6 ms·

I work in cleantech, and here's my favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!" So what can _you_ do ab

I work in cleantech, and here's my favorite climate change joke: "They say we won't act until it's too late... Luckily, it's too late!" So what can _you_ do about it? Work at a new energy technology company! Many cleantech sectors are out of the R&D stage and are currently focused on scale and growth, and we need as many smart people as we can get. There are lots of companies hiring software engineers (including mine). See my comment history for links to cleantech jobs. As for dealing with skeptics, remember that you can't reason someone out of a place they didn't reason themselves into. Focus on emotion, and don't tell them what to do (instead, paint an environment where they naturally come to aligned conclusion). Here's several ways to work with climate skeptics: 1. If you know them well and they have kids or grandkids, learn their names and talk about how life is going to get much harder for them if we don't make the energy transition. Talk about how many jobs the energy transition will make (solar already outnumbers coal jobs). Focus on the opportunity for their kids. Try to paint climate change as a us-vs-the-harsh-fucking-world (rather than what they currently think of as an us-vs-liberals-and-hippies). This perspective can make them feel like they are betraying their kids and grandkids. I've seen this work for family members and close friends. 2. If they like focusing on the economic/subsidy arguments, make it competitive and selfish. Talk about how it's going to be their loss and your gain ("if you're not going to do anything about climate change, that's more money and work for me, so thanks!"). Focus on building a situation where they get left behind. Then pile on that more Republicans have installed solar than Democrats (which is true, by the way), so it feels like their own team is already on board. Shrug off all the economic and subsidy arguments with a, "Meh, if you don't want in on it, more upside for me. You complaining just makes me richer." I've seen this work for tea party friends.

SamPhillips 9y ago
Another great resource: Bret Victor's "What Can A Technologist Do About Climate Change" http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/
- botondus 9y ago
  Thanks for sharing it, it's an amazing resource!
ramphastidae 9y ago
> more Republicans have installed solar than Democrats (which is true, by the way) Can you elaborate please?
- freehunter 9y ago
  I have no facts to back this up (hopefully the other guy does) but intuitively it makes sense to me. If you think about political maps, which areas are almost always blue, and which areas are almost always red? Cities lean democrat, and cities also often have higher density living. If I'm in an apartment, I can't install solar panels. I have no where to install them. But if I live in a rural or suburban area and have an acre+ of land and a single-family house, I have a roof and a backyard I can fill with solar panels. I probably also have a less reliable electricity grid than in the city, so getting power somewhere else is helpful. I'm also much more likely to vote Republican.
  - soundwave106 9y ago
    From a similar angle, wind power's greatest onshore potential in the United States is roughly speaking the Great Plains region. Most of the states that lead in the percentage of power supplied by wind are Republican dominated. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Wind_Generation_Percentage_Bar_Chart_U.S._2013.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_State...) Wind turbines in my opinion make great sense for farmers and ranch owners. Turbines (which often are installed via leases to the power companies) often offer a reliable, steady source of income to this group (compared to commodity prices, which are very volatile). There's also less potential for NIMBY issues in rural locations, in my opinion. At its core, I think anti-environmental politics is often largely a central distrust of government regulations, in my opinion. Renewable energy in itself should not really have a political tag (unless one is too deep into political tribalism to notice). Such is already a profitable prospect in many places today.
  - dspillett 9y ago
    Also there is a higher proportion of Republican party supporters in some southern states, where being closer to the equator improves the value proposition of installing solar cells - because of lower time to paying off the investment (so there may be a financial gain in having them installed even if you don't accept the overall climate argument).
edcastano 9y ago
Your talking points are all really good. Along the same lines, I built www.writegreen.org to help people express their support for sustainability from a variety of ideological perspectives, including conservative, religious and economic opportunities.
cmurf 9y ago
Skeptic is the wrong word, being skeptical is a component of critical thinking. Climate deniers are engaged in denialism. Other examples are flat earthers, and alt-right. They're not exploring alternatives critically, they're attached to the rejection of established reasoning for no discernible reason, and it's the opposite of critical thinking, a rejection of epistemology. There is a distinction between "belief in" things that are not falsifiable, such as religious beliefs; and "belief that" which is knowable and evidence based. And denialists conflate these things, and become emotionally attached to belief in rejection of facts. So they spend a lot of brain cycles on myriad conspiracy theories to deny the conventional wisdom. What they claim to believe in as an alternative is more of a "by default" position rather than a sincere belief. e.g. if you ask flat earthers if they really think a person falls off the disk if they walk to the edge of the earth, or if there really is a giant wall of ice that mankind has never figured out how to climb, if we've never really been able to find out what's on the other side of the flat earth, they totally get stuck. They spend way way more time trying to disprove the convention, than the prove their position. It's a negative position, not one of advocacy. It is denialism.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

