š CAT Newsletter #166 - 2023-04-16
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 166 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 outĀ our onboarding checklist.
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Stay safe & healthy š š š±
CAT Community News
š Itās Earth Week this week!
Are you planning to do a talk at work for Earth Week? If you need any pointers or if youāre looking for speakers, use ourĀ #green-talksĀ channel to get feedback, or share a speaking opportunity. Practicing how we talk about climate at work is super important and Earth Day is a great time to try it out!
ļøSlack highlights
- #local-london: If you're in the UK, there's a contingent of CATs organising to join Extinction Rebellion "The Big One" - planned to "the biggest climate protest" the UK has ever seen. CAT started with techies meeting in a New York march, if you're in town, this thread is where to learn more.
š Project updates
š BRANCH READING GROUP UPDATE
Hosts @Poppe Guthrie and @Gaƫl Duez invite you to discuss the article Slowing Down AI with Speculative Friction on Thursday, Apr 27th.
šĀ Upcoming CAT events
ā Thu, Apr 13 Ā· CAT Coffee (eastern): Share your project/idea/win (sign up for a slot here)
ā Tue, Apr 18 Ā· CAT Coffee (pacific): Digital clean-up session
ā Thu, Apr 20 Ā· CAT Coffee (western): #greener-games pop-up! Weāll play āGreen Houseā.
š Thu, Apr 27 Ā· Branch reading group #5: Slowing Down AI with Speculative Friction
š© Community Metworking Our next round of #cat-roulette matches will go out next Friday.
ā Looking for volunteers
#ļøā£ Slack moderator ā¢ 20min / week
Keep our Slack space safe, spam-free & working as intended across different channels
š 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 Apr 20 2023 - Cloud Carbon Footprint - Simply measure, simply reduce
Cloud Carbon Footprint is an open source solution to measure the CO2 emissions of cloud applications. Erik Dornberg, Head of Technologies at Thoughtworks, has been involved with that tool and will share his insights in this talk. (Event is held on German)
Thu Apr 20 2023 - Creative UX for Nature
Join the free 1h online workshop. Connect with nature, get creative tips to reduce the 10 energy eating monsters of UX/UI Design and see how to implement features that positively affect our environment. Plus, overcome objections from clients and colleagues.
Check #events in the CAT slack for more.
Thu Apr 2023 - Green Tech South West: Net zero for business and UK gov digital sustainability strategy - hybrid event
Join in-person in Bristol UK or online for this free event. Two fantastic speakers 1. Adam Turner, Head of Digital Sustainability at DEFRA, about the UK govās work on greening IT 2. Aisha Stewart, from Business West explaining what net zero means for businesses in the UK
April 21 -24 2023 - The Big One - Extinction Rebellion UK
Still looking for Earth Day Plans?! Come join us at the Big One (dates). CAT is a supporter so look out for content over the next week. Let me know if youāre planning to attend and we can meet up! Also, LMK if you might want a CAT t-shirt, Iām thinking of ordering a couple but can add to the order. (DM for the deets)
Tue Apr 25 2023 - Tools and Best-Practices for Sustainable Software - An overview
Arne will give an overview over some of the most relevant tools for sustainable software engineering. Also some "best practices" are presented but also pitfalls that come along with them and why real benefits can only be achieved with "being less wasteful".
Wed May 03 2023 - VentureSouq x Terra.do Job Fair
Join us for this partner fair and meet rising climate companies in the GCC.
š¬ CAT videos
CAT videos, geddit? 10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to topics related to climate.
Is Germany's nuclear exit a mistake?
The 15th of April 2023 marks the end of Germany's 60-year-old nuclear history ā right in the middle of a global energy crisis. The country had to fire up old coal plants to secure energy supply in the past year, while other countries continued to build more nuclear power plants. Was pulling out of nuclear energy a huge mistake? (Note: if this policy move seems bizare to you, this video gives a lot of historical context to help understand why this decision was taken)
š¤ Podcasts
Carbon Copy: Live: How AI could supercharge climatetech
The business world is about to get turned upside down by artificial intelligence. How will it impact energy?
Zero: The climate case for flying cars
Electric aviation fulfills two futuristic promises ā flying cars and emissions-free air travel. This week, meet the professor who is working to make it happen. Venkat Viswanathan, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, is working to create a battery that can power an aircraft on a trip over 200 miles. Venkat talks to Akshat about the network of people involved in electric aviation, how long it will take to develop such a light and powerful battery, and why aviation is the most important problem for batteries to solve. (Ignore the clickbaity title - actually )
GreenIO #17 Tech Sustainability in Singapore with Ian Chew & Thibaut Meurgue-Guyard
Ready to explore the digital sustainability landscape of Singapore? Travel there with Gaƫl Duez to meet Thibaut, the local representative of both the Climate fresk and the Digital Collage in Singapore and Ian, founder of Greenie web.Join us for an insightful discussion as we delve into the Singaporean tech ecosystem and its sustainability landscape.
The Week in Green Software: Generative AI and Cloud Zombies
Chris Adams is joined by cloud sustainability advocate and founder of Cloud Sustainably, Aerin Booth in this episode of TWiGS brought to you by the Green Software Foundation. On this episode Aerin provides his insight into the cloud to discuss cloud zombies, the effect that generative AI is having on the environment and exciting developments from Xbox (including a list of some of Aerinās favourite nostalgic games!). We also touch on GreenOps and the future for green software developers.
