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Ask HN: How can I as a Computer Scientist contribute to battling climate change?

11 点作者 Nashooo将近 7 年前

8 条评论

open-source-ux将近 7 年前
An indirect suggestion: advocate for energy-efficient programming languages and programs.<p>This may seem like a shallow suggestion (and even a faintly ridiculous one), but there is some logic to the idea.<p>When PHP 7 was released, Rasmurf Lerdorf, the creator of PHP, talked about the performance gains from version 7. The performance improvements meant fewer servers, smaller memory use and reduced CPU activity - all of which equalled less power or electricity consumed. When you consider the millions of servers in use, that additional language efficiency adds up to a substantial saving in electricity use. You can watch a segment from his presentation where he talks about this here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;umxGUWYmiSw?t=15m16s" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;umxGUWYmiSw?t=15m16s</a><p>Today, dynamic programming languages are the most popular - and sometimes the least performant and least power efficient. The most common solution, often espoused on these forums, is to throw more energy-guzzling hardware at the problem because hardware is cheap. And cheaper than picking a more performant, more energy-efficient language.<p>Before you dismiss this as completely ridiculous, consider how other industries approach energy efficiency and resource usage. The focus is mostly on reducing consumption of resources - a key selling point for customers. What would you think if a manufacturer said that they were going to make energy-guzzling fridges&#x2F;washing machines or other appliances without regard to energy-efficiency?<p>But in the computing field, we readily encourage &quot;throwing more energy-guzzling hardware&quot; at the problem until the program runs fast enough because it&#x27;s a cheap solution. It&#x27;s hard to think of any other profession that cares so little for energy efficiency than programming. Everything is for the ease and comfort of the programmer and screw anything else - the user, energy use and ultimately the environment.
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mchannon将近 7 年前
Earn lots of money and then invest it in an early-stage organization that has a decent plan to battle climate change.<p>It&#x27;s amazing how many people think showing up to work at a soup kitchen, and only then on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, when they&#x27;re way overstaffed, is going to solve homelessness, when they could have achieved 100x the benefit by working those hours at their regular job and donating the cash proceeds.<p>Don&#x27;t fall for the same fallacy when it comes to climate change.
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throwawaymath将近 7 年前
I recently started a nonprofit organization to resolve the problems I talked about in this comment [1]. The tl;dr: interdisciplinary researchers who could meaningfully contribute to climate science are stymied by the availability and clarity of high quality data.<p>If you would like to help out with this, whether through research or development, please feel free to get in touch with me via email. I own 512TB HDD storage, 512GB RAM, 10TB NVMe SSD storage and 136 vCPUs for this purpose, and the work is in active development.<p>On a more personal note, I&#x27;d recommend you also look at ways you can change your habits and lifestyle. If you can cut back on eating beef that&#x27;s helpful; you can also try to bike more often and use less electricity.<p>________________________<p>1. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17283312#17283790" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=17283312#17283790</a>
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borncrusader将近 7 年前
Intelligent algorithms can run smartgrids with power efficiency towards renewable sources of power. AI can help reduce resource wastage<p>Please don&#x27;t use JS or npm. Downloading the entire internet while doing a simple change is not efficient.
sn9将近 7 年前
Bret Victor wrote this post for you some years ago: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;worrydream.com&#x2F;ClimateChange&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;worrydream.com&#x2F;ClimateChange&#x2F;</a>
xaedes将近 7 年前
One thing that CS needs to do more to battle climate change: pay attention to the energy foot print of the stuff you develop.
itamarst将近 7 年前
It&#x27;s a political problem. So you can volunteer with or fund organizations that are pushing for change politically.
bsvalley将近 7 年前
Apply at companies like Tesla or Solar City. They have a similar mission you can contribute to.