HACKER Q&A
📣 codingclaws

What's your climate change survival strategy?


Are you moving away from the equator? Or to a higher altitude? Maybe closer to water. Are you building a house a certain way, perhaps underground? Moving into a big city? Are you selling property in a certain region?


  👤 PuppyTailWags Accepted Answer ✓
Advocate for mutual aid and political action via calling local representatives. There's nowhere on the planet I can possibly move that won't also need a heavy military (that I will have pay for in order to remain in the good graces of the government running that shitshow) to gun down refugees who are unlucky enough to be poorer, browner, gayer, or otherwise less desirable than me.

Acknowledging this fact has placed a heavy importance on my part to support community projects locally.


👤 russellbeattie
Statistically, I'll only be around for about another 25 years, so things will be just starting to get really bad right around when I'm due to kick the bucket. I recycle, use electric vehicles, vote for liberal tree-huggers and donate money... Sorry it hasn't done much.

Good luck with the post-apocalyptic hellscape. I'm an atheist, so I won't be watching from above or anything. Though we might interact again in a few billion years when the sun consumes the Earth, converts its mass into energy and shoots our constituent particles out into the universe as beams of photons. Maybe we'll all become part of a Boltzmann brain, gain sentience again and hang out.

(Actually, to quote the amazing Douglas Adams, "There is another theory which states that this has already happened.")


👤 themodelplumber
IDK if you'd call it a strategy, but I'm starting to chain some code together so I can apply technical indicators to various climate indices. It's a fun science project if nothing else. But pragmatically speaking it helps me to apply the technical indicators I'm familiar with to the data that's making the news, and form some of my own perceptions of what's going on.

The most extreme direct risks to me from climate affecting weather seem to be related to wildfires, but the local response (fire, police, mental illness-related efforts, various non-profits) has really raised its game after recent fires, and now with PG&E making some changes things don't seem as bad.


👤 the_third_wave
My tongue-in-cheek answer to this question would be 'my genetic heritage' since that has 'survived' - nay, thrived - through far larger threats than that posed by the current iteration of the changing climate. Glaciation, really lethal pandemics, murderous hordes from the east, volcanic winters, you name it - Homo Sapiens came, saw, and conquered. We're a really adaptable species with a knack for solving problems.

A more down-to-earth answer is that I do not need a 'climate change survival strategy' just like I do not need an 'ice age survival strategy' or an 'asteroid strike survival strategy'. Yes, the climate changes just like it always has. It was warmer in the 1930's - the Dust Bowl years - than it is now, it was colder during the little ice age, it was drier. it was wetter, it was whatever you care to name and will be in the future. Add to that that I live on a 17th century farm which is heated by wood only - which I also use for cooking - and has access to a well which has never run dry in known history, with a 15 kW solar array on one of the barns and enough acreage to satisfy our needs we're well prepared for whatever comes our way.


👤 WheelsAtLarge
The real strategy is to change political will. Right now our politicians are mostly leaning towards as little change as possible towards a climate change solution. That needs to change. WE need to get involved and change people's and politician's minds.

Acting alone will do nothing. I can move to one of the poles and try to survive there but ultimately the world wide societal chaos that will be part of the changing environment will catch up to me. We are going to see fights for land ,water and general resources. I don't think people understand that it's not just a change in the weather but it's also a change on the way our world wide society functions.


👤 dbingham
This is the thing about climate change. There are no survival strategies - you can't plan for it. The biggest problem that will come with it is unpredicability.

We know the broad strokes of how climate change will impact us, but exactly how it's going to break down is impossible to predict.

We know it's going to make certain areas of the planet unlivable. We can't be sure exactly which areas.

Sea levels are already rising - but it's impossible to predict the exact rate at which they will continue to rise. There are models in which they rise relatively slowly. There are models in which they rise quickly, and there are models in which ice sheets fall off the arctic and antarctic all at once and it rises catastrophically.

