Halloween 2024 spooktacular link roundup
Jobs, skills, bookclub preview, reader projects
Samain greetings to all that celebrate. Looking for a costume idea? From TaniaB at Instructuables: Solar & Wind Superhero Halloween Costume for Two.
Or go the other way, dress like literal trash. But, real classy-like.
Job skills - “all jobs are climate jobs”
Two new-ish resources for applying sustainability thinking in your job.
Climate Product Management Playbook
Receive 33 nature-positive best practices to enhance your product management skills and contribute to the fight against climate change and biodiversity crises.
Looks useful to roles other than PM, too. You have to give them an email to get the PDF. Here’s the TOC if you are wondering whether it is for you.
Drawdown Job Descriptions
Learned about this one at last month’s Rosenfeld climate conversation.
The Drawdown Labs Job Function Action Guides are practical and shareable resources that highlight specific, high-impact climate actions employees in common corporate professions can take at work.
The product design guide is here. If you regularly read this newsletter, you have probably seen links to more complete guides than this one. What I found useful is the glimpse you get into sustainability from other perspectives - from HR and Sales to Legal and Procuring. For instance, if you are in Legal, you should care about the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) - which I’d never heard of.
Jobs
Handprint.io - find ethical jobs
Handprint is a new kind of hiring platform with an orientation towards justice, opportunity, and genuine employee engagement.
Not a lot of roles posted atm, but the company list is interesting. I like how each company is labelled by their main impact goals (pegged to UN Development Goals, I think).
Reader projects
Got a project you want to share? Comment or send me a mail.
Solar Hosting by Scott.ee
Extremely nifty article on self-hosting with solar (distinct from solar.lowtechmagazine.com). Raspberry Pi, downloadable code, and an interesting digression on battery sustainability.
When we moved to Sweden two years ago, I quickly realised that full time solar hosting wouldn't be possible. During our first winter here, we didn't see the sun for over five weeks (it even made the news). In contrast, during summer we can get a good twenty hours of daylight. Although it's not always sunny and certainly not always strong enough to charge something.
[…]
This means I needed to design my system for resilience and have a plan for my solar host going offline. I needed some kind of monitoring and potentially a backup host. Worst case, I wanted to show a simple page explaining why my site is offline from time to time.
Articles
Concerned Citizens Seek Transparency About Data Centers In Virginia
Two factoids from the article:
By 2029 Virginia will have 26,000 acres of data-centers
Half of all renewable energy is used to power data centers (?!) - via Wired
From the wired article:
Solarpunk Meets Better Business: Reimagining a Sustainable Digital Future
ClimateVoices: Featuring Holly Alpine (VIA CAT)
"In this issue, I'm pleased to be interviewing Holly Alpine (née Beale), who founded, developed, and led the global Community Environmental Sustainability program for Microsoft's Datacenter Community Development team. Holly also co-founded and co-led Microsoft's Sustainability Connected Community (SCC), a group of 10,000+ employees leading positive environmental change at every level of the company."
Optimistic cli-fi bookclub
I’m working on a post about my favorite optimistic climate fiction. Here’s a preview of my list - let me know any I’ve missed that you recommend.
Earth, David Brin (1990)
A straight-up romp, highly recommended. First 7 chapters are free on Brin’s site.
The Ministry for the Future, KS Robinson (2020)
Really a long policy document with a light coating of fiction, but though-provoking and fun. And very optimistic. Basically, what if (as a society) we started doing everything right, right now? Plus a little bit of eco-terrorism.
"If there’s any book that hit me hard this year, it was Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future, a sweeping epic about climate change and humanity’s efforts to try and turn the tide before it’s too late." ―Polygon (Best of the Year)
He has since walked back some of the pro-crypto stuff, fyi.
Termination Shock, Neal Stephenson (2023)
I’ve fallen out of love with Neal Stephenson since Reamde, and tbh I don’t like this book very much either. But his take on the geo-political implications of geoengineering is interesting. If I have to re-read it I’m skipping all the stuff about feral hogs and horny Dutch royals.
One man—visionary billionaire restaurant chain magnate T. R. Schmidt, Ph.D.—has a Big Idea for reversing global warming, a master plan perhaps best described as “elemental.” But will it work? And just as important, what are the consequences for the planet and all of humanity should it be applied?