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Ask HN: What jobs can a software engineer take to tackle climate change?

67 points| envfriendly | 6 years ago | reply

I'm a software engineer with a diverse background in backend, frontend development.

How do I find jobs related to tackling global warming and climate change in Europe for an English speaker?

Open to ideas and thoughts.

72 comments

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[+] estsauver|6 years ago|reply
So here's a simple framework for this:

1) Learn the things that are most likely to actually move the needle on climate change. There are a bunch of frameworks for thinking about this, but I think https://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/intro is pretty simple. Each wedge is a viable chunk of a huge path to mitigating climate change.

2) Search for companies that solve each of these problems individually. A company that sets out to solve "climate change" is unlikely to succeed in my view, but a company that sets out to make it easy to switch from coal plants to natural gas plants by bringing together the right financing and tech transfer might be easy.

3) Rank those places in terms of your likelihood in moving the needle for them. Nuclear power plant? Maybe they really could use an excellent software engineer, maybe they've already got a great set of people or it's not that important for their business. But maybe those same nuclear power plants desperately need an excellent quantitative person for their sales team, which is really what will move the needle for them.

I'd also suggest sourcing the companies through some of the VCs that have had success having world transforming success. Despite not loving Peter Thiel's political leanings, Founders Fund has funded Space X, The Climate Corporation and Oculus that each have/had a real shot at knocking out a wedge by themselves. Some places have a great track record for backing ambitious moon shots.

(Disclosure, I used to work for The Climate Corporation. I did go to work there because Peter Thiel talked about it in his Stanford Startups class though, so I think that counts as taking my own advice.)

[+] tempguy9999|6 years ago|reply
I'd say from long experience of being ignored when trying to do this and similar stuff, the best payoff is to push it upstairs to those in power, the politicians, who doubtless have many other things to do, but whose job it basically is. Your job is to tackle stuff on an individual level, yourself and your family perhaps, but theirs is to deal with things on a societal level where there is much greater effectiveness.

If there's a higher payoff available than that, I don't know where it is.

Absolutely vital tip from extremely painful experience; your physical and more vitally mental health come first. You must not forget that as if you burn yourself out you're no good for anything.

[+] estsauver|6 years ago|reply
The people in power, the politicians, they're also individuals, people with families and lives, but who decide to take on the issues of the public.

I don't think anyone should feel bad about not coming up with the solutions to global problems. You not knowing any higher payoff doesn't make you a bad person. But every incredible transformation of the world started with a person, and many incredible people only became incredible through the work they tried to do.

Borlaug saved a Billion people from starvation. He started out as a basically normal man. Find something, fight for it, wrestle with the world and hope to hold on to something, mostly because we all lose in the end. If you lose early, enjoy a happy and normal life with your family, but you don't have to lose before you start.

[+] reddhouse|6 years ago|reply
Totally agree with both points. I came to the conclusion that liquid democracy could bring about political change more rapidly than any other “movement”, so I built this: https://liquidcenter.org Unfortunately, Sybil-resistant online identification is still a really hard problem to solve.
[+] EnergyGuyTemp|6 years ago|reply
I feel that it's necessary that I post. I've been working as an energy consultant for large businesses and governments where I improve the energy efficiency of facilities, in effect reducing their carbon footprint. Climate change is a complex topic and what little I know helps me understand how complex of a challenge it is. The following is my bias and probably incorrect opinion.

The most effective way to reduce the effects of global warming is to implement a carbon tax. Use the power of the economic system we have to guide firms reduce their own carbon footprint. For example, in Canada, they implemented a revenue-neutral policy where carbon is taxed and the money made is refunded evenly per person. The only costs are the minimum administrative and the substitution/income effect (Slutsky equation).

As a person, it's difficult to know where to help. I would recommend to first promote the above and then look at the metric '$ per CO2 emission saved'. I believe it is the most important metric to reducing your carbon footprint.

Taking the bus instead of driving, moving to a smaller house, reducing meat consumption or updating to LED lighting in many cases has a negative $/CO2, meaning you save money and reduce CO2. With the money you saved, look at projects with positive but small $/CO2, this could be purchasing power from renewable sources, purchasing a more efficient heating and cooling system. This list is what I've seen in north america but changes greatly depending on region and what you are already doing.

