[atonse]

I remember doing the math of how much energy a phone uses per year, and thought I got it wrong, since it was so little.

And it's similar with computers, as you've stated (especially with Laptops that are already pretty energy efficient).

I'm not sure what we can do as web professionals honestly, but as technologists in general, maybe more of us can apply our engineering mindsets to actual climate change problems instead of building a 50th ad analytics platform.

[XCSme]

> maybe more of us can apply our engineering mindsets to actual climate change problems

Any suggestions on how can you do that as an individual? You can easily create a generic software product alone, but to helping the climate change is really hard. OP asked exactly this, what can we do. So, what can we do instead of the 50th analytics platform?

[saltcured]

I don't know if this was the intent, but I think an "engineering mindset" can mean analysis and heuristics for balancing costs and benefits to choose practical solutions. It does not have to be conflated with "product design" or other market-scale strategies.

In other words, you can use some engineering methodology to review and change your own behaviours as an individual and reduce your impact on climate. Perhaps after that, you can try to influence a few people around you. You should not let yourself get trapped in a mindset that any idea has to produce some viral sensation with however many million monthly users or else be discarded.

I think that techie/engineer types can sometimes develop a rather large blindspot to the many things in their daily lives that come from culture and habit. We can modeswitch from highly analytical and perhaps even obsessive optimizers on a work problem, then go repeat some inefficient or counter-productive activity in our personal lives for the umpteenth time without ever recognizing that these are also things which can be analyzed and challenged...

[minkeymaniac]

You can maybe start charging some of these mobile devices via Solar Power Bank https://amzn.to/2RE10uT They can charge while you walk around by placing the panels on your backpack...

I know it's a small percentage of overall use, but if enough people start using solar to charge their devices and maybe in the future laptop batteries, cars and houses it's a step in the right direction

The biggest offender is the AC in the summer in the US... office is so cold people have to bring sweaters and vests