NY Climate Tech: January 23 - January 29, 2023
Sustainable cities (buildings, energy, and trash included), eco-jobs, eco-art, eco-games, and even eco-dance all in a week!
Hi friends,
Our next NY Climate Tech meetup is this Thursday! RSVP and come say hello!
Start off the week on Monday afternoon with a session on Global Sustainable Cities at NYU then head to SVA for a talk with art critic Ben Davis on art in the “After-Culture.” On Tuesday, Building Energy Exchange digs into the IRA and New York. Wednesday is busy as usual, with Green For Blue launching their first event at ONE°15 Brooklyn Marina, a fireside chat in the LES with the NYC Sanitation Foundation’s head of cultural programming and DSNY’s anthropologist-in-residence, an Eco-Art Workshop with the illustrious Nicole Kelner, and a screening Earth II, a re-cut climate disaster movie at Spectacle in Williamsburg. On Thursday, head to our very own NY Climate Tech January Meetup in Midtown, or game through climate change at Maison Jar in Greenpoint. On Friday, head to NY Library for Performing Arts at Lincoln Center for Dance and Ecology for Climate Action.or head to the Sewer book launch with author Jessica Leigh Hester. On Sunday, skip brunch and head to Genspace for a workshop on Sculpting With Mycelium.
Cheers,
Alec and Sonam
Hot Take: Every Job is a Climate Job!
My mantra: every job is a climate job!
There’s no question that we’re going through a huge shift in the global economy. Inflation reached 9.1% last year, the biggest year increase since 1981. There are layoffs across the tech industry, with household names cutting back and watching their share prices drop. The era of low interest rates making money virtually free is gone.
The bright side: The Age of Climate Industrialism is in full swing! New talent, innovation, founders, funders, and government action have all mobilized to develop the real solutions that we need to respond to climate change. This is the optimistic, action-oriented response to climate doom and gloom - a bet that climate solutions rooted in abundance and progress will create value for people in their daily lives and more broadly across their communities.
This is the new face of Climate Industrialism - building new technologies, learning new skills, and putting climate solutions to work in our streets and neighborhoods! Credit to Lyn Stoler for the fabulous drawing!
I believe this is going to be a significant driver of economic growth over the next decade. These are the boots-on-the-ground jobs that will help us truly decarbonize and adapt our society to climate change → and this labor transition is already happening!
The transition to clean energy is expected to generate 10.3 million new jobs globally by 2030 per a recent study by the World Economic Forum. Wind turbine service technicians make up the second-fastest growing occupation in the U.S. behind nurse practitioners, with a 44% growth rate projected in the next decade. According to electrification nonprofit Rewiring America, the US needs a million new electricians to complete the new wiring needed for the energy transition. We need to be spending $9.2 trillion per year as a globe to get to net zero by 2050 - all in all, that translates to A LOT of jobs!
There’s a job for everyone, really. Stats: Visual Capitalist/IEA World Energy Outlook.
So, where can you start? Take an inventory of your skills, think about what problem you want to solve, and most importantly, find your people. There are TONS of resources out there to help you along the way, and I want to highlight a few of them:
Climate Career Week (happening as we speak!) - a free virtual event with 17 sessions, 40+ speakers, office hours, and more.
Terra.do - online cohort based courses to learn about climate tech, policy, and vc, career fairs, and a community of climate enthusiasts
Climate Draft - on-ramp to connect the climate curious to learn about various industries and connect them to early stage companies
Work On Climate - slack channel and resource network with 10,000+ members (fourfold more than last year!)
Climatebase - list of 40,000 jobs from more than 3,000 climate tech companies, with more than 600,000 people using the resource globally
Greenwork - training thousands of field staff to install everything from solar panels to HVAC systems, helping to solve a significant skilled labor shortage
BlocPower’s Civilian Climate Corps - provides training and job opportunities to New Yorkers in neighborhoods impacted by crime
Climate People - climate tech recruiting group matchmaking between people looking for jobs + companies hiring
I’ll end with my giant twitter thread on some of my favorite climate tech companies hiring. You'll work with nice people, and you'll save the world (literally).
