🌍 CAT Newsletter 258 - 2025-03-09
CAT 258 - 2025-03-09
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 258 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 😌 💚 🐱
CAT Community News
💪 March community action
This month, we're cleaning up our digital footprint as part of Digital Cleanup Day. Join the conversation in #3-questions-and-ideas and attend our cleanup session on March 14th. For ideas on what to delete at work or in your personal life, check out the wiki: CAT Digital Cleanup Outline.
😸 Recap: Organizer update & AMA
Chris Adams is stepping down as an organizer at the end of the month, but staying involved as a CAT Director. Chris, Sandra and Melissa shared what it's like to be part of the organizing team and discussed future programming, growth, activism, and Slack. Meeting notes are available on Outline. Thank you to everyone who joined for your thoughtful questions and feedback.
💰 Mini grants
Do you have an idea that aligns with our mission of seeding climate action in tech companies and the wider industry? Maybe a CAT Unconference in your area to uncover better ways of taking action at work? Maybe a research project to build a better understanding on something tech & climate related for the whole CAT community? Learn more about mini grants
Submit your mini grant proposal now before April for the next round of funding!
📅 CAT events
Fri, Mar 14th – Digital Cleanup Day [online]
Join us for a Digital Cleanup — declutter your digital life & reduce your carbon footprint! During the event, you'll have the opportunity to work on a digital cleanup action of your choice together with other participants. For ideas on what cleanup action to take, see and contribute to the CAT Digital Cleanup Outline page.
🧠 Knowledge base deep dive
Greener WebDev: Are you a developer looking for actions you can take or resources to help you learn about sustainable software engineering? Log into the CAT knowledge base with your CAT Slack account to explore greener web dev perspectives, tooling & more, and help a fellow CAT learn something new by adding your suggestions.
🍩 Community networking
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, Mar 21st. More info.
Media, events, and news
😺 CAT recommendations
▶️ CAT videos
10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to climate related issues.
Planet A: How to build a green megaproject (and how not to)
As climate change intensifies, we need bigger, bolder plans to reduce emissions and prepare for disaster. But in many countries, large-scale infrastructure projects are completed at a snail's pace due to lengthy planning and permitting processes – many of which are designed specifically to protect the local environment. Have we lost sight of the big picture? What can we learn from successful projects, and how can we speed up vital initiatives without sacrificing quality, planning – and the environment?
🎤 Podcasts
The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don't forget, if you're looking around, there's a list of podcasts maintained by CATs
Environment Variables: AI Energy Measurement for Beginners
Chris Adams is joined by Charles Tripp and Dawn Nafus to explore the complexities of measuring AI's environmental impact from a novice's starting point. They discuss their research paper, A Beginner's Guide to Power and Energy Measurement and Estimation for Computing and Machine Learning, breaking down key insights on how energy efficiency in AI systems is often misunderstood. They discuss practical strategies for optimizing energy use, the challenges of accurate measurement, and the broader implications of AI's energy demands.
Code Green: Material AI & the Mineral Supply Chain
AI is often framed as the future of progress, but what fuels this revolution? Behind every data centre, semiconductor, and AI model lies a hidden world of resource extraction, geopolitical power struggles, and environmental destruction. In this episode, we dig into the raw materials powering AI—from rare earth mining to data centres sucking up water in drought-prone regions. Experts Tom Özden-Schilling and Tamara Kneese reveal the true cost of AI's rapid expansion—its human and ecological toll—and why the conversation on sustainability must move beyond carbon footprints to the messy realities of global supply chains.
Outrage and Optimism: Why ignoring women endangers the climate | International Women's Day 2025
Are women the key to solving the climate crisis? Why are they - and children - so disproportionately affected by the issue? And how can men step up to support change? To mark International Women's Day, Christiana Figueres is joined by top climate scientist Dr Katharine Hayhoe. Together with Christiana, co-hosts Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson reflect on why diverse perspectives lead to better solutions and ask how men can support greater gender equality in STEM. Throughout, we hear from incredible women worldwide with inspiring messages for International Women's Day.
📅 Submitted events
Wed Mar 12 2025 - Eco-Compute - Early Bird Tickets open
Digital sustainability conference on software, hardware and data centers. - ecoCompute aims to address the current issue of energy and resource consumption of digital infrastructures by bringing together hardware designers, software developers, data center operators.
