🌍 CAT Newsletter 232 - 2024-08-11
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 232 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
🙋 Get involved
1️⃣ Missed the CAT July Open Meeting, during which we discussed CAT projects and mini grants, updates on CAT as a CIC (Community Interest Company), and more? Fear not, you can catch up with Melissa's thread in #4-cat-events or see the full meeting notes in Outline (log in with your CAT Slack account to view). A few particular areas that need help:
- #climate-careers: How can we make the channel more useful? Reply in the thread 🧵
- New short-term committee: Help us create standards & a process for vetting potential collaborators (3-5 meetings) - interest form
2️⃣ Get involved in local things! Local events were shared in #local-vancouver, #local-san-francisco-bay-area and #local-australia. G said hi in #local-scotland and O said hi in #local-aotearoa. A shared a volunteer opportunity in #local-uk. L talked about the tech workers coalition in #local-netherlands. @Aydin Mshared a speaker opportunity in #local-germany. And there were also events in #local-leeds, #local-munich, and #local-new-york recently. Did you attend? What did you learn?
🏝️ Taking a break
- #cat-roulette will be back in September (see channel host @Brett Duboff's message in the channel)
- CAT organisers are taking a break from Aug 5th - Aug 18th
🧠 Knowledge base deepdive
Films, Books, Media: Looking for climate-related content recommendations for your summer (or winter) vacation? Log into the CAT knowledge base with your CAT Slack account to explore what other CATs are reading, watching, or listening to, and help a fellow CAT learn something new by adding your own recommendations.
Media, events, and news
😺 CAT recommendations
🌱 A cutting from Branch issue 8
From bytes to carbon savings: Immediate's sustainable transformation of Good Food
In an era where everything is digital, the environmental impact of websites often goes unnoticed. However, for the team at Immediate, digital sustainability has become a central focus in their web design and development process. Recently, they embarked on a journey to understand and mitigate the carbon footprint of the biggest website in their portfolio, Good Food. An experience of overhauling a high track site with carbon emissions in mind.
▶️ CAT videos
10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to climate related issues.
Planet A: Why the mega plan to send Australian solar to Asia (almost) flopped
The idea was simple: why not use solar energy from Australia's sunny and spacious north to power Singapore, which has no space for renewables of its own? The project is part of a growing push to build 'interconnectors', high voltage cables that can transport clean energy over vast distances. But after it almost collapsed last year, the question of whether this technology can take off on a global scale remains.
🎤 Podcasts
The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don't forget, if you're looking around, there's a list of podcasts maintained by CATs
Volts: Free the smart-meter data!
Most electricity ratepayers in the US have a smart meter generating real-time data about their power usage, which could theoretically be used to reduce consumption and save money, but in most cases, utilities have locked up the information in inaccessible formats. In this episode, Michael Murray, leader of business coalition Mission:data, describes the potential value of smart meter data and the group's ongoing efforts to pry it from utilities.
Zero: Wires carrying twice the power show the future: The Grid Series
Upgrading the grid for a net-zero world isn't just a matter of building new infrastructure. Yes, miles of additional cables will be needed, as will more transformers, more substations and more engineers and technicians. But plenty of existing technology will also need to be updated. On the third episode of Zero's grid series, TS Conductor founder Jason Huang discusses the material science breakthroughs that have enabled his company to create cables that have twice the conductivity of existing cables — and just as much strength.
Catalyst with Shayle Khan: Understanding the transmission bottleneck
Solar and wind farms are waiting four or more years to connect to the grid. Rising congestion costs are driving up retail electricity prices while hurting generator revenues. And the process of approving projects for interconnection is so complicated and expensive that it's forcing developers to abandon the projects they were planning to build. We need much more transmission capacity and a better process for connecting projects. And we need it now more than ever. But Rob Gramlich, our guest today, comes with good news: We did it before. We can do it again.
