Ask HN: Why don't geeks care about climate change?
One of the (many) reasons I went vegan was to cut my impact on the environment. I don&#x27;t own or use cars. Where I can I walk, where I can&#x27;t I take public transit. I&#x27;ve made considerable changes to what and how I buy, to source food with less of a total impact. I&#x27;ve started to look at alternative clothing and technology strategies to reduce my environmental impact there too.<p>I know there are plenty of geeks who have done similar things. The truth is that a new tech or more companies aren&#x27;t going to solve this problem - the problem is we (who live in large economies) now live in a world which is completely separated from the daily realities of where our stuff comes from. We have spent the last 50 years enabling large mono-cultures and promoting specialization - which has done amazing things for food availability - at the expense that now a single plate of food easily contains ingredients from every continent - at a huge environmental impact. Similar trends have happened in manufacturing, textiles and practically every other industry.<p>Trends in tech that might help us:<p>* Hyper-local agriculture<p>* Locally-efficient down-cycling &#x2F; recycling programs - for clothes, tech...pretty much everything.<p>* Teaching people how to buy and cook produce.<p>But the truth is that every individual needs to make a transition in how they live - that means eating less (hopefully no) meat and animal products, repairing instead of buying new, developing ethical supply chains (starting by knowing the supply chain is a good start!)<p>And yes, companies need to change and adapt too...that means more environmental regulation, more incentives to develop and adopt renewable sources of energy - how we structure those is completely beyond my expertise though...and I don&#x27;t have much hope there.