[mccada]

Instead of the usual doom and gloom, or abandoning all hope, are there any tangible ways a person can make a difference? Reducing consumption and consumerism, energy efficiency and habits changing surely help a little, but I'm interested in slightly longer term projects (say the next 10 years).

It seems like we're on track for a huge crisis, but as group we're slow to react.

[blacksmith_tb]

Obviously doing all the (relatively) simple things to reduce your own footprint would be a start: become a vegan or vegetarian[1], make sure your home is as insulated as it can reasonably be[2], make sure major appliances like the refrigerator, furnace, water heater etc. are efficient, look at getting PV on your roof, commute by bike or foot, and so on. People can be very defensive if they feel like you're criticizing them for not doing these things, so I am skeptical about how much you can influence others to follow your example. It might be simpler to appeal to your representatives to enact laws that provide tax credits or other incentives, realistically.

1: http://time.com/4266874/vegetarian-diet-climate-change/ 2: https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/weatherize/insulation/add...

[faitswulff]

> become a vegan or vegetarian

I really, really hope synthetic meat explodes in popularity because I've tried being vegetarian and I'd really rather not.

[uhtred]

Have you tried any of the plant based meats that are available? Seriously, beyond burgers, beyond sausages, tofurkey sausages (my favorite), impossible meats, to name just a few, are all really good. There's no need to wait for lab meat.

[faitswulff]

I haven't yet, but it's on my radar!

[robin_reala]

If you eat meat once per day and you reduce that to once per week you’re consuming 86% less meat. If you eat it once a month you’re consuming 96% less meat. You don’t necessarily need to go full vegetarian or vegan to have a major affect on your diet.

[KozmoNau7]

And if you cut out red meat from your (reduced) meat consumption in favor of poultry or sustainably raised/caught fish, that also significantly reduces your food-related environmental impact.

[WorldMaker]

Eliminating beef alone can be huge in eliminating the greenhouse gas footprint of your diet (especially when consider methane in addition to simply carbon footprint). A somewhat, relatively distant, second after that is pork. Then dinosaurs, and fish (in roughly that order) are all basically tied at a, relatively, distant third in greenhouse gas output.

In addition to sustainably raised/organically farmed/etc, local sourcing can matter for carbon footprint (what you save in the carbon output of the farm itself you gain again in cross-country shipping carbon).

[temp-dude-87844]

Yeah: plan for long-term personal mitigation. Move to a country with a strong military and rule of law, but geopolitically a place that wouldn't make for an attractive target for invasion. Find a job that's well insulated from climate trends and economic shocks. Aim for areas whose environs could theoretically function on their own in an unfriendly world, as opposed to areas that derive their wealth solely from trade and intangibles.

This is drastic, but there's a few obvious situations in which you don't want to find yourself. You don't want to be a farmer in a high-population subtropical country. You don't want to be a military-age person in a country that's already concerned with food and water security, let alone general resource scarcity. But you also don't want to be a homeowner in a flood-prone location where in a few decades your insurance will price you out, nor would you want to operate a farm, even in a high-income country, in a place where you're already struggling with increasingly severe droughts. Above all else, you don't want to find yourself in a situation where you're ill-equipped to handle crises in the global or local markets as pressures build on struggling populations.

The irony is that the strategy to insulate yourself from the worst of climate change is very similar to the strategy to insulating yourself from every other social and economic ill: be wealthy, mobile if needed, and for your extended community to be self-sufficient if required.

[melling]

No. You’re a rounding error as a consumer.

If people could help engineer cheaper clean energy or more efficient air conditioning, that would help.

https://www-m.cnn.com/2018/11/28/world/air-conditioning-clim...

[worldsayshi]

"You're a rounding error as a voter."

While it may be very true that any one individual may create more positive impact by putting focus on something else, individual consumption is a part of the problem.

Go after your own low hanging fruit. But don't let it distract you if you think you can make a greater impact somehow.

[WorldMaker]

Collective individual effort is great, but still dwarfed by corporate "industrial" and "non-consumer" greenhouse gas output. Focusing 100% on individuals ignores the real problems. Positive impacts are great, and individual ethics are great, but we can't let individuals be scapegoats for corporate greed (or laziness/ignorance if you prefer to ascribe less malice) and systemic problems that need to be solved by systems and entities that are bigger than individuals.

