CAT Newsletter #145 - 2022-11-06
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 145 of the climateAction.tech (CAT) Newsletter - your weekly summary of what’s happening inside the CAT community, and in the wider world of climate and tech. New to CAT or looking to re-discover the community? Try out our onboarding checklist.
Remember you can unsubscribe from this newsletter at any time - the link is at the bottom.
Stay safe & healthy 😌 💚 🐱
CAT Community News
📚 Branch magazine reading group
This month we’re reading “If I am a Techie, How Can I Help Solve Climate Change?” and we’ll meet to discuss on Nov 17th. Thread for async chats is here.
#️⃣ Slack channel highlights
-
✨ NEW CHANNEL: #conf-cop27 is a channel for CATs either attending, or interested in the COP27 conference
-
#3-ask-anything: In this post Al asks: How visible do you make your climate/environmental ethics and opinions in the workplace?
-
#greener-design: Abdul asked a question with regards to mobility: should we optimise design focusing on individual-needs or common-needs? Share your thoughts in the thread.
✋ Looking for volunteers
#freelance channel co-host • 20min / week
Help out CAT volunteer @Sigi to keep our #freelance channel welcoming and active.
Branch reading group co-lead • 2hrs / month
Pick an article a month and host a reading group discussion session for our members.
#cat-roulette channel host • 30mins-2hrs / week
Check in regularly, improve # of matches that meet, keep an eye on inactive members, and help out if folks need help.
📆 Upcoming CAT events
If you’re looking at organising event in your part of the world, you can ask for help in #events. There’s a CAT event support kit, sample deck and so on to help.
☕️ CAT coffee + 📚 Branch reading group (western-friendly)
Thu, Nov 17th • PT 10am | ET 1pm | GMT 6pm | CET 7pm | IST 10:30pm
▶️ Watch Party: From individual action to systemic change
Thu, Nov 24 • NZST 7:30am | PT 10:30am | ET 1:30pm | GMT 6:30pm | CET 7:30pm
☕ CAT coffee (eastern-friendly)
Thu, Dec 8th • GMT 8am | CET 9am | IST 1:30pm | CT/SGT 4pm | AEST 7pm | NZST 9pm
Volunteer Matt invites you to a chat about transitioning to more sustainable practices and how to do it fair and equitably.
🍩 CAT Roulette - 30mins - whenever you find a time
Join the #cat-roulette channel, pick your region and get matched with other CATs every other week! It’s a nice way to get to know other CATs, and you can start and stop at any time.
📆 CAT Submitted Events
Want an event listed here? Use this event listing form to submit the details so we can add it in the newsletter.
8th-9th November Design for the planet Festival - The Design Council
It’s not super easy to see the times of each event in the programme, but it’s worth persevering, as there’s a bunch of really interesting talks, including ones from CATs in this community. It’s free to register - go check it out!
Check #events in the CAT slack for more.
🎤 Podcasts
The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don’t forget, if you’re looking around, there’s a list of podcasts maintained by CATs
📰 News Highlights
SUCH RELIEF - Brazil election: Lula win hailed as victory for the Amazon
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who campaigned to protect the rainforest, narrowly beat Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidential election.
What to watch at COP27: Climate justice, clean technology and money
A good roundup of what to expect from COP 27, from the non profit Canary Media. This covers topics like “loss and damage”, the importance of this COP happening in the Africa. For more context on the impacts of climate change in Africa, see the next story.
Analysis: Africa’s unreported extreme weather in 2022 and climate change
Africa has seen a huge number of extreme climate weather events this year that have largely gone unreported in the West, despite killing at least 4,000 people and affecting at least 19m across the continent, from storms to droughts, floods, extreme heat and much more. (This link was found via the excellent Forge the Future newsletter from fellow cat Oli hall)
Lyft, Airbnb and other companies join forces to help you go electric
On Wednesday, the White House announced that seven companies are joining with electrification nonprofit Rewiring America in a collaborative effort to educate their users and customers on the panoply of rebates, tax credits and low-cost financing for electrification and home energy efficiency available under the Inflation Reduction Act.
