🌍 CAT Newsletter #152 - 2023-01-08
Welcome back and happy new year CATs!
Here comes issue 152 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.
Remember you can unsubscribe from this newsletter at any time - the link is at the bottom.
Stay safe & healthy 😌 💚 🐱
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CAT Community News
📚 Branch magazine reading group
Volunteers Gaël and Poppe will be your hosts to discuss Bigger, More, Better, Faster: The ecological paradox of digital economies and hope to see many CATs join the session on Jan 26.
📆 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.
Thu, Jan 12 · CAT Coffee (eastern)
Thu, Jan 19 · CAT Coffee (western)
Thu, Jan 26 · 📚 Branch Magazine Reading Group: Bigger, More, Better, Faster
🍩 CAT Roulette is back
#cat-roulette matches resumed last week! Our next matches go out on Jan 20th. Join the channel, pick your region, and get matched with another CAT every other week. Volunteers Brett and Cary are ready to help if you need anything!
🎬 CAT videos
CAT videos, geddit? 10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to topics related to climate.
Who will pay for climate damages - and HOW?
The people and industries of the world's richest countries have done the most to heat the planet. But they're terrified of being held liable for extreme weather they've made more violent. Meanwhile, the poorest can't afford to pay for the consequences of other people's pollution. So should the rich world be paying for climate damages – and what's the best way to do so?
📆 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.
Jan 12th 12:30pm GMT - Working in Agri-Tech: Opportunities and Technologies - Online
The next Working in Sustainable Technology online meetup is all about Agri-Tech - the use of technology for farming to improve efficiency, sustainability and profitability. The CEOs of Agreed Earth and Intelligent Growth Solutions will share their companies' journeys.
Jan 23rd 17:30 CET - Online Workshop Digital Collage
The Digital Collage is a playful and collaborative workshop with a pedagogy similar to that of the Climate Collage. The aim of the workshop is to raise awareness and train participants on the environmental issues of digital technologies.
Insightful talks combining tech and sustainability with three brilliant speakers - Dan Travers from Open Climate Fix speaking about forecasting solar generation, and two speakers from Yellow Sub, Melin Edomwonyi and Ed Holland speaking about water resources management.
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
Catalyst with Shayle Khan - Ammonia: The beer of decarbonization
Low-carbon ammonia could help to decarbonize big parts of the economy, including shipping, heavy industry and even thermal power plants. In this episode, Shayle talks to Julio Friedmann, chief scientist at Carbon Direct. Julio and a team of colleagues just co-authored a report on low-carbon ammonia for the Innovation for Cool Earth Forum.
Volts.WTF - Reflecting on the work of the soon-to-retire House climate committee
The bipartisan infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act contained numerous policies that originated in the House climate committee. Altogether, hundreds of the recommendations made by the committee found their way into law — a crazy-high success rate for a committee with no real power. I called Rep. Castor to get her thoughts on the committee's work, the achievements she is most proud of, and what progress she thinks can be made in the next two years.
TIL CLimate - E7: TIL about winter storms
Today, we’re going to explore the connections between climate change and extreme winter weather. For this episode, we sat down with atmospheric science expert Dr. Jennifer Francis of the Woodwell Climate Research Center.
Green I/O #10 - Sören Enholm - How to navigate toward more sustainable digital equipment?
In this episode, we went to Stockhölm to meet Sören Enholm, TCO Certified CEO. We discuss the environmental footprint of digital devices, natural and urban mining, how to secure a qualitative certification process, the current momentum in Digital Sustainability and much more.
📰 News Highlights
Vice Magazine - Here Are All the Positive Climate Stories From 2022
From Canada's luxury tax to the future of Brazil's rainforest, here’s a reminder that it wasn’t all bad news in 2022.
Bloomberg - Meet the Climate Quitters
An ever-growing roster of people are leaving their jobs to pursue careers combating climate change.
New York governor signs modified right-to-repair bill at the last minute
New York state governor Kathy Hochul has signed the Digital Fair Repair Act into law, months after it had passed both chambers of the state's legislature with overwhelming bipartisan majorities. The Digital Fair Repair Act has been hailed as "precedent-setting" by right-to-repair advocacy groups like iFixit. The law will require companies to provide the same diagnostic tools, repair manuals, and parts to the public that they provide to their own repair technicians.
World’s first net zero transatlantic flight to fly from London in 2023
The first ever net zero transatlantic flight will take off from the UK next year, with Virgin Atlantic receiving government funding to fly across the pond using solely sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). When fully replacing kerosene, SAF can slash lifecycle carbon emissions by over 70% compared to conventional fossil jet fuel. The rest is um… being done with offsets.
Industry trade associations in the United States that work on climate and energy issues spent more than $3 billion over 10 years on political activities, according to a new study that sheds light on trade associations’ role in influencing policies and obstructing climate action.
Net zero targets could force Taiwan's chipmakers abroad
The adoption of net zero emissions targets by global technology giants like Apple, Google and Microsoft is turning into a serious problem for Taiwan’s massive chipmaking industry. Pressure to decarbonise the extremely power-hungry production of semiconductors is rising rapidly, but chipmakers based on the island have limited options to crank up the use of renewable electricity, as Taiwan’s power mix remains heavily dominated by fossil fuels. TSMC and other suppliers might have no other option but to move production elsewhere.
💼 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.
No jobs submitted this week - see the #jobs channel for more. If you want to share a job here, use the CAT newsletter jobs form (it’s free!).