đ CAT Newsletter 251 - 2025-01-12
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 251 of the ClimateAction.tech (CAT) Newsletter, the first issue for 2025! This is your 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 đ đ đ±
CAT Community News
đ Goals for 2025 and how you can help
As you might remember from our year in review presentation, we set ourselves 3 goals for the year:
- Keep supporting things that work. We need volunteering help! We're especially looking for new channel hosts, Slack moderators and Wiki editors.
- Enable more member projects with mini grants. You can apply here.
- Implement CAT restructure. You can help with the restructure - add your name on this wiki page. Or you can apply to become a CAT organizer or nominate someone else (form closes Jan 19).
No time but still feeling generous? You can also support our work financially:Â Donate via Open Collective.
đ We want your feedback
If you've not done so already, please take 5-10mins to fill out our member survey. Based on your feedback in the past, we worked on making our mission clearer, increasing visibility of our Outline wiki, better spam procedures, and more.
đ§ Knowledge base deep dive
Climate courses, programs, and degrees: Want to start the new year by upskilling or taking a climate deep dive? Log into the CAT knowledge base with your CAT Slack account to explore a list of climate-related courses recommended by CAT members & share your own recommendations.
đ Local events
Save the date! These were shared recently in our #local channels:
#local-leeds: Jan 14Â Green Tech Hack DayÂ
#local-austria: Jan 15 Permacomputing Meetup | Event link
#local-london: Jan 29 đș Code Green London (a CAT meetup organized by @April and others)
#local-london: Feb 4-5Â State of Open Conference
#local-netherlands: Feb 13Â Kickstarting 2025 - a community-driven sustainable yearÂ
#local-germany: Nov 13-14Â Eco Compute
#local-belgium: Feb 1-3 FOSDEM (various CAT members are speaking)
đ© Community networking
#cat-roulette is back to help you make new connections within the community! Every 2 weeks, we match 2-3 CATs so you can connect over a quick 30-minute call. Join #cat-roulette, pick your region and wait for a message from Donut. The next round of matches will go out on Fri, Jan 24th. More info.
Media, events, and news
đș CAT recommendations
â¶ïž CAT videos
10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to climate related issues.
Planet A: How Big Techâs carbon offsets are threatening Kenyans
US tech giants are spending millions to buy carbon offsets in the Global South. One project in Kenya covers an area the size of Slovenia and promises to offset carbon emissions by restricting where and when livestock can graze. But indigenous herders are crying foul, while human rights organizations worry that fencing and armed enforcement of grazing rules are eroding nomadic traditions without prior consent from residents.
đ€Â 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: Kim Stanley Robinson imagines utopia in 2025
Cutting through the climate tech hype and looking for profit
Science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson imagines the future for a living. And the future is very much upon us. Robinsonâs seminal 2020 novel Ministry of the Future opens in the year 2025. Robinson tells Akshat Rathi about how our real-life climate politics stack up against what he imagined for this era. They also discuss the dangers of science-fiction thinking in politics and why, for all his admiration of science and technology, Robinson remains so enamored with the unglamorous workings of a body like the United Nations.
Solving for Climate: Dr Luke Haverhals: Making plastics out of plants
Plastic has long been the fossil fuel industryâs âplan Bââ says Luke Haverhals, co-founder of NFW, a start-up dedicated to creating materials with plants, not oil. Plastic has a stranglehold over our lives, but itâs not good for us, and it also keeps the fossil fuel industry in business. Luke is proposing a solution to this - creating four different materials that can be used to make anything from clothes to shoes to furniture, that can return to the earth at the end of their life. Is this the solution to the plastic crisis?
Outrage And Optimism 278. Pets, Preppers and Personal Carbon Budgets
How can you reduce the environmental impact of your cat or dog? Whatâs the best way to prepare for climate breakdown? And how should you talk to children about climate? Christiana, Paul and Tom wrap up the year by answering an eclectic and insightful selection of your questions.
Plus: they digest the fourth and final COP of the year, known as the Desertification COP, which took place in December in Saudi Arabia and reflect on their own feelings at the end of a challenging year for the climate movement.
Green IO #50 - Is Eroom's law the future of Moore's law? with Tristan Nitot
Moore's law is dead! Long live Eroom's law!
