Here is a list I have formed:
-Regulate Polluting Industries
-Switch to Esim
-Buy used
-Install geothermal heat pump systems
-Install smart thermostats
-Build more apartments
-Use shampoo/conditioner bars
-Put carbon labels on products
-Buy stuff at the local store
-Eat plant based
-Prioritize transit over cars
-Switch to Ecosia
-Recycle
-Give homemade gifts
-Compost
-Be organized
-Avoid synthetic cloths
-Switch to green burials
-Buy reputable carbon credits
-Mandate microfibre filters for washing machines
-Install Linux on new/old computers
-Switch to Electric car (second to public transit in funding)
-Shut down all oil operations
-Pickup litter
-Ride your bicycle instead of the car
-Adopt kids and companions instead
-Build more green spaces
-Convert animal agriculture land to wild lands
-Support repairability
-Ban private jets
-Start your own garden
-Use older cars for more than 12 years
-Keep phone for longer than 5.5 years (easy to do with fairphone,iphone, pixel, samsung or android phone with unlockable bootloader)
-Switch to renewable and nuclear techologies
-Halt all new road developments and just maintain them until transit is good enough
-Do everything to prevent and end wars
-Tax the rich and use the money for climate initiatives
-Ban all fossil fuel ads
-More widespread use of contactless payments
-Switch to bidets to save trees
-Switch to super slippery toilets to save water
-Mandate all stoves to be electric
-Build robust high sped rail network and ban flights under 4 hours.
-Require much longer warranties on consumer goods
-Require all software to become open source after the company stops developing the code
-Patents expire after 4 years
-Ban cryptominning
-Reduce concrete in constructions projects and opt for bamboo/wood construction
-Require all office work to be done from home for as much as possible
-Ban discrimination and promote affirmative action so that there isn’t lost potential or innovation from disadvantaged groups
-Improve insulation in older buildings
-Shop at refillable container stores
-Buy Fairphones as they’re the most repairable and have to 8-10 years of software support
-Buy Framework laptops as they’re user repairable upgrade-able
-Use reusable diapers for your infant/toddler
-Buy goods within your continent to avoid cargo ship bunker fuel
-Use refillable for everywhere you go
-Increase energy efficient standards with new houses with solar panels mandatory
-Increase grid interconnections
-Support political parties with green policies
-Boycott fossil fuel banks and switch to green credit unions
-Demand that your investment/retirement program switches to green projects
-Force companies to mine minerals from e-waste instead
-Give up half of the planet to nature
-Establish support networks for people who are using older gadgets/cars/clothing to encourage solutions to make goods last longer
-Create a program to recycle old clothing
-Switch to electronic documents
-Mandate higher build quality of manufactured goods
-Encourage the use of hatchbacks and sedans
-Ban oversized vehicles
-Require that water pipes have pressure management and active leak detection
-Implement waste-to-energy conversions for waste management systems (stopgap solution)
-Design cities as more walkable
-Track your government’s climate policy by visiting https://climateactiontracker.org/countries/
I will add more to list as more ideas are thought of.
Wow I just ranted about this yesterday! I really hope this idea catches on. We really need to accelerate adoption of improvements.
Patents are a double-edged sword, the initial goal is to encourage R&D investment, but in practice patents are made to create exclusive control over who can use that technology. I think it’s okay for patents to exist, but they should expire fast rather than letting the company who owns the patent to rest on their laurels with their monopoly over their invention, this way we can iterate and improve upon it.
Patents taking very long to expire may have made sense back in the day when technology adoption was slower (although I think they were too long for even back then). In the modern era, our tools allows for a much faster time-to-market, so keeping the duration of the parents is even more harmful.
We can see it all the time, and a fun example of it would be Cherry switches; they invented the MX style switch and have done minimal improvements for a long time, and once the patent expired, competitors started selling MX clones (clones were available in china before the patent expired, but there weren’t as many as there are now), this meant that Cherry switches were now the inferior in quality to the clones, which is better for the consumer; had the patent expired sooner, both Cherry and competitors would have started the iterative race much earlier.
Another example is the pacojet; a commercial instant ice cream maker which costs $6000 and had no competition, so no reason for the company to improve it. After the patent expire Ninja made a $300 home version of this which is in some aspects superior to the original.
This is why I proposed, instead of completely abolishing all patents, to shorten the lifespan of the patent. Some inventions shouldn’t be patentable, like pharmaceuticals; because even for a short time, gatekeeping a lifesaving product behind a massive paywall is insane.
I think there should be some kind of legal/constitutional mechanism that gives the state power to declare a certain invention as “significant for the public’s well being” and expunge the patent, paying a reasonable compensation fee to the patent holder.
Yes exactly! It’s still very rare to see these arguments. I think 3D printers and things like patent trolls and video codec / av1 have made people realize the problems patents cause.
Maybe another way would be for the UN to push for legislation for some kind of “moratorium” on any patents relevant to climate change. So that the corporation people don’t loose their shit.
And maybe a court system with a reimbursement scheme that is funded by many countries to reward R&D but only as something like 400% or even 1000% of investment costs - but not based on some hypothetical future loss of fantastical profits.
There is also the idea of a patentleft licenses but I don’t think they would have significant impact, since not producing anything still allows you to sue and block progress.
Exactly, otherwise companies would rob the state out of too much money, making this system useless.
And I like the patentleft system, which is similar to copyleft. I don’t know what the ideal patent reform would look like, but it has to change because the current system is terrible for innovation.