Rob is the founder and president of Grid Strategies. In this episode, Shayle and Rob talk through the three major challenges of transmission – congestion, interconnection, and buildout. And Rob explains how we've built out transmission in the past with efforts like ERCOT's Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) and MISO's Multi-Value Projects (MVPs).
Environment Variables: A Greener Internet that Sleeps More
Host Chris Adams and guest Romain Jacob delve into the often-overlooked energy demands of networking infrastructure to discover A Greener Internet that Sleeps More. While AI and data centers usually dominate the conversation, networking still consumes significant power, comparable to the energy usage of entire countries. Romain talks about his recent Hypnos paper, which won Best Paper at HotCarbon 2024. He shares his team's award-winning research on how energy demand for networking kit powering the internet can be reduced by simply by powering down links when not in use.
Green IO #43 - Digital sustainability in a Tech behemoth: Japan with Trista Bridges and Paul Beddie
How can a country defining itself as an high-tech spearheader can embrace IT sustainability? Japan is a fascinating example of both the contradictions and the synergies that such a journey creates. In this episode, Gael Duez welcomes two long-time Japan-based experts: Paul Beddie, VP and Sustainability Lead at Capgemini, and Trista Bridges, the co-author of Leading Sustainably, and a member of EcoVadis' Purpose Committee. Their exchange on IT sustainability initiatives in Japan led to many takeaways including: the stakeholder-oriented nature of Japanese society, the emergence of Japanese startups focusing on sustainability, the role of regulations in driving sustainability efforts in Japan, And much more.
The Verge Decoder: AI has a climate problem — but so does all of tech
How do you decide if AI is 'worth' the energy?
But putting a bunch of computers in a data center and running them at full tilt is how basically everything works now. If you have a moral objection to AI based on climate concerns, you might have a moral objection to TikTok and YouTube as well, which are constantly ingesting and encoding millions of hours of video. What framework should we use to evaluate the climate impact of those and how we feel about how they're used?
To help sort it out, I've invited Verge senior science reporter Justine Calma on the show to see if we can untangle this knot. Let us know how we did.
📅 Submitted events
Want an event listed here? Use this event listing form to submit the details so we can add it in the newsletter.
Tue Aug 20 2024 - Sustainability Creatives #OpenDoorClimate Office Hours
During this time, you'll connect with like-minded people who are passionate about innovation, creativity, and sustainability and hopefully learn something new! Each week covers a different topic that sustainability professionals and job seekers have said is important to them.
Fri Aug 23 2024 - Feedback Friday
Whether you are a job seeker looking for help with a resume/cover letter, an entrepreneur with a sales pitch, or a sustainability leader with a project, we welcome you to come get feedback!
Tue Aug 27 2024 - Sustainability Creatives #OpenDoorClimate Office Hours
During this time, you'll connect with like-minded people who are also passionate about innovation, creativity and sustainability and hopefully learn something new! Each week covers a different topic that sustainability professions and job seekers have said are important to them.
Sun Aug 29 2027 - Biodiversity Basics for Product Professionals
The products we build rely on and affect nature. This workshop will address:
- What is biodiversity and why is it relevant for product professionals
- What can you do & practical examples
- Your takeaway: first biodiversity analysis along your product's value chain
Wed Sep 04 2024 - Decarbonising digital - what I've learnt
An online event showcasing the work of Eric Zie, CEO and co-founder of GoCodeGreen. Eric will share his thoughts on how we get to our mission of making digital less environmentally damaging.
Thu Sep 19 2024 - How to: Embrace Imperfect Climate Action - with Sami Grover
Join Sami Grover, writer and author of 'We Are All Climate Hypocrites Now' to explore how embracing our limitations can unlock the power of a movement. Sami will help us move past blame, shame and carbon footprints to practical pathways to action that actually make a difference.
Thu Sep 26 2024 - Data In Power - NY Climate Week
A NY Climate Week discussion group and open networking event on data and the distribution of power in climate, energy, and sustainability.
