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I planted about 50 fruit trees and bushes when I moved into my new place. I also converted the electric to 100% renewable. Other than dumping my natural gas hea

• kilovoltaire 11y ago
  Awesome. Now you could help other people do similar things.
• mooreds 11y ago
  What is your commute like? What politicians do you support? Those are both ways you can affect climate change.
  • nothrabannosir 11y ago
    I see a lot of down-vote worthy responses to OP, and more downvotes. But in this case, I honestly don't see it: why is this not a fair question? I mean, in a genuinely neutral sense; isn't he right?
    • downandout 11y ago
      >in a genuinely neutral sense Asking if someone supports politicians that claim to be eco-conscious while raising campaign money, who are almost universally left-leaning, is far from "neutral". There are places on the Internet to espouse political support for either side. This, however, is not one of them.
      • giaour 11y ago
        Supporting environmentally friendly legislation is orthogonal to the economic concerns that divide the left and right. It's true that environmentalists are associated with the left in the US, but that's not true everywhere in the world.
        • downandout 11y ago
          And therein lies the problem. In the US, one cannot support politicians that will be amenable to reasonable, environmentally friendly legislation without embracing leftist economic ideologies as well. That said, once again I think HN is not the place to discuss or voice support for specific political views one way or the other. There are plenty of fact-based, scientific discussions to be had on this topic.
          • giaour 11y ago
            My point was that you were the first one to bring up any particular political affiliation. There are Republicans who support environmental protection, like John McCain in his 2008 bid for president. If the OP is conservative, he might follow the advice you were responding to by lobbying for changes to the Republican Party platform.
        • cavisne 11y ago
          Got a good example of this? Every policy I've seen relating to reducing emissions involves higher taxes and redistribution of wealth by a bigger government. Environmentally friendly legislation can be a bit more diverse but that doesn't really exist now, emissions is all people discuss.
          • giaour 11y ago
            The Chinese communist party is only recently starting to care about air pollution, and the Front National (France's far right party) has an environmental platform. Historically, the Republican Party gave us the National Park System and the Clean Air Act, and Soviet officials thought green air around factories was a sign of progress.
      • JohnTHaller 11y ago
        There is a difference between supporting politicians who support changes to reduce carbon emissions and increase support for renewables and supporting politicians who pretend climate change does not exist or is not affected by us.
      • hsitz 11y ago
        Which politician is more likely to take steps helpful for climate change: (a) one who "claims" to be eco-conscious, or (b) one who thinks climate change is a hoax? Are you seriously telling me that a person who wants to do what they can for climate change should consider candidates (a) and (b) as equivalent, so far as climate change is concerned? Boggles my mind.
        • downandout 11y ago
          This is more political commentary, and the point of my comment was that this isn't the place for that. Also there are an infinite number of viewpoints on this subject in between those you outlined.
          • hsitz 11y ago
            I'm not commenting pro or con on any politician. What I'm saying is that, _if_ someone wants to do what they can to fight climate change, voting for politicians who share their goals would be one thing they could do that would help. And it is, actually, a pretty important thing. That's just common sense.
      • lostcolony 11y ago
        Wait wait wait. Someone proposed the rhetorical question of "what politicians do you support" as one of the "ways you can affect climate change". The poster is not saying "You should vote (in a particular way)", nor even generalizing what positions the respective parties take, just that voting affects climate policy, which affects climate. The poster literally only said "the way you vote affects the way climate is handled", and -you- are inferring a bias, and a political motivation, and crying foul. By that logic, we can't talk about voting being a means to -any- end. "How can we prevent the TPP" "Vote out those in favor of it" "NO NO NO, POLITICAL COMMENTARY, GTFO!"
