May 28, 2023

🌍 CAT Newsletter #172 - 2023-05-28

Hey CATs,

Welcome to issue 172 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

🎉 CAT town hall

Thanks so much to those of you who joined our Town Hall! 💚 If you weren’t able to make it you can…

• Rewatch the recording in your own time here (passcode: CAT-TownHall23)

• Check out the presentation which includes all the links (links are also posted over in #5-cat-events)

• Join us for a Town Hall watch party & discussion on June 1st (eastern-friendly) or June 21st (pacific-rim-friendly)

🗳️ Member survey is open from now until July

Our twice-a-year member survey is open again! This is your chance to share feedback about the community. Please take 5-7mins and let us know what’s working and what’s could be improved by filling out the survey.

#️⃣ Slack highlights

• #behaviour-psychology: Melissa & Alja shared some interesting thoughts and links about climate action, protests and social change.

• #3-ask-anything: Mabel asked one of the questions from our last networking event — What’s one thing you struggle with when it comes to making your job/workplace more sustainable? Answer in the thread

• #greener-leadership: Lukasz tarted a thread about finding talent in green tech. Join the conversation

• #greener-marketing: Claire shared a study on the carbon footprint of online advertising and Owen jumped into the thread with a great set of TLDR bullet points! Read up on the summary and join the conversation

📆 CAT events

Our Town Hall took place last Wednesday! You can rewatch the recording in your own time here (passcode: CAT-TownHall23) or join us for a watch party 👇

🐱 Thu, Jun 1 · Town Hall watch party (eastern)

🧠 Fri, Jun 2 · Brainstorming session: Join for an open conversation where anyone in the community can contribute ideas on improving events, Slack, or coming up with new initiatives or programs.

▶️ Fri, Jun 2 · Watch Party: What is ocean acidification?

🐱 Tue, Jun 20 · Town Hall watch party (pacific-rim)

🍩 Community networking

Our next #cat-roulette matches are going out on Fri, June 9! Join the channel, pick your region and Donut matches you with other channel members every other week! It’s a great 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.

The Economist - Heatwaves: how hot can it get?

Heatwaves are becoming more frequent, more intense and more deadly. But what is a heatwave, why are they so dangerous and how are they affected by climate change? Really concise informative explaining the science behind heatwaves, as long as you can avoid being distracted by the key interviewee’s eye-catchingly styled facial hair.

✋ Looking for volunteers

📆 Help improve our events: Join our Brainstorming session on June 2nd or take a look at the Trello board for helping with existing events

#️⃣ Help improve our Slack community: Join our Brainstorming session on June 2nd or take a look at our existing Slack roles Channel host, Moderator, or Knowledge capturer

✍️ Help enrich our blog: Do you have a climate action story to share? Or a how-to or explainer that we can repost? Or content planning experience? Contact @melissa or post in #cat-blog to get involved.

📆 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.

Check #events in the CAT slack for more.

Tue May 30 2023 - Inventive ways to make plastics more sustainable

Green Tech South West welcomes Neil Morris from Kelpi and Keven Chappell from Pinweld to tell us about their incredible work to transform the ways we use and view plastics.

Wed May 31 2023 - Green Infrastructure Meetup GfK [x] Green Coding Berlin

We are thrilled to announce our upcoming Green Coding and Infrastructure meet-up, which will take place on May 31st at the brand-new GfK Berlin Office.

🎤 Podcasts

The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don’t forget, if you’re looking around, there’s a list of podcasts maintained by CATs

Environment Variables - The Week in Green Software: DIMPACT with Andri Johnston

Host Chris Adams is joined by Andri Johnston, Digital Sustainable Lead for Cambridge University Press and Assessment as they talk about using DIMPACT to calculate the carbon impact of digital publishing as well as news from the world of green software concerning one acronym; ESG and one new portmanteau; LightSwitchOps.

Catalyst with Shayle Khan: 4 ways to store sunlight

Renewables are going to need a lot of backup. Low-carbon storage technologies could be the answer. In this episode, Shayle talks to his colleague Andy Lubershane, partner and head of research at Energy Impact Partners, about the size of the shift, and the trends he’s seeing.

Zero: The biggest opportunity in the history of the world

Dipender Saluja is the Managing Director of Capricorn Investment Group, a venture capital firm with $9B under management. He was an early investor in Tesla. Today Dipender leads Capricorn’s clean tech investments effort and is betting on nuclear fusion, next gen batteries and electric aviation as the next moneymakers in decarbonizing the economy. Akshat talks with him about why he got interested in venture capital, climate tech, and how his start in the semiconductor industry informs his investment strategy.

