🌍 CAT Newsletter #188 - 2023-09-17
CAT 188 - 2023-09-17
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 188 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
#️⃣ Slack channel highlights
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#greener-infra: Matthew is looking for advice on how to start a climate conversation about greener infrastructure at work. Help a fellow CAT and share your insights
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#greener-webdev: Mike shared that the official W3C Web Sustainability Guidelines were launched last Wednesday! What do you think? Share feedback
📍 Local happenings
🇩🇪 #local-germany: Lots of CATs have been chatting about the climate strikes last Fri. Did you go? How was it? Also: after last week’s Munich meetup, we’ve now got a #local-munich channel!
🇳🇿 #local-aotearoa: Gearing up for the next election, Jenny shared a handy guide.
🇺🇸 #local-new-york: Some CATs might attend the Green Software Foundation event during Climate Week on Wed, Sep 20th.
🇦🇹 #local-austria: Sandra and Björn are coordinating an informal meetup on Sep 21st.
🇺🇸 #local-chicago: Evan and a few others are talking about meeting during an event on Sep 21st.
🇮🇹 #local-italy: Nicola shared some info about the Digital Ethics Forum even in November.
🇳🇱 #local-netherlands: Jennifer is hoping to meet some randstad people.
📕 Last book club event
Part 3 of our “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” book club is happening next week: Thu, Sep 21 at 5pm UTC / 1pm ET · Book Club “How to Blow Up a Pipeline” Discussion 3 | Add to GoogleCal
Read notes from the past two events here and here.
🍩 Community networking
Our next round of #cat-roulette matches will go out on Fri, Sep 29! Join the channel, pick your region and Donut matches you with other channel members every other week! More info
🌱 A cutting from Branch
Policy and Tech | Tech and Policy
Computers lie at the heart of climate policy. Computationally-intensive models identify the problems that policy tries to address, but increasingly climate modelers do more than just inform policy—they shape it. In Branch, we explore how.
🎬 CAT videos
CAT videos, geddit? 10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to topics related to climate.
PBS Eons: That Time The Ocean Lost (Almost) All Its Oxygen
This is the story of how our planet has come back from incredibly high CO2 concentrations before in the Cretaceous Period, using the same rock weathering methods being researched by climate tech firms today. The downside? It essentially suffocated the oceans for half-a-million years, and you can see these layers of fossilised plants and animals in the shale rock being drilled for oil and gas today. If you’d like share something back about anything about this vid, try this thread in the CAT slack.
✋ Looking for volunteers
📅 CAT online event volunteer • minimum 2hrs / month
Help organise and/or run our online events. You can sign up to do this for just a few months or stick around for longer.
📆 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 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 region’s thriving innovation ecosystem.
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.
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
Zero: Perfume? Yes. Potatoes? No. Vertical Farming Tries to Grow Up
Cleantech is hard. Farming is harder. This week, Akshat Rathi visits entrepreneurs doing both.
While the technology to do vertical farming has been around since the 1990s, the business model has yet to be perfected, and several other vertical farms have closed down or laid off staff this year. As the world faces rising energy prices, water scarcity, and hotter temperatures, how can they avoid the problems of their compatriots?
Catalyst With Shayle Khan: Putting a halt to geoengineering — by accident
In 2020, when the International Maritime Organization, which regulates shipping, required ships to drastically cut their sulfur-dioxide emissions, it reduced air pollution. But it also unintentionally warmed the surface of the oceans.
How big of a deal is this? Shayle talks to Dan Visioni, a climate scientist and assistant professor at Cornell University’s Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences to find out.
Outrage and Optimism: 213. September Stocktake
This week, we welcome back perennial friend of the podcast Nigel Topping as he joins Christiana, Tom and Paul on a fast-paced whistle stop analysis of the recent and up-coming events (Africa Climate Week, UN General Assembly and New York Climate Week) populating the climate change calendars. If that was not enough, the team also discusses the soon to be published IEA report, set to declare the ‘beginning of the end’ of the fossil fuel industry, (watch out for the ‘Minsky Moment’) as well as the much anticipated recent UNFCCC Global Stocktake report, with an invitation to view these reports in a more integrated way.
