Hey CATs,
Welcome to issue 163 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. There was a really important climate report published this week, the IPCC synthesis, so a lot of links will be aimed at making this easier to make sense of.
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
⚖️ Climate Justice Squads are back!
What’s a climate justice squad? An intimate group (e.g. 3-5ish people) who meet weekly for a season to connect, learn about, and/or take action towards climate justice together. Some of you were part of the first CJ Squads last summer, and we’re bringing it back this spring given interest!
If you want to join a squad this spring, please fill out this form by Wednesday March 29th to be considered!
Why join a squad? Because climate justice can be difficult to engage with in a large group or one-off event. We believe small groups over time will create a better space for learning, taking action, and building deeper relationships towards the collective wellbeing of people and planet. As Mariame Kaba reminds us, hope is a discipline and everything worthwhile is done with other people.
Who are we? We’re @Marwa Eltaib, @melissa, @Richard Kim, @Sandra, @veronica (she/her), and @Yang Hong (she/her): a few WoCl and CAT organizers trying to bring climate justice into our communities. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions!
#️⃣ Slack highlights
We’ve been making some changes to our channel names! We’re hoping that this will make it easier for new CATs to discover the community and for existing CATs to find their way around. Got other ideas on how to improve the community? Or want to give feedback on something? Let us know in #cat-community-feedback or through our anonymous feedback form.
📚 Branch magazine reading group
Last Thursday participants in the 4th Branch reading group discussed hardware and how to make it last based on the article Repairing Our Relationship with Technology. A wide range of topics was covered from incentivization of the “right to repair support”, introducing more scalable electronics recycling and refurbishing, balancing progress with backward compatibility, the role of legislation vs grass root consumer movement, etc. Find more notes here.
Our next Branch reading group article & date will be announced soon!
📆 Upcoming CAT events
▶️ Mon, Apr 3 · Watch Party: Why carbon offsets are worse than you think
☕ Thu, Apr 13 · CAT Coffee (eastern): Share your project/idea/win (sign up for a slot here)
☕ Tue, Apr 18 · CAT Coffee (pacific): Digital clean-up session
☕ Thu, Apr 20 · CAT Coffee (western): #greener-games pop-up! We’ll play ‘Green House’.
🍩 Community networking
Our next #cat-roulette matches are going out on Fri, Mar 31! Join the channel, pick your region and get matched with other CATs every other week! It’s a nice way to get to know other CATs, and you can start and stop at any time.
🎬 CAT videos
CAT videos, geddit? 10-15 minute videos providing accessible explainers to topics related to climate.
9000 pages of IPCC Climate Reports, Abridged into 17 minutes
The world’s top climate scientists read thousands of peer-reviewed studies so they could answer your questions. Here’s what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says, directly from the scientists about global warming — the problem, the solutions and the barriers to fixing it. (This video was published before the most recent report, but is an accessible summary of the findings, with clear yes/no answers to key questions).
✋ Looking for volunteers
#️⃣ Slack moderator • 20min / week
Keep our Slack space safe, spam-free & working as intended across different channels
📆 CAT Submitted Events
Want an event listed here? Use this event listing form to submit the details so we can add it in the newsletter.
Thu Mar 30 2023 - Kick starting a circular economy for the data center industry
Green Tech South West presents an online event with the amazing Professor Deborah Andrews, founder and academic lead at CEDaCI. CEDaCI is funded by Interreg North West Europe, and is doing ground breaking research developing a Circular Economy for the Data Centre Industry.
Mon Apr 10 2023 - The Digital Collage workshop
The Digital Collage is a 3h playful and collaborative online workshop. The aim of the workshop is to raise awareness and train participants on the environmental issues of digital technologies. The workshop also aims to outline solutions for more sustainability in Tech.
Thu Apr 20 2023 - Cloud Carbon Footprint - Simply measure, simply reduce
Cloud Carbon Footprint is an open source solution to measure the CO2 emissions of cloud applications. Erik Dornberg, Head of Technologies at Thoughtworks, has been involved with that tool and will share his insights in this talk. (Event is held on German)
Read a transcript of the conversation between podcast host Akshat Rathi and producer Oscar Boyd about the latest IPCC report and why it matters.
Check #events in the CAT slack for more.
🎤 Podcasts
Carbon Copy: A bank collapse threatens climate startups
Silicon Valley Bank’s meltdown leaves a big hole for early-stage companies building climate solutions. What comes next?
Catalyst with Shayle Khan: Betting big on renewable natural gas
Big energy players bought up billions in renewable natural gas assets last year. How much could this fuel actually offset emissions?
Outage and Optimism 193: Momentum VS Perfection - The Biggest Question in Climate Right Now?
This week Tom Rivett-Carnac and Fiona McRaith deepen their exploration of the tensions in the climate movement outlined in episode one, and look to see how we might begin to move past the current impasse to accelerate action in this decisive decade
The Week in Green Software: Calculating Software Emissions with Navveen Balani & Srini Rakhunathan
Host Asim Hussain is joined by two Navveen Balani of Accenture and Srini Rakhunathan of Microsoft, sharing their experiences using the Software Carbon Intensity Spec to measure, manage and reduce the emissions of the software they run
GreenIO #15: Data Tsunami with Gerry Mc Govern and Katie Singer
Gaël Duez travels to New Mexico, USA and Dublin to meet Katie Singer - acclaimed author of “A silent electronic spring”, who has published many articles and a book about technology’s impacts on nature and human health - and Gerry Mc Govern - well-known author of “World Wide Waste”
The latest climate-related podcast episodes. Don’t forget, if you’re looking around, there’s a list of podcasts maintained by CATs
📰 News Highlights
Carbon Brief: Q&A: IPCC wraps up its most in-depth assessment of climate change
Carbon Brief’s team of journalists has delved through each page of the IPCC’s AR6 full synthesis report to produce a digestible summary of the key findings and graphics.
The Fraught Negotiations Behind the New IPCC Report
How Saudi Arabia, China, and the U.S. tried to weaken language in the most recent, high profile climate report. See also, an easy to skim, easy to share social media thread with screenshots
How the meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet
A leaked draft revealed how the meat industry is obstructing efforts to curb climate change, most recently in the highest profile report policy makers read, the IPCC.
Top lawyers defy bar to declare they will not prosecute peaceful climate protesters
Leading barristers have defied bar rules by signing a declaration saying they will not prosecute peaceful climate protesters or act for companies pursuing fossil fuel projects.
Backmarket - Definitive proof that choosing refurbished helps the planet
ADEME, the French Environment and Energy Management Agency, decided to launch the first-ever large-scale study on the environmental impact of refurbished tech in 2020, and the final report was launched in late 2022. Refurbished equipment seller Backmarket didn’t commission this work, but they’ve summarised the key points, with some easy to understand charts.
Imagine 2200: Write the future
Submissions are now open for the 2023/2024 Imagine 2200 climate fiction short story contest, celebrating the futures we want to see.