Collective:
-Regulate Polluting Industries
-Improve insulation in older buildings
-Build more apartments
-Put carbon labels on products
-Mandate higher build quality of manufactured goods
-Require that water pipes have pressure management and active leak detection
-Prioritize public transit over electric cars
-Halt all new road developments and just maintain them until public transit is good enough
-Subsidize Electric cars (second to public transit in funding)
-Establish support networks for people who are using older gadgets/cars/clothing to encourage solutions to make goods last longer
-Build more green spaces
-Create a program to recycle old clothing
-More widespread use of contactless payments
-Ban all fossil fuel ads
-Ban oversized vehicles
-Encourage the use of hatchbacks and sedans
-Towns sign plant based treaty
-Convert animal agriculture land to wild lands
-Ban private jets/yachts
-Design cities as more walkable
-Switch to renewable and nuclear technologies
-Support repairability
-Shut down all oil operations
-Mandate microfibre filters for washing machines
-Force companies to mine minerals from e-waste instead
-Give up half of the planet to nature
-Do everything to prevent and end wars
-Tax the rich and use the money for climate initiatives
-Switch to bidets to save trees
-Switch to super slippery toilets to save water
-Mandate all stoves to be electric
-Reduce concrete in constructions projects and opt for bamboo/wood construction
-Require all office work to be done from home for as much as possible
-Ban discrimination and promote affirmative action so that there isn’t lost potential or innovation from disadvantaged groups
-Increase grid interconnections
-Implement waste-to-energy conversions for waste management systems (stopgap solution)
-Build robust high sped rail network and ban flights under 4 hours.
-Require much longer warranties on consumer goods
-Require all software to become open source after the company stops developing the code
-Patents expire after 4 years
-Ban cryptominning
-Increase energy efficient standards with new houses with solar panels mandatory
-Support political parties with green policies
-Boycott fossil fuel banks and switch to green credit unions
Individual:
-Switch to E-sim
-Switch to green burials
-Buy used
-Install geothermal heat pump systems
-Install smart thermostats
-Use shampoo/conditioner bars
-Shop at refillable container stores
-Buy stuff at the local store
-Eat plant based
-Switch to Ecosia
-Recycle
-Give homemade gifts
-Compost
-Be organized
-Avoid synthetic cloths
-Buy reputable carbon credits
-Install Linux on new/old computers
-Pickup litter
-Ride your bicycle instead of the car
-Adopt kids and companions instead
-Start your own garden
-Use older cars for more than 12 years
-Keep phone for longer than 5.5 years (easy to do with fairphone,iphone, pixel, samsung or android phone with unlockable bootloader)
-Buy Fairphones as they’re the most repairable and have to 8-10 years of software support
-Buy Framework laptops as they’re user repairable upgrade-able
-Use reusable diapers for your infant/toddler
-Buy goods within your continent to avoid cargo ship bunker fuel
-Use refillable water bottles for everywhere you go
-Demand that your investment/retirement program switches to green projects
-Switch to e-documents
-Track your government’s climate policy by visiting https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/
I will add more to list as more ideas are thought of.
In this entire discussion PUBLIC TRANSPORT has to be the number one measure. It has to be the first thing you see on your home page. Abolish cars, inside cities at least
We have a community for this topic over at [email protected]
I’m sure they would love this if you cross posted ^^
I have done that! I would love more ideas to be put forward!
Improve the insulation in your home (loft, cavity wall etc etc)
Require new homes to be built with higher standards of insulation and heat pumps for heating.
Require new homes to be built with solar panels.
Divest any investments (pensions, savings etc) away from funds that contain oil and other polluting companies.
-These 4 are basicly Greenwashing:
- -Switch to Esim
- -Put carbon labels on products
- -Switch to Ecosia
- -Buy reputable carbon credits
-Recycle
- -It’s not “Recycle”, it’s “Reduce Reuse Recycle” in order of importance, also anything other then metal recycling is effectively useless.
-Buy stuff at the local store
- -this only helps if the local store is also buying locally.
-Start your own garden
- -Start your own sustainable garden,
-
- -is forward-thinking
-
- -values ecosystem support
-
- -makes as little negative impact on the earth as possible
-
- -works with nature instead of against it
How couls any of those be labeled greenwashing if the goal is a complete list of possible actions?
Yeah some dont have a huge impact like esim and ecosia, but theyre the better alternatives to things we use anyway.
Carbon labels would make a huge difference, I dont know what you mean there.
Carbon credits are used for greenwashing, because most are not regulated and monitored strictly enough. That doesnt mean carbon credits in general are greenwashing. Buying reputable ones with actual impact definitely helps.
