Welcome to Collective.Energy

We are a community of individuals striving to work together for a better future.
 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. What is this?

Collective.Energy is an attempt to solve the problem of not knowing what you can do personally to fight climate change. It is an online community that empowers members towards positive climate action.
 

2. What will Collective.Energy do for me?

By joining our community, you will get several benefits (PS it's free):

• Get the inspiration, ideas, feedback, and support you've been needing to have a big impact
• Build a following for your project
• Learn best practices from more experienced doers
• Receive a platform to grow your profile in the sustainability community
• Obtain feedback early and often to guide you
• Raise the funding you need
• Connect you with like-minded people everywhere around the world
• Keep you motivated every step of the way
• Stay up to date on new developments relating to climate action
   

3. Why make this?

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the gravity of the climate crisis. We realized that there was power in the collective. That our total energy could be really effective if only there was a place to bring it together. That place is here.
 

4. What should I do first?

Step 1. Make an account
Step 2. Read through some threads that you find interesting
Step 3. Get involved. Comment on an ongoing discussion. Think you have nothing to say? Start a new thread and ask for advice on what you can do. Big actions start with small actions today
 

Thank you for caring. Let's build something special.

@Jon-Bannon Solutions to climate change will need to come through a variety of forms, dialogue, and open ended problem solving. Excited to have you here!

I come from a technology background and I'm always trying to think of ways to use my knowledge to have a positive climate impact. I think many others might be curious to learn what's out there.

What tech based approaches have you seen that motivated/inspired you?

This is a big point of contention I have as well. @briparks I agree, the concept of "eco-friendly" airlines is a total misnomer. Realistically, what might be required is for consumers to collectively put pressure on international aviation administrations and more importantly - to put a bigger price on the carbon associated with each flight ticket. Pricing in externalities can work!

This thread is for discussion on how we can improve the state of the community itself. If you feel like you have anything to contribute at all, please join the dialogue! 

@Jorgen-Hookham are you only looking for ready-to-consume carbon offset APIs? When I'm looking for APIs, I usually refer to ProgrammableWeb

There's also a number of groups doing carbon offset as a service without ready-made APIs. For example:

• https://www.climateseed.com/ - Find trustworthy projects to offset your carbon emissions
• https://www.atmosfair.de/ - German non-profit with CO2 mitigation services
• https://www.terrapass.com/ - Buy carbon offsets & RE credits
• https://nori.com/ - Carbon removal marketplace launching soon

Would love to learn more about what you're trying to do!

@Jacara WOW this is an absolutely astounding level of detail! Big kudos to you for the extremely detailed responses. You're definitely making a positive impact here.

To me, it would be wasteful to throw away these clothes or products, so I wear them, donate, or give to a friend.

Totally agree. In fact, I think material minimalism is one of the best life approaches you could take. Our society constantly pushes people to consume more... more clothes, more gadgets, more everything. In order to get to a global state that is sustainable, we need to collectively reduce our addiction to consumerism.

this lifestyle has opened my eyes to a plethora of cuisines that I probably never would have experienced

Reading this made me think about how it seems like many people are reluctant to cut meat because they're unsure of what meals to make. What are some of your go to meals?

I am more than happy to provide sources for these stats. I initially was actually going to insert all of my sources before but didn't want people to feel that my post was becoming academic.

Valid concern. These are great sources though and I think giving us the ability to dive deeper would inspire others to do their own research. I wonder if there's a middle ground here - maybe it would be valuable to start a new thread as a place to start collecting solid sources for the community to access? What do you think?

we vote for things with our dollar

100%. I've been feeling more and more that we have to use capitalism itself to fight climate change since conventional approaches aren't working fast enough. I wrote a piece about it in the context of renewable energy here if you're interested

Did some digging around and it looks like this article is pretty spot on. As someone who usually washes dishes by hand, consider me convinced. Low hanging fruit right here awesome contribution @jamiroquai

@rikard structural change is a great topic of focus. My initial thinking is that the power of the collective would be quite effective at presenting a unified face towards structural problems. I also think that these challenges need to be highly focused in order to be effective. Maybe it would helpful to target very specific changes that can be attacked in tandem. Where would you start?

Hi friends. I wrote another new post - this one is about how we can use capitalism to help the planet. I'm really curious about what you think of this one.

The New Economics of Saving the World

Paradoxically, the way to help create solutions to the climate crisis is the same way we got into this mess - by following the money. Most people realize that we all need to create impactful solutions to the urgent environmental situation. An obvious reason why this isn’t the case already is... click to continue

Thanks as always for your support
-E

@CODEX fair enough, keep up the good work!

Hi @Evan-Hynes, thanks for sharing! Kudos for getting this off the ground. Would love to have a discussion to see if there's a way we can collab. I'll reach out directly to your email

@CODEX Awesome, keep up the good work. I tried looking for it in the Play Store, is there an Android app or iOS only for now?

@CODEX Congrats! That's a huge step. What are your findings so far?

@l42 Solar is cheaper than fossil fuels in many geographies already! Most new money flowing into energy development projects is going to clean energy. No one is going to shut down an already operational and profitable fossil fuel project through

Energy markets are a dynamic thing. Demand is what it is and project developers build according to that

Check out this report

@AlisonL Thanks for sharing your project and welcome to the community! Ekoru sounds really interesting and I love the environmental mission

I've seen and used search engines like ecosia before, what would you recommend for someone who wants to support both? Also think having extensions into different browsers are crucial though it looks like you've already built some.

One idea might be making your financials a bit more transparent if possible, people want to know exactly how their use of the product translates to real impact. Great job overall though!

Hi everyone, I'm looking to improve the functionality and overall usefulness of Collective.Energy - trying to gauge what the primary use for most people here is.

Specifically, what is the main benefit that you get or are hoping to get from being here?

Building collaboratively is important to me and that extends to the design of this community itself. Any feedback or suggestions are appreciated.

@K-Fitzsimmons Good idea but it doesn't seem financially possible in developing countries

@Rob-Bennett Sounds like a real opportunity to me

From the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's recent report:

Food wastage could lead to an increase in emissions estimated to 1.9–2.5 GtCO2 per year

Food wastage is a combination of:
Food loss – the decrease in mass and nutritional value of food due to poor infrastructure, logistics, and lack of storage technologies and management
&
Food waste that derives from inappropriate human consumption that leads to food spoilage associated with inferior quality or overproduction.

Splitting it out into those components might make the problem easier to understand and solve

@duke Thanks for sharing. Is there an ongoing pilot project that you're involved in? Or is this more at the idea stage?