7 ms·

Ask HN: Programmer abroad, how can I help fight climate change?

11 points by thekafkaf 7y ago

Do you know of any projects/communities that I can contribute to? Thanks in advance for any angle or opinion on the matter :)

auslegung 7y ago
<https://climate.careers> https://climate.careers> is a good place to start. I recently read another HN post on this topic, and someone said to find climate-related jobs, you'll need to do a lot of googling for common strings like "green tech" or "clean tech", and as you start to find companies and job boards (like climate.careers), you'll pick up other search phrases you can use.
LeonB 7y ago
I've made a list of things (that are not programmer specific) here: http://wiki.secretgeek.net/practical-things-you-can-do-for-the-environme http://wiki.secretgeek.net/practical-things-you-can-do-for-t... There's this article from Bret Victor: "What can a Technologist Do About Climate Change?" http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ I'm always looking for more things. https://Climate.Careers https://Climate.Careers is interesting!
breck 7y ago
I'm curious, why do you want to fight it? Some people will suffer from climate change, while others will gain a lot. For example, perhaps folks in Siberia might see their land become more usable. Some poor people in inland areas will suddenly have waterfront property, while some rich folks in mcmansions on the coast will lose their's. So in a sense fighting climate change is helping certain populations (in many cases, the rich), while hurting others.
- lm28469 7y ago
  I'm not sure in which category you put the hundreds of million of Africans/south asians who will be forced to migrate north. Sure the whooping 4 dudes living in Siberia will be able to cultivate more things, but for the rest of the world (aka were people actually live) it's a net negative in every aspects. Besides that, even if climate change doesn't exist or if it is positive for some people, fighting pollution will always be a good thing if you care about your lungs or your health in general.
  - breck 7y ago
    So you are saying that there are more people living in places that will have negative impacts from climate change than positive impacts. I could see that being a reasonable argument. Should we then compensate those who would otherwise benefit if we reversed climate change? > even if climate change doesn't exist From what I've read climate change very much exists and it's due to the increase in co2. But I haven't seen people put out forecasts they are confident in on what the impacts will be. I'm not kidding, a few times per year here in Hawaii the forecast for rain is 0% while it is raining. And this is a place with very advanced military and atmospheric stations. I think scientists have made an overwhelming convincing case climate change is real and it's from an increase in co2, but I have seen no models that I can play with specifically predicting how it will affect certain regions. Instead people say "it will be bad". If you think because scientists say something is good or bad without showing you all the underlying data and allowing you to reproduce things yourself at home, I've got some government approved pain pills to sell you. > fighting pollution will always be a good thing if you care about your lungs or your health in general. I agree with this. I guess my point is the first step is better forecasting and modeling tools. Otherwise we really don't know what we are fighting, other than higher temperatures.
    - acesubido 7y ago
      > I think scientists have made an overwhelming convincing case climate change is real and it's from an increase in co2, but I have seen no models that I can play with specifically predicting how it will affect certain regions..... I guess my point is the first step is better forecasting and modeling tools. Crop yields per region: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aab63b https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aab63b Also, this might help direct you in the right contacts for that first step: https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/impacts-climate-change-one-point-five-degrees-two-degrees/ https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/impacts-climate-change-o... > Otherwise we really don't know what we are fighting, other than higher temperatures. Pretty important to fight higher temperatures too though, wet-bulb heatwaves can kill even under shade. "Some people" won't "suffer"; they'll actually die. https://www.pnas.org/content/114/33/8746 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/33/8746
    - 7y ago
- trumbitta2 7y ago
  I recently watched a BBC Earth documentary about native people of Siberia dramatically struggling to move their reindeers from winter to summer pastures due to climate change. Wrong example, I guess. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05y4d2z https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05y4d2z
  - breck 7y ago
    Touche! Thanks for the link. Interesting.
- rubinelli 7y ago
  Some people also gain a lot from plague and war, but we still fight them. Climate change also doesn't just mean average temperatures are higher; when you put more energy into a system, it becomes more volatile. Climate change makes atypical seasons and extreme weather much more likely.