The equators are already becoming unlivable (and ahead of schedule) - most models predicted we wouldn't start to see days of deadly heat until 2080, but that happened in 2020. It was literally too hot to exist outside for more than an hour or two with out supplemental cooling. We know eventually that will become the norm for much of the equatorial region.

We know climate change will destabilize rain patterns, which will destabilize crops. We know this will drive up food prices. And eventually, send us back to a place where there literally just isn't enough food to go around (right now we produce somewhere around 1.5 times the amount of food we need - there's only starvation because we aren't willing to distribute that food equitably). We don't know when or how fast.

We know all of this will drive migration. We don't know when, we don't really know from where or to where, and we don't know what the full consequences of that migration will be. The millions of people who migrated out of the Middle East as a result of the destabilization of that region post Iraq/Afghanistan and the Arab Spring contributed to cause all kinds of political destabilization in Europe - and a swing towards authoritarianism. It's impossible to predict what tens of millions or hundreds of millions of people migrating from the poorer, harder hit regions into the richer regions will do. Or what the general destabilization of the economy will do. But it's a pretty safe bet that it will fuel authoritarianism (...is fueling authoritarianism) of all kinds.

Given the uncertainty of it all, it's impossible to adequately strategize for survival - let alone a reasonably secure and comfortable life.

Our best bet would be to fight like hell right now to prevent it from getting any worse than it's already going to.


👤 djohnston
Purchased roughly 200 acres in a remote part of the northern border. Setting up solar and wind arrays, purchasing weapons, considering experimenting with developing automated sentries.

👤 hgazx
Not watching the telly.

👤 chrisco255
Grabbing extra ice for my cooler and spending a bit more time at the river / lake / beach.

👤 kokanator
Follow John Kerry's and Bill Gate's lead and make some money...

Invest heavily in alternative energy as governments will more and more use their regulatory power to enforce non carbon energy.

Invest heavily in environmental clean up companies as the environmental fallout for alternative energies is going to be extraordinary.[0][1]

Do my part to reduce my footprint along the way.

[0] https://www.science.org/content/article/millions-electric-ca...

[1] https://www.hazardouswasteexperts.com/solar-panels-wear-out-....


👤 defrost
Been doing a slew of things over the past few decades, ATM one project is mass trialing of thousands of wheat, barley, canola, etc varieties to build data on those that thrive in hotter more humid conditions .. and building a library of high yield varieties against a broad range of conditions.

This is going on throughout the length and breadth of Western Australia and using a lot of automated instrumentation for logging soil conditions, multi spectral growth imagry, etc.


👤 illuminerdy
I'm going to buy lots of beachfront property and fly around in my private jet.

Seems to be what all the other "concerned" people I keep hearing talk about this are doing.


👤 Glench
Here's a long analysis from someone in the climate space: https://alexsteffen.substack.com/p/ruggedize-your-life

> It feels almost anachronistic to say it — in these days of globalization, international entertainment, worldwide travel, remote work, constant connection and instant access to everything — but the most important choice facing you and your family as the planetary crisis crashes down is where you choose to be. Where you live, and even more, where you have the right to live, will bound and determine your options when shit gets real.

> How do we get smarter about making that choice?


👤 groby_b
Counter question: What's the point of surviving in a world where most of humanity will suffer terrible deaths? Aren't we better off focusing our energy on trying to effect change, helping the commons, instead of purely focusing on the self?

👤 dj_gitmo
I am avoiding settling down in parts of the country that seem to be on a bad climate trajectory. We are still seeing a mass migration to the US sunbelt and that doesn't seem like a good idea long term.

👤 bkuehl
Honestly, just staying in the Upper Midwest Great Lakes region of the U.S. is looking like a great option for me. Winters aren't great right now, but will only get milder and summers are amazing.

👤 AuthorizedCust
Nothing.

