Work on Climate (Aug 2021): Climate justice and machine learning — ways to get involved
The positive, action-oriented community at workonclimate.org
Welcome to the August 2021 newsletter of Work on Climate. Add your climate friends to our community to keep making it stronger! [Subscribe and read archives]
💚 Thank you to our amazing Patreons. In particular, we are super grateful to one sponsor who signed up last month to help us cover a large chunk of our overall expenses.
👋 We are a non-profit run entirely by volunteers, but we do incur software expenses to support our programming. We still have to raise $1650/mo to hit our goal of running sustainably. Consider supporting us on Patreon or reaching out to @Cassandra Xia on Slack if you are able to sponsor WoCl.
🎉 Climate Justice highlights
This month, we've decided to feature climate justice topics in our newsletter to bring more awareness to this important lens on the climate crisis.
What is climate justice, you ask? To learn more about principles of climate justice and how to apply them in your work, take a look at the ⚖️ Climate Justice 101 Guide, written by the 🌍 WoCl Climate Justice Learning Group. The Guide not only contains helpful definitions for climate justice, but also answers the most important questions—"Why does it matter?" and "What can I do?"—and has links to many other resources. Check it out!
The WoCl 🌍 Climate Justice Learning Group and ClimateAction.Tech are hosting Applying Climate Justice, a workshop on climate justice, on Tuesday, Aug 3, 9:30a PT / 12:30p ET. Our goal is to level-set and deepen our communities’ understanding of climate justice. In this interactive 1.5-hour workshop, we’ll learn a little bit about climate justice and perspectives on power analysis, then apply what we’ve learned to various climate scenarios in discussion. RSVP to attend and add to your calendar - see full description on Meetup!
The ClimateWorks foundation just released a request for proposals (RFP) to expand their work at the intersection of climate and environmental justice, and direct air capture. Help create pathways for carbon dioxide removal (CDR) to contribute to climate resilience, stable jobs, healthy communities, and a just future for people and the planet.
🔎 Climate and ML resources
▶️ 20 hours of ML climate talks and videos released for free
Are you a software / ML / data science professional? The PAW Climate conference on private-sector machine learning applications in climate (founded by @Eugene Kirpichov) has just released recordings and slides from all 20 sessions for free!
Find an overview 👀 along with each talk's highlights and job opportunities here: https://bit.ly/paw-climate-2021 and on the WoCl YouTube channel
Climate justice sneak peek: Michel Gelobter discusses what climate justice issues ML professionals in climate should be mindful of, and Sekou Remy talks about the dangers and opportunities of defining climate tech problems in Silicon Valley
Want your climate-concerned coworkers to be aware of the climate work landscape? Host a "viewing party" and watch together!
🤝 Get climate ML peer mentorship
@Matt Gordon of Climate Tech Action Network is organizing a Peer Mentorship program within WoCl for ML professionals. The program will match you with a peer based on your interests and help you set up the conversations - don't go alone, sign up!
🥳 August events
Missed an event? Find recordings and notes at Past Events and on our YouTube channel. Add the WoCl calendar to yours to see upcoming events.
Fri July 30 @2:30pm PT - WoCl TGIF! RSVP here.
This will be a freeform event using the wonder.me virtual community space. We will invite attendees to share their journey in climate for 5 minutes, with an additional 5 minutes for discussion afterwards. - any topic goes, as long as it's climate related! No pressure to share if you don't want to.
Tue Aug 3 @9:30am PT - Applying Climate Justice. RSVP here.
The WoCl Climate Justice Learning Group and ClimateAction.Tech are hosting Applying Climate Justice 🌍⚖, a workshop on climate justice. In this interactive workshop, we’ll learn a little bit about climate justice and perspectives on power analysis, then apply what we’ve learned to various climate scenarios in discussion.
Thu Aug 5 @2pm PT - Chat with WoCl Founder Eugene. Join on Clubhouse.
Join us for a chat with the Founder of Work on Climate - Eugene! Eugene is here to connect with you all, share what he's up to, as well as take any questions from you! Do not miss out on this rare opportunity!
Fri Aug 6 @9am PT - Q/A with Meryl Breidbart, founder of Chirps and investor at At One Ventures. RSVP here.
Join us for a conversation about eating insects, the alternative protein market, and how investors (or at least one investor) think about and evaluate companies tackling climate change.
Tue Aug 10 @10am PT - Alternative Proteins Tech Talk with the Good Food Institute. RSVP here.
The Good Food Institute is a nonprofit organization solving climate change by reimagining protein. Bruce Friedrich, Founder and President of GFI will fill us in on GFI’s theory of change and work, and then we’ll have a 30 minute discussion.
Wed Aug 11 @5pm PT - Regenerative Grazing, Soil Carbon Markets, and Getting Cows better PR with #learning-group-regen-ag. Join here.