  - breck 7y ago
    > Some people also gain a lot from plague and war, but we still fight them. It's a good analogy. Though it goes both ways: some people make money (or preserve more of it) by preventing plague and war. > Climate change makes atypical seasons and extreme weather much more likely. Are people betting real money on this? I haven't seen any specific predictions predicting how many hurricanes there will be in 5, 10 years, etc. People are quick to blame every cat 5 hurricane on climate change, but if it were truly science than they would be predicting, not blaming. My general point is our "scientific" tools are laughably bad for big complex systems. I work in medical research. It's a bad joke, and I'm dead serious. I don't think people understand how primitive our tools are (as far as they've come, still primitive compared to the challenges). So the OP might want to look at companies tackling that problem, the Observables or Wikipedias or Palantirs or NYTimes data team, etc.
    - rubinelli 7y ago
      > I work in medical research Then there is a good analogy: tobacco. You believe smoking drastically increases the risk of cancer, right? Yet for years, tobacco companies argued that the evidence was inconclusive. After all, if a doctor can't predict which of their patients will respond well to a certain medication, how can they say that exposure to this or that substance was responsible for the cancer?
      - breck 7y ago
        Tobacco is a great analogy. Yes, I believe smoking drastically increases the risk of cancer (1). I'm not arguing the evidence of climate change or co2 is inconclusive. I think it's very conclusive: global warming is happening and it's man made. What I am arguing is that climate change is not good or bad. It just is. I think we need better tools to understand climate change, and hopefully control it. However, I think "fighting climate change" is a partisan approach, and not scientific at all. For example, assume we are able to figure out how to reverse global warming, and in effect cool the planet. How cool should we go? By your statement "when you put more energy into a system, it becomes more volatile", we should keep going lower, and perhaps make it cooler than it was 100 years ago, which might be deadly for people living in colder northern climates or mountain towns. So any action on climate will have winners and losers. And "fighting climate change" means fighting the people who just happen to live in a different geographic region. What I'm saying is the issue is complex, the numbers are massively bigger than even the type of data Google handles, and we need much better tools to tackle this set of very complicated problems. (1) I also believe in the future we may learn that smoking is very healthy for a small fraction of people.
- psv1 7y ago
  > So in a sense fighting climate change is helping certain populations (in many cases, the rich) Not only is this wrong, but the exact opposite is true.
d--b 7y ago
If you haven't already read it: http://worrydream.com/#!/ClimateChange http://worrydream.com/#!/ClimateChange (2015)
iamnothere123 7y ago
Most computing power is wasted by clueless programmers writing inefficient code. Write better code, use less computing power, lower energy usage!
- mars4rp 7y ago
  Kill bitcoin!
flukus 7y ago
Contribute to ad blockers, that's about the quickest and largest contribution you can make as a programmer.
kevinsimper 7y ago
I know the people behind https://www.electricitymap.org https://www.electricitymap.org really care about climate change as many do :) Also this video: "What can a javascript developer do to combat climate change? - Olivier Corradi" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keOPXD-ojWY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keOPXD-ojWY
zapperdapper 7y ago
'climate change' is quite a nebulous entity. I actually think software is unlikely to help anyway - the greatest changes are to be had in getting people to change their lifestyle. For example, reducing debt-fuelled consumption, reducing energy needs, using the car less or, unimaginable to many, getting rid of the car altogether. To be honest, the biggest impact you can have is always to change your own behaviour first...
- neuroticfish 7y ago
  People partake in those behaviors that are harmful to the planet because they're convenient. Software and automation can provide solutions that shift the convenience to options that will reduce our carbon footprint.
  - chrdlu 7y ago
    Check out Project Wren (https://projectwren.com/ https://projectwren.com/), you can offset your carbon footprint for about $20 a month in a few minutes! They also do a great job of educating users about what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint!
bjourne 7y ago
Join a political party.
duzao 7y ago
I used to work as a programmer to a kind of a Brazilian NGO (Non-governmental organization) named "CRIA" whose aim is to the dissemination of electronic information, mostly concerning biodiversity data. When I was working there, they were really struggling to get any kind of financing. I am sure they could use some help. Their website is this one: www.cria.org.br/about/
buboard 7y ago
Stop flying
40something 7y ago
Follow the money. Obama just purchased a 8 figure beachfront property in a zone predicted to be hit hard during climate change.