[worldsayshi]

I'm not disagreeing here. What I'm saying is that we need a cultural shift where ignoring the issue becomes unacceptable. For anyone. Or else we die.

[WorldMaker]

Fair. I'm just saying that while we are rallying the individuals, let's not forget to pass out the pitchforks and torches to go storm some castles.

[eigenstuff]

I don't think anybody is forgetting the role of corporate entities. I think the individual aspect is what's being more forgotten about, or at least it seems that way looking at my Facebook feed. It's deeply distressing to me to see so many otherwise woke, informed liberals stomping their feet and refusing to make any alterations to their lifestyles because they've decided any suggestion for reducing their carbon footprint is some kind of corporate blame-shifting conspiracy when it's... not. The UN climate report said change is gonna have to happen on BOTH the corporate and individual level. Our consumerist Western lifestyles are exactly what created this mess in the first place. How the same people who only a month ago wouldn't stop screaming about how every vote counts can then turn around and decided that no individual effort to combat climate change could ever possibly count is baffling to me.

Ironically, one of the things I uncovered in the process of raising my pitchfork and planning a protest against my local utility was the best evidence I've found of just how much of an impact individual actions can have collectively: power consumption in the US has completely flatlined since 2007, so much so that My Local Utility's 20 year plan put out in 2015 was made completely irrelevant in only 3 years. Why? Turns out it's just a little bit more efficient appliances and then a hell of a lot more efficient lightbulbs. Dead serious, that's all it took to stunt the growth of our national power consumption, even accounting for things like manufacturing moving overseas. And the only reason the appliances haven't made as big an impact as the lightbulbs is their longer replacement cycles delay their impact.

Stuff that small and simple absolutely, 100% makes a difference. Those are the quickest, easiest changes we can make because they are the changes within our power, and to act like people can't focus on both at the same time is absurd and imo completely irresponsible. Yes, raise our pitchforks, but always keep in mind that we're the market and our wallets have the power to fuck their shit up. After reading that 10% of total global power consumption is literally just heating and cooling, I'm dropping $80 on a programmable thermostat because that's an easy, effective thing I can do between now and my protest at the end of the month. (Oh ho, stickin it to ya twice, TVA! ;] )

[melling]

It doesn’t sound like you have a handle on the problem if you think if everyone who reads this will lessen the problem by reducing their consumption.

We really need to make some rather large changes. India, China, and emerging markets need a lot of clean, affordable, clean energy, for example.

[worldsayshi]

> if you think if everyone who reads this will lessen the problem by reducing their consumption.

What? I'm not saying that at all...

[siruncledrew]

> Reducing consumption and consumerism, energy efficiency and habits changing surely help a little

Keep doing those things. Even if you aren't singlehandedly solving the crisis, you are at least setting an example for others to follow, which is what matters. When people see others caring, they begin to question their own level of caring. If everyone wrote off small changes as "What's the point?", then that attitude feeds into the habits of others too.

> but I'm interested in slightly longer term projects (say the next 10 years).

I don't have a perfect answer for you, however, incorporating this into a career or public works effort would be something. R&D and implementation is still worth something. Even if it's not crazy lucrative or game-changing immediately, proper change takes time and has to be started somewhere. Think of all the R&D efforts from the past that contributed to massive changes in the present. Someone had to think, work, and tinker on projects to come up with adaptable outcomes. The work of one still has the potential to impact many.

> It seems like we're on track for a huge crisis, but as group we're slow to react.

My theory is that we are essentially up against a "nonphysical" entity (it's silly but South Park captured this with the use of 'ManBearPig'), so people don't treat it the same as an "us vs. them" dilemma. It's really an "us vs. us". It's hard to react to something that's not right in front of our faces. There's always the ability to count on tomorrow until the day arrives that there won't be any more tomorrows to count on. At which point, people usually look around for solutions. There's a group that will outwards and a group that will look inwards. There's an endless amount of excuses and distractions to fall back to, but at the end of the day doing something is better than doing nothing.

[mccada]

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

[craftyguy]

There are, but it requires sustained international cooperation at a level rarely (if ever) seen. The arbitrary flip-flopping of US policy regarding climate change mitigation isn't helping.

The closest we have come to such a feat would be outlawing of some ozone depleting chemicals 2 decades ago. It's highly unlikely we will be able to accomplish this. Any sustained international response will undoubtedly be reactionary instead of proactive.