This provocative statement from Tristan Nitot highlights the pivotal role of software engineers in our journey as an industry toward a sustainable and more frugal digital world. The majority of our old devices, from smartphones to desktop, still work. How come that we waste such a massive gathering of precious resources such as minerals, energy, water and even our human time which we use to manufacture and maintain them? What should we do to break the trend of electronic waste and the ever-increasing footprint of the IT sector on our physical world?Â
Gael Duez sat down with Tristan Nitot to start answering these questions.
Environment Variables - The Cloud and the Climate: Navigating AI-Powered Futures
Environment Variables host Chris Adams is joined by Jo Lindsay Walton, a senior research fellow at the Sussex Digital Humanities Lab and co-author of the report The Cloud and the Climate: Navigating AI-Powered Futures. They delve into the intersection of climate and AI, exploring the environmental impact of AI technologies and the challenges of decarbonizing the ICT sector. Jo discusses key takeaways from the report, including the importance of understanding AI's direct and indirect impacts, the nuanced roles of big tech companies, and strategies for critically assessing claims of AI-driven sustainability. This insightful conversation highlights the need for interdisciplinary approaches and robust collaboration to navigate the complex relationship between technology and climate action.
đ 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 Jan 15 2025 - Shape 2025 w/ Purpose: 4 Pillars of Climate Conscious Product Strategy
Start 2025 with a strategic edge by aligning your product vision with the rising demand for climate-conscious innovation. Discover the 4 Pillars of Climate-Conscious Product Strategy and how to apply them to your annual planning.
Tue Jan 21 2025 - Sustainable AI - Reducing Carbon Footprint and Optimizing Performance
In this 4 week course, you will learn about the environmental impact of AI applications, how to measure their carbon footprint, evaluate the right approach, and optimize your AI workloads to minimize their energy consumption. Weekly live sessions and certification.
Thu Jan 23 2025 - AI meets weather: CLAI Ventures conversation with Julian Green of Brightband
Join us for a Zoom with Julian Green, the visionary co-founder of Brightband, previously GM of AI moonshots at Google X. Brightband is using end-to-end AI to make weather predictions more accurate, efficient, and accessible. Hosted by Ajay Gupta of CLAI Ventures.
Sat Jan 25 2025 - Fundamentals of Building Climate-Conscious Products
For entrepreneurs, product creators, and business leaders -- build products that solve for customer needs while minimizing environmental impact. Learn how to apply the đ Product-Market-Earth Fit framework đ 25% off registration w/code CAT (expires Jan 13)
Wed Feb 05 2025 - Creative Career Coaching for Impact Work - 4 Week Online Group
This is an inspirational, learning-rich group experience, where you will use pen and paper to colour up your career transition and job search into climate, sustainability and impact. PLUS weekly nature challenges to inspire your career transition with Earth's wisdom!
Mon Mar 10 2025 - Climate Action Week Sydney CAWSYD'25
March 10-16 2025 Mobilising All-of-Society Climate Action; Protecting and Leveraging Nature; Supporting the Industrial Transition; Sustainable and Resilient Cities; Financing a Viable Future and Regenerative Futures #CAWSYD'25
Sat Jun 21 2025 - London Climate Action Week
London Climate Action Week 2025:- 350+ Events, 45,000 attendees Themes; Building climate ambition on the road to COP30, Financing inclusive and resilient climate transition, Delivering a net zero and resilient London and UK, Mobilising Whole of Society Climate Action
Sun Jul 06 2025 - Pacific Northwest Climate Week
Pacific Northwest Climate Week is a community-powered event series that unites individuals & organizations. Accelerates the fight against climate change. The week-long gathering brings together climate innovators, thought leaders, & enthusiasts from Seattle, Vancouver, & Portland
đ° News Highlights
The Repository Mullenweg Shuts Down WordPress Sustainability Team, Igniting Backlash
Members of the fledgling WordPress Sustainability Team have been left reeling after WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg abruptly dissolved the team this weekâan action prominent tech journalist Kara Swisher has described as âbizarrely heinous behavior.â
See also a related piece from WP sustainability member Hannah Smith (and fellow CAT)
Rest of World: Uber's big plan for India - buses
In the most populous nation on Earth, Uber isn't just known for ridehailing cars.
Uber Shuttle was developed by the San Franciscoâbased companyâs tech teams in Bengaluru and Hyderabad in 2019 as a service that complements public transportation and helps fill transit gaps. The offering was first piloted in Cairo. For the service, Uber partners with private fleet operators who run buses on set lines and schedules, operating in a manner somewhat similar to how Uber collaborates with individual drivers for its cab services.