📰 News Highlights
Hey Sandra, this will be tidied up and summarised
Reuters: As prices fall, two thirds of global car sales could be EVs by 2030, study says
Spurred by falling battery prices, electric vehicles could hit price parity with fossil-fuel models in Europe in 2024 and the U.S. market in 2026, and account for two thirds of global car sales by 2030, according to new research. A report by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) on Thursday predicts battery costs will halve this decade, with a knock on effect of destroying around half the world’s oil demand. See the report
Canary Media: ‘E-fuels’ are catching on as a way to decarbonize air travel
Massachusetts-based Lydian is the latest startup to raise funds to produce power-to-liquids fuels, which could emit less CO2 overall than fossil jet fuel.
Yale Climate Connection: The Libya floods: a climate and infrastructure catastrophe
If you’ve seen the news about the Africa’s deadliest storm on record in Libyra, this article provides a good backgrounder on the the trends being sped up by a warming climate.
LA Times: California sues five major oil companies for ‘decades-long campaign of deception’ about climate change
California is suing five of the largest oil and gas companies in the world, alleging that they engaged in a “decades-long campaign of deception” about climate change and the risks posed by fossil fuels that has forced the state to spend tens of billions of dollars to address environmental-related damages.
The Guardian - New files shed light on ExxonMobil’s efforts to undermine climate science
ExxonMobil executives privately sought to undermine climate science even after the oil and gas giant publicly acknowledged the link between fossil fuel emissions and climate change, according to previously unreported documents revealed by the Wall Street Journal this week.
DataCentre Dynamics: Amazon to invest in multiple carbon capture efforts
Amazon has purchased 250,000 metric tons of carbon removal over 10 years and invested in another direct air capture (DAC) business. Amazon plans to be a net zero business by 2040, but is currently a major emitter. The company's carbon footprint for 2022 was 71.27 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, including Scope 3 emissions.
Wired: Your New Apple Watch Won’t Be Carbon Neutral
Apple claims its new Apple Watch is carbon neutral and has done impressive work to decarbonize its supply chain, but making new stuff always leaves a mark on the climate.
Digital Infra Network: OVHcloud introduces carbon calculator, reinforcing its sustainability pledge
Following in the footsteps of other providers, OVHCloud has extended its carbon footprint calculator to VPS machines, providing carbon footprint information about its servers based on their estimated electrical consumption in OVHcloud datacenters. It considers factors such as cooling and networking equipment, transportation, manufacturing, end-of-life, and waste management to provide a comprehensive view of the server’s actual carbon impact
The New Republic: Meet the Shadowy Global Network Vilifying Climate Protesters
Thought provoking long read about how climate protests are framed in the media, how it is increasingly being criminalised world-wide, and the groups lobbying hard for these changes in the law to protect their financial interests.
💼 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.
Singularity Energy - Multiple - $100k-$140k, 0.02%-0.2% equity - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
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 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 - £65,000 - Permanent - Totally remote
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. We are seeking an ingenious, diligent and imaginative Engineering Lead to join us as a co-traveller on our own mission to protect the natural systems of Planet Earth. You’ll be joining us at an exciting and formative time, as we’re finalising a significant fundraise. Given the right qualities, we hope for this role to evolve into a CTO position with us.
Icebreaker One - Market Researcher (Carbon Calculators) - Up to £600/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. We’re 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.
Salesforce - Senior Analyst, Decarbonization - $97,300 to $146,000 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
Are you passionate about the intersection of sustainability, data, & technology? Then check out this great opportunity! We are looking for a dynamic sustainability professional comfortable working with big data sets while also excited to project manage and present insights to key stakeholders.
Ecosia - Platform Engineer - €62,000 to €76,000 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
We are looking for a Platform Engineer (all genders) with expertise in cloud-native application development and in developer experience best practices to join us remotely or in our Berlin office.