By Sonam Velani
Community Shout-Outs
🌎 Climate Tech Cities
NY Climate Tech is expanding! We started as an 8-person dinner and now have almost 3,000 members in our community. We’ve had people across the world reach out to us to start their own chapters - so we’re launching a new Climate Tech Cities organization to kick of 2023! If you have friends who are interested in becoming chapter leads, please share the word! Here’s to a global network of local communities making a positive impact!
👩🏻💻Seed Consulting Group
Seed Consulting Group is a volunteer-run non-profit that offers pro-bono consulting services to sustainability organizations. They started in LA in 2014 and recently opened a chapter in NYC. We worked with them in the Fall, and they’re interested in working with any non-profit sustainability organizations in NYC or the wider East Coast during their upcoming spring project cycle, kicking off in March. If you’re interested in getting help for your organization or volunteering, reach out to Connor Nolan connornolan@seedcg.org or Holden Mackey holden.mackey@seedcg.org.
🧑🏽🔬Climate Career Week
Climate Career Week is 5 days of free virtual events for tech workers interested in exploring career opportunities in climate. Events include Office Hours, Meetups, Jobs, and Resources hosted by our friends at Climate Draft, Terra.do, MCJ Collective, and Work on Climate.
Events This Week
🏙 Global Sustainable Cities at NYU: Mon, Jan 23
🎨 Ben Davis: Art in the After-Culture: Mon, Jan 23
🌇 Climate Mobilization Act Series: The IRA Meets New York: Tue, Jan 24
👩🏫 Building Community Expertise: NY/NJ USACE HATS Teach-In: Wed, Jan 25
🍀 Green For Blue 1: Wed, Jan 25
🗑 Exploring "Throw-Away" Culture: A Fireside Chat: Wed, Jan 25
👩🎨 Dreaming a Regenerative Future: An Eco-Art Workshop: Wed, Jan 25
🎬 Earth II: Wed, Jan 25
🧩 Climate Fresk Game Night @ Maison Jar: Thu, Jan 26
🗽 NY Climate Tech January Meetup: Thu, Jan 26
💃 Dance Symposium: Dance and Ecology, for Climate Action: Fri, Jan 27
🚽 Jessica Leigh Hester presents Sewer, with Angela Chen: Fri, Jan 27
🍄 Sculpting With Mycelium: Sun, Jan 29
Read on for more details about this week’s happenings and upcoming events this month
Upcoming Events
🪴 PLANT-O-RAMA 2023: Mon, Jan 30
🥗 Universal Food Security: Ending Hunger & Protecting the Planet: Wed, Feb 1
0️⃣ Journey to Net-Zero: The Role of Carbon Capture: Thu, Feb 2
💙 Deep Blue Love Annual Fundraiser @ RETI Center: Mon, Feb 6
🏙 NYU Social Innovation Symposium: Fri, Feb 10
🧘♀️ NYC Women in Climate Investing & Finance - Wellness & Yoga: Sat, Feb 11
⚡️Sustainable Energy Workshop for Artists and Arts Organizations: Sun, Feb 12
🍻 Green Drinks Brooklyn: Wed, Feb 15
🌐Energy and the Internet: Sun, Feb 19
Events This Week
🏙 Global Sustainable Cities at NYU
When: Mon, Jan 23rd from 4:00 PM to 5:30 PM
Where: NYU Abu Dhabi Institute, 19 Washington Square N, New York, NY 10011
Over half of the world’s population now lives in cities, and this share is expected to increase in the coming decades. With growing urbanization, cities and their residents face substantial environmental challenges such as higher temperatures, droughts, wildfires, and increased flooding. In response to these pressing challenges, some cities have begun to develop local environmental regulations that supplement national and environmental laws. Experts from around the globe take stock of the policies that leading cities in the global north and south are taking to lessen the impacts of climate change and secure a more sustainable urban future. This program is timed to coincide with the release of Global Sustainable Cities, a new book that is a collaborative effort of NYU’s faculty in New York City and Abu Dhabi. The book includes first-hand accounts of recent environmental initiatives adopted by Abu Dhabi, Beijing, Delhi, London, New York, and Shanghai.