Unfortunately it is a very complex challenge. I know I didn't answer your question. I would recommend starting with good information, the IPCC releases reports of the leading science of climate change and would recommend starting with the report for policy makers as a summary. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/syr/

[+] themagician|6 years ago|reply
Go outside and plant a tree. Preferably in a tropical area where it is less likely to burn during the summer.

Trees are the cheapest most efficient way to remove carbon from the atmosphere. No other solution comes even remotely close.

You can drive a Prius, become a vegan, and buy solar panels but a person who plants a single acre of trees will have offset an entire lifetime of greenhouse gas production and then some.

[+] i2amsam|6 years ago|reply
My favorite piece on this topic is “What can a technologist do about climate change” http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/

We started http://climateaction.tech/ to amplify and connect tech workers with just these types of questions, check out our guides there and join the Slack to connect with other folks wrestling with the same questions.

[+] zachsherman|6 years ago|reply
Good luck on that but if you really want to do something, join an organization, protest, etc. We need political power more than we need software right now.
[+] plange|6 years ago|reply
You can do both.
[+] plange|6 years ago|reply
Worked at a startup that unfortunately went under, trying to reuse heat generated in datacenters. (saves on electricity spend on airco and saves on having to generate heat elsewhere)

Luckily some competitors still exist: https://www.cloudandheat.com/ https://www.qarnot.com/fr/home-fr/

[+] yholio|6 years ago|reply
The temperature differential between what the hottest chips can accept, about 70C, and the environment suggests this is a highly inefficient source of energy, due to Carnot limits.

I wish people would go for the big guns, fully renewable energy, nuclear, electric transport, green concrete and steel - the major issues instead of wasting time and money recovering 10% of what some coal power plant supplied to their data centre.

It's better than nothing but very close to nothing. It's a pervasive way of thinking in green engineering, every bit helps but what we need is BIG help: https://www.withouthotair.com/c19/page_114.shtml

[+] westurner|6 years ago|reply
> I'm a software engineer with a diverse background in backend, frontend development.

> How do I find jobs related to tackling global warming and climate change in Europe for an English speaker?

While not directly answering the question, here are some ideas for purchasing, donating, creating new positions, and hiring people that care:

Write more efficient code. Write more efficient compilers. Optimize interpretation and compilation so that the code written by people with domain knowledge who aren't that great at programming who are trying to solve other important problems is more efficient.

Push for PPAs (Power Purchase Agreements) that offset energy use. Push for directly sourcing clean energy.

Use services that at least have 100% PPAs for the energy they use: services that run on clean energy sources.

Choose green datacenters.

- [ ] Add the capability for cloud resource schedulers like Kubernetes and Terraform to prefer or require clean energy datacenters.

Choose to work with companies that voluntarily choose to do sustainability reporting.

Work to help develop (and popularize) blockchain solutions that are more energy efficient and that have equal or better security assurances as less efficient chains.

Advocate for clean energy. Donate to NGOs working for our environment and for clean energy.

Invest in clean energy. There are a number of clean energy ETFs, for example. Better energy storage is a good investment.

Push for certified green buildings and datacenters.

- [ ] We should create some sort of a badge and structured data (JSONLD, RDFa, Microdata) for site headers and/or footers that lets consumers know that we're working toward '200% green' so that we can vote with our money.

Do not vote for people who are rolling back regulations that protect our environment. Pay an organization that pays lobbyists to work the system: that's the game.

Help explain why it's both environment-rational and cost-rational to align with national and international environmental sustainability and clean energy objectives.

Argue that we should make external costs internal in order that markets will optimize for what we actually want.

[+] aaronbrethorst|6 years ago|reply
Pick the political party in your country most interested in stopping climate change and go work for them. And vote.
[+] gameswithgo|6 years ago|reply
you can help make compilers and hits and languages and their core libraries more efficient. the average program uses around 100x more electricity than it needs to. as a bonus i will be much less annoyed by software even if jevons paradox results in no co2 reduction
[+] jml7c5|6 years ago|reply
In terms of software engineering alone, your best bet may just be to find an organization you support and work hard while under their employ. Even if you're not _directly_ affecting emissions etc., you're supporting those who do. As a bonus, passion for a cause can be very motivational. (Though keep in mind you may be discouraged if the organization feels dysfunctional or ineffective. Be ready to switch jobs if need be.)

