OMGCLIMATE LDN in London at Phoenix Court
On a Friday afternoon on October 18th, OMGCLIMATE LDN, a community-run, unconference about tech and climate change took place in London. I was one of the people organising it — here’s my write-up.
What is OMG CLIMATE LDN?
OMG CLIMATE LDN was the latest incarnation of the OMG CLIMATE unconference series — free, community run events to create a space to have discussion about how folks can use their positions in tech to do something about the climate crisis.
They’re deliberately inter-disciplinary, and designed to be inclusive and accessible to those with families, as well as folks outside of the tech industry because our changing climate is an issue with impacts across generations and any one industry.
Following two earlier OMG CLIMATE events run in Berlin — specifically, one in Soundcloud’s swanky offices , and pop event run at JSConf.eu in June — this was run 5 minutes walk from King Cross station, at Phoenix Court, a community space.
What did we cover?
This was an unconference, so the content was brought by the attendees, coming from a range of places — community energy organisations, behaviour change specialists, climate finance experts, campaigners, as seasoned people in technology already, with backgrounds in private and public sector tech companies.
Every one had a chance to pitch an idea, and then together we voted on the sessions. The highest ranking sessions made it onto a three track grid visible below, and the rest of the afternoon was set aside to explore these themes, then share them back:
What these sessions were about might not be obvious from the titles, so here’s the an summary of what each session was about. Write ups for each one are coming (more on that later).
Computing energy use: writing guidance — we know computers run on electricity. What does guidance we can use in government and private sector look like if we want to minimise emissions from their use?
Dream the dream: vision for an optimistic future —it helps to be able to imagine a future we want and can strive towards, if we want to get past the overwhelming, grim visions of climate dystopia painted for us. How do we get there?
Strategic ligitation —we need more the tech solutionism to stand a chance of avoiding the worst impacts of the climate crisis. We’ve seen the law used as a lever to drive action in other sectors. What can we learn from others to use for driving climate action now?
Data, risk, finance and insurance — GDPR for Climate Change —in many cases, climate discussions can sound a lot like discussions around GDPR.
Data dieting — we know that sending data over the internet uses power, and contributes to climate change too, and stats about the carbon footprint of streaming video each year being roughly equivalent to Spain, are circulating in the news. What can we do here, as responsible professionals?
Gamifying the climate crisis —there’s loads of good work gone into making playful experiences to incentivise different kinds of behaviour. What can be used here to face the climate crisis, and what is being used?
Toolkit for Employee Action — we’ve seen the impact groups like Amazon For Climate have had on their parent companies, and as professionals we want to be able to bring our whole selves to work. How do we create the conditions, where the places we spend most of our waking hours act in a way that reflects the urgency of the climate crisis?
Filling the awkward middle — we see top down action having some effect, and we bottom up, individual and grass routes action having some success, but they rarely meet in the middle. How do we address this?
Flying in a Climate Emergency — we know that aviation is a driver of climate change, and that it has an outsize impact among our decisions as individuals, and that where people fly in tech, they fly a lot. How do we break this habit, when structurally, so much of the industry relies on frequent flying?
How can I learn more?
While there’s a shared photo album from the day, listing all the notes taken, as well showing what the event looked like.
There’s also a heroic group of volunteers writing up the key points from each session, and over the coming days we’ll be posting them on this publication.
You can follow the progress in realtime on the public trello board we’re using to manage the editorial workflow.
Wait, I don’t see a topic I’m interested in being written up!
Just like the conference relied on the attendees to bring the questions and content, we’re relying on you to step up if you see a session you were interested in, but don’t see being written up.
You can volunteer via the provided google form for write-ups, we have editorial support if you’d like it, and we even have some prompts to help you get started on your first post:
You don’t need to be a seasoned journalist —if you’ve prepared to write the answers to the prompts provided, you’re already half way there:
This looks cool! I wish I could have been there!
We designed OMGCLIMATE to be easy to run and organise, so rather than having to fly to the conference, the conference could come to you. We’ve shared all the assets, forms, deck and guidance online before to copy, and we’re looking for folks to run this elsewhere too.
If you’re interested in joining the conversation on tech and climate, or continuing it with others, you can join the rest of us in the ClimateAction.tech slack group, or follow @climateActTech here on Medium, or as @climateActTech on twitter.
It’s a small but friendly community, and each Monday we run batch invite in slack to welcome new faces. Say hi!