Its sad that many people are kept from donating by the myth that ‘it doesnt help anyway’ or ‘theyre just gonna keep my money’. Sure if you just donate wherever, chances are your money is not used efficiently, but there are a lot of organizations that are reputable and efficient, you just need to do a little research
Its important not to give things with low impact the same weight as actions that have a big impact. easy low impact fixes give the appearance of helping but only serve to distract form harder actions that need to be taken.
There is no such thing as a reputable carbon credit, for every ton of CO2 you produce you can pay me to Unburn a ton of CO2. It doesn’t do anything to reduce the amount of CO2 produced it just makes it harder to audit the CO2 production and helps to hide the extent of the problem.
What you are talking about is the way companies act using carbon credit to prevent actually taking measures against climate change. It has nothing to do with carbon credits themselves Thats like saying water is bad because someone somewhere posioned a river.
There are a lot of reputable climate programs that actually provably reduce co2 emissions by the claimed amounts, and Im not talking about ‘Ill give you 100$ to not burn 1t of co2 so you burn it tomorrow’ projects. If I as a private person buy 10t of carbon credit, that doesnt mean I have to burn 10t of CO2 before.
Carbon credits is a way to treat companies with kid gloves and ask them nicely not to destroy the planet. Instead we should just have hard well enforced regulations and emissions caps. not “Cap and Trade”, “Cap or Else”, If a company consistently can’t meet emissions targets Nationalize it pierce the cooperate veil and prosecute its management.
You didnt even read my comment, did you? Also, you should do some research about carbon credits if youre gonna start a discussion about them because it seems you dont really know what those are
Anything that a carbon credit program reduces could be done without the carbon credit, but there are many carbon credit programs that accomplish nothing except acting as a smokescreen.
Carbon credits are bullshit. Like, what are you actually paying for? No one is taking the carbon in the atmosphere and stuffing it into little jars.
If it’s a tree planting initiative, that’s a great idea, but a lengthy process, and the moment that tree gets cut down to make room for something else, or if there’s a forest fire, the effort is undone.
Honestly, carbon credits are mostly a feel-good measure to make people feel better about consumption from a particular source. It’s a fantastic way for a company to market themselves as caring for the environment while simultaneously destroying it - companies only care about profit, and will happily burn the planet if it makes them money.
If you truly want to make a difference, consume as little as you can get away with.
I did some research into the matter a few months back. Before, I held the same prejudices and have only heard carbon credits were a way for companies to keep polluting without consequences. While it is true that carbon credits get misused for that, doesnt mean all carbon credits are like that.
There are a lot of projects that get monitored appropriately and prove their actual impact. There are principles like additionality, permanence, singularity by which you can judge if a given project is actually beneficial.
Tree planting initiatives for example dont satisfy the permanence principle and are therefore not considered effective for carbon compensation.
Your last sentence definitely holds true, but not all emissions are evitable, like I need to live in a home with heating, some people need to drive to work. People in developing countries cant even afford to think about reducing their emissions. Additional measures for reducing emissions are definitely necessary. Unfortunately the current regulations for those are too vulnerable to exploitation.
I can definitely believe that there are carbon credit projects that are beneficial in the long-term, hell I don’t even write off reforestation completely (although I know that it’s a lot more complicated than chucking some saplings in the ground and calling it a day), but the question is how much of the carbon credit programmes are actually beneficial? This article by The Guardian suggests that the majority of the top 50 programmes aren’t.
some people need to drive to work
A bit off topic, but this one kind of strikes a note on a npersonal level with me. I personally think we should punish companies that don’t offer WFH where it makes sense.
My roomie for example is a truck driver. It would be impossible for him to work from home. I’m a software developer, and I do work from home, but a lot of companies in my industry are pushing for a return to office, and even removing the option to work from home altogether. We all saw the immediate effects the covid restrictions had on the environment. I know it’s not feasible for everyone to work from home, but not letting people work from home, when their job could be done remotely, ought be a finable offense.
The thing is, there is no accountability for corporations. They are free to do more or less as they please, and when they do get caught with egg on their face, the fines are usually just a light slap on the wrist. Conversely, if a private individual attempted the same things, they’d get hit with legal fees and fines that’d take them into bankruptcy.
We’ll never see a change until there’s some sort of equality between the two.
Yeah definitely, but the number of people working from home rose immensely thanks to covid, before it was more or less unthinkable. I think in the next few years there will be some major changes regarding work conditions, lets hope for the best.