🎨 Ben Davis: Art in the After-Culture
When: Mon, Jan 23rd from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Where: SVA, 133 West 21st Street, Room 101C, New York, NY 10011
Ben Davis joins the Art and Politics Lecture Series to discuss his new collection of essays, Art in the After-Culture. In his criticism, Davis attempts to make sense of our extreme present as an emerging "after-culture"—a culture whose forms and functions are being radically reshaped by cataclysmic events. In the face of catastrophe, he holds out hope that reckoning with the new realities of art, technology, activism, and the media, can help us weather the super-storms of the future. Ben Davis has been Artnet News's National Art Critic since 2016. He is the author of 9.5 Theses on Art and Class (2013) and Art in the After-Culture (2022).
🌇 Climate Mobilization Act Series: The IRA Meets New York
When: Tue, Jan 24th at 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM
Where: Building Energy Exchange, 31 Chambers St #609, New York, NY 10007
The Inflation Reduction Act expedites New York State’s climate transition to a clean, renewable economy with a historic investment in City and State green infrastructure. The IRA provides over $369 billion in federal funding, offering a transformative vision for the building industry to improve their assets and meet climate goals. Join BE-Ex and NRDC at the next Climate Mobilization Act Series event to learn how local building stakeholders can meet Local Law 97 compliance and capitalize on new value opportunities with federal funding. A panel of policy experts will discuss the accelerating impact the Inflation Reduction Act has on New York’s electrification and decarbonization goals.
👩🏫 Building Community Expertise: The NY/NJ USACE HATS Teach-In
When: Wed, Jan 25th from 9:00 AM to 10:00 AM
Where: Online
Join us for "Building Community Expertise: The NY/NJ USACE HATS Teach-In," a flood infrastructure teach-in to better understand the US Army Corps of Engineers' proposed plan for flood protection in the New York and New Jersey region. This day-long event will feature presentations and live Q+A sessions with Architects, Landscape Architects, Urban Designers, Academics, Coastal Engineers, Oceanographers, and other experts who can help us all understand the USACE HATS preferred plan.
🍀 Green For Blue 1
When: Wed, Jan 25th from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Where: ONE°15 Brooklyn Marina, 159 Bridge Park Drive, New York, NY 11201
The idea of creating a guide on all things sustainable in New York came from talking with their clients. Buying sustainable and local is good. But more needs to be done. And showing all the great initiatives, whether they come from individuals or small businesses, is important. We always talk about big business, but those who do a lot too often remain in the shadows. Whereas they are more numerous and generally do better, with not always the best tools. So with Green for Blue, Julie and Ben want to highlight them, provide answers, help to be greener, and thus create a guide for everyone: to start or to continue a sustainable life.
🗑 Exploring "Throw-Away" Culture: A Fireside Chat w/ Robin Nagle & Maggie Lee
When: Wed, Jan 25th from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM
Where: P&T Knitwear Books & Podcasts, 180 Orchard St, New York, NY 10002
When a sanitation worker hauls away your trash bin and dumps it in a truck, all that garbage seems to magically disappear—but, as many of us know, that’s simply not the case. Where does our trash and recycling go? Why do we produce so much of it? Has it always been this way? Robin Nagle, author of the book Picking Up: On the Streets and Behind the Trucks with the Sanitation Workers of New York City, and Maggie Lee, Director of Cultural and Educational Programs at the Sanitation Foundation, hope to answer these questions and foster a dialogue about the origins of “throw-away” culture, the impacts it continues to have on New York City and our environment, and who should ultimately be held responsible.
👩🎨 Dreaming a Regenerative Future: An Eco-Art Workshop
When: Wed, Jan 25th from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Where: Lower Manhattan
An eco-art workshop. Designed for you to relax, come together in community, and dream of a regenerative future. Nicole will lead the group in warm-up sketching and watercolor painting. Maia will guide a meditative visualization and group discussion. No art experience required. We supply all art materials. Limited spots available so sign up now!
