🌍 CAT Newsletter #155 - 2023-01-29
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 155 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.
Tue Feb 14 2023 - Open source tools for sustainable software - measurement of energy consumption
At the next Green Software Development Karlsruhe meet up, everything revolves around measuring and monitoring the energy consumption of applications. Arne Tarara gives us insights into projects and tools to measure the energy consumption of software.
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.
The autonomous-car bubble has popped
The closure of Argo AI is the latest setback for driverless cars. What comes next?
On the abuse (and proper use) of climate models
A conversation with Climate Modeller Erica Thompson about her new book "Escape From Model Land", laying out a full, rich account of what models can and can't help us do, and how we can put them to better use.
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
$1 Trillion Green Investment Matches Fossil Fuels for First Time
World spent $1.1 trillion transitioning to clean power in 2022, same as amount spent producing oil and gas, with solar and wind power accounting for the biggest chunk of 2022 investments, reaching $495 billion. (Pay-wall free Archive.is link)
Colombia announces halt on fossil fuel exploration for a greener economy
The minister for mines, Irene Vélez, told world leaders the country will shift away from fossil fuels to begin a sustainable chapter
What happens if the largest owner of oil and gas wells in the US goes bankrupt?
Diversified Energy’s liabilities exceed its assets, according to a new report, sparking concerns about whether taxpayers will wind up paying to plug its 70,000 wells.
We May Not Actually Need All That Lithium
(How) Pickup trucks have gotten bigger, higher-tech — and more dangerous
An informative, info-viz packed piece about America's love affair with pick up trucks, how they've changed, and the climate implications of tank-like EVs.
New research shows how simple policies like improving public transit and urban walkability can significantly reduce demand for problematic materials
Showcase project by the world’s biggest carbon trader actually resulted in more carbon emissions
Following on from last week's story about Verra's offset woes, South Pole – the world’s most influential climate consultancy is in now caught up in the controversy, after climate achievements from many prestigious companies including Gucci, Volkswagen turn out to exist only on paper. (Free, but behind sign-up all)
Government told to focus on boosting uptake of electric vehicles, public transport, cycling and walking rather than offset ‘gimmick’
Runner says no to competing for GB in Australia over flight climate concerns
A promising teenage athlete has declined to represent Great Britain in a competition due to be held in Australia because she is concerned about the environmental impact of the associated travel.
🎬 CAT videos
CAT videos, geddit? 10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to topics related to climate.
Why this island may be the best in the world
Not a lot of people know the tiny island of Bornholm, Denmark. But it may be the greenest island in the world. It has turned its economy around by investing in sustainable business and is set to become one of the first carbon neutral islands in the world.
💼 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.
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.
Climate Team - Co-Founder / Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) - Equity till funded, then A$100,000+ - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
Climate Team is looking for a Co-Founder / Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). Please see the LinkedIn link for a full description.
Climate Team is a revolutionary platform for the climate solutions community that will make it easier to get started and grow as a climate founder, freelancer, investor, or even an enthusiast looking for his or her place in the ecosystem. Comprising marketplace, capital raising, community and productivity components, it will improve the efficiency of the investment market for climate tech by leveraging network effects and artificial intelligence (AI) / machine learning (ML).
Climate Interactive - Communications Coordinator - $45,000-$60,000 and benefits - Permanent - 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.
BlueConduit - Data Scientist - ~$100k - Permanent - 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.
Furbnow - Multiple - £55k-£70k - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
Furbnow is scaling up home retrofits in the UK. We're making houses lower carbon, cheaper to heat, and more comfortable!
Hiring for: Head of Growth - https://smrtr.io/cP_sR
Full stack software engineer (python / ts) - https://smrtr.io/cMwnW
Foresight Management - Senior Project Engineer - Buildings - $85000 to $110000 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
Foresight Management exists to champion energy management, accelerate sustainability, and increase profitability for our customers.
The Senior Project Engineer will manage teams, provide technical expertise, and generally support the Building Performance team on all aspects of our engineering support services. As our contracts are varied in scope, the candidate will need to coordinate and organize success across multiple disciplines and scopes including but not limited to commissioning, energy modeling, daylight analysis, energy audits, retro-commissioning, healthy building audits, compressed air leak studies, air testing, infrared scanning, peak demand studies, steam trap studies, and utility rebate coordination. In addition, the Senior Project Engineer will need to be aware of a variety of third-party building certification program’s including LEED, WELL, Living Building Challenge, Passive House, Green Globes, and Enterprise Green Communities.
Circularise - Project Manager (Circularity/Sustainability) - 50k-55k Euros - Permanent -
Circularise is a supply chain traceability start-up founded in The Netherlands in 2016. We believe that end-to-end traceability holds the key to overcoming major challenges that society faces in areas such as Circular Economy, Environmental Pollution and Carbon Emissions. Therefore, it’s our mission to bring traceability to global supply chains and to accelerate world’s transition to a Circular Economy.
Singularity Energy - Backend Software Engineer - $110k – $140k, 0.05% – 0.25% equity - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
In order to decarbonize the grid, the world needs better carbon data and analytics. To support this mission, Singularity Energy is building the world's highest quality view of historical, real-time, and forecasted grid carbon emissions. Today, grid carbon data is siloed, outdated, and lacks spatial and temporal granularity, and with new climate pledges and decarbonization plans being announced every day, there is a tremendous need to get the underlying data right. We're looking for a backend engineer to own and implement new data and dashboard products, and to continue scaling and improving our backend data infrastructure. You’ll have input and responsibility over our entire codebase. You’ll be working on a wide range of tasks including: scaling our data processing pipeline, refining ML models, integrating with hardware to optimize device usage, and architecting new products and infrastructure from the ground up.