👤 reportgunner
It's pretty much the same like my zombie apocalypse survival strategy and my aliens landing on earth survival strategy.

👤 ThrowawayTestr
Living in a developed country that will shield me from the worst of the effects until complete societal collapse.

👤 jdmg94
I’m trying to get as rich as possible and learn as much as possible to be able to setup a self-sustaining village

👤 AnimalMuppet
Moving out of the American West. Moving somewhere where rain falls and food grows.

👤 moltar
Adaptation

👤 tamaharbor
I’m waiting on China and India for direction. They don’t seem to be worried, and test scores indicate they are much smarter than Americans.

👤 yepyepyepnope
Simple: If it gets too hot I start opening refrigerator doors. If it gets too cold I turn on hairdryers. Energy's cheap where I live.

👤 baremetal
(voluntarily) reducing my standard of living.

increasing my oil independent food production

acquiring skills to make and or fix things i need.


👤 darksofa
I live in Phoenix. Bring it.

👤 hitpointdrew
Turn up the AC. That is all.

👤 edwinjose
To survive peak oil, I am not having children and trying to FIRE

👤 freedom2099
A good AC/heating

👤 galuggus
I planted 10k trees with thissongplantstrees.com

👤 brailsafe
I'm going to try and continue paying for groceries. If that goes well, I'm already in a basement with an air conditioner, so should be good forever according to the boomers who own all the land.

👤 mav88
Getting a wood stove. The incoming mini Ice Age is going to be nasty, especially in the northern hemisphere.

👤 kkfx
Personally I left a big city for a nice hydro-geologically stable place in the French Alps, a place honestly NOT chosen by some special calculus but simply looking for a fresh enough in summer, cheap and served enough enlarging myself out of Sophia-Antipolis (a kind-of EU Silicon Valley).

I found locally a bonus for summer: a significant thermal delta with no more (so far) than 15-16℃ (27-29℉) at night/early morning and a bit too much (25-30℃/45-54℉) in the hottest summer late afternoon, witch happen to be very good for running aircon on P.V.

The area is not that "far from civility", recently fibered with 2Gbps/800Mbps connections, few local services, few relatively near other services etc. Drought is already and seems to be more and more an issue, not much for humans here but surely for agriculture. Fire risk is significant BUT not exactly where I built my new home (simply because trees are there en mass but distant enough), being new (5 years) is well insulated, with almost any contemporary tech for heating/cooling and hot water. Not enough personal drinking water saved at home but... Essentially while not exactly chosen for climate change I choose to build new because I smell a bad future with not-that-stable-anymore services (electricity, water etc) and social unrest while still being in a normal life mode, not hermiting in some isolated place like certain preppers dream.

I do not design anything "for doomsday scenarios", no "anti-atomic bunkers", hurricane-proof concrete walls over a seismically isolated base, gun-loaded turrets etc. Just a modern home in a hopefully good enough place near enough many urbanized land but still a bit far to be relatively in peace and nature. If all goes well I'm still in a wonderful place, if all goes wrong I'm still in a good enough middle-ground.

In my views cities are modern jails under development since most, at least in EU, being formed of tall and dense buildings can't simply evolve, much people live there and so eat, but no food is or can be produced there, much dependencies on city-wide infra can't be backed up or avoided, very few can surveil and stop many more people (while it's the opposite in the countryside).

UNFORTUNATELY energy relative autarchy is essentially not feasible (yes I can waste much money in battery storage, but it's a nonsense given the expected battery lifespan, so I choose a small battery backup enough to pass 24h on battery for just essential loads, no heating/cooling) nor food relative autarchy since I can't produce enough food for myself even if I decide to became a farmer.

However consider a thing: when around you homes goes dark and you have electricity, when people starve and you have food you are still not ok, if things goes really bad we are a civility, we can't survive alone. The Clausewitzian "best you can" is just a way to soften a hard landing if that happen without ruining your life waiting for it.