this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025
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Asklemmy

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[–] olafurp@lemmy.world 4 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Depends on where you live and your situation. You either limit your personal CO2 or the society's CO2 or even both. Most of my suggestions will make or save you money over time.

For personal you could do these, most of these will pay themselves back within 10 years in savings.

  • Swap gas stove for induction stove
  • Swap a gas boiler to heat pump + electric boiler
  • Buy solar panels for the roof and/or battery
  • Heat pump for domestic heating for colder regions.
  • Home insulation such as triple glass windows
  • For hot regions getting an awning for the windows facing the sun goes a long way.
  • Selling car to buy EV (CO2 neutral at 1 year, less CO2 after that)
  • Buying an E-bike if you have short trips and would like to bike more (CO2 negative almost instantly if you prevent car trips)

Otherwise if you don't feel like any of those investing in solar companies or battery production companies will make it easier for them to finance expansions to their operations and maybe even make you some money along the way.

If you live in the UK or applicable countries getting in on Octopus energy co-op energy production is a good way to invest the money and reduce CO2 at the same time.

Don't forget that an easy way to limit your carbon footprint is free. Notably plastics, aluminum, steel, other metals, concrete and beef.

To limit society's footprint you can show up to city Council meetings and advocate for bike paths and public transport which really goes a long way. Showing up with a couple of buddies, making them talk and buying beer for them after in one of the most cost effective ways to stop climate change. Often city council members just need some people to back them up when proposing the CO2 negative urban planning improvements.

Stopping climate change is all about taking small steps towards the solution, asking this question on lemmy is a great start.

[–] a9249@lemmy.ca 2 points 21 hours ago

Climate change is tied to capitalism. Use it to run for office.

[–] KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Pay to have someone shoot EM.

I doubt that kill is that cheap...

[–] DragonsInARoom@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

Use it to free your own time to plant trees or contribute in another way. Spending 10k isn't gonna reduce climate change, but being able to work on the problem yourself will.

[–] Canonical_Warlock@lemmy.dbzer0.com 44 points 1 day ago (4 children)
[–] someacnt@sh.itjust.works 2 points 18 hours ago

Why is this so low in the comment section

If you had a genie, you could just stop the global warming

~via~ ~nuclear~ ~winter~

Delay, deny, defend.

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[–] x00z@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Considering we live in a conflicted world where capitalism has ruined everything, I'd say donate a few thousand of it around, but also save it and just make the right choices on what you buy:

  • buy zero waste, local and bio
  • buy fair and repairable phones
  • buy fair and ecological clothing
  • etc..

So many people don't realize that every time they buy something in a store, they are casting a little capitalistic vote. We have to speak the language of what these evil sons of bitches speak, money. So I think for individuals, it mostly starts with us.

[–] a9249@lemmy.ca 2 points 21 hours ago

Look at the bright side, with rampant inflation and wage stagnation; soon no one will be able to buy anything anymore!

[–] tomi000@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago

As I havent seen a single actually effective answer:

Donate it to organisations fighting climate change. For example FCA (researching climate friendly ways of producing cement, steel, fuels), gfi (researching food alternatives), CATF (tries to influence political changes)

[–] Olhonestjim@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Buy the cheapest viable land you can and build an Earthship home out of tires, cans, bottles, and compressed Earth. Take yourself off the grid as much as possible.

I'd also suggest a career in or adjacent to alternative energy.

[–] BorgDrone@lemmy.one 5 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So buy land, dump trash on it. Got it.

*Repurpose trash...

[–] Olhonestjim@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

No. Build an Earthship home by recycling and reusing inexpensive, rejected materials that don't break down easily and would otherwise become trash to affordably construct an off-grid structure that will gather and generate electricity, water, warmth, and food for potentially centuries.

https://youtu.be/wgUkjbMhF18

Also Earthship.com

[–] rando895@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 1 day ago

How long would it take for the environmental cost (including CO2 emissions, and the inefficient use of resources associated with trying to live away from others) of the new building to be overcome by the savings in energy (and thus CO2 and associated environmental degradation involved in gathering those resources) when compared to just living in an already built house?

I'd wager that just maintaining an old house is better. Of course if you ignore everything else other than energy use and diverting something from a landfill, earth ships are very cool. Maybe not $10,000 either.

Its unclear whether one person building an earth ship instead of buying and maintaining an older house would make any positive environmental change.

