🌍 CAT Newsletter 280 - 2025-08-10
CAT 280 - 2025-08-10
Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 280 of the ClimateAction.tech (CAT) Newsletter - your weekly summary of what's happening inside the CAT Slack community (join here and check out our onboarding checklist), and in the wider world of climate and tech.
Remember you can unsubscribe from this newsletter at any time - the link is at the bottom.
Stay curious 😌💚🐱
CAT Community News
#️⃣ Channel highlights
CAT volunteers have been working on a channel clean-up. ✨ Take a look at the Slack channel finder to learn about our most important channels and reach out in x#6-cat-community-feedback if you're struggling or if you have ideas for further improvements!
#2-greener-tech: We're trying something new and will ask you weekly 'Which climate goal(s) are you making progress on?'. Have a look at what CATs are up to and share your own goals/progress
#greener-infra: O shared a petition urging big tech that AI data centers must run around the clock on renewable energy Sign the petition here and react to the post with a ✅ if you've signed it
#systems-series: S shared an intro video to systems thinking - great if you'd like to get started with this topic!
🙋 Looking for Slack channel hosts
In the CAT Volunteering team we're looking for more hands on deck with Slack channel hosting (more info). In particular, we're looking for hosts for: #2-greener-tech, #greener-ai, #greener-data, #green-teams, #greener-webdev, #greener-design
🍩 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, August 22nd. More info.
Media, events, and news
😺 CAT recommendations
🌱 A cutting from Branch
The latest issue Branch magazine out, it's time to bring back our a cutting of Branch, where each week we feature a single piece from the magazine by and for people who dream of a just and sustainable internet for all.
Our pick from issue 9 this week is A Digital Almanac: Attuning Our Web Habits to the Natural World, from CAT member Lucy Sloss in the CAT slack). Enjoy!
Go read Branch issue 9: A Digital Almanac: Attuning Our Web Habits to the Natural World
▶️ CAT videos
10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to climate related issues.
CNBC: How Florida Quietly Became A Solar Powerhouse
Solar energy is booming across the U.S. and for the first time, Florida is catching up to solar powerhouses like Texas and California. Despite removing climate change from its official state policy in 2024, Florida added more utility-scale solar than California that year for the first time, with over 3 gigawatts of new capacity coming online. But challenges are looming. Florida still gets most of its electricity from natural gas, and new federal policy is cutting solar tax credits earlier than expected. With rising demand for power and policy pushback, can Florida's solar boom last?
🎤 Podcasts
The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don't forget, if you're looking around, there's a list of podcasts maintained by CATs
The Climate Question: Bill Gates - Why I'm a climate optimist
Bill Gates, the tech billionaire turned philanthropist, has been combating poverty, disease, and inequity around the world for decades. However, in recent years he has shifted focus and resources towards the climate crisis. He remains optimistic and believes the power of human ingenuity will win out with a technology-driven approach to reducing carbon emissions and dealing with the impact of global warming.
Zero, The Climate Race: How rich countries can build cheap nuclear power again
Electricity demand is booming, and it's not just because of artificial intelligence. So much so that many are ready to revisit the idea of nuclear power. Microsoft signed a $16 billion deal to reopen the Three Mile Island nuclear plant to power their data centres for the next 20 years. But developed countries haven't built more than a handful of new reactors in decades. When they have tried, the cost of those nuclear plants and the time to build them has been extraordinary. Will this renewed interest yield different results?
Catalyst: Explaining the 'Watt-Bit Spread'
Every data center company is after one thing right now: power. Electricity used to be an afterthought in data center construction, but in the AI arms race access to power has become critical because more electrons means more powerful AI models. But how and when these companies will get those electrons is unclear. Utilities have been inundated with new load requests, and it takes time to build new capacity.
Given these uncertainties, how do data center companies make the high-stakes decisions about how much to build? How sustainable is the rate of construction? And how much will these data center companies pay for electricity?
Climate Curious: How space science is uplifting farmers on the ground
"When people's lives are better and easier, they will not need to sell charcoal or cut down trees to feed their family," says food security specialist at the University of Maryland and NASA Harvest, Catherine Nakalembe. Catherine joins Climate Curious's Maryam Pasha to share how satellite technology is used to monitor and predict agricultural conditions, including understanding subsurface water levels, creating detailed maps of crop types and health, ultimately giving people on the front lines of the climate crisis the information they need to adapt. Recorded live at TED 2025.
📅 Submitted events
Want an event listed here? Use this event listing form to submit the details so we can add it in the newsletter.
Wednesday Aug 20, 2025 - 4WARD Climate Connect: Monthly Global Networking Session (August)
Meet seasoned climate and sustainability professionals from around the world—leaders, founders, investors, and changemakers—who are serious about driving the transition to a sustainable future. Leave the sales pitches behind; this is about real collaboration.