The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don't forget, if you're looking around, there's a list of podcasts maintained by CATs
š° News Highlights
Biden aims to supercharge EV adoption with new emissions standards
Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled strict tailpipe emissions regulations that, if adopted as written, would slash vehicle pollution and accelerate the countryās bid to decarbonize its vehicles. The proposed standards would require automakersā fleets to produce far less pollution, both carbon emissions and ambient air pollution. Automakers would most likely comply with the standards by selling more EVs, potentially putting the country on track for electric models to make up two-thirds of new light-duty vehicle sales by 2032.
Ember Climate Global Electricity Review 2023
The report by climate and energy independent think tank Ember said last year could have marked peak emissions from the power sector, which is the largest source of planet-warming carbon emissions worldwide. Key takeweay - 2022 appears to be the first year ever that wind and solar displaced fossil energy generation globally, and 2023 is projected to be the first year that fossil fuel generation falls.
The mounting human and environmental costs of generative AI
Op-ed: Planetary impacts, escalating financial costs, and labor exploitation all factor. "For the creators of these models, instead of focusing on scale and size and optimizing solely for performance, itās possible to train smaller, more efficient models and make models accessible so that they can be reused and fine-tuned (read: adapted) by members of the AI community, who wonāt need to train models from scratch"
Banks with ānet-zeroā pledges are among the top funders of fossil fuels
Fossil fuel projects require money ā and that money is coming from the worldās top private banks, including many with net-zero climate pledges. Thatās according to a new report from the Rainforest Action Network, which looked at the major financial institutions funding oil and gas infrastructure since the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Energy efficiency starts to rock telcos' 5G infrastructure choices
Sustainability goals such as greater energy efficiency have risen up the agenda with telecoms operators, to the point where these concerns are now claimed to be affecting network architecture decisions for the next phase of 5G deployments.
Only 5% of FTSE 100 have published Net Zero plans that would be deemed ācredibleā under Governmentās Transition plan guidance
Nearly 18 months after the Governmentās COP26 pledge that UK listed businesses would be mandated to publish decarbonisation plans by 2023, only 5% of FTSE 100 companies have so far disclosed transition plans that would be deemed ācredibleā or sufficiently detailed under draft Government guidance.
Netflix: What the Latest Research on Streaming Emissions Tells Us
In 2021, Carbon Trust, one of the worldās most trusted think tanks on product carbon footprinting, produced a white paper called Carbon Impacts of Video Streaming. With input from the International Energy Agency, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California, University of Bristol, and data from BBC, BT, Ericsson, ITV, NENT, Netflix and Sky, they concluded that the average carbon footprint of streaming one hour of video is significantly lower than some had assumed1, roughly equivalent to three boils of an electric kettle in the UK
Sweden Drives Final Nail Into Its Bitcoin Mining Industry With Tax Hike
Good.
Expending HTTP to record carbon emissinos - the Carbon-Emissions-Scope-2 Header
An RFC has been shared to the HTTP Working Group for discussion. "This document defines the "Carbon-Emissions-Scope-2" HTTP response header field for reporting the amount of carbon emissions associated with processing a given HTTP request, as calculated according to the Scope 2 protocol outlined in ISO 14064-1:2006."
š° Jobs
TransitionZero - People and Operations Coordinator - Ā£80,000 - Ā£85,000 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
TransitionZero is seeking an experienced and passionate expert to lead our work on commodity data and heavy industry subsectors, with a particular focus on steel. The successful candidate will oversee our heavy industry workstream, including developing and communicating our views on heavy industry decarbonisation, building a team of engineers and analysts to support you, managing our commitments to our partners, including Climate TRACE, and working closely with our technology, product and engagement teams to support the development of tools, such as Future Energy Outlook (FEO) and Steel Asset Transition (SAT) tool.
TransitionZero - People and Operations Coordinator - Ā£45,000 - Ā£50,000 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
Our Engagement Analyst will ensure that our data drives impact for our users and partners. This is a technical and outreach role involving data wrangling, making product iterations, answering technical questions and communicating with stakeholders. They will develop and maintain relationships associated with Climate TRACE, a global non-profit coalition we co-founded to track GHG emissions independently.
Green Web Foundation - Operations Assistant - ā¬20 - ā¬35 / hour, depending on experience - Contract - Totally remote
Weāre looking for a freelance Operations Assistant to join our small, ambitious and friendly Green Web Foundation team. We work together with one clear mission: to transition the world to a fossil-free internet by 2030. There is scope for this role to grow over time in terms of pay, hours and responsibilities.
Elemental Excelerator - Teacher Fellow (Contractor) - Up to 20 hours per week for a stipend of $3000. - Contract - Flexible - remote ok
Elemental is seeking a passionate self-starter to join its Equity & Access, Career Pathways team as a Climate Champion Teaching Fellow. In this role, you will support a dynamic partnership between Elemental Excelerator and Subject to Climate (a nonprofit online connector for K-12 educators of all subjects to find credible and engaging materials on climate change at no cost) to establish Climate Curriculum in the Hawaii Education Ecosystem
Elemental Excelerator - EDICT Internship Coordinator (Contractor) - Ip to 20 hours per week at $22/hr - Contract - Totally remote
Elemental is seeking several passionate self-starters to join its Equity & Access, Career Pathways team as an Intern Case Manager. In this role, you will support the internal and external efforts needed for implementing the EDICT summer internship programming becoming the bridge between our interns, host employers and programming teams