There are many moments in the year that I associate with reflection: New Year’s Day (resolutions), Spring (seeing plants spring back to life and bloom), Fall (school starting)…Summer is not one of them. However, 2020 and 2021 are different than any year in recent memory, and with the Covid environment shifting, this year Summer is a moment of reflection.
We have some exciting announcements we are hard at work on and we will be sharing those with you in the coming weeks. In the meantime, we’d encourage you to check out some of our readings below, including what books we’re reading this summer.
We wish we would have…
Innovate Climate has been fantastic at providing company deal flow and awareness around accelerator programs and related opportunities, we highly recommend it.
Recently, they also started featuring Career Opportunities and Candidates. With so many people looking at switching jobs and wanting to work in climate-related spaces we are thrilled to have this as another resource.
What we are…
…Reading
Summer Reading List:
Artemis by Andy Weir (bestselling author of The Martian), a fictional novel set on Artemis, the only colonized city on the moon in the 2080s. It follows the hilarious and sarcastic Jazz, who never set out to be a heroine. She is a criminal who only wanted to "get rich" so she could stop being a criminal. She accidentally gets caught up in a conspiracy for control of Artemis, so now she has to be a hero and save her home. Loved exploring what a colonized city on the moon could be like, along with the political and economical implications that come with it. Plus Jazz's jokes had me laughing throughout the book. (Recommended by Laura Dryer, Summer Associate)
Beneath a Scarlet Sky by Mark Sullivan, best described as a biography that reads like historical fiction, the book tells the story of Pino Lella an Italian teenager living in northern Italy during WWII. After his home is bombed he joins an underground railroad helping Jews escape over the Alps and subsequently becomes the personal driver for Adolf Hitler’s left hand in Italy and spy for the Allies, all while falling in love. Pino lives in a world of impossible choices and after the two years we’ve had is a reminder of the dark days that the world has previously lived through. (Recommended by Allison Myers, General Partner)
The Sympathizer, debut novel by Viet Thanh Nguyen, who is a Vietnamese refugee and English and Ethnic Studies Professor at the University of Southern California. Published in 2015, it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2016 and is being made into a movie with Robert Downey, Jr. My friend who is an English teacher at Groton recommended this novel to me when I said I wanted something different to read in the historical fiction genre, my favorite literary genre. The story is about a communist spy following the Vietnam War and it is both chilling and darkly funny. Nguyen’s writing is very fresh and is deeply authentic. As someone who knows embarrassingly little about the Vietnam war, having read extensively about WWII, it is both educational and also culturally satirical and captures California in the 1970’s which is the community that the main character emigrates to after escaping Saigon. It’s not really light summer reading, but it will definitely make you think and the quality of the prose is rich and original. I’ve got the subsequent book, The Committed, ready to start next. (Recommended by Amy Francetic, Managing General Partner)&
Change: How to Make Big Things Happen, by Damon Centola. For those of you looking to understand how social change occurs, this is the book you should be reading. We think of social change spreading like information, memes, or viruses…but beliefs and behaviors are different and lasting change is hard. This book explores why that is and how we respond and adopt new ideas of beliefs.
Recent News
We hope to see more bipartisan action on climate and are encouraged by the recent move in the Senate approving a bill that helps farmers profit on climate change action.
It may be that we have failed to predict how serious flood and head intensity will be from climate change. And the dramatic photos from Germany are a prime example.
Interview with Patrick Collison, co-founder & CEO of Stripe, a great interview with a founder that has a broad range of interests, it pairs well with the oldie but goodie How I Built This Podcast episode featuring Stripe co-founders
Trees do more than suck carbon out of the air, they are also a source of shade and are now being looked to as a low-cost solution to hotter temperatures
…Listening To
The BBC Earth Podcast is a great reminder of how amazingly wonderful our world is.
Scaling up Soil Carbon Markets - feat. guests from Cargill, Nori and more!
Agtech - So What?
Upcoming events
For fun (since you’ve made it this far…)
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The Lighthouse is a resource for climate tech updates and a channel for us to regularly share our perspective on Buoyant’s investment thesis and industry sectors. We know we are not alone in producing great content and will amplify the voices of others by highlighting those resources we find thought-provoking.