February 12, 2023

🌍 CAT Newsletter #157 - 2023-02-12

Hey CATs,

Welcome to issue 157 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

💚 New CAT Organizer!

In case you missed the news last week — Veronica Hotton has joined the ranks and is now a CAT Organiser! If you want to learn more about how we organize, check out this page on Outline.

📚 Branch reading group

Our 3rd Branch Magazine Reading Group is next Thursday, Feb 16th! Register here.

#️⃣ Slack channel highlights

• #2-global-dialogue: Abdul shared learnings from a regenerative development & design course! Join the conversation in the thread.

• #greener-games: Inspired by Ben, Sandra renamed our #games channel to #greener-games and launched a poll to see what folks in the channel are interested in. Join the convo here.

• #climate-careers: Elisea shared info about #OpenDoorClimate in this post and offered to chat with folks who want to transition into a climate career.

✋ Looking for volunteers

Check out our Trello board for 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, Feb 16 • PT 9am | ET 12pm | GMT 5pm | CET 6pm | IST 9:30pm

☕ CAT Coffee (western)
Thu, Feb 23 • PT 10am | ET 1pm | GMT 6pm | CET 7pm | IST 10:30pm

🇲🇽 Green Your Software México: Cómo Desarrollar (Y Vender) Software Verde

Tue, Feb 28 • PT 5:30pm | MEX 7:30pm | ET 8:30pm

🍩 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 videos

CAT videos, geddit? 10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to topics related to climate.

How Airships Could Overcome a Century of Failure

A new breed of airships seeks to take flight and provide a greener solution for both luxury travel and heavy industry. But is the business case for bringing them back enough to overcome a troubled past?

📆 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.

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 28 2023 - Getting to a fossil free internet by 2030

Chris Adams from the Green Web Foundation will be giving a tour of the tech and policy changes needed to get us to a fossil free internet by 2030.

Thu Feb 23 2023 - Rising Tide Collective x Terra.do Job Fair

Discover European startups from Rising Tide Collective, scaling cutting-edge climate solutions, based in the UK, Germany and beyond.

Wed Mar 01 2023 - Careers in Climate Nonprofits

Join top not-for-profits/NGOs from the climate action ecosystem that are creating large-scale impact.

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 Kann: Kahn What hydrogen leaks mean for the climate

Leaked hydrogen may have more atmospheric warming potential than previously thought. Does that change how we should use hydrogen in the energy transition?

Everybody wants a better battery, Christine Ho is printing one

Akshat speaks with founder and inventor Christine Ho about how she bootstrapped the company, raised $25M, and why these small batteries made of a glue-like goo can cut down waste and reduce emissions.

Volts - Decarbonizing US transportation with an eye toward global justice

A conversation with Thea Riofrancos lead author of the new report: “Achieving Zero Emissions with More Mobility and Less Mining,”, Thea Riofrancos, an Andrew Carnegie Fellow and associate professor of political science at Providence College, about the reality of lithium mining, the coming demand for more lithium, and the ways that demand can be reduced through smart transportation choices.

Outrage and Optimisim 186 - The Breakthrough Effect

In this episode, co-hosts Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac, and Paul Dickinson discuss US President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, a possible green race to the top across the G7 nations, and how to identify positive economic tipping points with Kelly Levin, Co-Director of the Systems Change Lab and Chief of Science, Data and Systems Change for the Bezos Earth Fund

📰 News Highlights

Insulate Britain activist jailed for eight weeks for contempt of court

An environmental activist has been jailed for eight weeks after disobeying a judge’s instruction not to mention the climate crisis as his motivation during his trial for taking part in a road-blocking protest.

Africa gears up to keep more of the profits from lithium boom

Lithium-rich African countries, including Zimbabwe and Namibia, are trying to develop processing and refining industries to capture more of the profits of global demand for the battery material. “We are going to insist that all lithium mined within the country has to be processed in the country.”

Client Earth: We’re taking Shell’s Board of Directors to court

We’re going to court against Shell’s Board of Directors for failing to move away from fossil fuels fast enough. This is the first ever case of its kind seeking to hold corporate directors personally liable.

Renewables will be world’s top electricity source within three years, IEA data reveals

Renewables will cover almost all of global electricity demand growth out to 2025, becoming the world’s top source of electricity within three years, new figures reveal This means clean-energy sources will start displacing fossil fuels. As a result, global power-sector carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will plateau or decline, despite rapidly rising demand. Below, Carbon Brief runs through the report’s key findings via five charts

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon falls in first month under Lula

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest fell in January from a year earlier, satellite data showed on Friday, in the first monthly figures under President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Preliminary satellite data collected by the government’s space research agency Inpe showed 167 square km (64 square miles) cleared in the region last month, down 61% from January 2022, the worst for the month in the eight-year series.

‘Who elected him again?’ Bill Gates slammed after saying his use of private jets doesn’t undermine climate philanthropy

The philanthropist said he pays a company to offset his carbon footprint by removing C02 from the atmosphere

Europe proposes mass exit from energy treaty

After big European nations said they would leave the Energy Charter Treaty, the European Commission now says a joint EU exit is the best option. Editoral note: This is the treaty that lets fossil fuel companies sue countries if their policy changes threaten their future profits. so this is a big deal!

💼 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 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 - 50k-55k Euros - Permanent - Project Manager (Circularity/Sustainability)

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.

Anthesis - Product Owner - Competitive - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok

Anthesis is the sustainability activator! You will be a key part of the software team, providing support to ensure that all projects run smoothly and without a hitch! You will work collaboratively with client managers as well as tech and creative teams, managing complex development projects around web builds, integration and fulfilment whilst offering superb client management and ongoing support. Proud to be a B Corp, we seek to make a significant contribution to a world which is more resilient and productive.

Overstory - Technical Delivery Lead - €60,000 to €85,000 - Permanent - Totally remote

We are a climate tech startup, using satellite imagery to understand trees and vegetation at scale. It’s an impactful role, wrangling data into insights enabling our customers to manage their vegetation better, reducing both wildfire and power outages. The Overstory team is genuinely lovely, caring about each other and the climate