June 18, 2023

🌍 CAT Newsletter #175 - 2023-06-18

CAT 175 - 2023-06-18

Hey CATs,

Welcome to issue 175 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 survey

If you haven’t done so already, we’d love to hear your feedback on CAT and ideas for improvements through our twice-a-year member survey (takes about 5-7mins to fill out). Thank you!

#️⃣ Slack highlights

• #mobility: Lots going on in this channel recently! From sleeper trains to electric cars and from micro-mobility to offsetting flights! Check out the channel

• #greener-data-ai: There’s a few climate & AI courses that were shared in the channel recently. Have you participated in any? Or are you planning to? If you’re participating in the Climate Change AI Summer School, join the CAT study group in #proj-climatechangeai

• #greener-webdev: Channel host Nat posed the question: What are the most effective methods of making a website or web app greener? Read through tons of in-depth replies and add your own thoughts

📆 CAT events

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

▶️ Tue, Jul 4 · Watch Party: How Airships Could Overcome a Century of Failure

👋 Thu, Jul 20 · CAT Coffee (western-friendly): Networking

In August we’ll be taking a break with our events. We’ll use the time to realign our programs and what we do with our Theory of Change and community needs. CAT volunteers will be working on this - if you’d like to be involved, let @Sandra know on Slack.

🍩 Community networking

Our next #cat-roulette matches are going out on Fri, June 23! 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.

Radioactive waste: How to solve nuclear’s biggest problem

Over a quarter of a million tons of highly radioactive waste is just sitting around across the globe, in some cases leaching toxins into the environment. And nobody knows what to exactly to do with it – except for Finland. We visit the the only high-level nuclear waste storage site in the world.

✋ Looking for volunteers

#️⃣ Help improve our Slack community: Volunteer as a Channel host, Moderator, or Knowledge capturer. Contact @Sandra to get involved.

📍 Get a local group of CATs together for a meetup: Volunteer to organise a CAT event or connect to your neighbours by coordinating with everyone to go to an existing event! For help with how to get started, reach out to @Sandra.

✏️ 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.

Mon Jun 19 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.

Tue Jun 20 2023 - Carbon Aware Computing - Design Principles & Patterns

Carbon Aware Computing is a building block to design systems CO2 optimized. In a project with UBS, the Carbon Aware SDK was developed with the goal to design the UBS Risk Compute Platform Carbon Aware and to report savings. (Talk is in German)

Tue Jun 27 2023 - Green UX/UI for a greater web – uXchange hybrid meetup

Let’s talk about about Green UX/UI Design with Sandy Dähnert from Green the Web. We as designers are incredibly powerful. Let’s use our talents to reduce the negative impacts of digital products on nature and increase the positive impact. Because we need to. And we can.

Check #external-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

The Week in Green Software: Code Green and Clean Power

Joining host Chris Adams on this episode of TWiGS is Nina Jabłońska, operations coordinator at Energy Tag and a master’s student in sustainable energy systems. In this episode, we’ll explore insights from the Linux Foundation Energy Summit in Paris, real-life examples of reducing computing emissions through cloud carbon footprint analysis, and employee activism at AWS, where tech workers stood up for climate action and better work-from-home conditions.

GreenIO #20: E-waste friend or foe in a circular economy with Jacqueline Mukarukundo and Vanessa Forti

What about the 53.6 million metric tons of e-waste generated worldwide ? Is it time for a global commitment to tackle the alarming 82% of e-waste that remains unrecycled? And how can we, as responsible individuals and global citizens, take action to address this critical issue? That’s what we discussed in this episode on e-waste ! Join Gaël Duez to meet Jacqueline Mukarukundo, co-founder of Wastezon in Rwanda and Vanessa Forti, Associate Programme Officer at UNITAR. Don’t miss this episode if you want to explore e-waste and gain valuable insights on creating a more sustainable future.

