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Well, with all due respect, that doesn't result in me (or I would argue, most workers) being able to live wherever they want. Plus you would still have to live

Well, with all due respect, that doesn't result in me (or I would argue, most workers) being able to live wherever they want. Plus you would still have to live relatively close to a major airport or something (and I don't even know what that's going to look like yet post-covid). MAYBE it makes things better for a handful of relatively rich, highly paid workers/companies who don't mind spending significant time away from their families/homes, are happy to travel and who are willing to spring for regular accommodation for their workers, but I think for most workers springing for an office at home would be widely preferable. And I say that as someone who, pre-covid, had to do a couple of nights per couple-of-months away from my family because my employer's work was already distributed around the nation...(honestly, the travel was personally one of the worst aspects of my job, though I know other people loved it). Now with covid, i'm bitten with the "not enough space at home" problem (though thank god we got an in-built study put in beforehand), but I no longer have to travel long distances or stay overnight at any of the interstate offices, which i personally find a blessing. But i'd take the all-remote or "two days in" model in preference...

dheera 6y ago
> live relatively close to a major airport Also not to mention that flying even ONCE per year round-trip across the country will likely emit more carbon than a full year's worth of local commutes. Now multiply that by 6 for every 2 months. Everything everyone says about greenhouse gas benefits of remote work just went out the window as soon as air travel is mentioned.
- exdsq 6y ago
  Not sure why you’ve been downvoted, you’re absolutely correct.
  - hengri 6y ago
    I'm guessing it's a uncomfortable fact for the hackernews crowd who seem to travel a lot and also claim to care for climate change.
    - dheera 6y ago
      Yep, I've noticed that in the past year on HN thre are a lot of people who would rather downvote than face truth. I wonder whether COVID brought in a bunch of low quality participants. Separately though I've noticed lately that pretty much all my comments get downvoted first; some disappear in the process, others get salvaged by upvotes. I wonder whether someone is running a downvote bot on my handle.
      - onlydeadheroes 6y ago
        I noticed this a few months back, back when someone kept posting anti-meritocracy articles hoping for a thread that wasn't a train wreck. I started testing their algorithms by repeatedly posting the exact same comment and observing what happened. This triggered changes to the algo itself, and eventually it moved from downvoting to flagging, or maybe a human supervisor did. This was across multiple accounts and many weeks of posts. Eventually dang told me to stop. My current account name is a tribute to this.
      - dang 6y ago
        Would you please stop posting these off-topic meta complaints? They're pure noise, you've unfortunately been doing it a lot lately, and they're against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Your other comments are great, so it would be nice if you would fix this.
        onlydeadheroes 6y ago
        pure noise? because you are always right, of course.
  - DenisM 6y ago
    Transatlantic flight generates under 1000kg of CO2 per passenger. Cars generate 0.12kg per km. A short commute is 30 km per day, so about a 1000 kg per year - a wash. A longer commute will generate more, being stuck in traffic will generate more, building new roads will generate more. A flight that is not cross-Atlantic will generate much less. It’s not clear which way the balance will tilt, but you can’t just make blanket statement that planes will be worse than cars - you have to show your math.
    - dheera 6y ago
      The average american commute is about 15 miles [0] which is 24 km. A round trip from JFK to FRA emits about 0.91 t (910 kg) CO2 but if you account for radiative forcing [1] it is equivalent to 1.62 t (1620 kg) [2]. That's not to mention multiplying all these figures by 6 (for every 2 months), so that's 9720 kg. I don't think it's a wash. [0] https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1006/ML100621425.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1006/ML100621425.pdf [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing [2] https://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx https://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
      - DenisM 6y ago
        1. 15 miles one way. 30miles x 1.6km x 1.12kg/km x 250 days = 1440 kg 2. Few people will move form US to Germany. It's more likely someone will move e.g. from Portland to San Diego. 275kg roundtrip, 550kg adjusted for radiative forcing. So if you fly 3 times per year it's a wash, if you fly 6 times a year it's double the CO2 emission.
  - dang 6y ago
    Would you please not break the site guidelines like this? If you read them to the end, you'll notice that they explicitly ask you not to post this kind of comment. One reason is that users frequently give corrective upvotes (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=corrective%20upvote&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=corrective%20upvote&dateRange=...), which leaves a complaint like this dangling as uncollected garbage. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ksk 6y ago
  >Everything everyone says about greenhouse gas benefits of remote work just went out the window as soon as air travel is mentioned. Well, but that kind of criticism applies to anything and everything. For e.g. Do you also judge whether to buy a particular computer based on the amount of greenhouse gas or chemical pollutants in the supply chain that were caused due to its manufacture? Or do you also consider the fact that every-time you make a purchase it has to be put on a ship or a truck or a plane so that it gets to you? If you live in a remote area with low pop. density, there is more fuel being wasted bringing things to fewer people, etc, etc. Trying to reconcile Whats good for the planet vs Whats good for me/everyone is going to involve compromises.