Thursday Aug 28, 2025 - Design it. Prove it. Promote it: Practical LCA Tools for Materials, Manufacturing, and Marketing Teams
This free webinar is for product innovators - engineers, sustainability managers, marketers, and those simply interested in making better product decisions! We’ll show you how to use Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) to analyze and communicate your product’s environmental impact.
Monday Sep 08, 2025 - VC-Founder Climate Matchup
Announcing the 2025 Climate Tech VC-Founder Matchup, with meetings taking place online between Sept 8th (Monday) to Sept 12th (Friday). Read more - https://sosv.com/announcing-sosvs-vc-founder-climate-tech-matchup-sept-8-12/
Tuesday Sep 09, 2025 - Doubling Your Startup's Runway: Survival Strategies for a Tough Funding Climate
💰 Facing startup funding challenges in 2025's tough climate? Sept 9, 4pm CEST Join Cornelius Schmahl & Matt Ward for battle-tested runway extension strategies. .
Learn cash conservation, alt funding & emergency fundraising tactics.
FREE!
Wednesday Sep 24, 2025 - Green IO London 2025
Green IO and apidays London have partnered to gather 350+ responsible technologists to answer a simple question requiring complex answers:
"Good for the Planet, Good for Business?"
Hosted by Apidays, this takes place on September 23 to 24, 2025 in etc.venues, 155 Bishopsgate.
📰 News Highlights
CSO Futures: AI emissions - What we know so far
Speculation about the energy use and carbon footprint of artificial intelligence (AI) is rife – but hard facts are hard to find. Here's what we know – and more importantly, what we don't know about AI emissions. How can there be two wildly different figures for the energy consumption of an AI query? The response to this question also explains why it's so difficult to calculate AI emissions.
Science Direct: Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields reduce bumble bee visitation to flowers
Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) are an integral part of our daily lives and we may struggle to imagine life without them, using them to transmit and stream data for television, the internet, or cell phones. This study found a significant reduction in the number of bumble bee visits per observation when the plants were subjected to RF-EMF exposure, highlighting the need for in-depth and long-term studies to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of this effect.
HuggingFace: The GPT-OSS models are here… and they're energy-efficient!
The open-source AI race has become more and more intense (in a good way!) in recent months, with more and more orgs sharing state-of-the-art language models with the community. As of this week, OpenAI has released its first open models since GPT-2 – the 20B and 120B models, both designed for text-based reasoning, chat, and coding. But how much energy do they consume, and how does this compare to other recent models?
The Guardian: Enough of the billionaires and their big tech. 'Frugal tech' will build us all a better world
There's a common misconception that state-of-the-art technology has to be expensive, energy consumptive and hard to engineer. That's because we have been persuaded to believe that innovative technology is whatever bombastic billionaires claim it is, whether that's commercial spacecraft or the endless iterations of generative AI tools.
Sustainability Times: This Stunning Breakthrough Might Replace Plastic and Rechargeable Batteries Forever
In a groundbreaking development poised to revolutionize material science, researchers have unveiled a fully biodegradable, tear-resistant mycelium-based material that could replace conventional plastics and significantly reduce environmental impact.
Live Science: 'Big-butt starfish,' 'little sweet potato' and dozens of never-before-seen species recorded during deep-sea expedition off Argentina
A deep-sea expedition off the coast of Argentina has captured stunning footage of more than 40 never-before-seen species. One unexpected star of the show is a plump sea creature that has been dubbed the "big-butt starfish" for its uncanny resemblance to Patrick Star from "SpongeBob SquarePants."
💚 Papers We Love 💚
Computing within Limits: The Climate Crisis is a Digital Rights Crisis
Digitization is often presented as one of the key technologies to avoid or mitigate the climate crisis. Yet, we see the same technologies being used to promote disinformation, facilitate unsustainable business models, and to surveil climate justice advocates and land defenders. We also see a growing digital divide, a disparity between communities that reap the benefits of modern internet infrastructures, and those communities whose land and labor are essential for the production of these infrastructures but who remain comparatively disconnected and are exposed to the negative material and social impacts of the technology.
💼 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 - Account Manager - circa £35k/yr. We work a 4-day week Mon-Thu - Permanent - Totally remote
Icebreaker One (IB1) is a UK-headquartered non-profit with a mission to make data work harder to achieve Net Zero. We’re looking for someone to work as part of the team that extends and strengthens our network of partners across corporate, government and funding sectors.
People Powered Retrofit Coop - Software Developer - £39,000 - £43,500 (Full time) - Permanent - Flexible - remote ok
We're looking for an experienced software developer to join our team. You will play a key role in improving and evolving our modelling platform, which involves integrating elements of building physics so that trained assessors are able to generate various retrofit scenarios.
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