Thu Mar 20 2025 - Code Green London x ClimateAction.Tech meetup
Please join us for the latest Code Green London x Climate Action Tech meetup! Code Green London is a community meetup group which aims to build the biggest green tech community in London. Join us on the 20th to learn about the latest in green software.
Tue Mar 25 2025 - Communicating digital sustainability issues with impact
An online event showcasing the work of a truly inspirational individual - Sandra Sydow, President of Planet on Stage. She’ll also introduce two powerful and innovative communication tools deployed by Planet On Stage and The Digital Collage
Sat Mar 29 2025 - ecoCompute 2025 - Call for Speakers opens
Digital sustainability conference on software, hardware and data centers. - ecoCompute aims to address the current issue of energy and resource consumption of digital infrastructures by bringing together hardware designers, software developers, data center operators.
Want an event listed here? Use this event listing form to submit the details so we can add it in the newsletter.
📰 News Highlights
GreenPT: AI powered by sustainable energy
GreenPT.ai is an exciting new initiative that rethinks AI hosting from the ground up, making it more sustainable, privacy-friendly, and independent. What sets it apart is that it runs entirely on a European cloud provider that integrates computing power with sustainable heat recovery. GreenPT is a bold step forward in making AI more responsible, both in terms of environmental impact and digital sovereignty. At the same time, it raises important discussions about the environmental impact of AI.
BBC: Woolly mice designed to engineer mammoth-like elephants
Genetically engineered woolly mice could one day help populate the Arctic with hairy, genetically modified elephants and help stop the planet warming.
TechExplore: New method significantly reduces AI energy consumption
The arrival of more complex AI applications in the coming years will substantially increase the demands on data center capacity. These applications will use up huge amounts of energy for the training of neural networks. To counteract this trend, researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed a training method that is 100 times faster while achieving accuracy comparable to existing procedures.
Guardian: Global sea ice hit record low in February, scientists say
The combined area of ice around the north and south poles hit a new daily minimum in early February and stayed below the previous record for the rest of the month, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said on Thursday.
Reuters: China announces plans for major renewable projects to tackle climate change
China said on Wednesday it would develop a package of major projects to tackle climate change as it moves to bring its carbon dioxide emissions to a peak before 2030 and become carbon neutral by 2060.
Phys.org: Squid are some of nature's best camouflagers. Researchers have a new explanation for why
Capable of changing color within the blink of an eye, squid, along with their cephalopod relatives octopi and cuttlefish, have used their natural camouflage to survive since the age of the dinosaurs. However, scientists still know very little about how it all works.
InformationWeek: The Real Cost of AI
In this 3-week series, InformationWeek will delve into direct and ancillary costs of investing in AI. What are the various costs of developing AI internally versus hiring third-party resources, the impact on community, the environment through the drain on power, and regulatory enforcement on the technology. What will it cost an enterprise in real and social currency to pursue AI? And can we afford what it will take to deliver on AI's promise?
SkyNews: Wild beavers to make a comeback in England after government approves reintroduction
Once widespread, then hunted to extinction in the UK, beavers have bounced up and down the political agenda - before the government finally approved their wild release last week.
💚 Papers We Love 💚
World Meteorological Association: How climate insights drive a more reliable renewable energy transition
As the global transition to renewable energy accelerates, weather and climate insights are becoming increasingly important to ensure the reliability and resilience of energy systems and planning of electricity demand and supplies. This report finds that climate-informed and diversified energy solutions are essential if the world is to meet targets to triple renewable energy capacity and double energy efficiency by 2030.
The report was jointly produced by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), operated by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).
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.
Elemental Impact - Director of Development - $106,400- $191,000 - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
The Director of Development will primarily focus on materials creation, as well as researching new funding opportunities to build an expanding portfolio of private and public funders. They will work in close collaboration with the Managing Director of Growth and across a team of practitioners and partnership builders in order to create an aligned fundraising strategy.
Citizens' Climate Education - IT Support Specialist - $60k/yr - Permanent - Totally remote
We are seeking an Entry-Level Applications Support Specialist to join our team. This role will help update/maintain essential applications and integrations, make updates to websites, and generally support our volunteers who are working to protect climate policies.
Green Web Foundation - mid/senior product comms manager - Between €350 and €450 - Contract - Flexible - remote ok
We’re looking for an experienced freelance product comms manager who’s comfortable working at mid-level or above to join our small, but ambitious team on a part-time contract basis. This role will support our carbon.txt project, which aims to make sustainability data easier to discover and use on the web. It’s a single place to look on any domain for public, machine-readable, sustainability data relating to that company
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