Ask HN: What actions did you take against climate change? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What actions did you take against climate change?

10 pointskite_and_code49 comments

Please focus on actions that you did instead of plan to do. Bonus points for specifics like:

  - when was the last time you did the action? e.g. yesterday
  - how much effort was it? e.g. 5$ or 2h

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I started a climate data service to allow easier access to climate data (https://oikolab.com).

Recently I've been creating and sharing data visualizations to illustrate how serious the situation is becoming: https://twitter.com/oikoweather/status/1382316996604403716?s...

If you commit to choices like these in your daily life, it's net-positive for your health, wallet, and planet!

    - Stopped eating meat 30 years ago. Easy and healthy.
    - Installed solar panels on my house 2 years ago. Free installation; leasing the panels for less than the cost of the power they generate.
    - Buy renewably-sourced power from the grid, and return excess solar-generated power to the grid. Not sure how much that costs.
    - Never learned how to drive a car, so I always bicycle or use public transit. Easy and cheap and healthy!
    - Buy food that was about to be tossed in the trash via TooGoodToGo almost every day now. Very cash positive and involves an extra bike ride.

Very inspiring - thank you!

Watched Seaspiracy and questioned my "plenty more fish in the sea" assumptions. Corollary is much of the plankton and motion of creatures in the oceans helps to absorb CO2 an order of magnitude more than rainforests. Which of course are also being decimated.

Haven't watched it yet but here's Gates on the matter in new interview: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XbZX6uj8K_M

More discussion is needed. Especially in IT where e-waste is an issue.

Very interesting! Never heard about it! Do you know if there are already "buy your own plankton" companies similar to "plant a tree"? From what you say it seems like this might have a higher ROI.

Also, is my hunch right that we have more space/capacity in the sea rather than on land?

I don't know if this is one we can buy our way out of. Not buying, seafood in particular, seems to be the most obvious solution at this stage. At least until more sustainable practices are more widespread and stocks have restored.

Plant based food companies are probably stocks to watch in coming years.

Makes sense.

Regarding the stocks: anything that you are thinking of in particular? Might be a great, immediate way to have an impact, too.

I didn't but I looked it up out of interest. Here's some ideas to get us started!

https://vegfaqs.com/vegan-companies-to-invest-in/

Great, thank you :)

I've never owned a car, I move around either by public transport, by bicycle or on foot. I minimize my travels and outside transcontinental flights I attempt to use railways. (Rode my bike yesterday, traveled outside the range of what I can do on bike/foot more than a year ago)

I doubt that my partner and I will have children. (Of course I can't foresee if any of us will have a sudden change of heart in the next years, but in my specific case I've had a strong no-children stance for most of my life. I'm no longer young either so I doubt I'll ever change my perspective).

I live a mostly frugal lifestyle, with the possible exception of cycling and tech. Even here I feel like I make good use of my purchases long after their "planned" lifetimes. (In the past 20 years I had maybe 4 phones in total. I've been riding the same bicycle for about 5 years, the previous ones I donated)

I do my part in reuse, reduce, recycle mantra. (I would say daily :D)

I support politicians that have a vision that reaches outside immediate economic benefits. (Voted in 2020 for EU/local parliamentary elections with young politicians invested in a greener future. Not all of them proved to be true to their word, but I'm not discouraged yet)

Important question! My main concern is to combat climate change with all my energy. Whilst it is still hard to leave all routines behind, I try to challenge myself on every action I take.

- I changed my employer in December to work on renewable energy topics. It gained me 5000€/a, so win/win.

- I switched my power supplier to eco 5 years ago. Probably 50€ per year. It is important to choose a real eco-friendly tariff. Some are only labeled as environmentally friendly.

- I am donating to greenpeace and other environmental ngos (as well as planting trees). ~400€ per year.

- I stopped using a car a few years ago. I am substituting it by public transport and/or my bike. Occasionally, I still rent a car, however much less. I would say, it costs a lot of time sometimes but it is hard to figure out the number. All things considered, I am certainly saving money.

- I am only buying organic food and especially meat with no compromise. It probably costs me 50-100€ per month compared to shopping in a discounter market. Since the meat is quite expensive, I reduced consumption drastically (but not only for economic reasons).

- I am not taking airplanes anymore to go on holiday. This costs a lot of time. My last travel to Greece took 3 days instead of 3 hours.

- I have reduced shopping and online shopping to a minimum. It just saves money and time as well.