Wed Oct 02 2024 - BBC Climate Creatives Conference 2024
Climate Creatives returns for its fourth annual conference in association with BBC Academy Fusion.
Tue Oct 08 2024 - The Global Nature Positive Summit 2024
Global Nature Positive Summit aims to boost private sector investment to protect and repair our environment. With a focus on solutions to climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss.
Fri Oct 11 2024 - Better Software
Italian Conference about Sustainable IT
Mon Oct 14 2024 - SxSW Sydney
From a grassroots start in Austin TX, 1987 to a new, second home in Sydney Australia. Tech Innovation with track focus on Energy, Climate & Sustainability
📰 News Highlights
Carbon Brief: Q&A: What does deep-sea mining mean for climate change and biodiversity loss?
The deep sea has emerged as a new mining frontier in the global race towards energy security, with countries vying to explore and exploit its reserves of metals, such as nickel, copper, cobalt and manganese.
As the International Seabed Authority meets in Kingston, Jamaica for another round of critical talks on deep-sea mining, Carbon Brief unpacks what mining could mean for climate change and biodiversity.
Financial times: UK watchdog bans 'misleading' Virgin Atlantic ad about sustainable fuel
The UK watchdog has banned a Virgin Atlantic advertisement for making "misleading" claims about the environmental impact of sustainable aviation fuels, as it steps up its crackdown against airlines over "greenwashing".
The Advertising Standards Authority said the claims in the airline's ad about the first transatlantic flight to be powered entirely by the aviation fuels made from sustainable sources had breached the regulator's code.
Associated Press: Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest is down to lowest level since 2016, government says
Deforestation in Brazil's Amazon rainforest slowed by nearly half compared to the year before, according to government satellite data released Wednesday. It's the largest reduction since 2016, when officials began using the current method of measurement.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged "deforestation zero" by 2030. His current term ends in January 2027. Amazon deforestation has steeply declined since the end of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro's rule in 2022. Under that government, forest loss reached a 15-year high.
The Guardian: 'Massive disinformation campaign' is slowing global transition to green energy
Fossil fuel companies are running "a massive mis- and disinformation campaign" so that countries will slow down the adoption of renewable energy and the speed with which they "transition away" from a carbon-intensive economy, the UN has said. Selwin Hart, the assistant secretary general of the UN, said that talk of a global "backlash" against climate action was being stoked by the fossil fuel industry, in an effort to persuade world leaders to delay emissions-cutting policies. The perception among many political observers of a rejection of climate policies was a result of this campaign, rather than reflecting the reality of what people think, he added.
Bloomberg: EVs, Hybrids Set to Exceed 50% of China Car Sales for First Time
Electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids likely surpassed 50% of all vehicles sales in China for the first time in July, even as the overall number of cars sold fell, marking a key milestone in the country's auto market.
The milestone shows that the EV industry continues to enjoy strong momentum in China even as demand slows in the rest of the world.
Green Web Foundation: EU sustainability regulation experts: can you help us?
We're excited to get to work on our recently funded project by the European Commission's Next Generation Internet Search Initiative to address the lack of transparency/discoverability of environmental sustainability data.
We think we have some good ideas on how to create a burgeoning data eco-system to solve this problem building on our carbon.txt prototype. For this project's first stage, running until 30th Sept 2024, we're looking for expertise on the EU's CSRD sustainability regulations and how they will be adopted in practice.n
Reuters: South Africa passes its first sweeping climate change law
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa has signed into law a broad climate change act that will set caps for large emitters and require every town and city to publish an adaptation plan.
The Climate Change Bill aims to enable South Africa to meet its emissions reduction commitments under the Paris climate agreement, the presidency said in a statement on Tuesday.
South Africa, which is the world's most carbon-intensive major economy and among the top 15 greenhouse gas emitters, is on track to miss those targets because of to its heavy reliance on coal for electricity.
