NY Climate Tech: May 9 - May 16
Climate finance, PEN World Voices on "cli-fi" and migration, and your chance to become a DSNY certified Master Composter
Hi all,
Our May meetup is next week! We’re trying something different, and joining forces with the Diamond List launch party, Collaborative Fund, and WeWork. RSVP here.
Meanwhile, it’s another busy week for climate in NYC. Things kick off Tuesday with a Women in Climate event – they’ve really been growing and have a great community, check them out – Bonnie Gurley from GreenPortfolio will be talking about green personal finance.
On Wednesday, continue the theme with a venture finance event at Beta Works featuring a star-studded lineup of investors in the NY climate ecosystem. Also on Wednesday: a chance to learn about how changing building facades can contribute to decarbonization, and a book club at the Battery Park City Library on Braiding Sweetgrass, a book by on indigenous knowledge, science, and botany.
Thursday showcases New York’s cultural sphere, with a CCNY seminar on climate change in Africa featuring work by three African scholars, a panel on climate fiction as part of the PEN World Voices festival, a talk on plastics by the chief curator of the Vitra design museum, and finally, a composting workshop hosted by the DSNY that’s part of a very real 7-part program to add “Master Composter” to your LinkedIn.
Friday continues the theme with another PEN World Voices session on migration narratives, an essential subject during the climate crisis. Saturday choose one of two paths: either head to SoHo for a NYCXDesign panel on sustainable design and digital wellness, or go to the Lower East Side for a “spectacular procession of visual art, giant puppets, costumes and 21 site performances celebrating climate solution initiatives.”
Events this week
🏢 Carbon Crisis: Leveraging the Façade System for Carbon Reduction in Buildings
💩 DSNY Organics Diversion Efforts: A Master Composter Workshop
♳ Talk at 1014: Vitra Design Museum presents "Plastic. Remaking Our World"
Upcoming Events
Thursday, May 19: NY Climate Tech April Meetup X Diamond List
Accelerators, Prizes, and Fellowships
Due June 6th: Urban Future Prize Competition
Due July 1st: Women in Aquaculture Scholarship Program
Events this Week
👩🔬 Women and Climate NYC Networking Event
When: Tue, May 10, 2022 at 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
Where: Hudson Yards, Hudson Yards , New York, NY 10001 , United States
If you are a looking for an opportunity to talk climate with some ladies, you are in the right place! All women are welcome, no need to have prior climate experience. For alerts on future events and access to our free Slack Community, head over to our main site here!
Our May event is our first large event with the ability to accommodate 50 individuals! We'll be joined by Bonnie Gurry, Co-Founder of GreenPortfolio who will be giving a talk on Green Finances. Ticket proceeds will be used for purchasing food and beverage for the evening!
🏢 Carbon Crisis: Leveraging the Façade System for Carbon Reduction in Buildings
When: Wed, May 11, 2022 at 12:30 PM – 6:00 PM EDT
Where: Club 101, 101 Park Avenue , New York, NY 10178 , United States
Buildings are a significant contributor to global carbon emissions and their façade systems play a major role in that contribution. This puts the building skin at center stage in the development and execution of carbon reduction strategies in the pursuit of carbon-neutral, or even carbon negative, buildings. Join us to explore practical and effective solutions for reducing carbon emissions along with the economic and ethical reasons for doing so.
🌾 Sustainability Book Club: Braiding Sweetgrass
When: Wed, May 11, 2022 at 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM EDT
Where: Battery Park City Library, 175 North End Avenue , New York, NY 10282 , United States
This event will take place in person at The Battery Park City Library. Each month, readers at the Battery Park City Library come together to discuss new and noteworthy books, swap recommendations, and more. Join library staff for a lively book discussion on Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
📈 Investing to Combat Climate Change
When: Wed, May 11, 2022 at 6:30 PM – 9:30 PM EDT
Where: Betaworks Studios, 29 Little West 12th Street , New York, NY 10014 , United States
Investors from Union Sqaure Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and Softbank Energy talk finding and funding solutions to climate crisis
SPEAKERS:
MODERATOR:
🌍 Fighting Climate Change in Africa
When: Thu, May 12, 2022 at 12:30 PM – 1:45 PM EDT
Where: The City College of New York, 160 Convent Avenue , Shepard Hall - Room 107 , New York, NY 10031
The Eisenhower Fellowships bring together innovative leaders from around the world. Their 2022 Africa Program Fellows come from across Sub-Saharan Africa and are working to address the challenges of climate change, which have brought on increased floods and droughts, diminished crop yields and food shortages, cross-border migrations, international conflicts, and political instability. CCNY Professor Nicholas Rush Smith will be in conversation with three Africa Program Fellows – Kadijah Amoah, Baafour Otu-Boateng, and Mandisa Mathobela – to discuss their work.
