đ CAT Newsletter #186 - 2023-09-03
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 186 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.
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Stay safe & healthy đ đ đą
CAT Community News
#ď¸âŁ Slack channel highlights: #cat-roulette channel refresh
As channel host Brett mentioned on Slack â channel members have been removed from our #cat-roulette channel for our yearly refresh. đ If you want to continue being a part of CAT Roulette, please rejoin it.
What is #cat-roulette? A Slack integration called Donut matches members of the #cat-roulette channel every two weeks at random. Those matched CATs then pick a time when both/all can virtually meet in the following two weeks. It's a great way to get to know members of the CAT community. More info on Outline
đ Book club events
Mary & Melissa are getting ready to host part 2 & 3 of our âHow to Blow Up a Pipelineâ book club:
2ď¸âŁ Thu, Sep 7 at 5pm UTC / 1pm ET ¡ Book Club âHow to Blow Up a Pipelineâ Discussion 2 | Add to GoogleCal
Join us on Thurs, Sep 7, as we discuss Section 2: Breaking the Spell. In this section, Malm advocates for sabotaging CO2-emitting devices to deter further investment, citing historical sabotage examples and differentiating property destruction from violence against people.
3ď¸âŁ Thu, Sep 21 at 5pm UTC / 1pm ET ¡ Book Club âHow to Blow Up a Pipelineâ Discussion 3 | Add to GoogleCal
đŹ CAT videos
CAT videos, geddit? 10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to topics related to climate.
PBS Terra: Is Earth's Largest Heat Transfer Really Shutting Down?
With unprecedented heat waves and record-breaking global temperatures, itâs hard to believe that there might be a place on earth that has actually COOLED since the industrial revolution. But, it turns out, there is such a spot. The COLD BLOB off of Greenland mystified scientists for years, but new studies have uncovered a scary reality - this cool patch might be a warning of the impending collapse of a vital earth circulation system.
In this episode of Weathered, we travel to the Gulf Stream with the new PBS Terra show Sharks Unknown to experience the AMOC first hand. And we ask, what is the likelihood that the AMOC will collapse, and what would the consequences be?
â Looking for volunteers
Co-host a summer book club (one-off)
If you want to not just read âHow to blow up a pipelineâ this summer but help host a one-off CAT book club event, let us know in this thread.
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.
Wed Sep 13 2023 - How to win more and larger complex B2B deals (Megadeals)
Are you in a B2B ClimateTech trying to commercially scale but are experiencing challenges? The #Megadeals discipline, grounded in research and outlined in the book by the same name, offers strategies to navigate these B2B sales challenges effectively.
Wed Sep 20 2023 - Mission from MaRS: Announcing the Carbon Dioxide Removal Climate Champions
Join MaRS Discovery District as we launch our newest accelerator, and learn more about the 6 Canadian companies taking greenhouse gasses straight out of the air.
Wed Oct 04 2023 - Evergreen DeepTech Expo
Wednesday, October 4th, Evergreen Climate Innovations will be hosting the DeepTech Expo! Join us to discover new impactful climate technologies, network with innovators, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders, and hear the latest on the regionâs thriving innovation ecosystem.
Thu Sep 07 2023 - Smart Cities and Urban Planning
Weâre exploring how developments in smart city technology and urban planning can make our cities and towns greener and more liveable. Join us as we hear from: ⨠Aileen Ryan from Preoptima ⨠Dusty Gedge from Gentian
Wed Oct 11 2023 - Tech meets sustainable clothing - hybrid event
Join us for our hybrid event with great talks combining tech and sustainability. The event theme is tech meets clothing, with three brilliant speakers based in the South West - Tim Kindberg from Sust and Jen Wagner & Gary Lake from LAYBL.
đą A Cutting from Branch - Branch is back!
Branch, the online magazine written by and for people who dream of a sustainable and just internet for all is back with issue 5 - Carbon Computing! Issue 5 is a collaboration with the Critical Carbon Computing Collective, covering topics ranging from computing Net Zero, labor relations in climate tech, how carbon accounting is shaping the economy, and more.
Sounds interesting? Why not start the week with introducing Carbon Computing?
Podcasts
Catalyst with Shayle Khan: Can the V2X dream become reality?
Picture millions of EVs plugged into their charging docks, working in concert to relieve stress on the worldâs power grids. They can reduce load and save customers money, or even inject stored energy back onto the grid. They can back up renewables when the wind doesnât blow or the sun doesnât shine. But first, these technologies need to overcome some big barriers: costly grid upgrades, the possibility of prematurely degrading batteries and drivers worried about being left without a charge, just to name a few. So what will V2X actually look like? In this episode, Shayle talks to Ty Jagerson, leader of V2X at GM.
Zero: Your carbon footprint should bring you joy
The concept of a âcarbon footprintâ began as a distraction from Big Oil: get people to focus on their own actions rather than the impact of large emitters. Oil companies come up with PR campaigns all the time, but the carbon footprint took off because it taps into a question we keep coming back to, can our choices lower emissions? If so, how? And if they donât, why bother? This week, Akshat is joined by Kira Bindrim, the editor of Bloomberg Greener Living, which focuses on consumer choices, to talk about what sheâs noticed in a year of editing stories about products, misconceptions, and how much people just love to read about electric cars. Plus, we break down her carbon footprint.
