š CAT Newsletter 252 - 2025-01-19
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CAT 252 - 2025-01-19
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 252 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 outĀ our onboarding checklist.
Remember you can unsubscribe from this newsletter at any time - the link is at the bottom.
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CAT Community News
ā Get involved
š¤Ā Small: Fill out our member surveyĀ ORĀ donate via Open Collective
š«“ Medium:Ā Become a volunteerĀ (we're especially looking for newĀ channel hosts,Ā Slack moderatorsĀ andĀ Wiki editors)
āļøĀ Large:Ā Apply to become a CAT organizer or nominate someone elseĀ (form closes Jan 27)
#ļøā£ Slack channel highlights
#greener-webdev: Lots of CATs have gotten involved inĀ a discussionĀ around the news of Wordpress disbanding their Sustainability team. How do you feel about it? And have there been any changes to the sustainability team in your company?
#gen-ai-exploratorium:Ā AĀ shared a behind the scenes tourĀ of how she approached and designed herĀ CAT mini grantĀ funded project theĀ Gen AI Exploratorium
š¦ Feedback & collab spotlight
G is interested toĀ hear about examples and/or collaborateĀ on turning tech stack ownership into an auditing framework
M sharedĀ her article on lean UX and sustainabilityĀ and isĀ looking for feedbackĀ about the idea of incorporating sustainability into already established design frameworks, the methods for filling out the sections of the canvas and what approach you're most curious about, and whether you feel this is going in the right direction
DĀ has been working onĀ CarbonRunnerĀ - a carbon-aware GitHub Actions runner - and is looking forĀ feedback in the thread
CĀ is creating a list of sustainable companies and services inĀ #local-italyĀ and isĀ looking for crowd-sourced help from other CATs
š§ Knowledge base deep dive
Climate careers: Looking for new career opportunities? Log into the CAT knowledge base with your CAT Slack account to explore resources and advice on how to transition into climate work.
š CAT events
Jan 29 Ā· 6:30pm Ā· London [in-person]:Ā Code Green London
Other chances to meet other CATs in person:
Jan 23 Ā·Ā #local-switzerlandĀ atĀ Rencontre numĆ©rique responsableĀ
Feb 1-2 Ā·Ā #local-belgiumĀ atĀ FOSDEMĀ (more here)
Feb 13 Ā·Ā #local-netherlandsĀ at theĀ Green Software meet-upĀ
Mar 10-16 Ā·Ā #local-australiaĀ at theĀ Climate Action Week in SydneyĀ
š© 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
šŗ CAT recommendations
ā¶ļø CAT videos
10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to climate related issues.
PBS Terra: When Will We Stop Moving to the Riskiest Regions?
For the last 50 years, Americans have flocked to the warm, sunny South. But, as climate change makes extreme heat, hurricanes, wildfire and flooding worse, will that trend ever STOP? Well, some regions might just be showing signs of a reversal, and they hold lessons for what other areas might expect as the world continues to warm. Weathered is a show hosted by weather expert Maiya May and produced by Balance Media that helps explain the most common natural disasters, what causes them, how they're changing, and what we can do to prepare.
š¤Ā 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: Will the LA fires unleash a wave of climate migrants?
As the blazes in Los Angeles continue to burn, those who have lost their homes are contending with the immediate need for shelterā and difficult questions about whether or not to rebuild in the fire zone. Grist reporter Jake Bittle tells Akshat Rathi how California's housing market and insurance regulations will shape the recovery. AndĀ Nomad Century author Gaia Vince says that in this era of climate instability, everyone should think about how prepared they are to become a climate migrant.
Outrage And Optimism 1. Reintroducingā¦ Outrage + Optimism: The Climate Podcast
Outrage + Optimism is for anyone who is not ready to give up on making the world a better place. Feeling exhausted at the thought of keeping up with climate news ahead of this pivotal year? Join Christiana, Tom and Paul in their weekly conversations to make sense of it all, bringing you expert insight, analysis and inspiring conversations with some of the world's most visionary thinkers and influential decision makers. \n
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?Ā
Gael Duez sat down with Tristan Nitot to start answering these questions.
