--- date: 2017-06-11 modified_at: 2018-03-06 tags: [entrepreneurship, philosophy] description: A startup MVP idea to combat global warming by creating an app that turns carbon footprint reduction into a status symbol, gamifying sustainable lifestyle choices through social recognition and financial incentives. --- # My solution to revert global warming is creating a status-symbol of your CO2 footprint: A simple MVP idea Every World Citizen has the duty to take care of the planet. We're all destroying the planet together, so don't just point to everybody or wait for the right situation. Strive to do your part now. We should strive to live a lifestyle leaving a negative carbon footprint, one way or another. Only this way can we undo the damage our ancestors have unknowingly done in the past century. Only this way can we sustain living with so many people on this planet. Before the industrial revolution in the 19th century, the worldwide concentration CO² was about 280ppm. The last 800.000 year the CO² fluctuated between 180 ppm (ice ages) and 280 ppm (warm periods). Carbon Footprint https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Carbon_footprint Ways to Remove CO² https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Carbon_dioxide_removal BECCS is the solution https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Bio-energy_with_carbon_capture_and_storage > How much should you invest in BECCS technologies per day in order to have a footprint of zero? With BECCS running at full capacity (removing 1 ton of CO² for just €50 euro's), it could be about €1,37 per day per EU citizen on average. But obviously, the goal is to make it go viral. One person doing it should convince two others do do it. Otherwise it's not enough. > Just drink one BECK'S less a day, and spend that on BECCS. > Viral habit adoption can change the world. Potential https://www.eenews.net/assets/2011/08/04/document_cw_01.pdf Costs https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-005-3484-7 Healthy footprint app An app that costs like X% of your income of anybody that participates and it shares all of this money back to the people that invest in it, but it gives back more to people with a climate-friendly lifestyle. You have to prove the app that your lifestyle is healthy by connecting it to API’s of sporting stuff (running, gyms, swimming pools, sport facilities that have a log when you entered) The money can go straight from your income to the app, and the app gives you 70% to 110%, based on your lifestyle. The app can take any input necessary and uses it with deep learning and statistics. It could, for example, cooperate with supermarkets and see what you buy. This app that filters your money through your long-term goals is, in general, a good idea. Call it ‘footprint’. It can, for example, also tax carbon usage by looking how often you use the bus. You should be able to get very nice merchandise or tags or whatever or stickers or anything with different ranks based on how much of your income you filter through it. This is genius. Why? Because people choose the kind of tax they pay and it becomes a status symbol. Examples: * I would love to show off on the fact that I eat healthy and exercise regularly. * I would love to show off that my carbon footprint is 0 or even less. * Some people may want to show off the fact that they are vegetarian or even vegan. It makes life a game with baby steps that have a long-term and very indirect impact on your success, but when you make it a status symbol you make it have a short-term impact which encourages people to do it. But without an app like this, it would be quite hard to show this off. This is genius because people that do good for the world become richer, while people that don’t become poorer. Well, of course people that do worse don’t use the app. But if it becomes more regular to use the app in the beginning, the concequences of the app can later always be improved. There should be a minimum viable product that is applicable to many people and services, yet easy to implement. The real concequences can become greater the more serious you get (bigger status symbol for you) Make it sort-of an achievement system that shows on your social network, this is the easiest. Of course there could be very special items for merchandise, but making it something online that is easy for others to check is even better. I would love to know how other people live if they show it off online. If a girl doesn’t smoke, and is vegetarian and has 0 CO² emission, I’d like to date her. If she goes with the bus every day and eats at MC-Donalds every week, I don’t. Life values matter. Why are they so hard to see? We have technology now, we can change that! Other interesting techniques Micro organism gets CO² from the air http://news.uga.edu/releases/article/uga-discovery-may-allow-scientists-to-make-fuel-from-co2-in-the-atmosp/ Idea: Genetically optimize organisms to do more effective photosynthesis per euro or per square meter. These organisms (plants, trees or bacteria in water even) will exponentially reproduce themselves. These organisms die out once the CO² levels decrease far enough again. Iron is very important for photosynthesis https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4989028/. Check it out!