Catalyst with Shayle Khan: AI for climate - A real-world test

Back in March, Duncan Campbell, vice president at Scale Microgrids, used ChatGPT to code some battery dispatch software and tweeted about his experience. Duncan isn’t a professional software developer, but he still came up with some promising results. Could a non-coder like Duncan use AI to do the work of several climatetech coders? We invited Duncan to do it again and ramped up the challenge.

The Carbon Copy: Why this battery maker’s downfall still haunts America

As we evaluate the Biden administration’s approach to building back domestic manufacturing and climate-positive infrastructure, we keep coming back to one question: What makes the current push different from Obama-era efforts? This week, we’re talking with Gabrielle Coppola, a Bloomberg auto-industry journalist, about her new magazine feature focusing on America’s tortured journey to build EV batteries, and how the failure of A123 Systems underscores the complexity of U.S. clean energy manufacturing strategy.

Zero: We need trillions to fix the climate. Finally there’s a serious plan.

Trillions of dollars are needed to shift the world to a low-carbon future, but where will all that money come from? Avinash Persaud has a plan: the Bridgetown Agenda. He’s the special envoy on investment and financial services for Barbados and is working with his country’s prime minister, Mia Mottley, to transform the global financial system. Together they are putting pressure on the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to turbocharge the roll-out of clean technologies in developing countries. This week on Zero, Akshat Rathi sits down with Avinash to discuss his plan, and why he thinks now is the time these aging financial institutions can finally be reformed.

Climate One: Naomi Oreskes, David Gelles and The Myth of Free Markets

Many on the left say that the growing climate crisis is the inevitable result of unbridled capitalism – industries seeking profits above all else. In “The Big Myth,” Naomi Oreskes (who brought us “Merchants of Doubt”) points to a concerted effort from American business groups to propagate the myth that only markets free of government regulation can generate prosperity and protect political freedom. This myth has grown so pervasive that American citizens now put more faith in CEOs than in religious leaders, according to David Gelles, author of “The Man Who Broke Capitalism.” What should be done to change the narrative?

New York Times Podcast: The kids in taking the climate fight to court in Montana

This week, a historic case has landed in a Montana courtroom. A group of young environmentalists is suing the state, arguing that its embrace of fossil fuels is destroying pristine environments, upending cultural traditions and robbing young residents of a healthy future. David Gelles, a climate correspondent for The Times, explains why the case could be a turning point, and what a win in Montana would mean for the future of the climate fight.

📰 News Highlights

Rueters: UN chief to fossil fuel firms: stop trying to ‘knee-cap’ climate progress

UNITED NATIONS, June 15 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Thursday that countries must start phasing out oil, coal and gas - not just emissions - and demanded fossil fuel companies “cease and desist” measures that aim to “knee-cap” climate progress. “The problem is not simply fossil fuel emissions. It’s fossil fuels – period,” Guterres told reporters. “The solution is clear: The world must phase out fossil fuels in a just and equitable way - moving to leave oil, coal and gas in the ground.”

The Verge: Microsoft’s dirty supply chain is holding back its climate ambitions

The Verge reviewed 27 emissions inventories selected at random from Microsoft’s list of top 100 suppliers, using voluntarily submitted data from the non-profit disclosure system CDP. While some of Microsoft’s suppliers were making progress in cleaning up their carbon footprint, most had actually increased their emissions since the company announced its big climate ambitions.

Wordpress.org: WordPress now has a Sustainability team!

The current mission of the team is to embed sustainable practices into the WordPress community and its processes. We focus on ensuring longevity; socially, economically, and environmentally. We look forward to seeing you next Friday 23rd of June 2023 at 11.00 UTC.

Green software Foundation: Uniting for the Green Software Revolution

If you missed it the first time around, a summary of the key insights from the recently published State of Green Software Report, with a link to the a recording of the initial presentation of the report. In addition to going into specifics around tech sustainability, some interesting commentary about what incentives are more effective in getting organisational commitments. Choice quote: “We have seen with multiple organizations the real transition, almost overnight, comes when executive pay is somehow linked to sustainability.”