💩 DSNY Organics Diversion Efforts: A Master Composter Workshop
When: Thu, May 12, 2022 at 6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
Where: 44 Beaver St, 44 Beaver Street , New York, NY 10004 , United States
DSNY Organics Diversion Efforts: A Master Composter Workshop
The NYC Compost Project Master Composter Certificate Course is an advanced compost education and outreach program. The course is designed to build a citywide network of educators, advocates and community composters to support NYC Department of Sanitation composting initiatives.
📖 Climate Fiction at the Breaking Point
When: Thu, May 12, 2022 at 6:30 PM – 7:45 PM EDT
Where: Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, New York, NY 10012
Cli-Fi (or Climate Fiction) is a growing body of literature directly confronting the climate crisis. What once was the purview of hard-hitting journalistic nonfiction is now the shared backdrop of literary storytelling and speculative fiction. Authors are inventively finding ways to depict the glaring truth that the climate crisis—for far too long dangerously sidelined within cultural discourse, erroneously perceived as at once too abstract and too immense to bring into human narrative—is a cataclysmic humanitarian crisis. Join Maja Lunde (The Last Wild Horses, The History of Bees), Alexandra Kleeman (Something New Under the Sun) and Tochi Onyebuchi (Goliath) as they discuss their work and the growth of cli-fi. This conversation will be moderated by climate activist and writer Emily Raboteau. ASL interpretation provided by Pro Bono ASL.
Support for this program is provided by NORLA, Norwegian Literature Abroad, and the Royal Norwegian Consulate General in New York.
♳ Talk at 1014: Vitra Design Museum presents "Plastic. Remaking Our World"
When: Thu, May 12, 2022 at 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
Where: 1014, 1014 5th Avenue , New York, NY 10028 , United States
1014 invites Jochen Eisenbrand, Chief Curator at the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, to present the museum’s current exhibition, "Plastic. Remaking Our World" during NYCxDESIGN in New York City in this talk. After an introduction of the exhibition topics, the curator will discuss the rise and fall of a material that has been elemental to the design world and become a symbol of modernity as well as its shortcomings. Featuring Lola Ben-Alon, Assistant Professor at Columbia GSAPP, and designer Charlotte McCurdy.
🚣 In the Same Boat: Narratives of Borders and Migration
When: Fri, May 13, 2022 at 8:30 PM – 9:45 PM EDT
Where: Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South , New York, NY 10012 , United States
Where there are borders there are migrants hoping to find a better life on the other side. Authors depicting the universal desire for refuge and respite from within the most urgent circumstances—whether narratives of escape from political violence or the ravages of climate change—convene in a timely and ever-relevant conversation moderated by investigative journalist, and author of Hatemonger, Jean Guerrero. Omar El Akkad’s novel (What Strange Paradise) and Ousman Umar’s memoir (North to Paradise) are gripping migration stories of children navigating a hostile world. Mexican writer and political scientist Yuri Herrera (A Silent Fury: The El Bordo Fire) has long amplified border narratives in his work, characterized by exploitation, violence, and injustice. Tohono O'odham poet and intellectual Ofelia Zepeda’s work explores the often under-excavated intersections of migration and Indigenous experiences, most recently in Where Clouds Are Formed. Together, they address both distinct and intersecting crises that leave people displaced, uprooted, and seeking safety in new contexts—and their collision with the surging nationalism and xenophobia fortifying, and further weaponizing, the borders between us.
🪅 ECOLOGICAL CITY - Procession for Climate Solutions
When: Sat, May 14, 2022 at 11:00 AM – 5:00 PM EDT
Where: Lower East Side, 638 E 6th Street , New York City, NY 10009 , United States
ECOLOGICAL CITY - Procession for Climate Solutions is an urban ecological pilgrimage featuring a spectacular procession of visual art, giant puppets, costumes and 21 site performances celebrating climate solution initiatives throughout the community gardens, neighborhood and East River Park waterfront of the Lower East Side
💚 NYCxDESIGN Future of Design: Sustainable Design
When: Sat, May 14, 2022, 2:00 PM EDT at
Where: Tom Dixon Shop, 25 Greene Street , New York, NY 10013 , United States
NYCxDESIGN Future of Design: Sustainable Design and Digital Wellness
Explore how good design meets good business in order to make an impact on our community, world, and bottom line.
As part of NYCxDesign Festival, join us at Tom Dixon Shop for a lively panel disucssion in collaboration with SoHo Design District and NM Marketing Co.
In conversation with acclaimed designers Laura Hodges, Tucker Robbins, SinCa Design, Marco Baga, and Natalia Mirabito, this intimate panel discussion aligns responsible design, sustainability, and digital wellness to reveal the transformative role these practices play in the future of design.