Ask HN: How can I contribute to decarbonization professionally?

I'm what many people call a 'creative coder' - I run a small company[1] that builds digital artworks, installations, and experiences. Most of my work revolves around interaction design, experience design, and systems design in LED, sensing, projection, etc. The work I do lives in hospitality, offices, and event contexts for the most part.

I have had for years a nagging feeling that I should be doing more to pitch in in the fight against climate change, beyond my thoroughgoing and continuous efforts to reduce my own carbon footprint and advocate that others do the same.

I'm looking for ways, up to and including a change of career, that I can contribute to decarbonization professionally. I've considered just taking on a job that pays as much as possible so I can contribute to- and invest in- green-economy projects, but ideally I'd love to contribute the working hours of my day and my efforts as well.

Many of the ideas I come up with require experience in finance, policy, and/or marketing, none of which I bring to the table. I'm not in a financial position to take a plunge and go the route of independent journalism or advocacy full-time.

I'm totally fine with the idea of starting my own thing (I've been self-employed my whole life), so many of my least-bad ideas center around ideas like assisting homeowners to make green choices or building private EV charging infrastructure with some kind of hospitality or entertainment dimension attached.

I'd really love to be attached to something significant, though, like utility-scale solar or pumped hydro energy storage - I just don't know what I'd bring to the table on an operation like that.

If you're working in these fields and you lack these skills as well, what are you doing?

[1] https://hardwork.party

  • I wish you a great luck because I also want to help in reducing use of fossil fuel via startup or something similar but I have totally zero ideas. Seems like the problem will not be solved until fossil fuel prices will grow to the moon with all kinds of taxes for individuals. Everybody should live a hard life except of childfrees with no car and no travels eating no meat and living in tiny house with all possible energy-efficient technologies. Maybe kind of activism against low prices for fossil fuel will help us to get this times sooner.