[ForHackernews]

We're already well past the point of "proactive" responses. Everything since 400 ppm is firmly in the realm of reactionary attempts to contain and cope with the damage.

[EGreg]

Yes, yes there is! In order of impact:

Write to your representatives to support this bill, or a similar one if not in the USA: https://medium.com/basic-income/this-idea-can-literally-chan...

Carbon tax the fossil fuel industry to make them switch to green energy faster (they are already investing in this). Distribute the proceeds as UBI to sell t to the public - Alaska’s Permanent Fund already has done this by “nationalizing” their own oil reserves for decades AND they have the lowest inequality of all US states. Win win!

Form a political party in your country to focus on the most pressing issues (and avoid getting mirrd in eg gender bathrooms) and an app to unite everyone (I am doing this with rational.app and rational.party)

REFORESTATION. CARBON SEQUESTRATION. There has been something in the human psyche that associates deforestation with progress. Well, it no longer is (we are bumping up against other limits).

Support efforts like Nori and IBM’s carbon credits blockchain. But on a country level, it would be amazing if they set up a fund to reward countries for trees and carbon sequestration. Have actual incentives to grow it instead of laws punishing deforestation only. Bolsonaro would have something more cashflow positive from the rainforest in his mind finally. We have to PAY FOR WHAT WE WANT, WITH TAXES.

Raise awareness, eg with scandalous art pieces that have a license to pollute with black smoke in a city, and attract people to websites that show accurate models of what’s happening NOW, not just projections. Like parts per million of CO2 and methane, acidification of oceans etc.

The rainforest produces 20% of the world’s oxygen and Bolsonaro wants to cut it down. we need more PRESENT DAY STATS repeated enough time by enough people.

Want to know more? Contact greg at the domain qbix.com with HN CO2 in the subject line

[fhood]

I dunno man, get into politics? I don't see viable non-legislative solutions happening in the necessary time frame.

[sparkie]

Legislation is going to do absolutely nothing except maybe kick the can down the road a little further. (And at the cost of causing economic stagnation in developing nations).

What we really need is investment into clean energy solutions. Investment is not going to come by robbing a percentage of GDP as a "carbon tax."

[fhood]

> Legislation is going to do absolutely nothing except maybe kick the can down the road a little further.

Making it bloody expensive to produce ghgs seems like a pretty excellent way to spur investment to me.

[sparkie]

The costs are always passed on to the consumer in the end. It makes no difference to the big energy companies.

In fact, it creates the perverse incentive that the legislature are generating so much income from carbon taxes that they will not want it to stop. Imagine that they're taking 2% of GDP and someone comes along and promises low-carbon energy solutions. The government is then going to lose 2% of their budget. They won't want that.

[vkou]

> The costs are always passed on to the consumer in the end.

When the costs are passed on to the consumer, I can discriminate between GHG-intensive products, and non-polluting products, by price.

[fhood]

I can't be 100% sure that you are incorrect. But given how much the price of gas affects the market for fuel efficient cars, I cannot imagine that making polluting technologies more expensive would not cause manufacturers to pivot to greener methods.

[throwaway5752]

The government collecting taxes and investing them has probably created the majority of humanity's enduring achievements.

[sparkie]

You have a bizarre perspective on history if you believe this. It is only recently that governments have tried to monopolize infrastructure developments.

And they have the unfortunate outcome that they outsource the work to private entities which don't have to behave like regular companies (ie, compete in a free market).

Governments waste money. If left to the free market, costs would be reduced because those who can't compete on costs would find themselves out of work.

[sashenka]

Going vegan is a great way to reduce your impact on the environment and cut greenhouse gases. It is the smallest change that has the largest difference.

[rusk]

I think the message should be eat more vegetarian. If we even ate half the amount of meat the effect would be dramatic. Not everybody can do full vegan or even full vegetarian. Don’t scare people with all-or-nothing messaging.

[sashenka]

This is definitely true, reducing animal products of any amount helps tremendously. I did not intend to scare anyone, framing veganism as the goal is easier just because the vast majority of people can do it.

[rusk]

The vast majority of people can’t ... but that’s a discussion for another day (-:

[sixo]

The most effective part of going vegan is incrementally improving the viability of veganism in the markets for groceries, restaurants and culture. I think.

[vibrato]

The least effective part of going vegan is how it deteriorates individual health.

[newnewpdro]

I don't see how this is helpful at all. Veganism is unnecessarily extreme and suggesting it more often than not simply tunes out your audience.