Vox: Gigantic SUVs are a public health threat. Why donât we treat them like one?
An abundance of research now shows that oversized cars increase the risk of injury or death among other road users, a negative externality akin to secondhand smoke. The problem is that most Americans donât yet see oversized cars as the hazards that they are.
The movement against car bloat is nascent, but it has righteousness on its side. Like cigarettes, enormous vehicles can kill those who never used the product, which calls for regulation. Forty years ago, the intuitive outrage of secondhand smoke was an eye-opener for many Americans. A similar narrative could help people recognize the havoc that four-wheeled behemoths now wreak on the nationâs streets.
The Register: Screwed by the cloud: Hardware vendors looking for that raison d'refresh
40% of world's servers are 6 years + old, drink 66% of DC energy, provide about 7% of compute. Please refresh, says HPE.
(editorial note: see the comments for some interesting responses about the cost of the new machines that provide extra context)
AdrianCo: Power Usage Effectiveness â Comparing AWS, Azure and GCP Regions Around the World
New data reveals how efficiently the major cloud providers run and cool their data centers -- from AWS's and Azure's tropical struggles to Google's industry-leading performance.
"In December 2024 Amazon released PUE data for many of their AWS cloud regions, and along with existing data from Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, there is finally enough data to make some comparisons for regions spread around the world, and see what changed from 2022 to 2023."
Offgridai.us: Fast, scalable, clean, and cheap enough
Could off-grid solar microgrids in the US be big enough, fast enough, and cheap enough to be a compelling near-term alternative to building more natural gas power plants to meet near-term AI energy needs?
If yes, what would that look like and how would one do it?
Green Web Foundation: Reflections on our first advisory group meeting for Grid-aware Websites
Grid-aware Websites is a new initiative we are building, thanks to funding from SIDN Fonds. You can read more about it on our dedicated project page. In this post, the project leads Hannah Smith and Fershad Irani, reflect on the first meeting of our Grid-aware Websites Advisory Group and address the key questions/talking points that came from it.
Datacentre Dynamics: Microsoft shareholders reject proposal addressing links with fossil fuel companies
Microsoft shareholders have rejected a resolution that called on the company to address the risks associated with deploying advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), in the fossil fuel industry.
The resolution was brought by environmental nonprofit As You Sow on behalf of Microsoft shareholders and former employees Will and Holly Alpine. The nonprofit filed the complaint in October, accusing Microsoft of "hypocrisy" for styling itself as a "first mover" on climate change while targeting fossil fuels as AI's most significant growth opportunity.
Methodology Paper on the Environmental Footprint of Digital Services Published
As part of ECO:DIGIT, the Ăko-Institut e.V. has developed a comprehensive methodology for determining the environmental impacts of digital services, now published in the form of a methodology paper. This paper provides a detailed foundation for assessing the energy and resource consumption of software, cloud services, and other digital services delivered through distributed IT infrastructures.
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.
Digital Economic Security Lab - Open position: Postdoctoral researcher, ERC GEOCLOUD project (3+1 years) - 4-4.2k EUR per month - Contract - Onsite only
Professor Vili Lehdonvirta is hiring a postdoctoral researcher with quantitative analysis skills to work on GEOCLOUD: The Geopolitics of Cloud Computing, a new European Research Council Advanced Grant project. Outsourcing computation to cloud providers can be economically efficient while at the same time generating new systemic risks and dependencies that governments try to manage. GEOCLOUD is concerned with mapping the changing geography of computational infrastructures and understanding how it is shaped by the interaction of technology companiesâ business interests and statesâ economic and security interests
The Water Institute - Site Reliability Engineer - $100,500 - $150,000 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
We're looking for a Site Reliability Engineer to enhance the resilience of the FloodID application and lead on-call incident response to minimize downtime and resolve issues swiftly. FloodID is an application providing actionable real-time flood forecasts and custom decision support tools to emergency operations center managers. As the climate crisis drives stronger and more frequent storms, we need better tools to help prepare and protect people, places, and property.
Torchbox - Senior Full Stack Engineer - ÂŁ47,884 - ÂŁ75,281 per annum - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
Digital sustainability skills in high demand â You'll lead the development of cutting-edge software, using Wagtail and other technologies, while supporting public sector and charity clients. You'll provide technical leadership, solve complex challenges, and help shape some of the worldâs most prestigious websites.
Support our work
You can support us financially on Open Collective.