🌍 CAT Newsletter #160 - 2023-03-05
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 159 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
#️⃣ Slack channel highlights
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#2-global-dialogue: Melissa asked what’s keeping you motivated. Share your thoughts in the thread.
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#greener-games: Alix offered to facilitate an online play session of her climate solutions game. Give this post a thumbs up if you’re interested and we’ll get it scheduled!
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#films-books-media: Stanley asked for opinions & thoughts on Greta Thunberg’s latest book ‘The Climate Book’. Have you read it? Join the conversation here.
📚 Branch magazine reading group
Sign up for the next session on March 23rd here. Check Slack to see which article we’ll discuss.
📆 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, Mar 2 · Watch Party: In Conversation: Kate Raworth and Janine Benyus
☕ Thu, Mar 9 · CAT Coffee (eastern): Session format tbd
☕ Thu, Mar 16 · CAT Coffee (western): Networking
🗑️ Sat, Mar 18 · CAT Digital Clean Up Hour (part of #DigitalCleanUpDay)
☕ Tue, Mar 21 · CAT Coffee (pacific)
📚 Thu, Mar 23 · Branch reading group #4
🍩 Community networking
Our next #cat-roulette matches are going out on Fri, Mar 3! Join the 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.
✋ Looking for volunteers
- #️⃣ Slack moderator • 20min / week - Keep our Slack space safe, spam-free & working as intended across different channels
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!
📆 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.
Mon Mar 13 2023 - The Digital Collage workshop
The Digital Collage is a 3h playful and collaborative online workshop. The aim of the workshop is to raise awareness and train participants on the environmental issues of digital technologies. The workshop also aims to outline solutions for more sustainability in Tech.
Thu Mar 02 2023 - Cross-public sector Climate Work Show & Tell
Public servants like you, talking about their climate efforts, failures, successes and learnings, no matter how small, and even if those efforts aren’t in their job title or formal objectives.
Tue Mar 28 2023 - Climate Mythbusters! Use code CATS for a free ticket
If we stopped all emissions today, would the world keep warming? Is Net Zero worth it? What about offsetting flights? Dr Adam Levy, aka Climate Adam to joining us to help bust some myths and build our confidence in understanding and talking about the climate crisis.
Tue Mar 14 2023 - Sneak Preview on Green Software Development
What are our options to develop climate-friendly and resource-saving applications? We are tackling this question with the Developer-, Entrepreneur- and Academia-Community. Experts show ways how we can transform our software and our software development in concrete terms.
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: More 2023 trends: EVs, onshoring and the three ages of decarbonization
Part two of our conversation on the biggest trends in climatetech with Nat Bullard.
Building a future where humanity will thrive, with Achim Steiner
Bloomberg Green reporter Akshat Rathi asks Steiner about the opportunities and threats climate change poses to global development, how countries can plan for more climate refugees, and what rising inequality means for a world facing multiple crises.
The Week in Green Software: How Green is Your Cloud?
TWiGS returns this week with host Asim Hussain being joined by (now guest) Chris Adams. They talk about the environmental impact of the cloud and setting green energy targets, the embodied energy of hardware, and Counting Carbon, a recent paper analysing the environmental impact of over 500 popular machine learning models.
📰 News Highlights
The Generative AI Race Has a Dirty Secret
Integrating large language models into search engines could mean a fivefold increase in computing power and huge carbon emissions. See also, fellow CAT member Kasper Groes Albin Ludvigsen’ analysis, and this comically detailed breakdown from Semi Analysis on likely energy costs.
Google Greenwashes a Dirty Partnership with Climate-Destroying Saudi Aramco
Google wants you to think that its work for Saudi Arabia will help save the planet. (editorial note: there’s some interesting nuance to this story to see how hackdays are used - both to come up with environmental innovations, but also legitimise working with oil and gas clients in tech firms.)
Apple goes green with the iPhone’s newest charging feature but not everyone likes it
iPhone Clean Energy Charging is here with iOS 16.1 but the complaints are piling up. See also this twitter thread explaining how a clumsy rollout can backfire for new green features.
Is that electric truck greener than a gas-powered compact car?
A new analysis compares the total life-cycle emissions of electric vehicles, hybrids and gas-powered cars. How does your ride stack up?
Urban tree planting with Ecosia
If you look at a map of the U.S., the neighborhoods with the lowest tree-canopy cover are also the neighborhoods that lack health and sanitation infrastructure, and suffer the worst consequences of extreme heat and pollution. Interesting write up of Ecosia moving to fund tree planting in cities in the United States.
Here’s the good and bad news on the US clean energy transition
A comprehensive new report from BNEF lays out 2022’s mixed bag of wins and losses on EVs, emissions, energy storage, climate disasters and much more.
Fossil fuel companies donated $700m to US universities over 10 years
Funding at 27 universities can shift not just research agendas, but also policy in the direction the industry prefers, report says
How to Reframe the Migration Debate for Climate Change
As the planet warms, migration is expected grow rapidly. More fair distribution of economic development can help slow it down, says the head of the United Nations Development Programme.
BlocPower raises $155M to speed up its all-electric building retrofits
The startup partners with cities and uses software and financing to make electrification pay off for low- and moderate-income residents.
🎬 CAT videos
CAT videos, geddit? 10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to topics related to climate.
PBS Terra: Have We Made ANY Progress on Climate Change? Here’s The Data, You Decide
“For this episode we wanted to see where we are in terms of business as usual, and if we are still headed towards an apocalypse of sorts… or if, perhaps, all of the technological innovations in renewables and EVs along with new climate policy such as the Paris Agreement might have bent down the curve on global warming.
(editorial note: this video does a really good job of demystifying some of the jargon you see in the news around climate, and is about as accessible as anything using the term ‘RCP 8.5’ is likely to get when talking about climate models)
💼 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.
Furbnow - Multiple - £55k-£70k - Permanent -
Furbnow is scaling up home retrofits in the UK. We’re making houses lower carbon, cheaper to heat, and more comfortable! We are hiring for:
Head of Growth - https://smrtr.io/cP_sR
Full stack software engineer (python / ts) - https://smrtr.io/cMwnW
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 -
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. 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.
Overstory - Technical Delivery Lead - €60,000 to €85,000 - Permanent -
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