Outrage and Optimism 201. Lifelines VS Deadlines: The Need For Science Based Policy (Part Two)

Last week Paul Dickinson, Dylan Tanner and our guests explored some of the good, the bad, and the downright dark side of government action on climate policy, or perhaps that should be inaction. This week, with the help of co-host Fiona Macklin, part two of Lifelines vs Deadlines will go beyond the politics and speak to industry and city leaders, lawyers and youth activists on the need for collective support around regulatory lifelines if the deadlines, climate science has set for us are to be met.

📰 News Highlights

‘Don’t F&*! The Planet’: Atlassian issues net zero guide for companies cutting climate impact

Tech firm founded by Australians Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar says net zero must be achieved by cutting emissions by 90% and only offsetting the remainder, in their own newly published net zero guide.

Spain has produced enough renewable energy to power its entire country for a 9-hour work day

Energy generated from wind, sun, and water managed to meet all the needs of mainland Spain from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, El Pais reported. Spain is among a handful of countries leading the world in the push toward renewable energy. And last week it reached a new milestone.

Nearly a billion dollars a year is flowing into climate denial - organized climate change counter-movement

There is a very well-funded, well-orchestrated climate change-denial movement, one funded by powerful people with very deep pockets, according to a new and incredibly thorough study from Drexl University, Drexel University sociologist Robert Brulle took a deep dive into the financial structure of the climate deniers, to see who is holding the purse strings.

TikTok to crack down on climate disinformation

TikTok has added climate to its misinformation policy and will begin removing content denying that climate change is real. Content which “undermines well-established scientific consensus, such as denying the existence of climate change or the factors that contribute to it” will be removed from the platform.

Enough with fossil fuels, Pope says in latest climate appeal

The world must rapidly ditch fossil fuels and end “the senseless war against creation”, Pope Francis said on Thursday, in a fresh plea over climate change that called on people to repent for their “ecological sins”. Francis has made the protection of the environment a cornerstone of his pontificate, since his landmark 2015 “Laudato Si” (Praised Be) encyclical.

Investment in solar power to outstrip oil for first time, says IEA

Investment in clean energy will extend its lead over spending on fossil fuels in 2023, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Thursday, with solar projects expected to outpace outlays on oil production for the first time. Read more in the IEA report

Can building with wood decarbonise construction?

By replacing energy-intensive building materials and locking away carbon from the atmosphere, building with sustainable timber could save more than 100Gt of CO₂ by the end of the century – but there is a catch.

💼 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 Arc - DevOps / API Developer - GBP 50k - 70k - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok

Climate Arc is building an open data platform to help shifting global finance towards responsible companies. We’re currently looking for someone to help building foundational elements of our platform, including DevOps, automation, monitoring and well as develop API layer exposing our data assets externally.

Wikirate International - Full-stack developer - 65,000 EUR - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok

We are looking for a full-stack developer who can work within a distributed team on diverse technical challenges. Wikirate’s code, all of which is open source, is primarily written in Ruby and CoffeeScript/JavaScript and is tested using RSpec and Cypress (and, to a lesser extent, Cucumber). The developer will be expected to write automated tests for all new code. All code contributions are team-reviewed as pull requests on GitHub.

Centre for Sustainable Energy - Software engineer - £34,387 to £54,356 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok

As a Software Engineer, you will collaborate with CSE colleagues in the Research and Analysis team, across CSE and external partners on the following tasks: Creating innovative software to answer climate change related questions. Designing, planning, developing and testing new software. Supporting and extending existing applications. Using software to help colleagues undertake tasks including statistical and spatial analysis and data management.

Elemental Excelerator - Senior Partnerships Operations Analyst - $68,200 - $106,600 - Permanent - Onsite only

This role will be responsible for project managing both our efforts in building a novel coalition to bridge climate tech’s scale gap and our corporate innovation challenges. The role may also be tasked with supporting cross-functional projects within the greater team to realize new opportunities. If you have a passion for process optimization, organization, and relationship building, consider applying.

Electricity Maps - Chief Operating Officer - 80,000 DKK (around 107k EUR) - Permanent

Electricity Maps is looking for an experienced COO with the mission of bringing the company from 1+ to 10M+ revenue by owning P&L and day-to-day activities, thus creating a space for the CEO to focus on external evangelisation, key strategic relationships as well as product innovation

Leaders for Climate Action - Sustainability Program Manager - €40-60K, commensurate with experience - Contract - Flexible - remote ok

As the Sustainability Program Manager at Leaders for Climate Action (LFCA), you will be responsible for designing and delivering high-quality educational formats that enable practitioners to drive climate action within their organizations. This role can either be located in Berlin or be fully remote.

ICCT - Associate Researcher, Aviation, Berlin - 64K EUR - Permanent - Flexible

The ICCT seeks a highly motivated and committed Associate Researcher for the Aviation Program in Berlin, Germany. This position will support research to identify, refine, and promote policies to reduce the environmental impacts of commercial aviation.