Instead, if you took your $10,000 and partnered with others who have similar investments, you could build a small mixed use building which includes a couple shops on the ground floor, and dwellings on the next few floors (likely you would have enough combined to get a mortgage/loan to build). Why? Living in an apartment style building is going to be more efficient than any kind of single person dwelling (and you could use some of the earth ship ideas as well), having shops near homes would also help eliminate occasional car trips by having amenities right where you live. As a bonus, if this building was built for the investors to live in, you all now have equity and relatively low cost housing that is much easier to sell than an Earth ship in the middle of nowhere, should you ever need to move.

[–] ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml 79 points 2 days ago (8 children)

The only ways you can fight climate change in any meaningful way with 10k also involve going to prison

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)

More likely dead (shot to death by cops)

I think that depends on your skill, i.e. good planning, and obviously execution. If you're really good, you don't even get caught, although that might help politically as we currently see with Mangione

[–] rekabis@programming.dev 7 points 1 day ago

10k is cutting it thin… the Accuracy International ACSR is just a hair under $10k USD… and that is before taxes. Then you need the 1,000-10,000 rounds of ammo for training before you become good enough to start taking out card-carrying members of the Parasite Class from a kilometre-plus distance.

Now granted, you can go a lot cheaper than that, but accuracy and range will suffer. Remember, you want to be far enough away that you can reliably pack up and sanitize the scene before you leave.

Alternatively, swarming AI drones in the hundreds, with on-board explosive packages, would allow you to deploy from abandonable emplacements that can loiter for many hours to even days. No-one is going to question a cube van that sits in a paid spot for a week, at least until it’s roof opens up and a thousand tiny drones with facial recognition take off and take out a few oligarchs.

But honestly, you’re likely talking a few tens of thousands for that scenario, at minimum. I would likely bank at it being in the low hundreds of thousands for a truly effective and difficult-to-counter deployment.

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[–] Kyle_The_G@lemmy.world 94 points 2 days ago (2 children)

solar panels or something? No one is stopping climate change with $10K, I don't even think $10B would make a substantial dent.

[–] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 day ago

I think they're just asking, from a categorical imperative perspective, what is the most effective way for all individuals with a bit of savings to help the climate situation.

And tbh, at this point OP is probably better off spending that $10k on preparing for:

  • inclimate weather (HVAC, water proofing, warm clothing)
  • inconsistent power (battery backups, a generator)
  • food/clean water shortages (home gardening skills, rain catching/water purification).

At this point, there's virtually nothing that can be done to stop the impact of climate change, there is only adapting to survive it. The best we can do is vote and/or hope for our global political situation to finally reach its inevitable crisis point. But I don't expect that to be a pleasant experience.

[–] IIII@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (3 children)

10B could make a couple underground metro lines in an otherwise extremely car dependent city with no public transport

More effective would probably to buy yourself (or a person that has political potential/influence with the right intentions) into politics like president muskrat, and do well placed populistic propaganda against the actually evil fossil industry. You don't even have to lie, just do some good rethoric speech, ads etc.. We need policies on a larger level, and I think 10B$ should be enough to gain significant political influence for something that the major mass of people is already behind of, just needs a good spark. I think Thunberg has shown that. Not that we shouldn't of course improve public transport in cities. Additionally do (employ) investigative journalism probably in the same process to give all of this a good foundation..

[–] ggtdbz@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 19 hours ago

10K is a home solar investment. Where I live, people tend to live in multi-family buildings about 3-6 floors high, often split between siblings and their families. Depending on how many are in the country year-round, that might even be enough for the whole building with careful management. Obviously wouldn’t be the same if the neighbors are strangers. (I appreciate that the familial emphasis might seem a bit random in your culture). Ideally 10K might just be enough for one or two households.

The much more interesting prompt is 10B, imo.

10B? Oh man. I’m in Lebanon. We’ve effortlessly squandered more generous fortunes than a measly 10B grant, but here’s how I’d do it:

1B: buses, trams and parking garages to decongest some of the nicer (and underperforming, touristy) old town areas. Should give them a sorely needed boost 3B: modern seaside train running from north to south, with a small number of branches into the interior. Mostly freight. 3B: start phase of a Beirut metro. It’s not enough for a full metro system especially with our geological conditions, but the core city isn’t too big and one line should be feasible? 2B: functional army so we still have civilian infrastructure next time our noisy neighbor gets a hissy fit (infrastructure is worthless if it’s destroyed) 1B: modern fossil fuel power plant. Yeah it’s not green, but we generate a fraction of our needed power, meaning most people have to pay off a local generator mob for electricity. They use diesel and relatively inefficient smaller generators. Our existing ancient power plants use dogshit-tier diesel. I insist that some kind of LNG plant maybe would actually make the situation more green. As it stands the convenience of combustible fuel is more pertinent than the environmental cost