Kevin Silverman of Soilworks Natural Capital will moderate a panel of startups and producers in the regenerative grazing space. Followed by an open ended discussion, we will touch everything from emerging carbon grazing projects to value-added regenerative dairy products.
Fri Aug 13 @10am PT - Diamond List: Spotlight on Sustainable Fashion. RSVP here.
Our friends at Diamond List are hosting an event with a sustainable fashion theme featuring Modern Synthesis (microbial weaving), unspun (robot-made jeans), and Vitro Labs (lab-grown leather).
Tues Aug 19 @4pm PT - Managing Yourself in a Climate Crisis. RSVP here.
Working on climate is a marathon, not a sprint. Melissa Nilles will offer tools for increasing effectiveness, working sustainably, and avoiding burnout, specifically geared towards people working in climate tech. We will explore mindfulness practices and share our experiences and reflections. Thanks to community members Ethan Roday and Kamille Johnson for organizing this event.
Thu Aug 26 @11am PT - Startup Office Hours. RSVP here.
Need help with strategy, product, fundraising, hiring, or marketing? Join us to get help figuring out a way past your startup's biggest roadblocks.
Want to host an event with us? Message @Utkarsh Vaidya or @Sam Levac-Levey on Slack!
Enjoying the events? Support us on Patreon to help pay for Zoom!
🏢 Get a new job
Several people this month have shared on #i-got-a-job how WoCl helped them find a job: one learned about Climatebase (see #jobs-alerts), another found a founder's posting on #jobs!
Need a little extra motivation? Check out Eugene's talk Why It’s Time to Quit Your Big Tech Job and Work on Climate!
Some #jobs this month from organizations within our community include:
Blocpower.io, an organization known for their commitment to environmental justice, is hiring a Data Lead in Brooklyn, NY.
Community solar company Solstice is hiring for 10 roles, including Director of Marketing, Director of Operations, and entry-level positions in community relationship, sales, and customer service.
Sourcemap works on supply chain mapping for understanding social, environmental, and financial risks and is hiring for sales, product, and engineering roles.
The Action Center on Race & the Economy is hiring a Deputy Director for Climate Finance.
Paul Hawken's new organization, One Generation, is hiring researchers and writers to help create a compendium of climate challenges and actions for every sector. Email hiring@regeneration.org.
Explore other channels to find full-time jobs on #jobs and #jobs-alerts, short-term or part-time work on #gigs, talk about job-seeking in general on #jobs-discussion, and help each other polish your resumes on #resume.
Ongoing programs
💡 Tip: Want to get more out of the WoCl community? If you introduce yourself on #introductions we guarantee that we will respond to you and point you to useful resources or people!
🎯 Find all programs relevant to you
We offer a lot more than just Slack - check out 🗺️ WoCl How To to find other WoCl tools helpful to you as a jobseeker, climate employer, or startup founder. For example:
💡 Did you know that, as a founder, you can get a free quick consult with community experts on topics such as tech, marketing, design, and others?
💡 Did you know that you can find people interested in a given topic using Slack Search, especially when searching #introductions? E.g. try searching for
circular in:#introductions. Feel free to DM people - just follow the etiquette on cold reach-outs!
🧙🏼 Meet climate experts at Office Hours
Get advice from friendly climate experts at our Office Hours - simply book time on their Calendly.
In the words of one community member, @Patrick Sheehan "appeared to know quite a bit about solar and DER, especially the qualifications required for one to start working for such companies"
This month many people who joined the community were interested in topics that the experts are happy to talk to people about - renewable energy (Dave, Troy, Carl, Patrick), ecosystem restoration (Ira), and policy (Christopher)!
Are the office hours useful to you? Support us on Patreon to help pay for Calendly!
📚 Learning groups - Work on a climate vertical
Join learning groups of people interested in the same climate vertical as you, and work together towards something actionable. We currently have learning groups on climate finance, food waste, regenerative agriculture, ocean sequestration, construction, social science, climate justice, and nuclear. Some learning groups meet in person every other week, and others just exist on Slack channels. Join a learning group on Slack by browsing channels that begin with the "#learning-group-" prefix.
💎 Starter packs of the best learning resources
New to the climate space? Want to learn from the best resources? Check out the 💎 WoCl Starter Packs!
This month’s new addition is the 🤖 Climate and AI starter pack.
💝 Want to help WoCl?
We would love your feedback! Fill out our survey to let us know whether we have helped you find climate work.
As a fully volunteer-run community, we're always looking for people to help! Message @Eugene Kirpichov on Slack if you're the sort of person who wants to help build our community!
WoCl runs up ~$200/mo in software costs and anticipates that to rise to ~$2000/month by late August (due to Slack). Support us on Patreon or reach out to @Cassandra Xia on Slack if you or your organizations would be interested in sponsoring us.
Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, or Clubhouse for notifications about new events!