🎬 Earth II
When: Wed, Jan 25th from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Where: Spectacle Theater, 124 S 3rd St, Brooklyn, NY 11249
THE ANTI-BANALITY UNION is an anonymous collective who recut blockbusters to uncover their latent meaning, chiseling away at them to reveal Hollywood’s shameful, disavowed desires. Now, the ABU has set its sights on climate collapse, scouring the past four decades of disaster movies and combining them into an action-packed analysis of Hollywood’s pathological climate grief in EARTH II. Its star-studded cast and astronomical production values — painstakingly purloined from some of the biggest blockbusters of the past three decades — make EARTH II the most expensive climate disaster epic to be produced for no money.
🧩 Climate Fresk Game Night @ Maison Jar
When: Thu, Jan 26th from 5:15 PM to 9:00 PM
Where: Maison Jar, 566 Leonard Street, Brooklyn, NY 11222
Come join us at Maison Jar for a game night hosted and moderated by Climate Fresk! Climate Fresk is a science-based, collaborative workshop. The aim of the game is help people gain a deeper understanding of the causes and consequences of climate change. Based off the latest IPCC report, the card game has reached 800 000+ participants worldwide, gained 25,000 facilitators, and over 80 international coordinators dispatched the activity in approximately 60 countries and 30 languages.
🗽 NY Climate Tech January Meetup
When: Thu, Jan 26th from 6:30 PM to 9:00 PM
Where: OCabanon, 245 West 29th Street, New York, NY 10001
Come to the NY Climate Meetup to connect with other climate professionals Each month we bring together entrepreneurs, climate scientists, investors, students, engineers, and people of all backgrounds looking to transition into climate or meet other people with similar interests. This month we'll be at OCabanon on 29th St. Interested hearing about more climate tech events in NYC? Sign up for our events newsletter: https://nyclimatetech.substack.com Just getting into climate? Check out My Climate Journey and Work on Climate and Climate Tech Careers
💃 Dance Symposium: Dance and Ecology, A Symposium for Climate Action
When: Fri, Jan 27th from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM
Where: NYPL for the Performing Arts, 111 Amsterdam Ave., NY, NY 10023
Each year, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division oversees the Dance Research Fellowship, an annual cohort of dance scholars and artists invited to research a specific aspect of dance. This year, fellows focused their research on the theme of dance and ecology. Fellows Juli Brandano, Rosemary Candelario, María de los Angeles Rodríguez Jiménez, Lindsey Jones, Richard Move, and Rachna Nivas will deliver presentations in our annual symposium, culminating the work undertaken during a six-month fellowship cycle.
🚽 Jessica Leigh Hester presents Sewer, with Angela Chen
When: Fri, Jan 27th from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Where: P&T Knitwear Books & Podcasts, 180 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002
What can underground pipes tell us about human eating habits and the spread or containment of disease, such as COVID-19? Why are sewers spitting out plastic and trash into waterways around the world? How are clogs getting gnarlier and more numerous? Jessica Leigh Hester leads readers through the past, present, and future of the system humans have created to deal with our own waste and argues that sewers can be seen as a mirror to the world above at a time when our behaviors are drastically reshaping the environment for the worse. Sifting through the muck offers a fresh way to approach questions about urbanization, public health, infrastructure, ecology, sustainability, and consumerism- and what we value. Without understanding sewers, any attempt to steward the future is incomplete.
🍄 Sculpting With Mycelium
When: Sun, Jan 29th from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM
Where: Genspace, 132 32nd Street #108, Brooklyn, NY 11232
Designed objects are increasingly being made with materials from nature, specifically nature’s ultimate decomposer, fungi. Fungi is one of the most exciting sources ripe with design potential, and creative applications for fungi-based materials range from biodegradable styrofoams to leather-like textile alternatives. In this workshop, we’ll explore mycelium (AKA the vegetative fibers of a mushroom) as a material for experimental design applications. You’ll grow a variety of samples, starting from a mycelium substrate, to mycelium grown using experimental techniques, to sculpting mycelium composite materials grown to shape. We’ll also dive into some of the science behind how fungi is evolving alongside us to break down our waste, and discuss the potential of using sustainable mycelium to replace current packaging and building materials.
Join the Fun!
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Share Your Ideas
We're excited to grow the Climate Tech community in cities across the globe! What started as an 8-person mid-pandemic outdoor dinner has since morphed into a 2,500+ strong and ever-growing group of rockstars trying to change the world. We aim to be a community resource - built for and by our community. Share your ideas!