11 points by thekafkaf 7y ago

Do you know of any projects/communities that I can contribute to? Thanks in advance for any angle or opinion on the matter :)

auslegung 7y ago

<https://climate.careers> https://climate.careers> is a good place to start. I recently read another HN post on this topic, and someone said to find climate-related jobs, you'll need to do a lot of googling for common strings like "green tech" or "clean tech", and as you start to find companies and job boards (like climate.careers), you'll pick up other search phrases you can use.

LeonB 7y ago

I've made a list of things (that are not programmer specific) here: http://wiki.secretgeek.net/practical-things-you-can-do-for-the-environme http://wiki.secretgeek.net/practical-things-you-can-do-for-t... There's this article from Bret Victor: "What can a Technologist Do About Climate Change?" http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ I'm always looking for more things. https://Climate.Careers https://Climate.Careers is interesting!

breck 7y ago

I'm curious, why do you want to fight it? Some people will suffer from climate change, while others will gain a lot. For example, perhaps folks in Siberia might see their land become more usable. Some poor people in inland areas will suddenly have waterfront property, while some rich folks in mcmansions on the coast will lose their's. So in a sense fighting climate change is helping certain populations (in many cases, the rich), while hurting others.

lm28469 7y ago
I'm not sure in which category you put the hundreds of million of Africans/south asians who will be forced to migrate north. Sure the whooping 4 dudes living in Siberia will be able to cultivate more things, but for the rest of the world (aka were people actually live) it's a net negative in every aspects. Besides that, even if climate change doesn't exist or if it is positive for some people, fighting pollution will always be a good thing if you care about your lungs or your health in general.
- breck 7y ago
  So you are saying that there are more people living in places that will have negative impacts from climate change than positive impacts. I could see that being a reasonable argument. Should we then compensate those who would otherwise benefit if we reversed climate change? > even if climate change doesn't exist From what I've read climate change very much exists and it's due to the increase in co2. But I haven't seen people put out forecasts they are confident in on what the impacts will be. I'm not kidding, a few times per year here in Hawaii the forecast for rain is 0% while it is raining. And this is a place with very advanced military and atmospheric stations. I think scientists have made an overwhelming convincing case climate change is real and it's from an increase in co2, but I have seen no models that I can play with specifically predicting how it will affect certain regions. Instead people say "it will be bad". If you think because scientists say something is good or bad without showing you all the underlying data and allowing you to reproduce things yourself at home, I've got some government approved pain pills to sell you. > fighting pollution will always be a good thing if you care about your lungs or your health in general. I agree with this. I guess my point is the first step is better forecasting and modeling tools. Otherwise we really don't know what we are fighting, other than higher temperatures.
  - acesubido 7y ago
    > I think scientists have made an overwhelming convincing case climate change is real and it's from an increase in co2, but I have seen no models that I can play with specifically predicting how it will affect certain regions..... I guess my point is the first step is better forecasting and modeling tools. Crop yields per region: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aab63b https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aab63b Also, this might help direct you in the right contacts for that first step: https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/impacts-climate-change-one-point-five-degrees-two-degrees/ https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/impacts-climate-change-o... > Otherwise we really don't know what we are fighting, other than higher temperatures. Pretty important to fight higher temperatures too though, wet-bulb heatwaves can kill even under shade. "Some people" won't "suffer"; they'll actually die. https://www.pnas.org/content/114/33/8746 https://www.pnas.org/content/114/33/8746
  - 7y ago
trumbitta2 7y ago
I recently watched a BBC Earth documentary about native people of Siberia dramatically struggling to move their reindeers from winter to summer pastures due to climate change. Wrong example, I guess. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05y4d2z https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05y4d2z
- breck 7y ago
  Touche! Thanks for the link. Interesting.
rubinelli 7y ago
Some people also gain a lot from plague and war, but we still fight them. Climate change also doesn't just mean average temperatures are higher; when you put more energy into a system, it becomes more volatile. Climate change makes atypical seasons and extreme weather much more likely.
- breck 7y ago
  > Some people also gain a lot from plague and war, but we still fight them. It's a good analogy. Though it goes both ways: some people make money (or preserve more of it) by preventing plague and war. > Climate change makes atypical seasons and extreme weather much more likely. Are people betting real money on this? I haven't seen any specific predictions predicting how many hurricanes there will be in 5, 10 years, etc. People are quick to blame every cat 5 hurricane on climate change, but if it were truly science than they would be predicting, not blaming. My general point is our "scientific" tools are laughably bad for big complex systems. I work in medical research. It's a bad joke, and I'm dead serious. I don't think people understand how primitive our tools are (as far as they've come, still primitive compared to the challenges). So the OP might want to look at companies tackling that problem, the Observables or Wikipedias or Palantirs or NYTimes data team, etc.
  - rubinelli 7y ago
    > I work in medical research Then there is a good analogy: tobacco. You believe smoking drastically increases the risk of cancer, right? Yet for years, tobacco companies argued that the evidence was inconclusive. After all, if a doctor can't predict which of their patients will respond well to a certain medication, how can they say that exposure to this or that substance was responsible for the cancer?
    - breck 7y ago
      Tobacco is a great analogy. Yes, I believe smoking drastically increases the risk of cancer (1). I'm not arguing the evidence of climate change or co2 is inconclusive. I think it's very conclusive: global warming is happening and it's man made. What I am arguing is that climate change is not good or bad. It just is. I think we need better tools to understand climate change, and hopefully control it. However, I think "fighting climate change" is a partisan approach, and not scientific at all. For example, assume we are able to figure out how to reverse global warming, and in effect cool the planet. How cool should we go? By your statement "when you put more energy into a system, it becomes more volatile", we should keep going lower, and perhaps make it cooler than it was 100 years ago, which might be deadly for people living in colder northern climates or mountain towns. So any action on climate will have winners and losers. And "fighting climate change" means fighting the people who just happen to live in a different geographic region. What I'm saying is the issue is complex, the numbers are massively bigger than even the type of data Google handles, and we need much better tools to tackle this set of very complicated problems. (1) I also believe in the future we may learn that smoking is very healthy for a small fraction of people.
psv1 7y ago
> So in a sense fighting climate change is helping certain populations (in many cases, the rich) Not only is this wrong, but the exact opposite is true.