Anyway, final thought on carbon credits: I didnt mean to imply that the majority or even the average program behind carbon credits is beneficial, and I dont think it is relevant for the point from my first comment. OPs suggestion was buying carbon credits for additional impact, and as long as you do that correctly (i.e. buying those that are beneficial) it helps and is not greenwashing.
there is no accountability for corporations.
If we start replacing fines with Capital punishment for the C-Suite and board of directors, we would get more progress. White color crimes affect more victims, and they have more robust evidence then most murders so wrongful convictions will be lower also.
Making public transit accessible, reliable, fast, clean, and completely free will encourage people to ditch their cars. I’d like to see privately owned cars completely banned in cities and towns with a population of >1000 people, but that’s a step for after setting up public transit services to handle the load.
Build a robust high speed rail network and ban short flights of <4 hours.
Requiring much longer warranties on consumer goods in general, paired with strong right to repair bills.
Requiring all software source code to be released to the public after the company stops maintaining the product will keep an enormous number of devices useful for longer too, and will improve efficiency.
Patents expire after 4 years; if a company came up with a patent that improves efficiency of something, keeping it behind massive fees will limit the adoption and advancement of that technology.
Banning crypto mining.
Reducing concrete in construction projects in favour of mass timber from sustainably sourced forests (the wood building materials are a form of carbon storage), and bamboo construction (even more sustainable than wood, though more difficult to work with?)
Requiring all office work to allow working from home most of the time.
Patents expire after 4 years; if a company came up with a patent that improves efficiency of something, keeping it behind massive fees will limit the adoption and advancement of that technology.
Wow I just ranted about this yesterday! I really hope this idea catches on. We really need to accelerate adoption of improvements.
Patents are a double-edged sword, the initial goal is to encourage R&D investment, but in practice patents are made to create exclusive control over who can use that technology. I think it’s okay for patents to exist, but they should expire fast rather than letting the company who owns the patent to rest on their laurels with their monopoly over their invention, this way we can iterate and improve upon it.
Patents taking very long to expire may have made sense back in the day when technology adoption was slower (although I think they were too long for even back then). In the modern era, our tools allows for a much faster time-to-market, so keeping the duration of the parents is even more harmful.
We can see it all the time, and a fun example of it would be Cherry switches; they invented the MX style switch and have done minimal improvements for a long time, and once the patent expired, competitors started selling MX clones (clones were available in china before the patent expired, but there weren’t as many as there are now), this meant that Cherry switches were now the inferior in quality to the clones, which is better for the consumer; had the patent expired sooner, both Cherry and competitors would have started the iterative race much earlier.
Another example is the pacojet; a commercial instant ice cream maker which costs $6000 and had no competition, so no reason for the company to improve it. After the patent expire Ninja made a $300 home version of this which is in some aspects superior to the original.
This is why I proposed, instead of completely abolishing all patents, to shorten the lifespan of the patent. Some inventions shouldn’t be patentable, like pharmaceuticals; because even for a short time, gatekeeping a lifesaving product behind a massive paywall is insane.
I think there should be some kind of legal/constitutional mechanism that gives the state power to declare a certain invention as “significant for the public’s well being” and expunge the patent, paying a reasonable compensation fee to the patent holder.
Yes exactly! It’s still very rare to see these arguments. I think 3D printers and things like patent trolls and video codec / av1 have made people realize the problems patents cause.
Maybe another way would be for the UN to push for legislation for some kind of “moratorium” on any patents relevant to climate change. So that the corporation people don’t loose their shit.
And maybe a court system with a reimbursement scheme that is funded by many countries to reward R&D but only as something like 400% or even 1000% of investment costs - but not based on some hypothetical future loss of fantastical profits.
There is also the idea of a patentleft licenses but I don’t think they would have significant impact, since not producing anything still allows you to sue and block progress.
reward R&D but only as something like 400% or even 1000% of investment costs - but not based on some hypothetical future loss of fantastical profits.
Exactly, otherwise companies would rob the state out of too much money, making this system useless.
And I like the patentleft system, which is similar to copyleft. I don’t know what the ideal patent reform would look like, but it has to change because the current system is terrible for innovation.
Great idea, jotted down a list of things I’ve found to be impactful over the past year, some of them overlap with what’s already been posted.
-
Installed solar panels (according to my app, last year they produced enough MWh to equal 8.5 tons of CO2)
-
Trade in our ICE car for an EV (in a year has avoided 5.5 tons of CO2)
-
Insulated our house (attic and walls) coupled with double-pane windows. Cuts down on AC and furnace usage immensely and makes the house much more pleasant overall
-
Prefer 100% cotton clothing/avoid synthetic materials
-
Installed a Lint-Luv-R microplastic filter on our washing machine
-
Shop at refillable container store and avoid single-use plastic where possible
-
Eat more plant-based food, e.g. oat milk, rice, tofu, beans, noodles, etc.