        • deciplex 11y ago
          You can talk about voting out politicians who endorse the TPP, or for that matter who want to wreck encryption and crater the economy, because these things have broad bipartisan support and so the only way to reverse that is to vote out everyone. Talk of tearing the whole system down or whatever is totally acceptable, even if (or maybe precisely because) it's probably also unrealistic. However once a subject comes up where one group is basically wrong, it becomes a lot more difficult to talk about in a forum like this because some folks actually do have to justify their voting habits in the context of e.g. climate change, instead of all of us just kind of posting at each other "those politicians eh?" all day and getting very little actually done. When it comes to a lot of tech issues, pretty much everyone in Washington is fucking awful and we can find consensus on that (with a few notable exceptions that show up in every thread to concern troll everyone else - not going to name names). However there is only one party in the US right now that is broadly sticking its fingers in its ears and screaming that climate change isn't happening.
          • lostcolony 11y ago
            So are you saying that if it's a partisan position we're not allowed to post "voting can change things"; we can only post that if it's a bipartisan position? Because if not, you're in no way addressing the point I was raising.
            • 11y ago
  • JBReefer 11y ago
    Driving -> biking and pushing for better electric-based transit are your two best ways to help the climate.
  • stcredzero 11y ago
    As SF author Robert Heinlein said through one of his characters, "Politics and peristalsis are similar, both in the quality of the outcome and the importance to your well-being and continued existence."
• eggy 11y ago
  I don't want to offend you, I've lived differently than I do now, but just brainstorming here: sounds like a big piece of property to be able to plant that much. Go minimal to your comfort level. I am not talking a yurt here on 1/10th of an acre, but minimalism can be very rewarding in today's super-size culture.
  • eggy 11y ago
    Not sure I understand the negative, sensitive downvotes to my comment; I was being sincere and careful with a prefatory remark. I grew up in Brooklyn below the poverty line, within a small space, had kids, moved to rural NJ, and lived in a moderate-sized house. I now live in East Java, Indonesia, have been vegetarian for over two years, and started a way of dealing with recycling and management of trash here, as well as an informal outdoor class for 9 to 11 year olds. All of my stuff is in an 8ft x 12ft room that I share with my wife and one-year old baby girl. It's minimalism is compensated by the fact that I can just walk outside. More than half of the houses around me have dirt floors, and their combined electric usage is less than that of one of my friend and his family's household. The reply was to somebody who seemed to really want to know some options, and I gave him one, that I also live by. It's anonymous downvotes without explanation like this, or the seemingly sensitivity-policing of people on this forum that make me think first-world problems are just that.
• banach 11y ago
  Stop eating animal-based food. See http://www.cowspiracy.com/ http://www.cowspiracy.com/ for details.
  • fche 11y ago
    Cowspiracy's points on GHG emission and water consumption are simply illiterate. They don't recognize the concept of a net flow. (e.g.: carbon that comes out of a cow first went into a cow - via its food - which got apprx. all its carbon from the air)
    • ageofwant 11y ago
      Fertilisers and fuel did not come from the air. There are hundreds of millions of cows (and other livestock) that did not exist before. Landscapes have been sterilised to support them with a massive resulting freeing of previously captured carbon, or carbon trapped in a slow cycle. Methane from ruminants are a significant source of CO2 and are not easily recaptured, not to mention a potent greenhouse gas.
      • fche 11y ago
        "Fertilisers and fuel did not come from the air." True, and they are probably at least a small net flow into the atmosphere. But: "There are hundreds of millions of cows (and other livestock) that did not exist before." ... that part doesn't matter: agriculture is by nature carbon-neutral (except if you count mechanization aspects like fertilizers + fuel).
        • ageofwant 11y ago
          Agriculture is most certainly not carbon-neutral by nature, even with your exclusions. CH4 is persistent and not readily available for photosynthesis.
          • fche 11y ago
            It burns back into CO2 before too long.
• kaonashi 11y ago
  Personally, nothing. Collective action is the only thing that's going to save us.
• danharaj 11y ago
  Nothing short of participating in movements that seek to change the structure of our economy which inadequately penalizes fucking up the environment on decadal+ time scales.
