3 ms·

yearly iphone replacement costs $1 a day. Cheaper than your daily latte. Hate to break it to you, but $1 a day won't save the earth.

moralestapia 5y ago
Hmmm ... yes? Actually ... If you instead gave that $1USD/day to whatever carbon ofsetting startup out there you would neutralize your carbon footprint and even go into "negative emissions" territory. So yes, that dollar could save the earth.
- vosper 5y ago
  Greenpeace claims that carbon offsetting doesn’t really work https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/the-biggest-problem-with-carbon-offsetting-is-that-it-doesnt-really-work/ https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/the-biggest-problem-with-...
  - moralestapia 5y ago
    Err ... that's an opinion from a guest writer on Greenpeace's blog. Anyone could, thus, opine in the opposite direction and we're back to where we started. To be fair she raises some valid points but they all revolve around tree-based carbon offsetting. On the last couple years, there has been an explosion in carbon removal techniques and startups who, as the term says, literally and measurably take carbon away from the atmosphere. I believe this to be the kind of solution that makes sense, and, regarding costs, it is still within the realm of "offset your personal emissions for $1/day".
    - vosper 5y ago
      Can you point to some available and verified carbon removal techniques that I can spend a dollar per day on?
      - moralestapia 5y ago
        See my other comment here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28582012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28582012
- adrianN 5y ago
  Carbon offsetting as it is sold today is mostly a scam.
  - moralestapia 5y ago
    >mostly a scam Citation needed. I am familiar with the field and can tell you that there's plenty of honest, transparent companies working on this.
    - adrianN 5y ago
      How many of those companies actually put atmospheric carbon back in the ground, sequestered in a form that it stable for at least a couple of generations? As far as I'm aware you either pay for some trees not being cut down (for how long?) or you pay for measures that prevent carbon emissions by e.g. subsidizing more efficient cooking stoves. Both methods are not completely useless (which I why I said "mostly"), but they're not really unburning the fossil fuels I used. They also don't scale very well. I'm actually looking for ways to offset my emissions, so I'd really appreciate some pointers if you're familiar with the space.
      - moralestapia 5y ago
        There's a handful but to be honest most of them are still developing their technology so they could be vaporware in the end. One of the most mature ones, though, is Climeworks [1], and you can buy offsets from them already. 1: https://climeworks.com/ https://climeworks.com/
nemosaltat 5y ago
How do you arrive at that number? Is that assuming a trade-in?
- tcmart14 5y ago
  I think it comes from the program that apple has. I think instead of financing the device, you can do the 'iPhone forever' plan where you pay $30/month and can upgrade at any time. Edit: Here is the link. Looks like the price went up, but when it started I remember it being $30/month. https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program
- oh_sigh 5y ago
  Trade-in math works even better. iPhone 11 came out in 09/2019 for $699. Two years later you can trade it in for $340, making those two years cost less than 50 cents per day.
georgyo 5y ago
If you lived in a vacuum, your dollar a day is not impactful. But let's look at the US alone. The 2020 census says there are 258 million adults over the age of 18. If all of them followed your model then that would be 95 billion dollars a year. That is an amount of money that could do a lot of good or a lot of harm. Looking at stuff at the micro level doesn't look impactful. But human behavior at the macro level is very impactful. The decision to not change personal behavior because your action by itself does not make an impact is a way to rationalizing a death of a billion cuts.

moralestapia 5y ago

Hmmm ... yes? Actually ... If you instead gave that $1USD/day to whatever carbon ofsetting startup out there you would neutralize your carbon footprint and even go into "negative emissions" territory. So yes, that dollar could save the earth.

vosper 5y ago
Greenpeace claims that carbon offsetting doesn’t really work https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/the-biggest-problem-with-carbon-offsetting-is-that-it-doesnt-really-work/ https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/news/the-biggest-problem-with-...
- moralestapia 5y ago
  Err ... that's an opinion from a guest writer on Greenpeace's blog. Anyone could, thus, opine in the opposite direction and we're back to where we started. To be fair she raises some valid points but they all revolve around tree-based carbon offsetting. On the last couple years, there has been an explosion in carbon removal techniques and startups who, as the term says, literally and measurably take carbon away from the atmosphere. I believe this to be the kind of solution that makes sense, and, regarding costs, it is still within the realm of "offset your personal emissions for $1/day".
  - vosper 5y ago
    Can you point to some available and verified carbon removal techniques that I can spend a dollar per day on?
    - moralestapia 5y ago
      See my other comment here, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28582012 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28582012
adrianN 5y ago
Carbon offsetting as it is sold today is mostly a scam.
- moralestapia 5y ago
  >mostly a scam Citation needed. I am familiar with the field and can tell you that there's plenty of honest, transparent companies working on this.
  - adrianN 5y ago
    How many of those companies actually put atmospheric carbon back in the ground, sequestered in a form that it stable for at least a couple of generations? As far as I'm aware you either pay for some trees not being cut down (for how long?) or you pay for measures that prevent carbon emissions by e.g. subsidizing more efficient cooking stoves. Both methods are not completely useless (which I why I said "mostly"), but they're not really unburning the fossil fuels I used. They also don't scale very well. I'm actually looking for ways to offset my emissions, so I'd really appreciate some pointers if you're familiar with the space.
    - moralestapia 5y ago
      There's a handful but to be honest most of them are still developing their technology so they could be vaporware in the end. One of the most mature ones, though, is Climeworks [1], and you can buy offsets from them already. 1: https://climeworks.com/ https://climeworks.com/

nemosaltat 5y ago

How do you arrive at that number? Is that assuming a trade-in?

tcmart14 5y ago
I think it comes from the program that apple has. I think instead of financing the device, you can do the 'iPhone forever' plan where you pay $30/month and can upgrade at any time. Edit: Here is the link. Looks like the price went up, but when it started I remember it being $30/month. https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program https://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program
oh_sigh 5y ago
Trade-in math works even better. iPhone 11 came out in 09/2019 for $699. Two years later you can trade it in for $340, making those two years cost less than 50 cents per day.

georgyo 5y ago

If you lived in a vacuum, your dollar a day is not impactful. But let's look at the US alone. The 2020 census says there are 258 million adults over the age of 18. If all of them followed your model then that would be 95 billion dollars a year. That is an amount of money that could do a lot of good or a lot of harm. Looking at stuff at the micro level doesn't look impactful. But human behavior at the macro level is very impactful. The decision to not change personal behavior because your action by itself does not make an impact is a way to rationalizing a death of a billion cuts.