As for finding those organizations, that's a different question and may be better asked without reference to software engineering so as to receive the widest spectrum of orgs.

[+] truckerbill|6 years ago|reply
The key phrase to be looking for in terms of employment is 'Environmental NGO'. As well as this, think about incentive engineering: ways you can make it easy for people to change their lifestyle.
[+] matt7aylor|6 years ago|reply
As a founder of a startup in the green tech area it is fantastic to hear more and more people sharing an environmental motivation about the work they want to do. There are a growing number of motivated startups around with a direct environmental purpose, though they can be harder to find and a slightly different beast from the established tech companies. (Not wanting to plug myself too much but we're currently looking for a motivated developer actually https://lightfi.io/jobs )

There are also a number of environment and social impact accelerators that may be useful for finding companies or pursuing one's own ideas, we started though the EU Climate-KIC program, for example. Increasingly as well there are a number of larger corporates engaging with social impact as a driver (sometimes this can appear a little like green-washing but there are some genuine motivations behind it).

At the moment it does seem more of a growing industry, the people and the companies are there if you can keep that determination to find them. And the more developers showing and looking for a clear sense of that environmental motivation will itself push through a wider change as there is plenty of great and fulfilling work that can be done.

[+] avip|6 years ago|reply
There are so many startups in that space. Smart grid management, drones to support wind turbines maintenance, robots that clean solar panels (yes, that is a thing https://www.ecoppia.com/), water leakage alerts using smart valves, all the alternative meat wannabes, vertical farming? (questionable...), the list goes on and on. There are VC funds investing solely in these things. Good luck!
[+] eldodo|6 years ago|reply
Query like this "Ltd. climate change site:co.uk". Ireland, Netherlands or Sweden may also work. Others don't have an English-friendly working environment afaik
[+] corradio|6 years ago|reply
Hello! I asked myself the same question, and ended up founding Tomorrow (https://www.tmrow.com).

I believe understanding the footprint of anything should be a commodity, and easily accessible to anyone. That's why we're currently building an app that automatically computes your carbon footprint, and gives you the means to change for the better. I previously built electricitymap.org, and we're now hiring if you're interested: https://www.tmrow.com/jobs Feel free to reach out directly if you want to chat (or join our Slack at slack.tmrow.com). This is the most pressing issue of our time and we simply don't have enough people working or caring about it.

A bit of reading: - http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ - https://www.tmrow.com/climatechange

Olivier

[+] mrmrcoleman|6 years ago|reply
I keep getting YouTube ads from a company called Ecosia[1] who describe themselves as a search engine that plants trees.

I don’t know anything else about them other than I think they are based in Europe. Might be worth a look.

[1] https://www.ecosia.org/

[+] kamyarg|6 years ago|reply
They are based in Berlin to be precise
[+] Pxtl|6 years ago|reply
All politics is local. Imho the most promising stuff from tech startups is the e-scooter rental stuff. City councils are naturally conservative about big transit-oriented projects, but e-scooter rentals and public transit could work together to be a great system for making dents in climate change.
[+] TeMPOraL|6 years ago|reply
If only the e-scooter companies weren't working off Uber's Handbook of Success Through Antisocial Behaviour... Maybe not all of them do, just the ones I know of.
[+] mhkool|6 years ago|reply
The easiest way to reduce CO2 is to plant a forest, so look for companies that do this.
[+] sjclemmy|6 years ago|reply
I was thinking about this yesterday and came up with this question: How many trees would I have to plant, and how long would they have to live to offset my (average Western European) lifetime CO2 contribution?
[+] abathur|6 years ago|reply
I don't recall where, but I recently saw something about the net effect on long-run global temperature being muddled if the tree's dark foliage absorbs more heat than baseline for the environment.

I'm not sure if that's just an asterisk indicating that the short-run effect may be a wash, or if it's clear enough to rule out some environments/tree species in favor of other choices.