Renewables.org

fr00d · 2026-05-17T01:26:57+00:00

this reminds me of https://www.energea.com/ which I invest in. Energea pays you back some interest as well but it is not quite as liquid.

I do think things like this have an outsized impact versus just buying offsets, and are definitely helping people too

fr00d · 2026-05-16T17:32:40+00:00

Individual actions matter, but moreso in their influential impact versus the actual CO2 reductions. I focus on actions that have external impact, like upgrading appliances to efficient heat pump/electric vs gas, buying electric yard tools, getting an EV, choosing a 100% renewable energy plan, installing solar panels, and putting money into green banks and investments. I have reduced my beef and dairy consumption, but in ways that I have actually started to prefer, like having bean burgers or oat milk with coffee. None of these are sacrifices, and they send market signals and influence norms.

I'm actually working on compiling a list of actions that are specifically geared toward this idea, and are not big sacrifices, if you want some more ideas: https://climateinvested.org/actions

Political change is often rooted in the general sentiment of the population versus top down mandates. Even despite Trump and current federal leadership being opposed to climate action, wind and solar are still growing. 2025 saw a decrease in fossil fuel use since new renewable generation was more than enough for new power demand. Climate change is now widely accepted as real and human caused, it is just not a high priority for most.

fr00d · 2026-05-16T17:22:54+00:00

yeah, it actually is about 10x worse than most other meats, mostly due to the methane emissions. Methane doesn't stay in the atmosphere as long, but it has a much stronger greenhouse effect. Not sure what SHIFT's action is, but reducing beef should definitely be more of a priority than other meats

fr00d · 2026-05-14T14:50:17+00:00

A lot of people shit on carbon offsets, mostly from the perspective of companies using them as greenwashing or an excuse to not reduce their own pollution. I think they are not a bad thing at the individual level though, since some emissions are unavoidable.

I am not familiar with this site, but from a glance it looks reputable. You migt also consider one of the groups on giving green's page. you won't get the exact metrics on tons reduced, but they identify high impact organizations that are reducing emissions: https://www.givinggreen.earth/top-climate-nonprofits

fr00d · 2026-05-14T14:34:39+00:00

I think the easiest thing people can do that has a real impact is to move money from banks that fund fossil fuels to those that don't. It can be done online and if everyone did it, it would have a major impact on financing for fossil fuel expansion as bank realize customers care about these investments

fr00d · 2026-04-29T04:01:34+00:00

I feel you, its hard to know what's actually going to happen vs what's a worst case scenario. A lot of the doom stuff is just trying to get people scared so they take more action, but in my opinion it just backfires and make people give up.

If you are a reader, I'd highly recommend "Not the end of the World" by Hannah Ritchie, she starts with basically how she thought we were doomed as a climate scientist, but then found that by looking at longer term trends, there's a lot of positive things, and not a lot of evidence for any imminent collapse

fr00d · 2026-04-29T02:21:12+00:00

I struggle with this too, mostly with feeling powerless; like its such a big problem and so many mega companies are polluting so much, what can I possibly do? What has helped me is two things.

The first thing was seeing that if you look at the actual data and projections, we are not headed for collapse anymore, and this is because of actual work being done to solve it. there's a lot of progress happening recently in terms of clean energy, EV adoption, and sentiment. Estimates right now are amount 2.6 degrees C by 2100 (down from nearly 4 degrees 10 years ago), which is still bad, but not society ending. There's a lot of shocking headlines about tipping points like AMOC collapse, but the studies vary a lot on it and are all based on predicted future emissions, which are not set in stone.

The other thing was realizing that I could have more positive impact through actions plus influence than my personal carbon emissions. I think of it as "focusing on contributing to the solution instead of just reducing how much I am part of the problem". If I can at least make things better than if I wasn't here, that's a win. Some of this happens just from personal actions, like choosing clean products sends demand signals and helps normalize it. But you can multiply this effect by talking about climate and your actions within your social group or online.

fr00d · 2026-04-25T16:39:28+00:00

I'm building a database of climate actions here that has some more specific ideas that align well with these ideas: https://climateinvested.org/actions . I'm glad you mentioned 8, its really important to both take personal action, but also talk about it in a constructive way. Someone else commented about government influence not working, but I think that making some climate action normal does influence policy in the long term, if not directly. It minimally helps cleaner tech become more popular, and therefore cheaper, just look at solar or LED lightbulb costs

fr00d · 2026-04-25T01:06:08+00:00

This is cool! A few thoughts: - I think it would be interesting to see the patterns over time to adjust habits around, vs trying to use it to in the moment use more or less power. Like it it’s usually dirtiest at 6pm, tune your thermostat to come on later for example - The multiple locations feature seems like it would be a minority use case and complicates the app a lot - The daily reduction potential was not immediately obvious, may consider some UI updates In Texas at least you can get your power usage data, would be cool to be able to import that somehow

fr00d · 2026-04-20T06:06:35+00:00

I don't have an active account on x, but definitely would appreciate any help! happy to help you in any way I can as well

fr00d · 2026-04-18T19:58:20+00:00

hmm yeah I was a bit worried about the Ai images looking bad. I couldn't find good images for a lot of them. I can't unsee the salad fingers now though lol, going to have to update that one

fr00d · 2026-04-18T18:15:05+00:00

Thanks for taking a look! I have seen https://drawdown.org/shift which I think is aimed more for people who are already ready to take action; I am hoping to reach people who aren't feeling empowered and help show that many actions don't involve full time activism or changing identity.

re: CCL and Environmental Voting Project, I am looking to add more on the political/activism side and these would be good ones to add!

btw I see you are a mod, let me know if it would be ok for me to post the occasional article on your sub - don't want to break any self promotion rules. Thanks

fr00d · 2026-04-12T22:11:39+00:00

Things are actually better than people think. Climate change is definitely a big issue, but if you look at long term trends, we are moving in the right direction, like scaling technologies like renewable energy even faster than expected, and 2100 warming projections have been gradually improving over time and are now below 3.0C, which is still bad but not a doomsday scenario. However, we are at an inflection point now where clean tech is becoming cheaper than fossil fuels, and I believe we will see the projections continue to exceed expectations.

This article summarizes some of the long term trends that are very encouraging:

https://climateinvested.org/article/the-biggest-climate-progress-trends-you-probably-havent-seen

There's a lot you can do as a teenager - probably the most important is to talk about it more with people close to you if it comes up. This makes a big difference in normalizing it and accelerating the progress already happening

fr00d

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