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Get involved politically. This is the only way to change anything, but it’s extremely unlikely you’ll have any effect. Next, as an individual who’s likely rich
by paulcole 5y ago
Get involved politically. This is the only way to change anything, but it’s extremely unlikely you’ll have any effect.
Next, as an individual who’s likely richer than average (as a programmer on HN) and has the ability to do these things:
1. Don’t have biological children.
2. Don’t eat meat.
3. Don’t drive a car.
4. Don’t fly in planes.
5. Don’t buy things you don’t really need.
6. Live in small/dense housing.
- gregjor 5y agoThe human body is 12% carbon, so every child locks up some carbon. Having children also increase the chances of raising more adults who might solve the big problems. And don’t waste electricity virtue signaling online.
- paulcole 5y agoI’m not virtue signaling. Other than the political action thing (honestly think it’s pointless) and the fact that I buy too much crap online, that’s how I live my life. I just don’t see a way where humans “beat” climate change without an incredible (and incredibly unlikely) shift in how we live our lives.
- gregjor 5y agoI mostly agree, my comment was facetious. I don’t agree about not having children. Birth rates below replacement cause serious long-term economic and social problems. Climate change represents a civilization-wide threat that we can only address through intense collective action, and even then it may be too late. Since we seem incapable of collective action with anything serious at stake there’s probably nothing any of us can do individually that will matter.
- omosubi 5y ago> don't have children. I don't think this is good advice. Sure humans create more GHGs than non existent humans but nothing will make you more future oriented than having kids (assuming you want them of course) also the kinds of people that help solve climate change are likely to come from the kinds of people who frequent hacker news. If you look at who is most successful in tech, it's often people who come from upper middle class backgrounds, at least in my experience. There are a few outliers of course but they're the exception. Most people don't have the luxury of thinking about climate change
- paulcole 5y agoAdopt a kid instead (updated my original post a bit) if you absolutely must. But trust me, there are plenty of rich HN readers who are going to ignore me. There’s going to be plenty of new rich kids out there to found the next Facebook and then wonder how they can help with climate change before they have a couple more kids.
- subjectsigma 5y agoIf this is the only answer to climate change, we are fucked. Except for #5 I would be miserable if I had to live like this, and I expect most people in developed countries would be as well.
- paulcole 5y agoEither we change how we live or we’re fucked. And from what I’ve seen, people don’t mind being fucked tomorrow as long as they’re OK today. Even better if they can be OK-ish tomorrow as long as somebody else gets fucked worse. Do you really truly believe that there’s going to be a magic climate change solution that allows the developed world to continue living the way it has?
- deepnotderp 5y ago> “Do you really truly believe that there’s going to be a magic climate change solution that allows the developed world to continue living the way it has?” Yes, it’s called nuclear power
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- actually_a_dog 5y agoNope. Nuclear can’t save us: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27835924 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27835924 Well, unless you’re talking about fusion, which, at this point, truly is a “magical” solution.
- tuatoru 5y agoHey, if you're going for magic, why stop at half measures? Direct matter to energy conversion or nothing!
- tuatoru 5y agoI literally laughed out loud. Not going to happen. We need solutions rolled out at global scale by 2030. Nuclear power projects don't have a good track record for speed. We need solutions that no-one is going to object to and for which the whole supply chain is already huge. Nuclear's cooling water demand alone makes it vulnerable to protest. I'm hoping that Form's iron-air grid-scale battery is manufacturable, scalable and economical. Shouldn't be too hard to commit a few percent of the world's iron refining capacity to making grid-scale batteries to complement solar and wind power. If not Form's, then one or more of their competitors' batteries. I sure hope someone cracks it. Last resort, we could use Lithium chemistries, but that wouldn't be so environmentally benign and would take a bit longer to scale out.
- deepnotderp 5y agoJust go ahead and add “7. Kill yourself” (no carbon emissions that way)