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. Remember: if you're looking for advice finding a role, check our #climate-careers channel.
Icebreaker One - Django developer - 400 GBP day for around 5 days - Contract - Flexible - remote ok
We are looking for a django developer to take an existing open source community directory application, designed for finding members with complementary skills and interests, and customise it needs within our network for a short project. The open source project is linked in the job description.
Open Energy Transition - Full-stack/Backend/Frontend Software Engineer - EUR 40-80K/year for full-stack/backend, 30-60K for frontend/UX - Permanent - Totally remote
Open Energy Transition is a non-profit energy tech company that uses and develops open-source software solutions and contributes to open data to accelerate the world's transition to sustainable, accessible and reliable energy. Our goal is to increase the pace and reduce the cost of energy system planning decisions through open collaboration and innovation. We are looking to hire 2 software engineers for two projects: a cloud compute solution for solving large energy models, and a solver benchmark website that compares various OSS/proprietary solvers on energy modelling benchmarks. The goal is to build robust, secure, and efficient open-source software to be used for energy and climate modelling and play a part in accelerating the climate transition.
PowerX.co - Senior Full Stack Software Engineer - $136,000 to $204,000 - Permanent -
PowerX is building energy management solutions for businesses, starting with restaurants. We believe that by equipping restaurants with the best tools to use less energy and save money, we can tackle climate change, one store at a time. PowerX is seeking a Senior Full Stack Software Engineer to play a foundational technical role in our product journey. In this role, you will be tasked with developing our product, which includes collaborating with other engineers, product owners, designers, and data team to architect, implement, and maintain new and existing features.
BlueConduit - Data Scientist - $125-145K - Permanent -
BlueConduit was founded in 2019 in response to the Flint water crisis. First in Flint, and then across the country, we pioneered the predictive modeling approach to lead service line identification and replacement, accelerating the removal of this significant health concern and saving communities millions of dollars in avoided digs. We are passionate about using data science and AI for public good, improving social equity, and protecting the environment, and are now working in new ways to help serve communities' needs outside lead service line replacement.
Verna - Software Engineers (multiple) - circa £70k + share options - Permanent - Totally remote
Verna builds software to help people manage land in the best way for the environment – enhancing biodiversity and drawing down carbon, whilst making sustainable returns. Our main B2B SaaS product supports ecologists and planning professionals to ensure that developments enhance nature. Verna has been backed by the UK Government and investors including Octopus Ventures. We have substantial, and growing, revenues and reserves.
We are looking for two software engineers to expand our product development team. We seek talented, flexible, creative engineers who are happy to get stuck into all aspects of developing compelling, effective, and accessible product experiences.
Like ecosystems, teams are more vibrant, innovative, and resilient when they are more diverse. We welcome applications from everyone, and particularly people from under-represented groups of every kind.
Fresh Food Connect - Board Member - Volunteer
Fresh Food Connect is a nationwide nonprofit that mobilizes gardeners to support hunger relief through homegrown produce donations. We're looking to expand our board this year and would love to consider a CAT community member.
Are you passionate about food/ag systems, hunger relief, gardening, local climate solutions, and/or community building? Do you have experience in tech development, strategic partnerships, legal, or finance? If so, please consider applying! Bonus if you're in San Diego or Seattle, our next two expansion cities.
Harris for President - Climate Engagement Director - 90-110k USD - Permanent - Onsite only
The Climate Engagement Director will manage the campaign's national programmatic efforts to reach, engage, and mobilize climate voters nationwide. An organizer at heart, this ultimate utility player will build and manage the Climate Voters for Harris program.
The Director will work with partners across the campaign and with key stakeholders to break through the noise about what's at stake for the climate community this election, build relationships with trusted messengers to reach the community where they are, and mobilize a critical coalition of leaders to enthusiastically elect Vice President Harris.
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