The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don't forget, if you're looking around, there's a list of podcasts maintained by CATs
** News Highlights**
The Guardian: Crypto mining firm Stronghold Digital Mining to mine bitcoin from literal tyre fires in Pennsylvania
A crypto-mining company in Pennsylvania is seeking to burn tires to produce bitcoin, prompting an outcry from residents and environmental groups. Stronghold Digital Mining says it is repurposing waste materials, while opponents worry about the risks of emissions to human health. The facility is within two miles of communities the state has defined as environmental justice areas. Residents of Carbon county, along with environmental groups, have sent letters of concern to the county commissioner and the Pennsylvania department of environmental protection (DEP).
Canary Media: Solarpunk is going mainstream. This coupleâs $1M Kickstarter proves it
Canary chats with the co-creators of the forthcoming video game Loftia, set in a renewables-powered utopia that celebrates community and climate optimism. During a recent Instagram Live Q&A session with U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DâNew York), a viewer asked about her thoughts on climate doom. AOC replied that she doesnât ascribe to climate doomerism but instead is a big believer in ââsolarpunk.â Most people watching the livestream were probably scratching their heads at that moment, as some of Canaryâs readers might also be doing right now. So what is solarpunk?
Euronews: 'That doesn't reflect the price for the planet': France wants to put a stop to mega low airfares
France's Transport Minister has said he will propose that the EU brings in a minimum price on flights to reduce carbon emissions. ClĂŠment Beaune says he wants to "fight against social and environmental dumping" and that "âŹ10 plane tickets isn't possible anymore", referring to low-cost airline fares. He said a mega low ticket price "doesn't reflect the price for the planet." But are more expensive flights the solution to reducing aviation's carbon footprint? In France, 2% of people take half of all flights, according to research published by the climate campaign group Possible. 15% of Brits take 70% of flights and 8% of the Dutch take 42%.
Grist: In a historic about-face, Apple publicly supports right-to-repair bill
After years spent fighting independent repair, Apple appears to be throwing in the towel. On Tuesday, the most valuable company in the world delivered a letter to California Senator Susan Eggman expressing its support for SB 244, a âright-to-repairâ bill that would make it easier for the public to access the spare parts, tools, and repair documentation needed to fix devices. âToday, Apple writes in support of SB 244, and urges members of the California legislature to pass the bill as currently drafted,â D. Michael Foulkes, Appleâs director of state and local government affairs, wrote in the letter.
Datacentre Dynamics: Ground broken on geothermal-powered data center in Kenya
Ground has been broken on the Ecocloud Data Centre at the KenGen Green Energy Park in Olkaria, Kenya. Once completed, the Ecocloud facility will reportedly be powered entirely by geothermal energy which, according to energy provider KenGen, will be the first of its kind in Africa. Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi said in a speech at the ceremony: "Our Government is keen to ensure that we shift away from facilities that grow our carbon footprint, that is the reason why we are working on the climate change amendment bill of 2023 to ensure that the law is crystallized in regard to facilitating the growth and development of the local carbon market."
Clean Technica: In Historic Vote, California Becomes Largest Economy In World To Call For Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
In a historic move, the resolution calling on the State of California to endorse the call for a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty passed today the final vote in the State Assembly, making California the largest global economy to support the proposal. Facing big opposition from oil & gas lobbyists and 40 industry groups, who joined forces in an attempt to block it, the proposal was backed by a majority of 43 votes.
The resolution supports a global plan to create the missing framework for managing fossil fuel production, first by stopping expansion and then carefully phasing out coal, oil, and gas in a way that is fair and fast. It also looks to protect the most impacted workers and local government services through this transition to abundant and clean renewable energy.
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.
Cercula - Software Developer - Up to ÂŁ55,000 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
Cercula is an award-winning construction tech & sustainability startup, working towards the decarbonisation of the construction industry. In short, we take a list of materials for a construction project, match each one in our database of materials carbon data, and produce a report on the building's whole-life carbon impact. We're looking for experienced developers to work on our API and databases, at the core of Cercula's business, as well as on our user-facing front-end and AWS deployment. Our stack is primarily TypeScript and Postgres on AWS (including serverless). If you are interested in social and climate change, and want to contribute to solving major environmental problems by decarbonising a high-impact industry, please reach out!
Overstory - Full-stack software engineer - 60-75k eur - Permanent - Totally remote
Full-stack software engineer role to create web appls and data visualizations - mostly of trees! Vegetation is the single greatest contributor to power outages and wildfires caused by our electric grid. Overstory provides utilities with visibility, risk analysis, and optimization recommendations for vegetation management, using machine learning and satellite imagery. Overstory is a flexible and diverse remote-first climate tech startup and this role would suit someone with experience with deep tech / remote sensing / cartography / GIS especially but these arenât essential.
