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You want my honest answer? No fucking clue. I'm focused on cement. I've given up on tech, IT and programming and went into the cement industry to work towards a

You want my honest answer? No fucking clue. I'm focused on cement. I've given up on tech, IT and programming and went into the cement industry to work towards a smaller CO2 footprint in cement production. It's the second largest CO2 producer on the planet behind fossil fuels. I found making apps and backend software to be a waste of time in my own desires. There's a shit ton of science in cement and infrastructure to keep me interested. Maybe I did give a partial answer? And I'll paraphrase Neil deGrasse Tyson on this one, "You can't save the world with an app." Get INTO the industry you want to fix and fucking fix it. Enough people do it, someone is bound to figure it out.

fuzzfactor 7y ago
>Get INTO the industry you want to fix and fucking fix it. Might as well walk the walk, I thought myself.
Bartweiss 7y ago
This at least points to an answer, one of maybe three answers I've seen with actual credibility. (The others are "pray that a geoengineering plan works without disaster" and "try to mitigate a whole bunch of warming while emissions gradually stabilize". Not exactly inspiring.) Visions of fixing global warming with high gasoline prices and renewable electricity subsidies are ludicrous. Focus on reducing personal emissions is almost always a distraction (perhaps excluding air travel and diet). As soon as you dive into numbers, it becomes obvious that even the most optimistic gains from those things can't come close to solving the problem. There's just too much CO2 output from production (concrete, plastics, farming, etc.), non-car engines (cargo ships, planes, heavy machinery, etc.), and hard-to-replace, high-emissions power (e.g. coal in outlying China). And power improvements are often less good than they appear; it's common to report fossil fuel reductions without accounting for any offsetting harms like sulfur hexafluoride leaks from wind turbines, or CO2 emissions from solar panel manufacture and disposal. That doesn't mean things are hopeless, or oil is blameless, or America should ignore the problem because China, or any of the other cop-outs. But I think you're exactly right: existing producers aren't going to roll over and quit, and meaningful state action will require promoting deep, pervasive changes, not just subsidizing rooftop solar. We need lobbying and outreach and communication and legislation; we also need a million practical things to be made better, or used better, or supplanted. All I can see to do is pick a problem that suits me and dive in.
ridiculous_fish 7y ago
That's awesome! Can you share more about how you got into the cement industry? Did you need to go back to school? What was the transition like? Where did you start looking? etc?
- corodra 7y ago
  Really, nothing special in the whole thing or to write about. First off, to be clear, I'm no saint. I figured I'd align both making money and doing my part to lower CO2. I told my business partner to be on the look out for a cement/concrete manufacturing opportunity, year later we found one (who you know situation). I'm learning the industry first hand and researching how to lower emissions (really no good solutions out there for very good reasons). I never went to school to begin with. I don't feel like sucking up to academics for permission to do anything in my life. It's another business, so there's no real transition for me. Except I get to be outside more often and get dirty. I grew up poor and did a lot manual labor as a kid. So, it's nice not being glued to a computer or chair anymore. Way easier to stay in shape now.

fuzzfactor 7y ago

>Get INTO the industry you want to fix and fucking fix it. Might as well walk the walk, I thought myself.

Bartweiss 7y ago

This at least points to an answer, one of maybe three answers I've seen with actual credibility. (The others are "pray that a geoengineering plan works without disaster" and "try to mitigate a whole bunch of warming while emissions gradually stabilize". Not exactly inspiring.) Visions of fixing global warming with high gasoline prices and renewable electricity subsidies are ludicrous. Focus on reducing personal emissions is almost always a distraction (perhaps excluding air travel and diet). As soon as you dive into numbers, it becomes obvious that even the most optimistic gains from those things can't come close to solving the problem. There's just too much CO2 output from production (concrete, plastics, farming, etc.), non-car engines (cargo ships, planes, heavy machinery, etc.), and hard-to-replace, high-emissions power (e.g. coal in outlying China). And power improvements are often less good than they appear; it's common to report fossil fuel reductions without accounting for any offsetting harms like sulfur hexafluoride leaks from wind turbines, or CO2 emissions from solar panel manufacture and disposal. That doesn't mean things are hopeless, or oil is blameless, or America should ignore the problem because China, or any of the other cop-outs. But I think you're exactly right: existing producers aren't going to roll over and quit, and meaningful state action will require promoting deep, pervasive changes, not just subsidizing rooftop solar. We need lobbying and outreach and communication and legislation; we also need a million practical things to be made better, or used better, or supplanted. All I can see to do is pick a problem that suits me and dive in.

ridiculous_fish 7y ago

That's awesome! Can you share more about how you got into the cement industry? Did you need to go back to school? What was the transition like? Where did you start looking? etc?

corodra 7y ago
Really, nothing special in the whole thing or to write about. First off, to be clear, I'm no saint. I figured I'd align both making money and doing my part to lower CO2. I told my business partner to be on the look out for a cement/concrete manufacturing opportunity, year later we found one (who you know situation). I'm learning the industry first hand and researching how to lower emissions (really no good solutions out there for very good reasons). I never went to school to begin with. I don't feel like sucking up to academics for permission to do anything in my life. It's another business, so there's no real transition for me. Except I get to be outside more often and get dirty. I grew up poor and did a lot manual labor as a kid. So, it's nice not being glued to a computer or chair anymore. Way easier to stay in shape now.