- I have put stickers for the past global climate strike, it cost me a few hours. Participating some hours as well.

- I am always bringing my tupperware for picking-up food (except pizza), no compromise, no one-way packaging. This is not really combatting climate change but it helps against environmental pollution.

- Countless hours of debating with people :-D

Also, many little things which I forgot to/can't mention. I think everybody should do as much as he or she can, get used to it, do more, get used to it, do more, etc. :)

Great thank you for your input and contributions!

  - Regarding the power supplier: how did you validate that the tariff is actually eco-friendly?
  - What do you think: how successful have you been at debating with other people? :D
  - Any other (local) people or communities that you regularly join forces with on this topic?

1. You can check the suppliers here: https://utopia.de/ratgeber/oekostrom-tarife-vergleich/ Verivox in Germany for example also has the option "öko plus" to check.

2. I think, I have been very unsuccesful at debating. Many people do not want to change or rather trade freedom now against climate fuckup in the future. It is very frustrating. In my opinion, most people still do not have realized that we have to act now and not in 5 years. In Germany, we already have 2°C, climate change is reality. :(

3. Not really.

> I am donating to greenpeace

Can you please not do that? In France at least they're actively doing their best (by lying mostly) to sabotage the integration of nuclear energy to the clean energy programs. I'm convinced they're harmful to our future.

If COVID has shown me anything, it is that humans will generally gravitate towards the selfish action. Buying up all the toilet paper in the UK as an example, even when it was generally known that we wouldn't run out. The point I'm making is that I don't think we can rely on individuals' actions to combat climate change.

Yes I know: "but if everyone did it then it will make a difference"... we are not seeing this on a large enough scale to make an impact.

Possible solutions: Technology, government policies, taxation.

HN folk: I guess working on the technology side of things could provide the greatest benefit?

Please note that there are other threads which debate the general notion of what could be done and which strategy might succeed. This thread focuses on what people have done in the past and thus I would like you to also mention something in this regard if you want to participate. Also there might be ways how to have an individual impact on policies or taxation e.g. via starting, signing, advertising for petitions.

Yes fair enough - sorry for de-railing. Mine would be:

* Bars of soap rather than liquid soap in plastic bottles

* Re-use plastic shopping bags to put waste in rather than buying black-bags

* Pushing for WFH as much as possible (cutting down on a 60-mile round trip each day)

* Keeping my smart phone for 3+ years (I see no need to buy a new one every year). It's always the battery that dies first.

* Keeping old PCs and laptops running for friends and family

* Paying extra to our local council to collect and use our green-waste (food & garden waste)

* Batch cooking + freezing

* LED all the lights

A lot of these are done because of the financial benefit (they just have the added bonus of being "green").

  - two months ago
  - called two az senators and potus

i figure that alone was worth more than the entirety of all my 'carbon footprint' actions (or non-actions) over the previous 30 years - riding a bike, etc. imo.

the whole idea of 'individual actions' -- personal consumer choices -- like not driving and recycling -- contributing to a solution, is bogus, imo.

carbon footprint scam:

https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sh....

plastic recycling scam:

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-...

i get that the idea that individual actions are near-meaningless is not necessarily fun to think about, but...

my guess is greta, and all serious scientists, would agree.

we need 'actions' that get us to a carbon tax and other measures that will address the issue with the seriousness required.

- Watched "cowspiracy" ~2 yrs ago and other documentaries (like "seaspiracy" ~ 1 week ago) to question my food consumption. 4h invest

- basically turned vegetarian (like 99,99%) in 2014

- joined avaaz.org to sign petitions. 30 mins per month invest

- I'm a minimalist and avoid buying new stuff, avoid buying furniture altogether

- Use the bike to get to work

- did a sticker campaign in 2014 to raise awareness about our lives and the planet (I firmly believe that awareness is a key factor to sustainability)

Minimalism is the other one I'm looking at, for past decade or so. Not as far along as I'd like yet in terms of stuff, but consumption is way down. Clothes, equipment, etc. Making things work for longer, DIY repairs, primarily buying used goods.

But the system is totally geared against all this. If someone or a group could reverse even parts of consumer culture it'd be a potentially huge win for the planet. And for people's sanity.

I agree that long-living products would be better for resource efficiency.

Which part of consumer culture would you like to change if you had a magic wand? e.g. which action or believe would you like to change?

