So, you want to work on climate? (Sept 2020)
Welcome to the inaugural Work on Climate Newsletter!
We are so excited to have this many people who want to work on climate long-term. We look forward to helping you find the perfect job, volunteer opportunity, or co-founder, and hope that this community newsletter will help you find the resources you need!
Please join us on Slack to get started!
Learn the Space
A number of people have expressed that they are overwhelmed by the breadth of the climate space and don’t know where to start. We are putting together a collection of our favorite resources into easily accessible “starter packs”. Share your personal favorites with us in #learn-the-space.
Our featured resource this month is the Energy Policy Solutions talk by the climate policy analyst Hal Harvey. In this talk, Hal Harvey shows how much one person can contribute to action on climate policy by being hyper strategic.
For instance, Harvey identified that one leverage point for influencing funding is attending the Public Utilities Commission hearings for building new power plants, so he recruited hundreds of mothers of asthmatic children to show up alongside him. The entire talk is very much worth a watch.
Pilot Engagements
Many people wishing to work in climate want to start by “dipping their toes” via a short-term, part-time, or volunteering engagement with a climate organization. For example, Cass and Eugene recently did a month-long consult with Pachama and had a great time.
We call this “pilot engagements“ and are spinning up a community effort around connecting people (or groups of people) with organizations. Currently we are in touch with several interested employers and are looking for more.
We are also looking to better understand the needs, skills and availability of people in the community for these engagements.
Please post to #pilot-engagements on Slack:
If you know a climate company or non-profit/NGO that might be interested in such engagements
If you want to participate yourself (either as an individual contributor or to help with scoping/coordination) and are willing to chat with us one-on-one - we’re very friendly and would love to meet you!
Slack Community Highlights
Our mission is to help as many people as possible to work on climate. Drop into our Slack community Work on Climate to meet your climate tribe!
Share what you’ve been up to on #share-your-path, find company on #looking-for-buddies, or ask for help on #need-help.
On #need-help, Sam Levac-Levey asks: “anyone familiar with kickstarters/crowdfunding? i'm thinking about doing one for my climate board game”
The Expert Office Hours program has kicked off!
Meet Patricia Silva, an engineer with an MBA degree who has been focusing in carbon removal and venture investments for the past few years. Sign up for her office hours starting 9/7!
Several more experts are in the process of signing up for the program and their office hours will be announced on #community-meta and #learn-the-space.
If you work in climate and are interested in donating your time (e.g. 1 hour every 2 weeks at a time of your choice) to meeting with interested community members and helping them understand your domain or just demystify the idea of working in climate, please respond on #community-meta!
Jobs
Check out the #jobs channel on Slack to find (or create!) more jobs postings, chat with founders, and discuss job search strategies.
This week we have Alain Rodriguez from SINAI looking for a senior backend engineer:
Hi there! I am Alain, SINAI’s co-founder and CTO, where we are building a decarbonization SaaS platform. We are hiring for a senior backend engineer, looking for the final key member to complete our seed team of senior engineers. We have paying enterprise customers, are well funded and are heads down building our platform. We are looking for someone excited to fully own the building of an external-facing API, a data analytics engine, and a config-driven carbon emissions engine, amongst many other projects. I can be reached directly at alain@sinaitechnologies.com
We found that many climate companies are looking for CTOs. Cass is looking for feedback on a potential matchmaking service on #jobs.