Environment Variables - Finding Signal Amongst the Noise in Carbon Aware Software
In this episode of Environment Variables, host Chris Adams is joined by Tammy Sukprasert, a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, to dive deep into her research on carbon-aware computing, focusing on the benefits and limitations of this approach. She explains how moving workloads to cleaner regions or delaying them until cleaner energy sources are available can help cut emissions, but also discusses the challenges that come with real-world constraints. Together they discuss the findings from her recent papers, including the differences between average and marginal carbon intensity signals and how they impact decision-making. The conversation highlights the complexity of achieving carbon savings and the need for better metrics and strategies in the world of software development.
š Submitted events
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š° News Highlights
Canary Media: US emissions barely declined in 2024 amid rising power demand, fuelĀ use
Despite aĀ record year for clean power production, declines in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions slowed to aĀ crawl in 2024. That's according to new research by the climate modeling firm Rhodium Group, which found that carbon emissions fell by just 0.2 percent last year amid soaring electricity demand and transportation fuelĀ use.
To meet the country's commitment under the Paris Agreement to halve emissions by 2030, the U.S. would need to decrease carbon pollution by 7.6 percent each year between 2025 and 2030.
One bright spot is that even as emissions held steady, the economy grew by 2.7 percent, meaning the historically tight link between emissions and economic output has continued to loosen, researchers noted. The bad news is that the U.S. is far from decarbonizing at the pace needed to avoid the worst climate impacts.
The Guardian: Global economy could face 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 from climate shocks, say actuaries
The stark warning from risk management experts the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA) hugely increases the estimate of risk to global economic wellbeing from climate change impacts such as fires, flooding, droughts, temperature rises and nature breakdown. In a report with scientists at the University of Exeter, published on Thursday, the IFoA, which uses maths and statistics to analyse financial risk for businesses and governments, called for accelerated action by political leaders to tackle the climate crisis.
Ecosia: The climate crisis made the Los Angeles fires worse ā here's how we can adapt
The current wildfire crisis in LA highlights a growing vulnerability that requires urgent attention. While we cannot control the weather or eliminate the risk entirely, we can take concrete, adaptive steps to reduce fire severity and frequency. From creating strategic firebreaks to enhancing our natural and artificial water storage capacities, there are a range of solutions that can make a meaningful difference.
We are supporting our LA partners City Plants with a 10k donation and will continue to explore reforestation opportunities with partners in the region.
Heatmap: What Climate Insiders See for 2025, the Trump Era, and Beyond
Most climate insiders don't expect the Inflation Reduction Act to get repealed. They don't foresee the world's temperature rising more than 3 degrees Celsius by 2100, and they are bullish on hot rocks and geothermal.
Those are the findings from our exclusive ā and highly unscientific ā survey of climate and decarbonization insiders. Over the past few weeks, Heatmap has queried more than 30 climate insiders across policy, science, technology, and economics, including high-profile energy entrepreneurs, high-rolling "climate tech" venture capitalists, and some high-ranking (and very-soon-to-be-former) Biden officials.
We got a lot of answers. Here's what they told usā¦
Common Dreams: Toyota Exposed for Funding Climate Denialism Designed to Slow EV Transition
Nearly three decades after its introduction, the hybrid Toyota Prius is still associated with environmental action and the scientific consensus that fossil fuel emissions, including those from vehicles, must be reduced to avoid the worst effects of planetary heating.
But a Tuesday report from watchdog group Public Citizen reveals how Toyota has spent recent years becoming the largest funder of U.S. lawmakers who deny the existence of the climate emergency, and a major opponent to the expansion of electric vehicles.
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.
https://diesl.eu/open-position-postdoctoral-researcher-erc-geocloud/
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 companiesā business interests and statesā 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 - Ā£47,884 - Ā£75,281 per annum - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
Digital sustainability skills in high demand ā 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 worldās most prestigious websites.
Support our work
You can support us financially onĀ Open Collective.