d--b 7y ago

If you haven't already read it: http://worrydream.com/#!/ClimateChange http://worrydream.com/#!/ClimateChange (2015)

iamnothere123 7y ago

Most computing power is wasted by clueless programmers writing inefficient code. Write better code, use less computing power, lower energy usage!

mars4rp 7y ago
Kill bitcoin!

flukus 7y ago

Contribute to ad blockers, that's about the quickest and largest contribution you can make as a programmer.

kevinsimper 7y ago

I know the people behind https://www.electricitymap.org https://www.electricitymap.org really care about climate change as many do :) Also this video: "What can a javascript developer do to combat climate change? - Olivier Corradi" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keOPXD-ojWY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keOPXD-ojWY

zapperdapper 7y ago

'climate change' is quite a nebulous entity. I actually think software is unlikely to help anyway - the greatest changes are to be had in getting people to change their lifestyle. For example, reducing debt-fuelled consumption, reducing energy needs, using the car less or, unimaginable to many, getting rid of the car altogether. To be honest, the biggest impact you can have is always to change your own behaviour first...

neuroticfish 7y ago
People partake in those behaviors that are harmful to the planet because they're convenient. Software and automation can provide solutions that shift the convenience to options that will reduce our carbon footprint.
- chrdlu 7y ago
  Check out Project Wren (https://projectwren.com/ https://projectwren.com/), you can offset your carbon footprint for about $20 a month in a few minutes! They also do a great job of educating users about what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint!

bjourne 7y ago

Join a political party.

duzao 7y ago

I used to work as a programmer to a kind of a Brazilian NGO (Non-governmental organization) named "CRIA" whose aim is to the dissemination of electronic information, mostly concerning biodiversity data. When I was working there, they were really struggling to get any kind of financing. I am sure they could use some help. Their website is this one: www.cria.org.br/about/

buboard 7y ago

Stop flying

40something 7y ago

Follow the money. Obama just purchased a 8 figure beachfront property in a zone predicted to be hit hard during climate change.