March 12, 2023

🌍 CAT Newsletter #161 - 2023-03-12

Hey CATs,

Welcome to issue 161 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.

Fun factoid: on this today, was the first ever carbon dioxide build conference, 60 years ago in New York. Read more.

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

x2 the amount this week because we accidentally sent an old version last week. 😅

• #films-books-media: Hope asked about recommendations in honor of last month’s Black History Month. Reply in the thread

• #greener-design: Poppe shared the recording of her talk and asked whether folks would be up for a watch party!

• #greener-webdev: Dryden shared the Forbes Website Statistics for 2023 article. Read it? Share your thoughts in the thread

• #greener-leadership: New channel host Łukasz is asking what topics related to greener leadership you’re interested in. Fill out the survey and join the channel for more.

• #3-ask-anything: Oliver has been reading about the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and is wondering if anyone knows about plans to include digital assets and software to the regulations. Know the answer? Reply in the thread

• #greener-webdev: Michael asked about blocking (not just hiding) images on websites. Join the conversation in the thread.

📚 Branch magazine reading group

Voting time is now over for the 4th Branch Magazine Reading Group and the "philosophical hardware" article won 🥇: Repairing Our Relationship with Technology.  Register here to join Poppe and Gaël for another fun and insightful discussion Thu, March 23rd 5pm GMT.

📆 CAT events

Last Tuesday a few CATs met to watch the documentary Toitū Te Whenua. We learned about the impact of pollution, industry, and invasive species on #local-aotearoa’s ecosystem. Read our reactions in the discussion thread and feel free to chime in.

Upcoming events

☕️ Thu, Mar 16 · CAT Coffee (western): Networking

🗑️ Sat, Mar 18 · CAT Digital Clean Up Hour

☕️ Tue, Mar 21 · CAT Coffee (pacific)

📚 Thu, Mar 23 · Branch reading group #4: We’ll discuss Repairing Our Relationship with Technology

🍩 Community networking

Our next #cat-roulette matches are going out on Fri, Mar 17! 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.

🎬 CAT videos

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

Can Brazil save the Amazon this time?

Scientists fear the Amazon may be approaching a tipping point that would have global consequences. But Brazil was once hugely successful at tackling deforestation there. Can the country do it again?

✋ Looking for volunteers

☕ CAT Coffee volunteer • 2hrs / month
Help brainstorm on how to improve our #cat-coffee events and/or help facilitate conversations during the event.

📆 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.

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.

Thu Mar 30 2023 - Kick starting a circular economy for the data center industry

Green Tech South West presents an online event with the amazing Professor Deborah Andrews, founder and academic lead at CEDaCI. CEDaCI is funded by Interreg North West Europe, and is doing ground breaking research developing a Circular Economy for the Data Centre Industry.

Mon Apr 10 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.

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

GreenIO: #14 Digital Cleanup Day with Ingrid Nielsen and Olivier Vergeynst

We dive deep into the thought process behind digital cleanup day, how to get buy-in for digital cleanup, how best to do digital cleanup, and who are the targets of this ambitious project.

Outrage and Optimism 191. The Stories of Women are Precious

This week, co-hosts Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac, and Paul Dickinson interrupt their previously scheduled programming一the launch of the O+O miniseries discussed last week一to celebrate International Women’s Day (recognized annually on March 8) with CEO & Leadership Activist Fabian Dattner.

Environment Variables - The Week in Green Software: Greenwashing

In this the latest episode of The Week in Green Software, Chris Adams is joined by first time Environment Variables guest Tammy McClellan and regulars Anne Currie and Asim Hussain. They discuss the concept of greenwashing

📰 News Highlights

Report proposes tax on the ultra-rich to finance a global climate fund

Led by French economists Thomas Piketty and Lucas Chancel, the study advocates a progressive rate of 1.5% to 3% for fortunes of over $100 million.

Long-term impact of Silicon Valley Bank collapse on Clean Energy startups unknown but clearly Short-term Bad

The bank that was shut down by regulators Friday had previous vowed to commit at least $5 billion in loans, investments and other financing to support sustainability efforts by 2027. Also, More than 60 percent of community solar financing nationwide involved the bank

Carbon BriefQ&A: What does the ‘High Seas Treaty’ mean for climate change and biodiversity?

Nations around the world have agreed to a new global treaty for governing the sustainable use and conservation of the so-called “high seas” – areas of the ocean that lie outside of any single nation’s jurisdiction.

Biggest carbon credit certifier to replace its rainforest offsets scheme

The world’s leading carbon credit certifier – used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations for climate claims – has said it will phase out and replace its rainforest offsets programme by mid-2025 after a Guardian investigation found it was flawed.

BBC will not broadcast Attenborough episode over fear of ‘rightwing backlash’

The BBC has decided not to broadcast an episode of Sir David Attenborough’s flagship new series on British wildlife because of fears its themes of the destruction of nature would risk a backlash from Tory politicians and the rightwing press, the Guardian has been told.

EU agrees to push for fossil fuel phaseout ahead of COP28

European Union countries agreed to promote a global fossil fuel phase out on Thursday ahead of the United Nation's COP28 climate summit this year, attempting to boost a global deal that failed at last year's summit.

A hydrogen-powered airplane just made a record-setting test flight

Startup Universal Hydrogen says it successfully flew a 40-seat passenger plane powered mainly by hydrogen during a test flight in Washington.

💼 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.

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.

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

⭐️ Monthly CAT Thank You

📝 For adding knowledge to Outline: @Elisa @melissa @mrchrisadams @veronica @CathyR @Drew Engelson @Tristin Oldani @V. Stoica @Ornela

💰 For supporting us financially on Open Collective: @Nicola Bonotto @Thibaud Colas (he/him) @Mike Gifford (CivicActions) @Michelle Barker @fershad @Todd Zmijewski @Michael Napper @Luke Watts (CET) @Chris Pointon @James Crowley @Jeff Burka @asim @HeatherB @Nic Wistreich @Aaron Rackley

❤️ For volunteering within the community: @Sigi @Siddharth @Siôn @Ismael Velasco @Matt Sirkis @Gaël Duez @Poppe Guthrie @Brett Duboff @Cary Kloster @Elisa @Evan Hahn @Alja Isaković @Hannah @roundcrisis
For volunteering on our cross-community #climate-justice programs: @Marwa Eltaib @Richard Kim @Yang Hong (she/her)