SamPhillips 9y ago

Another great resource: Bret Victor's "What Can A Technologist Do About Climate Change" http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/

botondus 9y ago
Thanks for sharing it, it's an amazing resource!

ramphastidae 9y ago

> more Republicans have installed solar than Democrats (which is true, by the way) Can you elaborate please?

freehunter 9y ago
I have no facts to back this up (hopefully the other guy does) but intuitively it makes sense to me. If you think about political maps, which areas are almost always blue, and which areas are almost always red? Cities lean democrat, and cities also often have higher density living. If I'm in an apartment, I can't install solar panels. I have no where to install them. But if I live in a rural or suburban area and have an acre+ of land and a single-family house, I have a roof and a backyard I can fill with solar panels. I probably also have a less reliable electricity grid than in the city, so getting power somewhere else is helpful. I'm also much more likely to vote Republican.
- soundwave106 9y ago
  From a similar angle, wind power's greatest onshore potential in the United States is roughly speaking the Great Plains region. Most of the states that lead in the percentage of power supplied by wind are Republican dominated. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States#/media/File:Wind_Generation_Percentage_Bar_Chart_U.S._2013.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_State...) Wind turbines in my opinion make great sense for farmers and ranch owners. Turbines (which often are installed via leases to the power companies) often offer a reliable, steady source of income to this group (compared to commodity prices, which are very volatile). There's also less potential for NIMBY issues in rural locations, in my opinion. At its core, I think anti-environmental politics is often largely a central distrust of government regulations, in my opinion. Renewable energy in itself should not really have a political tag (unless one is too deep into political tribalism to notice). Such is already a profitable prospect in many places today.
- dspillett 9y ago
  Also there is a higher proportion of Republican party supporters in some southern states, where being closer to the equator improves the value proposition of installing solar cells - because of lower time to paying off the investment (so there may be a financial gain in having them installed even if you don't accept the overall climate argument).

edcastano 9y ago

Your talking points are all really good. Along the same lines, I built www.writegreen.org to help people express their support for sustainability from a variety of ideological perspectives, including conservative, religious and economic opportunities.

cmurf 9y ago

Skeptic is the wrong word, being skeptical is a component of critical thinking. Climate deniers are engaged in denialism. Other examples are flat earthers, and alt-right. They're not exploring alternatives critically, they're attached to the rejection of established reasoning for no discernible reason, and it's the opposite of critical thinking, a rejection of epistemology. There is a distinction between "belief in" things that are not falsifiable, such as religious beliefs; and "belief that" which is knowable and evidence based. And denialists conflate these things, and become emotionally attached to belief in rejection of facts. So they spend a lot of brain cycles on myriad conspiracy theories to deny the conventional wisdom. What they claim to believe in as an alternative is more of a "by default" position rather than a sincere belief. e.g. if you ask flat earthers if they really think a person falls off the disk if they walk to the edge of the earth, or if there really is a giant wall of ice that mankind has never figured out how to climb, if we've never really been able to find out what's on the other side of the flat earth, they totally get stuck. They spend way way more time trying to disprove the convention, than the prove their position. It's a negative position, not one of advocacy. It is denialism.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]