🌍 CAT Newsletter #154 - 2023-01-22
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 154 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
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 this Thursday, Jan 26
#️⃣ Slack channel highlights
#cycling: Łukasz discovered our small cycling channel and asked about cycling as a community — join the chat
#greener-design: Carlota shared a Webinar Discussion with Don Norman. Has anyone paid for this one yet and seen it? What are your thoughts? Share them in the chat.
#news: @Hector shared a video (The Time America Almost Stopped Climate Change) and said “It was hilarious. It made me angry and gave some helpful ideas for what we could do.” Give it a watch and share your thoughts in the thread.
✨ New channel: Christopher started a #local-san-francisco-bay-area channel! Join if you’re based there or interested in the area.
✋ Looking for volunteers
#️⃣ Channel host • 20min / week
Pick a channel and ensure conversation there stays active, welcoming and safe.
☕️ CAT Coffee volunteer • 2hrs / month
Help brainstorm on how to improve our #cat-coffee events and/or help facilitate conversations during the event.
👋 Onboarding helper • 1hr / week
Help us implement some ideas on how new members can have a positive experience during their first few months in CAT.
Check out our Trello board for more open roles and if you’ve got any ideas for projects, or feedback on existing projects, please let us know in our #community-feedback channel!
📆 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.
📚 Branch Magazine Reading Group
Thu, Jan 26 • PT 9am | ET 12pm | GMT 5pm | CET 6pm | IST 9:30pm
We’ll discuss the article Bigger, More, Better, Faster
🍩 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.
Thu Jan 12 2023 - Working in Agri-Tech: Opportunities and Technologies
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
Mon Jan 23 2023 - 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.
Tue Feb 07 2023 - State of Open Con 23
The UK’s first conference on Open tech. We have over 100 confirmed speaker, including Jimmy Wales the cofounder of Wikipedia and Thomas Dohmke the CEO of GitHub. All tracks feature content on sustainability, we also have an unconference and a sub conference with sustain oss!
Thu Jan 26 2023 - Terra.do Climate Week Summit Job Fair
Dive into the green jobs landscape by meeting companies working byte by byte and acre by acre on the climate crisis.
Fri Feb 03 2023 - Galvanize x Terra.do Climate Job Fair
Join us for this partner Job Fair and meet rising portfolio companies working on groundbreaking solutions.
Fri Feb 17 2023 - Plant Futures Initiative x Terra.do Job Fair
Learn about companies who will propel the transition to a sustainable future of plant-centric food systems.
Check #events in the CAT slack for more.
🎤 Podcasts
Catalyst with Shayle Khan - This episode is trash
In the U.S. alone, food waste is responsible for the equivalent emissions from 42 coal power plants. Globally, it accounts for 10% of greenhouse gases, more than heavy industries such as the manufacturing of cement and steel. In this epsisode we explore how the food we waste heats up the planet, and how we can fix it.
An energy provider attempts to achieve 24/7 clean energy
Peninsula Clean Energy (PCE), a Bay Area community energy company in California that serves all 20 of the cities and towns in San Mateo County, as well as the City of Los Banos, is on track to hit 100% 24/7 clean energy by 2025, and in 2023, is already at 99%. David Roberts talks to Jan Pepper, CEO of Peninsula and lead author on the latest white paper, explaining how they are doing, it, and about the open source clean energy buying model they created to help others do the same.
A Matter of Degrees - The Case of the Killer Heat
In this episode, we explore the growing impact of heat on people and the planet. We talk to scientists and “climate detectives” trying to hold the perpetrators of this unprecedented global temperature increase accountable. Leah and Katharine speak with Neza Xiuhtecutli, executive director of the Farmworker Association of Florida; Kate Marvel, climate science writer and physicist at Columbia University and NASA; and Richard Heede, co-founder and director of the Climate Accountability Institute.
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
The smelly, greasy truth about how sustainable aviation fuel is made
Join our reporter as she tags along with a truck driver dumpster-diving for used cooking oil — all in the name of curbing aircraft emissions.
This company turns wind turbine blades into concrete
An Iowa startup is transforming decommissioned wind turbine blades into reusable materials for the concrete and mortar industries.
Patagonia and Samsung developed a washing machine that reduces microplastics
The Patagonia and Samsung collaboration will see select machines using a new filter system and cycle, with both companies look at reducing micro plastics by up to 54 percent. The washing machines are expected to be available later this year.
Brad Smith explains why the world needs to go carbon-negative — and how to get there
The president and vice chair of Microsoft talked to Protocol in a wide-ranging interview about going carbon-negative as well as why the company continues to work with the fossil fuel industry.
Revealed: more than 90% of rainforest carbon offsets by biggest provider are worthless, analysis shows
Investigation into Verra carbon standard finds most are ‘phantom credits’ and may worsen global heating. The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation.
Phantom Offsets and Carbon Deceit
The longform partner piece to accompany the article above. Companies around the world rely on credits to offset their CO₂ emissions. They have relied for years on carbon credits that prevent far fewer emissions than promised. The story of a global scandal.
24/7 carbon-free energy is about to become a reality in California
Peninsula Clean Energy says it can deliver affordable clean energy to its Bay Area territory nearly every hour of the year by 2025. Here’s the data to prove it. (editor note: Google and Microsoft have publicly commited to this target for 2030 by comparison)
How India Became the Most Important Country in the Climate Fight
Much rides on which approach dominates India’s energy future. In the three decades since reducing emissions became a discussion point on the global stage, analysts have portrayed the U.S., China, and Europe as the most critical targets for cutting pollution. But as the curve finally begins to bend in those places, it’s become clear that India will soon be the most important country in the climate change effort.
Brazil launches first anti-deforestation raids under Lula bid to protect Amazon
Brazilian environmental agents cut through the rainforest with machetes on Thursday in search of criminals in the first anti-deforestation raids under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has pledged to end surging destruction inherited from his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
🎬 CAT videos
CAT videos, geddit? 10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to topics related to climate.
Is CO2 Removal Ready for Its Big Moment?
In a field long plagued by hype and high costs, carbon removal startups are showing real promise. The question is whether they can scale up in time.
💼 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.
Climate Interactive - Communications Coordinator - $45,000-$60,000 USD and benefits - Totally remote
The Communications Coordinator will be responsible for promoting, and expanding engagement with, Climate Interactive’s tools and events. This position would be a good fit for someone highly motivated to use their diverse communications and marketing capabilities to make a difference worldwide on climate change. support@climateinteractive.org Remote. Outside of the U.S. possible, with the need to coordinate work hours to the East Coast US time zone.
BlueConduit - Data Scientist - ~$100k USD - Totally remote
As data scientists at BlueConduit, we use machine learning models, working with geospatial data from a variety of data sources, to predict health hazards in infrastructure. Our founding team members were first to build models to predict whether water pipes were made of lead in Flint. And we’ve expanded that to serve cities throughout North America, on both a for-profit and charitable basis. We are passionate about using data science for social good and improving equity. - Data Scientist - jared@blueconduit.com USA
Creative Commons Open Climate Data Manager - 9.1k - 10.4k USD per month, 12 month contract - Totally remote
Creative Commons is looking for an enthusiastic, well-organized and hardworking Open Climate Data Manager to facilitate the creation of a community-supported, long-term solution for the better sharing of large, distributed open climate datasets.