For example, if your diet is largely vegetarian but includes some low-order animal protein sources like sardines it's insignificantly worse for the environment than if you were vegan.

[aaronbrethorst]

Voting for people who pledge to fix this.

[sparkie]

A pledge is pointless without a plan. Not much substance coming out of those promises.

[throwaway5752]

Seems like a better plan than voting for people that pledge to make it worse.

[sparkie]

The people pledging to solve the problem are actually making it worse by not coming up with a plan. They think the problem will solve itself if they just pay a chunk of GDP to unelected UN bureaucrats (who also don't have a plan).

All that does is leave you less well off, meaning you have less to invest in real solutions.

Carbon taxes are a power grab by globalists and have no impact on solving the problems they claim to be taking the money for.

[ForHackernews]

Pigovian taxes WORK: If something is more expensive, people take steps to avoid doing that thing. They work twice as well if you re-invest the revenue raised into addressing the negative externalities.

I see you whining a lot in this thread about how "globalists" (whoever those are) don't have a good plan. What's your plan? And remember, "do nothing" is not a viable plan because then the fish and crops die.

[robotomir]

Populism will win in the end, and populists will overturn any unpopular ecological measures.

[louthy]

Don’t have children is probably the single biggest thing you can do to reduce your future impact on the Earth

[throwaway_98554]

No, you are limited the number of children you'd have.

You can have a much bigger effect by getting rid of OTHER people.

Limiting your own consumption is completely counter-productive, as it leaves the resources to be consumed by those who do not share the same worries. They will simply have more resource available to increase their number and influence. (It's similar to those worrying about overpopulation and deciding to not having children : it's simply making sure the genes of those worrying won't make it to the next generation.)

In a non-policed commons situation, the only time it makes sense to try to shame people into consuming less is if they are your competition and you want to get rid of them.

[User23]

To be fair to grandparent, he or she did say to reduce one's own impact. Eliminating others will not achieve that.

The future belongs to whoever shows up for it. Here are the current likely winners: https://population.un.org/wpp/Publications/Files/WPP2012_HIG...

[User23]

Besides killing yourself.

[dang]

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?

Edit: looks like we've had to give you a bunch of warnings already. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take the spirit of this site more to heart, we'd really appreciate it.

[User23]

Pardon me? If eliminating potential children reduces environmental impact then eliminating oneself must reduce environmental impact at least as much and in all likelihood more. It's a valid addendum to the original parent. If it seems absurd, well then so is the claim that one should not have children for environmental reasons.

That said I will happily review the rules page again, I didn't intentionally violate it.

[akvadrako]

There is a way. Right now most people (myself included) don't think there is any need to do anything, despite constantly hearing from the media and commenters on HN that the sky if falling.

If you are convinced a crisis is coming and want to make a significant contribution, try to develop a workable policy proposal and a convincing case of why it would be a good idea. I have invested a few weeks researching this topic and found nothing I would feel comfortable sharing with skeptics and saying, "here's a good case that a CO2 tax would be beneficial" (or something similar).

An example of an unconvincing case is the recent report from the US government; they claimed GDP will be 10% lower in 2100 if we don't make drastic cuts to CO2. The issues with it are (1) Our GDP in 2100 will be 10X what it is now, so 10% is irrelevant. (2) The cost to cutting CO2 drastically will reduce GDP even more. (3) The report assumed worse than the worst case scenario from the IPCC, i.e. it's very unlikely.

[antisthenes]

The value of any report that predicts future economic outcomes more than 1 political (or economic) cycle into the future asymptotically approaches zero with the length of prediction term.

Humanity & most people are notoriously bad at making long term predictions.

[araujo]

One action that people tend to miss is on greatly reduce flying yourself, while governments must greatly increase taxation on air travel. Air travel is one of the biggest contributors.

[ForHackernews]

> say the next 10 years

FYI, the recent UN report says that global net CO2 emissions has to fall by 50% by 2030 (11 years from now) and reach zero by 2050 for us to have a chance of averting the worst of the disaster.

As of right now, global CO2 emissions are still increasing: https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-global-co2-emissions-se...

[ForHackernews]

The best you can do is try to put pressure on your government. This is a collective action problem.

In the USA: https://www.sunrisemovement.org/

In the UK: https://rebellion.earth/

Others?

[petermcneeley]

Remote work.