is doing it doesn't matter how much energy you consume.

This wierd self flagellation is not necessary. Nor will it have any appreciable impact on global climate

> If one moves towards net zero emissions as my country is doing it doesn't matter how much energy you consume.

No citations or justification?

Looks like you're from the UK.

https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mackay_a_reality_check_on_re... is a talk by the UK's (ex) chief science advisor on climate change discussing that demand for energy will have to drop a lot, based on the energy sources that the UK can use.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/15/food-str... was a recent UK gov report suggesting dropping meat consumption, or self flagellation as you might call it.

Climate change is being solved, but requires effort across various disciplines.

Energy security is not negotiable. It is perfectly defensible to state that and that energy consumption is unlikely to decrease. Nuclear power is much more sustainable, but alas people spent 40 years attacking that industry so we are way behind in it

> was a recent UK gov report suggesting dropping meat consumption, or self flagellation as you might call it.

yes i saw that, and it is a disgrace. Governments taxing food is not acceptable

> No citations or justification?

For what? a basic logical statement? That if power is largely renewable and even if not other sources are used to smooth peak capacity and stop the grid crashing, then the carbon footprint of said energy is not relevant.

Only governments can stop climate change. Individuals can't and for-profit businesses won't.

The most impactful thing you can do is help political organizers pressure politicians to make better decisions.

Unfortunately, it's very hard to do this part-time as a volunteer. Very few orgs will accept free help from part-timers.

You could try to get a software job with a pro-environment lobby or with a legal group like Environmental Defense Fund.

This comment is refuted by the dozens of clean energy and clean XXX companies currently doing great work and hiring.

A huge amount of carbon is emitted by sources that can't be profitably replaced in the near future: coal (especially in China), concrete, and cars come to mind.

The only entities that can accelerate the switch is the government. Those sources of carbon are still too cheap in most places for consumers or businesses to want to stop using them entirely.

I'll also point out that OP asked what a software dev can do, not what a physicist or engineer can do.

Natural gas is rapidly obsoleting coal on price, thanks to American frackers. Pollution absolutely can be replaced profitably, and without plunging billions back into poverty

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/winter-is-coming-tem... this article suggests that natural gas prices may increase

Burning natural gas is not a solution to climate change.

Don't read HN on this topic. Read what actual climate experts have to say. Look at their academic and public-facing statements on the subject. Climatologists, climate economists, energy and agriculture experts.

Start with reading. For example http://www.withouthotair.com/

The OP is asking how to use their skills to support the cause. What do academics and public statements have to do with this?

The experts on this topic are better able to answer OP's question than HN is. They publish documents that OP can read to learn about what is an effective approach and what is not.

https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/balsillie/

https://www.withouthotair.com/

That’s very good resources! Thanks for sharing :)

Programming is especially well suited for remote work. Avoiding a commute in your car is likely the most impactful contribution you can make in relation to your software skills.

Here's what you're up against, from a piece in the Grauniad UK:-

"The world will soon face “catastrophe” from climate breakdown if urgent action is not taken, the British president of vital UN climate talks has warned.

"Alok Sharma, the UK minister in charge of the Cop26 talks to be held in Glasgow this November, told the Observer that the consequences of failure would be “catastrophic”: “I don’t think there’s any other word for it. You’re seeing on a daily basis what is happening across the world. Last year was the hottest on record, the last decade the hottest decade on record.”

"But Sharma also insisted the UK could carry on with fossil-fuel projects, in the face of mounting criticism of plans to license new oil and gas fields."[1]

Not the kind of thought you were wanting. Sorry about that.

1. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/07/were-on-...

This is something I've thought a lot about, as I got two degrees in environmental studies, but ended up becoming a programmer because it pays more and is fun. I promised myself I'd never 'sell out' and would at least work on something loosely related to climate. So far so good.

So as far as programming jobs, the most interesting would be working for a company that is explicitly focused on climate:

- Carbon markets are growing fast. Here I'll plug the company I co-founded, [Offsetra.com](http://offsetra.com/). It's a competitive space, and a unique one, but I 100% believe in it and I know it will play a significant role in global emissions reductions. Lots of room for web and app development.

- Carbon accounting is also growing. A fantastic space where software and automation can solve problems and lower costs. I helped build a very simple tool, carbon.fyi, which led to a truly astonishing amount of attention, media & impact. I'd like to keep building more tools in this space.

- Hard core engineering. New energy tech, battery tech, materials, or efficiency improvements. Surely room for software, but requires specialization.

- Fun moon-shot startups like the ones you see here from YC. Most tend to be focused on Direct Air Capture. I'm not so excited about that, but some people are.

Not strictly climate-focused, but still super relevant:

- The broad ESG, consulting and green-investment space (includes carbon accounting, but also non-financial reporting, investing, venture capital etc.). Basically 'helping companies go green'. Billions of dollars in this industry, plenty of room to improve process and automate.