Euractiv: Lawmakers back EU ban on planned obsolescence, destruction of unsold goods

The European Parliament’s environment committee has adopted its position on the EU’s proposed ecodesign regulation for sustainable products, supporting an EU-wide ban on planned obsolescence as well as the destruction of unsold goods like textiles. The new EU rules, first tabled by the European Commission in March 2022, aim to make everyday consumer products easier to repair, reuse and recycle, thereby reducing their impact on the environment. At the heart of the ecodesign regulation are new “digital product passports”, providing consumers and businesses with the details they need to make informed purchases.

Oregon Live: Will submerging computers make data centers more climate friendly?

It’s one of the most basic rules of electronics: Keep them dry. As data centers grow increasingly powerful, the computers are generating so much heat that cooling them uses exorbitant amounts of energy, so inresponse, Intel and other big tech companies are designing liquid cooling systems that could use far less electricity, hoping to lower data centers’ energy costs by as much as a third — and reducing the facilities’ climate impact.

Environment 360: Rooftop Solar Grew Nearly 50 Percent Globally Last Year

Global rooftop solar capacity grew by 49 percent in 2022, an industry report finds. Overall, installed rooftop solar grew from 79 gigawatts to 118 gigawatts last year and is projected to reach 159 gigawatts by the end of this year, according to SolarPower Europe, an industry trade group. Globally, solar will generate enough power in 2023 to meet more than half of the EU’s power demand, the report said.

Green Rocks: A round up of Mining for the Climate

A montlhly round up of stories at the intersection between mining and climate. Choice quote: “Indonesia’s only operating battery nickel plant responded to concerns that its waste was turning the ocean red. It denied there was any pollution going into waterways, but also that if it did end up there, it follows the government’s quality standards.”

Yale Climate Connect: Inside the unexpectedly wild landmark Montana youth climate trial

When I got an assignment to cover the landmark youth climate lawsuit that went to trial in Montana this week, I thought I was going to be able to pop in, grab some salient quotes, and write up a story. But the trial at a state district court in Helena has turned out to be unexpectedly wild. The testimony has been gripping. And the contrast between the polished lawyering of the plaintiffs’ side compared to the somewhat rough-and-tumble approach by lawyers for the state of Montana took me by surprise.

Ars Technica: Montana calls UN climate report “hearsay” at landmark youth-led climate trial

Yesterday, a landmark climate trial kicked off in Montana, with 16 young residents demanding that the state be ordered to do more to protect residents’ constitutional rights by reducing emissions and tossing out state policies promoting the fossil fuels industry. The trial comes shortly after the state legislature passed a new law that “explicitly prohibits” greenhouse gas emissions and climate effects to be considered in state agencies’ environmental impact reviews.

The Guardian: Greta Thunberg takes part in her last school strike for climate

After what began as a solo protest in Sweden five years ago and grew into a movement with millions of children across the world participating, Greta Thunberg has taken part in her last “school strike” protest as she graduates from school. The protests, which led to many climate activist movements across Europe, the US and Australia, are known as Fridays for Future or School Strike for Climate.

💼 Jobs

Remember only jobs listing salary ranges are listed here - [o get your job listed in this newsletter, you need to use the CAT job listing form and include a salary range. There more jobs listed 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.

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.

TransitionZero - Software Engineer - £45,000 to £65,000 per annum (depending on experience level) - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok

We are seeking a talented junior or mid-level software engineer with a passion for sustainability, skills and experience writing back-end data services with Python, and a knowledge of Python development to build data handling scripts, API routes, data models, schemas, migrations, and containerised jobs and services. You will be working on The Future Energy Outlook, an open-source data and modelling platform that aims to make energy systems analysis auditable, accountable, and reproducible, and TransitionZero’s new flagship product.