Brief Author Note

Have any of you read Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson? It is quite the fascinating read.

Both authors explore the systematic roadblocks that prevent the solving of America’s trifecta of issues including healthcare, energy, and housing.

I am still in the middle of the book, but chuckle at the parallels with public policy and what is happening in 2025 with the current administration.

No spoilers! 💢 

Chau,

Nate

Quick Links!

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Open-Source Carbon Footprints (AI & Data Centers/Hardware): Thibaud Colas and Chris Adams explore open-source tools for calculating software carbon emissions.

Green AI Strategy with Adrian Cockcroft (AI Policy & ESG): Discusses integrating sustainability into AI architecture with emphasis on green software and hardware decisions.

Water with Rebecca Kilberg, Mary-Clare Bosco & Jonathan Gilmour (AI & Water Resources): Explores data-led solutions for water resources, including AI in monitoring, drought forecasting, and water quality management.

Greening AI-Enabled Systems with Software Engineering: A Research Agenda for Environmentally Sustainable AI Practices (AI & Data Centers/Hardware): A report from a workshop detailing key challenges and recommendations for sustainable AI software engineering.

Carbon-Aware Temporal Data Transfer Scheduling Across Cloud Datacenters (AI & Data Centers/Hardware): This paper introduces LinTS, a scheduler to reduce carbon emissions in inter-data-center transfers by optimizing timing.

Toward Environmentally Equitable AI (AI & Data Centers/Hardware): Advocates equitable distribution of AI's environmental costs through region aware workload scheduling.

Where Cloud Meets Cement: A Data Center Report (AI Policy & Governance): Data centers are quickly becoming geopolitical pieces in the AI Arms Race. However, is there an environmental, social, or cultural cost to building out all this infrastructure?

Tech Profs' Guide to Sustainable Computing (AI & Infrastructure): The world’s online computing is straining power and water supplies and generating outsized greenhouse gas emissions. This guide will educate technical professionals on sustainable computing and AI practices.

Green Software and Generative AI: Can Generative AI Be Used to Implement Green Software? (AI & Sustainability): The goal of this study is to start filling the above mentioned research gap by investigating that can generative AI be used to implement more sustainable IT solutions, which is also known as green software. As the topic of green software is quite vast, this study only focuses on the code energy efficiency principle of green software.

The Darker Side of Tech and ESG with Oliver Cronk (AI & Policy/ESG): In this episode, Ben Pearce and Oliver Cronk delve into the often overlooked environmental impacts of technology. They discuss the lifecycle of tech products, the significant role of datacenters, the challenges of e-waste, and the energy demands of AI.

How AI Uses Our Drinking Water - BBC World Service (AI & Water Resources): More than a billion messages are sent to AI chatbots every day and each interaction uses water. Here, the BBC World Service explains why and how AI uses water in the first place.

Climate Conversations: Powering AI (AI & Energy): Increasing investment in artificial intelligence (AI) is prompting a larger discussion around sustainability, from the huge demand for electricity to power data centers to the life cycle emissions of hardware needed to enable this technology. Globally, companies and governments are preparing for significant increases in energy use and raw material extraction to meet demand. On the other hand, evolving technology and breakthroughs in AI optimization could lead to lower emissions than previously anticipated.

ResultX AI (AI & Policy/ESG): Provides accessible AI-powered ESG reporting tools for SMEs, making sustainability compliance effortless.

Tether EV (AI & Energy): Uses AI to predict EV charging patterns and turn parked vehicles into grid batteries, reinforcing power systems.

Earth AI (AI & Infrastructure): Vertically-integrated predictive explorer and driller for clean energy minerals, using AI to discover critical metals.

Data Collection Bank of Big Tech Emissions and Energy (AI & Infrastructure): Explore a curated dataset maintained by Ketan Joshi about Big Tech's emissions and energy data.

EnergyKit (AI & Energy): EnergyKit provides a grid forecast for your app to help people choose when to use electricity by identifying times when there‘s relatively cleaner electricity on the grid.

Carbonara (AI & Infrastructure): A carbon tracking data tool for sustainable software engineering.

Mulago Henry Arnhold Fellowship (Open to global applications): The Mulago Henry Arnhold Fellowship is a one-year program for entrepreneurial leaders, typically founders, with climate, conservation, and environment solutions that could achieve exponential impact. 🗓️ Deadline: August 28, 2025.

AI4D Innovations Scaling Challenge (Open to global applications): The Lab for Ethics, Policy and Scaling of AI (LEPSAI), of the African Center for Technology Studies (ACTS) invites eligible AI innovators to express their interest in participating in the AI4D Innovation scaling challenge. This project is intended to support deployed and in-use AI innovations that promise significant social impact and demonstrate readiness to scale. 🗓️ Deadline: September 4, 2025.

2026 International Strategy Forum (ISF) Fellowship (Open to global applications, but mainly focused on 25-35 years old): Are you a rising professional (ages 25–35) with a passion for national security and emerging technology? 🗓️ Deadline: August 31, 2025.

If you have resources that you wish to submit to the AI & Environment Resource Hub, fill out the Google Form! Thank you for suggesting resources to add to the Resource Hub. 🙃 

That’s it for this week.

Thanks for reading the 9th issue of The Climate Code! It means a lot to me and we have more coming in the future, so definitely stick around! 🏃‍♂️💛

Nate

P.S.

New here? Check out the AI & Environment Resource Hub if you have no idea what it is. 😆