Ask HN: What can I do as a software eng to help global environmental problems?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15515908

by doitLP • 9 years ago

20 17 9 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

tmaly• 9 years ago

I was thinking about this the other day.

You could get involved with a tech company that has the potential to reduce carbon emissions. Say if Uber or Lyft decided to create an eco option for electric cars etc.

I did see https://preciousplastic.com/ posted on here a few days ago. That is a great way to individually contribute to helping.

You could also build a side project that helps in some way.

doitLP3• 9 years ago

Nice, I didn't see their posting. Interesting idea.

Boothroid• 9 years ago

You could contribute to open source projects with an environmental focus. I don't have any particular recommendations unfortunately.

itamarst• 9 years ago

http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ has some ideas.

doitLP3• 9 years ago

great piece, thanks

leon_sbt• 9 years ago

Make an app that gives push notifications to users about their energy consumption on a real-time/daily/weekly/monthly basis. All this is tied into regional gasoline/electricity prices, that way you can output $ figures for everything. Release it for free. Think Google Analytics for personal energy($) consumption.

Tie in data from home via sense.com sensor, car travel data via google location services and a user selected vehicle.

Then give tips to user on better habits. Such as putting home in "eco" mode when you leave via Nest, or converting house to LED, etc.

Like if you change your Ford F-250 to a Civic, you will save $2000 a year based on your driving habits and distance.etc.

Or after driving your car. It says you spent about $10 in gas and 30 mins by driving just now.

The thing that inspired me was was the real time MPG gauge on my Honda Civic. It single handedly had the greatest MPG increase for my car. Since I felt the "pain" ($$) of smashing the throttle every time.

When people use their electricity at home, they don't feel " real time pain" when they turn on their 5kw AC unit or 3kw water heater. It's a crazy amount of power. They only feel once a month, when they get their energy bill for $200+ a month.

In conclusion, game-ify the hell out of dropping an end user's individual energy consumption number. By reducing energy demand at the source, then it's much easier to swallow eco friendly options.

For example, with poor energy consumption habits you may need a 10kw solar array @ a cost of 20k). But if you drop the user's average energy consumption. You can have the same quality of life at 5kw solar installtion @ $10k. Spending $10k is easier to swallow than $20k. (I made up all the $ numbers, I'm not sure where pricing is at now)

Well these are my random thoughts, I hope they inspire you.

throwaway413• 9 years ago

Awesome idea. Would be cool to hook it into a community of like-minded eco-friendly people that share their tips/tricks for daily usage based on the products you have in common.

doitLP3• 9 years ago

Thanks for this. I don't own a house and I live in a poorly insulated apartment building that gets full sun all day most of the year. It's a great candidate for solar panels but mostly out of my control. I already drive a civic and work from home, eating as sustainably as budget allows.

I'm wondering if there are some ideas out there on tackling the deeper cause. People are living longer, population is still growing and even if we were all 100% on renewable energy we would still be destroying the planet; the bugs are disappearing, the oceans are overfished, the bees are dying and we're even extracting an unsustainable amount of _gravel_ for goodness sake.

Something along the lines of changing the economic incentives to consume and expand, because short of terrible war or calamity, people in developing countries are still going to want refrigerators, cars, and beef and people in developed coutries aren't going to want to get rid of those.

shoo• 9 years ago

I'm wondering if there are some ideas out there on tackling the deeper cause.

One rough way to think about it is I=PAT, where I is total environmental impact, P is population, A is affluence per capita, and T is environmental impact per unit of affluence.

Population has grown exponentially, per capita affluence has grown dramatically, and reductions in the last factor T haven't been able to keep up.

Worse, if you consider the "goals" of our major systems of economic organisation - or at least the observed behaviour - they aren't set up to minimise I, or even really consider it - it's more like our ways of large scale cooperation are focused on economic growth, i.e. roughly trying to maximise P*A.

If you live in an affluent western "free market" democracy it is probably politically difficult to push for major reduction or limits to population P or affluence A.