My shot is that people would prefer subscriptions of long-living products because companies need some kind of cashflow but also an incentive for optimising efficiency.

Very interesting, thank you! I also agree that awareness is a massive one!

When I hear sticker campaign I immediately think of all the stickers that are put somewhere where they are maybe tolerated but most likely not asked for. Often being not allowed.

Not doing any implicit accusations but I am wondering if you found a way that was legal? Or if you have ideas for "accepted" ways to raise awareness?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26301765

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18181503

Thank you for adding them to the conversation!

Changed jobs to work in green tech, working from home. Switched to vegetarian diet about 4 years ago. I'm very mindful of car usage and prefer bicycle whenever possible. Avoiding plastic bags and always choosing products with less packaging. I prefer locally sourced food and avoid online shopping (still some way to go here).

I retweeted this : https://twitter.com/theprincessxena/status/13794762308571791...

The way to fight climate change is at the level of national or supernational legislation.

No, no it's not. That's limiting deals to an elite who make earmarks. Additionally smells of coercion and authoritarianism.

I agree that national and supernational legislation can have a very immediate impact on this.

I guess you also thought about getting involved more personally. What's your stance on this?

The ones listed here: http://www.kimnicholas.com/uploads/2/5/7/6/25766487/fig1full....

The picture mainly focuses on things that we should avoid. Do you know if there is a similar one with things that we can actively do e.g. comparing planting trees to other investments?

I personally think that avoiding things is very relevant and that positive actions (as long as they are not in the flavor of "I remove any sort of waste") can do more harm than good in the long run, since the environment is an utterly complex system.

That makes sense. I am just scared if it will be enough if some people only avoid stuff and thus I wonder if there is more we can do. Something that has no natural limit. Something where we can always do a little more. In the end, there is just so much you can avoid.

I think that we can come up with active actions that will not interfere with the environment or where we are very certain that there won't be (net) negative effects. An example might be convincing your loved ones to also avoid stuff. This is an action that does not manipulate the environment but it's something where we can do more of.

Other actions might be:

  - donating money to organisations that have shown to be efficient at convincing others to avoid more. Not sure if something like this exists
  - signing a petition for a carbon tax. So far, I have never seen that as well in Germany
  - reading books on the topic to be more knowledgable when discussions arise
  - discuss climate change with people in your life

What do you think?

Great, thank you for the picture!

Which ones did you do so far? All of them?

Those of high impact: one less child, car-free, avoiding flights, plant-based diet (but not 100%).

Great, thank you. I am wondering: how many children do you have by now?

I prefer not to disclose that.

totally understand

In order of importance.

I replaced a gas drier with a ventless heat pump one. Replaced a gas water heater with a hybrid heat pump one.

Bought a Prius to replace a E150 cargo van as a daily driver.

I'm relatively poor for a tech bro. And hate flying. That cuts down on high carbon footprint leisure activities.

And didn't have kids.

Thank you for your input and contribution :)

I forgot one other thing. I moved from a place 20 miles from work to one 7 miles from work. I'll buy an electric car once the one I own is kaput. The only other things I can do is replace my gas furnace with a heat pump.

I feel like there is only so much I can do personally. A lot of what needed at system wide changes that allow people to live with a lower footprint without screwing themselves.

Inaction has a much bigger impact than action in its effect. The most positive effect one can have is being poor or living like one, living in a 3rd world country. Homeless people are truly heroes compared to all people in this thread for instance.

I agree with what you say. Anything that you want to share that you did yourself, too or are you living in a 3rd world country yourself? Or maybe are homeless?

Many years ago I decided I'd rather walk or cycle than drive, and so moved to a neighborhood where that was possible. Haven't left yet.

I would guess that you live in the US? Do you mind sharing some of those neighborhoods or how to find them?

I live in a European city and here I would say that most neighborhoods enable you to just walk or cycle.

Southern California. They can be found by searching for “walkable neighborhoods in ...”

  - Changed the electricity plan to eco+ 2 months ago. This costs ~$50 more per year
  - 99,9% Vegetarian since ~5 years
  - No car. Always take the bike even in winter
  - No children, yet :D
  - Started to discuss the topic more in order to educate myself and raise awareness
  - Think about the topic on a daily basis at least for 5min

Took an energy contract with wind, no nuclear and less coal/gas/oil.

When: A decade ago. Effort: 5$ ? Something like that.

> no nuclear

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26603464

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26673987

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24874421

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24324974

Interesting links - thank you!

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