dheera 6y ago

> live relatively close to a major airport Also not to mention that flying even ONCE per year round-trip across the country will likely emit more carbon than a full year's worth of local commutes. Now multiply that by 6 for every 2 months. Everything everyone says about greenhouse gas benefits of remote work just went out the window as soon as air travel is mentioned.

exdsq 6y ago
Not sure why you’ve been downvoted, you’re absolutely correct.
- hengri 6y ago
  I'm guessing it's a uncomfortable fact for the hackernews crowd who seem to travel a lot and also claim to care for climate change.
  - dheera 6y ago
    Yep, I've noticed that in the past year on HN thre are a lot of people who would rather downvote than face truth. I wonder whether COVID brought in a bunch of low quality participants. Separately though I've noticed lately that pretty much all my comments get downvoted first; some disappear in the process, others get salvaged by upvotes. I wonder whether someone is running a downvote bot on my handle.
    - onlydeadheroes 6y ago
      I noticed this a few months back, back when someone kept posting anti-meritocracy articles hoping for a thread that wasn't a train wreck. I started testing their algorithms by repeatedly posting the exact same comment and observing what happened. This triggered changes to the algo itself, and eventually it moved from downvoting to flagging, or maybe a human supervisor did. This was across multiple accounts and many weeks of posts. Eventually dang told me to stop. My current account name is a tribute to this.
    - dang 6y ago
      Would you please stop posting these off-topic meta complaints? They're pure noise, you've unfortunately been doing it a lot lately, and they're against the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Your other comments are great, so it would be nice if you would fix this.
      - onlydeadheroes 6y ago
        pure noise? because you are always right, of course.
- DenisM 6y ago
  Transatlantic flight generates under 1000kg of CO2 per passenger. Cars generate 0.12kg per km. A short commute is 30 km per day, so about a 1000 kg per year - a wash. A longer commute will generate more, being stuck in traffic will generate more, building new roads will generate more. A flight that is not cross-Atlantic will generate much less. It’s not clear which way the balance will tilt, but you can’t just make blanket statement that planes will be worse than cars - you have to show your math.
  - dheera 6y ago
    The average american commute is about 15 miles [0] which is 24 km. A round trip from JFK to FRA emits about 0.91 t (910 kg) CO2 but if you account for radiative forcing [1] it is equivalent to 1.62 t (1620 kg) [2]. That's not to mention multiplying all these figures by 6 (for every 2 months), so that's 9720 kg. I don't think it's a wash. [0] https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1006/ML100621425.pdf https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1006/ML100621425.pdf [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing [2] https://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx https://calculator.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx
    - DenisM 6y ago
      1. 15 miles one way. 30miles x 1.6km x 1.12kg/km x 250 days = 1440 kg 2. Few people will move form US to Germany. It's more likely someone will move e.g. from Portland to San Diego. 275kg roundtrip, 550kg adjusted for radiative forcing. So if you fly 3 times per year it's a wash, if you fly 6 times a year it's double the CO2 emission.
- dang 6y ago
  Would you please not break the site guidelines like this? If you read them to the end, you'll notice that they explicitly ask you not to post this kind of comment. One reason is that users frequently give corrective upvotes (https://hn.algolia.com/?query=corrective%20upvote&dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?query=corrective%20upvote&dateRange=...), which leaves a complaint like this dangling as uncollected garbage. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ksk 6y ago
>Everything everyone says about greenhouse gas benefits of remote work just went out the window as soon as air travel is mentioned. Well, but that kind of criticism applies to anything and everything. For e.g. Do you also judge whether to buy a particular computer based on the amount of greenhouse gas or chemical pollutants in the supply chain that were caused due to its manufacture? Or do you also consider the fact that every-time you make a purchase it has to be put on a ship or a truck or a plane so that it gets to you? If you live in a remote area with low pop. density, there is more fuel being wasted bringing things to fewer people, etc, etc. Trying to reconcile Whats good for the planet vs Whats good for me/everyone is going to involve compromises.