In terms of what can be done, it's probably better to focus on smaller scope/smaller scale problems. Not realistic for one person to solve the whole world's problems. If you can help push politically to regulate environmental impact in your area of local politics, that's probably very helpful. Not necessarily aligned with skills as an engineer, but this is probably more valuable than building something within current political/market framework.

If you're able to set up a small business or not for profit that is able to help others save money with side effects of reducing environmental impact, that's probably also helpful. This is less ambitious and isn't tackling the main root causes, but is something that is more in your control.

horofox• 9 years ago

Become vegetarian

matt_the_bass2• 9 years ago

Even swapping 1 meat meal per week for 1 vegan meal can make a difference if everyone did that.

In my experience cooking for meat loving friends, there are lots of vegan dishes they like. Switching 1 meal a week does not really impact their “meat menu” pallet. Don’t try to replicate meat. Enjoy vegan cuisine for what it is.

FYI I eat meat but I enjoy a lot of vegan meals. I don’t like vegan “tastes like meat” dishes though.

aj_g• 9 years ago

This. If you want a direct, measurable impact/reduction in impact, go veggie.

matt_the_bass2• 9 years ago

I think the idea of going 100% or subscribing to label scares off a lot of people. Just reducing meat consumption has an impact. See my comment above.

Mz• 9 years ago

I think anything that promotes or supports any of the following in some fashion would be good:

Passive solar design or solutions

Pedestrianism (walking, biking and using public transit instead of driving everywhere)

Eating lower on the food chain

Living more spartanly

FWIW, this was my idea of how to save the planet with potty humor and a website:

http://peeonatree.blogspot.com

No one actually cares and I have no idea how to develop it or measure impact. It is going nowhere fast.

neilsharma• 9 years ago

1. aggregate a list of services that do free electronic and chemical waste pickup. I have to wait to get a flyer in the mail telling me someone would come by in the wee hours of the morning to do a special pickup. Would be helpful if this info were more handy.

Or better, get a community running locally to do these pickups every week across the neighborhood.

2. Buy LED bulbs, environmentally friendly household cleaners, etc in bulk from china, and sell them at cost on Amazon. Don't try to make a large profit on environmentally friendly products -- just make them more affordable.

3. Gardens these days are oddly biased toward aesthetics rather than local vegetation. Gather the advice of local botanists and educate folks about what trees/flowers they should plant in their yards. Insect life is decreasing, but with the right gardens, some of it can come back. For flowers, you can arrange a service to have households place pre-orders during the winter months, and then hire a local nursery to grow saplings specifically for them to plant in spring.

4. Make a vegetarian/vegan yelp. I can't rely on yelp reviews since most folks eat meat, and their opinions on food taste/quality aren't very useful. The only reviews I can trust are those for restaurants called "Veggie House" or some similar variant. Vegetarian food isn't a marketing strategy, its just food that can be served everywhere.

5. E-commerce site for environmentally friendly clothes. Jeans, for example, are incredibly polluting (over 1k gallons of clean water, loads of pesticides used in cotton, artificial dyes, etc). I'm not loyal to levi's, calvin klein, or whatever. Those are just the brands on the racks. Give me healthier alternatives.

6. Aggregate quality articles on environmental issues. That research paper on insect life dropping by 75% in 27 years has been making the rounds this week. There should be more of it. NASA has a ton that aren't outdated. Start off with a weekly newsletter -- I'll subscribe If people get enough exposure to it over time, they'll start to change their minds (or tune it out, but that's always the risk)

7. Work for the government. Immigration checks at US borders rely on shitty software that goes down often. Hundreds of trucks coming in from mexico are literally waiting for hours in the heat as their cargo rots. Same with at harbors -- $Bs in food waste.

PerfectElement• 9 years ago

For #4, there is happycow.net. It's great for finding vegan/vegetarian food in a neighborhood you are not familiar with.

erkanerol• 9 years ago

by writing efficient code

Ask HN: What can I do as a software eng to help global environmental problems?

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