- GIS. This is where I ended up for my day job. Geographic Information Systems. Building or using the software that governments, consultants, and researchers use to understand the planet. From hardcore lowlevel programming, to machine learning, web-dev, design and more. Huge and important industry. Caveat: the fossil fuel industry also loves GIS.

- Transit, mobility, urbanism. Love this field. I worked for a wonderful mobility startup and interviewed with many others. Even Google is involved in this space, of course through Google Maps, but also Sidewalk Labs.

Other things I can think of... climate modeling and academic research, social organization/activism and politics.... NGOs definitely hire developers, especially web and frontend. I've interviewed with Vizzuality, Environmental Defense Fund, and some others I forget.

DM me, I'd love to connect.

You don’t have contact details publicly available in your profile. Neither does OP.

I put it like this, >>the emergence and quality of electric cars >>the proliferation of nuclear technologies(fission, fusion) >>the rise of solar, hydro, wind >>Nearly anything related to space in a way that isn't just telemetry but exploration, production, transportation, infrastructure(because, say if you wanted to make orbital solar array, thats one way, or generally move things that may exploit/pollute the earth off-world to much more sterile environments) >>enrivronmental chemistry technologies (co2 scrubbing, or oceanic deacidification etc). If you can find a computational niche there i think that is a way to bring coding to the table.

You can reduce the electricity that computers need by pushing back against the trend to use the bloated resource-hog that is Electron for every new desktop app, and writing actual native apps instead.

Ha Ha Ha !!!

Very true. Develop on a PIII with 512MB sdram and release if the software is usable.

It is true that "native" languages are slowly getting scripting characteristics. So maybe the future is "native" again (with scripting used for very specific reasons).

http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/

There are quite regular discussions on this topic on HN if you search. Here’s an example but there are more:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23153043

Might be worth including some contact details in your public profile so people can reach out to you in future.

I faced the same question and ended joining a climate-tech company (www.carbometrix.com). There are plenty of tech jobs in the climate tech, you can read Climate Tech VC newsletter - they have a good job board. DM me if you want to discuss the subject.

Edit: Redacted. See the comment by ecotable bellow

-- Use more efficient tools or technical stacks where possible. I was able to bring down CI runtime from about 12 minutes to about 3 minutes, with some not-very-difficult changes in the codebase. Considering CI is run tens of times everyday, and the codebase is compiled hundreds of times on dev machines each day, I like to think I am contributing to clean air.

This might not have a very significant impact, but if every developer makes such small changes... collectively it will be a big impact. --

"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."

https://www.withouthotair.com/c19/page_114.shtml

Just join a company that is doing good for the environment or society - they are both connected so it’s pretty broad. Think in systems, it’s how biology works and the amazing complexities of life. There’s a lot of you out there, looking for “purpose” in life. That’s rad because I find that keeps life interesting. Helping others really puts me in my happy place. Been hard for me to think of other things to do with my time.

http://opensustain.tech/

I don’t think people know how to count carbon footprint the same way we know how to count calories. We’d need a database for every food, social activity, economic activity, etc.

Buying this device = 100 calories (you get the idea).

Then once we can measure that, we all have to go on a serious diet.

AR can’t come fast enough, as I’d really love just see this data by looking at something.

We need to do this for many reasons, because without data we have nothing. This is a baseline requirement for prioritizing/strategizing/triaging, but also offers a mechanism for imposing carbon taxes.

Get involved politically. This is the only way to change anything, but it’s extremely unlikely you’ll have any effect.

Next, as an individual who’s likely richer than average (as a programmer on HN) and has the ability to do these things:

1. Don’t have biological children.

2. Don’t eat meat.

3. Don’t drive a car.

4. Don’t fly in planes.

5. Don’t buy things you don’t really need.

6. Live in small/dense housing.

The human body is 12% carbon, so every child locks up some carbon. Having children also increase the chances of raising more adults who might solve the big problems.

And don’t waste electricity virtue signaling online.

I’m not virtue signaling.

Other than the political action thing (honestly think it’s pointless) and the fact that I buy too much crap online, that’s how I live my life.

I just don’t see a way where humans “beat” climate change without an incredible (and incredibly unlikely) shift in how we live our lives.

I mostly agree, my comment was facetious. I don’t agree about not having children. Birth rates below replacement cause serious long-term economic and social problems.

Climate change represents a civilization-wide threat that we can only address through intense collective action, and even then it may be too late. Since we seem incapable of collective action with anything serious at stake there’s probably nothing any of us can do individually that will matter.

> don't have children.