Revalu Impact AG (IT partner: i-ways) - Multiple - 15 - 25 LPA - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
Revalu Impact AG is an Indo-European start up with a focus on Sustainability in buildings- sector. As part of expanding our teams in India, we are partnering with our IT partner, I-WAYS to recruit multiple senior developers.
Deep Science Ventures - n/a - 50k GBP - Founder in Residence - Flexible - remote ok
Deep Science Ventures is looking for a Founder in Residence to lead the development of a decarbonisation insights platform for industrial plants and help avert 7.5 Gt of CO2 emissions/year. The software developer/data scientist will develop a technical platform that can perform quick techno-economic analysis to allow companies to formulate a decarbonisation strategy and implement it easily for their manufacturing plant.
Open Supply Hub (OS Hub) - Principal Gifts Officer - 80-90,000 USD - Permanent - Totally remote
Open Supply Hubâs Principal Gifts Officer is an exciting new role in the global Business Development team. Reporting to the Business Development Director, this role will lead on income generation from principal donors (in particular large institutional donors including private foundations and governmental donors). This is a relatively nascent fundraising area for OS Hub and will involve all aspects of the funding cycle from research and outreach to grant management, reporting, and stewardship. While the portfolio grows, the successful candidate will support the BD Director in all areas of business development and fundraising, including strategy and systems development, developing communications materials for new business, new business research, and proposal writing for all funding disciplines.
Vayda - Growth Specialist - $70-110K (+equity and performance bonus) - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
Our team is looking for a Growth Specialist! This is the only marketing role in our team, currently - so an opportunity to grow with the function. Vayda is a technology & services company accelerating the transition to regenerative agriculture - we operate our own commercial scale proving ground farms! We are a Series A company backed by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, and a Public Benefit Corporation on track to being a B Corp.We are working in the ag industry, so it is heavily B2B focused. Ag industry experience is a plus, but not required.
Vayda - Fractional Engineering Lead - $100-200/hr depending on experience - Contract - Flexible - remote ok
Hi everyone! We are hiring our first Eng Leader on a fractional basis to drive development of a data-centric product in the regenerative agriculture and climate space, building off of the company's direct knowledge and experience in regenerative farm operations. The company is a Series A startup backed directly by institutional investors (lead: Ontario Teachers Pension Plan).
Carbonara - Multiple - $120k-$180k - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
Carbonara is a fast-growing tech company building a sustainable future by empowering companies to reduce their carbon footprint.. Our mission is to minimize the environmental impact of technology by automatically measuring and recommending actionable code and infrastructure optimizations.
As a Full Stack Engineer, you will play a key role in designing, developing, and maintaining our cloud-based systems and large-scale platforms. Your expertise in system design, data pipelines, and distributed systems will be instrumental in shaping the future of our products. You will have the opportunity to work with a talented and passionate team, contributing to projects that drive meaningful change.
Sirona Technologies - Machine Designer - 40k-80k - Permanent - Onsite only
At Sirona Technologies, we are developing direct air capture (DAC) technology to remove CO2 from the air and combat climate change. We are a young startup in the R&D phase, scaling up our lab prototype into larger and larger machines.
Singularity Energy - Multiple - $100k-$140k, 0.02%-0.2% 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 started by launching a data and analytics platform (with 1B+ data points and growing) that helps companies build carbon-aware products, and we're looking to grow our team in order to improve the sophistication of our offerings and expand our capabilities to become the 'carbon intelligence layer' for grid operators, utilities, companies, and service providers to build data-driven decarbonization solutions.
Alder & Co. - MID-SENIOR COPYWRITER - $70k-$90k depending on experience - Contract-to-hire - Totally remote
Alder is a woman- and minority-owned strategic brand marketing agency focused exclusively on climate tech. By joining Alder as a copywriter, you'll help our clients scale their impact and propel your career in marketing for mission-driven companies and learn from the best in our industry.
AimHi Earth - Engineering Lead - Climate EdTech - ÂŁ65,000 - Permanent - Totally remote
Wildfires are raging, floods are displacing tens of millions, tropical diseases are intensifying, crops are failing, and nature is collapsing. The climate and nature emergency is just beginning. At AimHi Earth, weâre working to slow and then reverse it - to bring human systems into line with the natural limits of our only home. We combine technology and digital experience design to deliver scalable online experiences that rapidly shift mindsets and behaviours, upskilling and empowering people to take ownership and transform complex systems.
Weâre currently affecting hundreds of thousands. We want you to help us to take that to hundreds of millions.
Icebreaker One - Market Researcher (Carbon Calculators) - Up to ÂŁ600/day - Contract - Totally remote
Icebreaker One (IB1) is a UK-headquartered research & innovation not-for-profit accelerating the data sharing required for the transition to net zero. IB1 is working with the British Business Bank to gain a market view of carbon calculator solutions available for SMEs to inform whether it is possible for SME lending to require mandatory carbon calculations as part of the financing. Weâre looking for someone to conduct market research to understand the landscape of carbon calculator options available to SMEs. The contract is for 24 days until November 2023.