Carbon Accounting tech planetly shutdown, entire stuff let go
“With a very heavy heart I’ve heard today that Planetly by OneTrust, the company I’ve helped building and growing since 2020, has been shut down after the acquisition by OneTrust, and all the remaining workforce has been let go.” Cautionary tale about climate tech exits. Planetly was acquired in Dec 2021.
Germany introduces unlimited train travel for £1.40 a day
The digital Deutschlandticket, price €49, is intended ‘to cut CO2 emissions’, after the popularity of the “9 EURO ticket” trialed in the summer. Note: for some of the best analysis on this, follow Jon Worth’s work, or Transport Environment for more wonkish stuff.
An open letter aimed at tech firms about climate disinformation on their platforms
Open letter is worth reading, and if agree with it, signing as an individual or if you can get it your organisation. Useful context: in 2018, Exxon spent more on fossil ads with Facebook, than the IPCC’s entire budget for the same year, and this is just one company and one platform.
International Energy Agency - Fossil fuel demand will peak this decade
Last week, the IEA published its annual World Energy Outlook 2022 (WEO) signaling a historic turning point for the energy transition. For the first time ever, even the most conservative scenario based on prevailing policies predicts that fossil fuel demand will reach its peak within this decade. (This came from the indispensable climate tech.vc newsletter)
🎬 CAT videos 🎬
CAT videos, geddit? 10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to topics related to climate.
Michael Liebreich’s Keynote Speech at World Hydrogen Congress 2022
This 20 minute (sorry) keynote at the world hydrogen conference, from the founder of Bloomberg New Energy Finance is one of the most information dense videos about the shift to from fossil fuels to hydrogen you’ll find, and deflates a lot of the hype about the topic.
💼 Jobs
Remember only jobs listing salary ranges are listed here - to get your job listed, you need to list a salary range. Folks can still look in the #jobs channel.
You will lead, and be responsible for, the overall design and delivery of strategic operational plans for Digital Sustainability within the Minstry of Justice.. You will also have a specific responsibility for drawing in best practice relating to Digital Sustainability and considering where and how this can be embedded into the organisation by working with the Climate Change and Sustainability Unit (CCSU) and the Digital and Technology teams.
Sofar is connecting the world’s oceans to power a more sustainable future. To do that we are building the world’s largest real-time ocean weather sensor network which provides the most accurate marine weather information and forecasts to power industry-specific solutions.
ClimateView is a climate tech startup helping cities to transition to net zero. We have raised our Series A (€10m). We’ve got a truly unique and valuable product, and we’re getting traction across the world.
Numina - Director of Business Development - $80k-$120k - Remote (US)
As our Director of Business Development, you will act as player-coach to expand Numina’s footprint, generating new business opportunities and building the foundation of a Series A growth-stage sales team.
Icebreaker One - Data Solutions Analyst (R&D) - up to 600 GBP per day - Remote - Contract - UK
This role supports the delivery of an early stage smart meter data innovation project, in which we will assess the feasibility of taking an open, standards-based approach to data sharing for a specific use case. We’re unable to share more specifics on the project publicly until the award of the funding is formally announced.
Monthly CAT thank you
It’s time for our MONTHLY CAT THANK YOU
For adding knowledge to Outline: @melissa @mrchrisadams @Henry Bruce @Lauri
For supporting us financially on Open Collective: @Luke Watts (CET) @Ben @Michael Napper @Nelson Pavlosky @Nicola Bonotto @Dan Lewis-Toakley @asim @HeatherB @Kasia @fershad @Todd Lienart @Chris Pointon @James Crowley @Michelle Barker @Nic Wistreich
For volunteering within the community:
@Hannah @roundcrisis @Sigi @Niklas Jordan @Evan Harte @Siddharth @Siôn @Myf Nixon @Ismael Velasco @Matt Sirkis @Gaël Duez @Elisa @Evan Hahn @Alja Isaković @Roopak Kandasamy @Marwa Eltaib