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[–] PieMePlenty@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago

10k will not do much good on the grand scale of things. Once you start involving other people directly, the costs start skyrocketing. Be it if you want to bribe politicians, fund a revolution, invest into sustainable tech or just creating a bottle cap recycling programme, 10k just isnt gonna get you far enough. So focus on your own climate impact. I think the absolute best you could do for the most positive net good is to take inventory of your own carbon emissions and replace or upgrade whatever you need to lower them. Lower your heating usage by getting a heat pump instead of burning coal for example. This will depend on how low your carbon output currently is though.

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Fund journalism and media against fossil fuel

[–] TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

You’re not funding anything important for 10k

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[–] BrotherL0v3@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)
[–] Taalnazi@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Comrade! I like the way you think.

[–] xmunk@sh.itjust.works 63 points 2 days ago (2 children)

You're not personally responsible or able to prevent climate change. This is a societal issue that requires societal changes. Don't feel obligated to put yourself in financial trouble since the impact to your life is potentially devastating and your impact to solving climate change would be negligible. It fucking sucks but we live in a brutal capitalist system and you need to make sure you can care for yourself.

I might suggest seeing if there are local advocacy groups where you can contribute your time and, if you truly have excess wealth, help with direct financial support as needed, small contributions to things like mailing campaigns or buying a booth at a faire will help much more than blanket contributions - but, IMO, the bigger need is in effort and time.

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[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Enjoy the money and tell yourself its not your fault.

Or alternatively, become an eco-terrorist.

Think of:

  • Pipelines - buy explosives

  • Certain individuals pertaining to the oil industry - buy a firearms

  • Certain politicians - buy firearms

I am not a lawyer, this comment is for entertainment pur-

Hmm, why is there loud knocking on my door?

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[–] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You cannot have any significant impact with 10,000$ use it to enjoy your life. We are all doomed anyway.

[–] tomi000@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

This is bs, please dont spread misinformation like this. With your logic, we should all stop voting because a single vote doesnt have impact.

Every person is responsible for their own decisions and 10k from a single person have a huge relative impact. If every person with 10k available would use those for fighting climate change, we would have overcome it already.

[–] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

OK I agree that everyone needs to do their part to help environment, but let's say if OP has extra 10k to throw around then it means one of two things they are already rich and climate conscious so they would already have solar panels and what not.

Or they got those 10k from lottery/inheritance or something in which case he can switch to more energy efficient appliances and stuff but still most of the appliances brought in this century are already somewhat environment friendly like yes there are CFCs in some refrigerators but it is just few grams and it is enclosed it will only damage environment when disposed improperly. There is a cool statistic I read a while back, if a single human being becomes completely carbon neutral since birth in 70years of his life span however much CO2 he stopped from entering environment is equivalent to CO2 emitted by energy industry in 1second so yes, unless OP is a CEO of Exxon or BP or some other evil corp they can't have any significant impact.

I saw that few ppl suggested to donate that money towards organizations pushing for climate reforms and I'll be honest I didn't think about that, but then again, We already broke 1.5°C record last year and we briefly touched 1.9°C so yes we are all doomed and OP will be better off enjoying those 10k by doing what they like.

And what you ars saying like

Every person is responsible for their own decisions and 10k from a single person have a huge relative impact

You need to understand that their are a lot many people for whom 10k USD could be a life changing amount of money, and the only thing they can do is feel bad that they can't do their part. My own salary is barely above 10k USD and many of my peers are making less than half of that.

[–] tomi000@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Those are all valid points but I dont think thats what OPs question was about. They asked about effective ways to fight climate change. Not doing anything can never be an answer to that. Whether or not it makes sense to spend your hard earned money on other peoples behalf is a different question.

Also, no we are not doomed. Yes, climate change will have a huge impact on humankind, but earth wont randomly explode or something. Humankind will adjust to higher temperatures and more frequent natural disasters, but the extent to which this will affect everyone can still be minimized. The poor will be fucked the hardest, 'accepting our fate' and not doing anything will cost millions more lives than it could.

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[–] protist@mander.xyz 24 points 2 days ago (9 children)

If you have any natural gas appliances in your home (like water heater, dryer, stove, oven, HVAC), transition to an electric version. Cancel your gas service.

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[–] culpritus@hexbear.net 27 points 2 days ago (1 children)
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