-
Install a rain diverter in our downspouts to collect rain water
-
Reusable diapers if you have an infant/toddler. Diaper waste piles up fast
-
Run/walk to the gym and grocery store
-
Prefer items made in North America versus overseas (cargo ships burn bunker fuel )
-
For coffee, I bring a travel cup and ask if they can fill that instead of a plastic cup (iced) or cup with a plastic lid (hot)
-
Donate to reputable environmental organizations
-
Replace landscaping with native plants, allow pollinators to do their thing
-
Vote for the world you want to live in and pass on: with your time, dollar, and ballot
Trading your ICE car for an EV? So somebody else now drives your old car? Doesn’t save any CO2.
Not sure what you are suggesting the better alternative would be? Scrap it? Whoever purchased the used vehicle could have bought a new car instead (which would have required more raw materials for processing).
One common issue I noticed among environmentalists is they argue with each other about what the perfect solution should be instead of just starting somewhere. Any progress is better than nothing at the rate the climate is changing and such progress tends to compound over time.
Not sure what you are suggesting the better alternative would be?
The same as with any gadget: use it until it’s broken beyond repair.
That’s why I like subbing to old phone communities as everyone gives each-other support in breathing in new life to their old gadgets.
-
Has someone listed EAT THE RICH, I think it is the most enviromentaly concious thing we can do
Second is Communism
3rd … Make sure that you compost the rich that you could not eat
Require every company submit a yearly energy reduction plan. Not only is it good for the environment, it’s good for the bottom line on day one and allows for additional site expansion by increasing the currently available energy budget without having to upgrade infrastructure.
Formatting is broken.
How is eSIM green?
Using old computers can be a pro or a con, depending on its efficiency and your electricity source.
Avoid synthetic cloths and microfibre filters seems at odds.
It looked different from the formatting I did on my notes.
eSIM reduces plastic and shipping use.
Using older computers has to be weighed against the newly developed efficiencies in the latest cpus/gpus. Windows 11 is dropping computers that are like 4 years old. That is way too soon for perfectly good computers.
Synthetic cloths are used a lot currently so using microfibre filters is a stop gap measure until we have biodegradable cloths.
Any stats on the eSIM? Seems pretty irrelevant in the scheme of things, feels kinda close to greenwashing.
Here’s a source that provides numbers on that:
Since the commercial launch of SIM cards three decades ago, approximately 4.5 billion SIM cards are sold and shipped each year industry-wide, accounting for more than 560,000 tons of carbon dioxide and 18,000+ tons of plastic waste annually.
That’s a pretty stunning figure. Wonder how large a portion of that is private individuals vs. companies.
I changed my SIM for the first time in a decade earlier this year. Do people change SIMs more frequently than that?
18,000,000 kg / 7,000,000,000 = 0.0025 kg per person on earth. 2.5g per person. Its not a big number at all.
Granted, not everyone has a phone or sim, so the number may be 2-4x higher, but we are talking about such a tiny amount of waste that its a rounding error in the scheme of things.
See, to me, those numbers just dont seem that bad in the scheme of things, annual medical waste in Victoria, Australia, is 3x that (Vic is a state of 7-8M people, we are pretty small). I bet the single use plastic shopping bags tossed annually dwarfs this by many orders of magnitude.
https://www.health.vic.gov.au/planning-infrastructure/waste
Many phones dont support eSIM yet, so an individual switching means throwing away an otherwise fine phone, and that doesnt seem worth it to save on 1 credit card sized peice of plastic.
Using windows is also massively wasteful, it spends probably more than half of the processor usage on analytics and tracking stuff. Linux or other free kernels are much better in terms of power usage, on old and new hardware
I notice my resource usage dropped to half after switching.
The Linux kernel was supporting hardware that was 30 years old.
Individual Action on climate change is more or less useless, we should look at systemic issues and fixes
A very limited list of countries in the world have good enough infra for electric cars. The same about plant based: in developing countries finding a good plant based food, like meat replacement or vegan milk, is a challenge.
Greater investor into electric car infrastructure should come second to public transit.
Plant based doesnt need to be mock meats. People can have lentils or beans for their protein substitute.
Plant based milk would thrive on the global market as most people are actually lactose intolerant.
I just got a 11 year old thinkpad and installed linux mint on there. Now I can use linux anytime I want :)