I don't think this is good advice. Sure humans create more GHGs than non existent humans but nothing will make you more future oriented than having kids (assuming you want them of course) also the kinds of people that help solve climate change are likely to come from the kinds of people who frequent hacker news. If you look at who is most successful in tech, it's often people who come from upper middle class backgrounds, at least in my experience. There are a few outliers of course but they're the exception. Most people don't have the luxury of thinking about climate change

Adopt a kid instead (updated my original post a bit) if you absolutely must.

But trust me, there are plenty of rich HN readers who are going to ignore me. There’s going to be plenty of new rich kids out there to found the next Facebook and then wonder how they can help with climate change before they have a couple more kids.

If this is the only answer to climate change, we are fucked. Except for #5 I would be miserable if I had to live like this, and I expect most people in developed countries would be as well.

Either we change how we live or we’re fucked.

And from what I’ve seen, people don’t mind being fucked tomorrow as long as they’re OK today. Even better if they can be OK-ish tomorrow as long as somebody else gets fucked worse.

Do you really truly believe that there’s going to be a magic climate change solution that allows the developed world to continue living the way it has?

> “Do you really truly believe that there’s going to be a magic climate change solution that allows the developed world to continue living the way it has?”

Yes, it’s called nuclear power

Nope. Nuclear can’t save us: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27835924

Well, unless you’re talking about fusion, which, at this point, truly is a “magical” solution.

Hey, if you're going for magic, why stop at half measures?

Direct matter to energy conversion or nothing!

I literally laughed out loud.

Not going to happen. We need solutions rolled out at global scale by 2030. Nuclear power projects don't have a good track record for speed.

We need solutions that no-one is going to object to and for which the whole supply chain is already huge. Nuclear's cooling water demand alone makes it vulnerable to protest.

I'm hoping that Form's iron-air grid-scale battery is manufacturable, scalable and economical. Shouldn't be too hard to commit a few percent of the world's iron refining capacity to making grid-scale batteries to complement solar and wind power.

If not Form's, then one or more of their competitors' batteries. I sure hope someone cracks it. Last resort, we could use Lithium chemistries, but that wouldn't be so environmentally benign and would take a bit longer to scale out.

You must be young? You do remember when France is 85% Nuclear and they built out their entire national infrastructure very quickly. Or as part of 'cultural memory'? I'm too young, but I remember people talking about it.

We could literally build those identical, 1960's style designs if we absolutely had to.

Of course, we'd build something a little more modern, even just a little more modern Canadian CANDU reactors would work.

We take forever to build them for organizational reasons, not because there's something that's inherently difficult that takes 30 years to do.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France

> You must be young?

I wish.

> You do remember when France is 85% Nuclear and they built out their entire national infrastructure very quickly.

No, I don't remember it; I was a long way away and young. I still don't speak French.

Yes, it's a bit sad that we can no longer do what a bunch of French bureaucrats with their 30-hour work weeks and 8-week vacances could do in the 1970s--even when we're desperate.

We could do it immediately.

We could literally copy their not-very-good designs if we had to.

Those plants are still effective and operational and provide a major economy with 85% (!!!) of their electricity.

They build them quickly and it's worked out fine.

There is a 'magic climate change solution' it's called 'Nuclear Energy'. We can cleanly provide for our energy needs for the next 10000 years no problem. It just requires conscientious and organized behaviour on our part.

Obviously there are questions as to how well, as a human race, we are organized ... but we can 100% do it, right now. We just have to get a long and act responsibly.

We could do a lot of things right now, we could end war forever, we could feed every person on Earth, we could have medical treatment for everyone... why isn't it happening? We are not fighting a technical problem here.

> We just have to get along and act responsibly

This is the magic climate change solution. You're yada-yada'ing over the part that is going to be all but impossible.

I'm not yada-yada-ing.

We already have huge networks of Nuclear reactors.

France is 85% Nuclear.

The entire Western world could be within a decade.

Do you think we've retrograded and lost our ability to 'do stuff'?

Maybe politically, but not materially.

We know exactly what to do and there are no material barriers to fairly widespread Nuclear Adoption, it just takes a bit of political will.

> The entire Western world could be within a decade.

The political capital and will to accomplish what you're describing is absolutely enormous. That's the hard part.

> The entire Western world could be within a decade.

It could be, but it's unlikely to be. People in Germany and Japan are quite opposed. In the US, it doesn't make economic sense. Not going to make it to 85% of the western world without those countries on board, even if you don't consider Japan to be in the west.

Regardless of the merits, people don't want these generators near them, and there's not a lot of site options that are close to transmission lines and other important needs, but not close to people.

XR, Greenpeace or Sea Sheppard would be valuable routes. You need something with scale otherwise you have no effect.

Check out Sustainable Web Design by Ed Greenwood. Tonnes of amazing suggestions

Why not join a climate focused tech company? There are a bunch out there.

Consider getting a full-time job at a climate focused company. There are literally dozens of good ones. climate base.org is a good starting point.

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