• dmix 11y ago
  Cows and other animal agriculture contributes as much or more [1], to climate change than all cars and trucks. So eating less meat is one good way. > Livestock is responsible for 65% of all human-related emissions of nitrous oxide – a greenhouse gas with 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, and which stays in the atmosphere for 150 years. -“Livestock’s Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options.” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. 2006 [1] From this excellent documentary: http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/ http://www.cowspiracy.com/facts/
  • Retric 11y ago
    Nitrous oxide and Methane both break down in the atmosphere. If we where starting from zero then sure they would both have a large impact but they are both in sufficient quantities that lot's of them are breaking down making the future contribution have a negotiable net effect.
    • samcheng 11y ago
      Methane is, however, much more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2, and global livestock contribute a non-negligible fraction of greenhouse gas pollution. This estimate says that livestock contribute 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gasses: http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/ http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/ As far as opportunities to curb your own carbon footprint, use one of the calculators available on the web. For many people, jet airplane travel dominates the 'discretionary' portion of GHG pollution.
    • ced 11y ago
      Are you saying that there is a ceiling to how much methane can be up there, and we've reached it?
      • WalterSear 11y ago
        They are just rationalizing their own behaviour.
      • 11y ago
• deleted 11y ago
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• ocschwar 11y ago
  Show up at City Hall and advocate for improved walkability in your area
• beatpanda 11y ago
  Your personal choices aren't going to make a difference. If you really want to help, you need to organize with others to make systemic changes to our economy and our energy system. Everywhere in the world, there are fights to prevent new fossil fuel infrastructure from being built and to shut existing infrastructure down. Join them! It's fun.
  • calibraxis 11y ago
    Yes, many choose wageslavery & their species' destruction, instead of freedom & direct action. I've known climate-change deniers. They hold on to their political-economic religion as it literally destroys their world. And they're not the worst. The worst are the enablers, who often call themselves "moderates".
• marze 11y ago
  Research threats to coral that aren't climate change related, such as deforestation generated silt in rivers, disruption of ocean ecosystems due to destruction of top predators (such as sharks), overfishing, and excessive fertilizer runoff from agriculture. There are groups (not enough) working on those problems than can use support.
• unclebucknasty 11y ago
  The real problem is purely economic. It's not just economically-influenced as many would have us believe. It is 100% economics. It's virtually impossible to move forward without fully acknowledging this fact.
  • stcredzero 11y ago
    Often this is true in spades for politics. Even the politics of hatred. Much has been written on the economic underpinnings of the genocide in Rwanda. Awareness of this makes climate change an even more pressing issue.
• throwaway5752 11y ago
  Politics are the primary enemy of progress. Right now incentives for renewables are being cancelled at a state and national level across the US. That is unacceptable low hanging fruit. NASA, the NWS, and even the NHS (see Zika) should all be studying this actively (edit: and coordinating this research, and publishing/sharing data). Carbon taxes shouldn't just be on the table, they should be in place and should form the basis of tariffs. This is happening right now, it's not a future thing. We're dealing with it whether we want to or not. Sadly, your natural gas heater is currently more carbon friendly than electric heat. In an interconnected grid, what you are using is probably offset by a mix of coal and gas generation, and to get to you it's suffering transmission loss. Solar hot water is a big win, though, especially if you are electric there. Same with insulation. Eat less meat. Repair vs replace. Good luck to all of us. edit: full disclosure, I replied to you without reading the article. I just read it. Holy shit. I wish there was someone that could comfort me that between ocean acidification, conveyor current shutdown, Greenland/Ross shelf based melting, threats to krill lifecycle, precipitation changes, and changes in farmland suitability (among others) ... we are looking at mass human die-offs over most people heres' lifetimes. When you look at the level of interconnection across the world, specialization, fragility of our complex systems... it's hard for me to not come up with a back of envelope figure ~6 billion deaths from starvation & conflict. Based on our resource extraction rate, it could easily make this the peak of human civilization.