Greening Basecamp

Basecamp recently set out to do a carbon accounting, looking at the company's emissions, as well as meaningful ways to offset and mitigate those impacts. Jane Yang and Elizabeth Gramm, the two Basecampers who took on this daunting and nuanced project, come on the show to discuss not just the work itself, but how they've been processing the fear, skepticism, grief, and hope that come with trying to address the climate crisis.

Show Notes

The United Nations 2018 special report on global warming of 1.5ºC (PDF) - 1:52

"Why Air Quality Matters," David Heinemeier Hansson's presentation to the company about indoor air quality - 2:26

The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells - 4:01

Explainer on Scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions - 5:46

Basecamp's former office in Chicago - 6:22

"Spending in the Clouds," our episode about looking for savings on Basecamp's cloud services - 6:59

Books by Basecamp - 10:18

"Towards carbon negativity," Jane's first post about the project on Signal v. Noise - 10:56

"Want to Do Something About Climate Change? Follow the Money" (NYT) - 13:05

"You Never Forget George Pappageorge," our episode about closing the Chicago office - 16:25

Microsoft's Sustainability Calculator for its cloud services - 17:59

"Basecamp has offset our cumulative emissions through 2019," Jane's follow-up post on SvN - 22:09

Cool Effect - 25:05

GoClimate - 25:06

ClimateAction.Tech - 26:08

Wholegrain Digital - 26:35

"The Chicago plant that sparked a hunger strike amid environmental racism claims" (The Guardian) - 27:04

350.org - 27:38

Elizabeth's Reading Recommendations

A January 2021 article by David Wallace-Wells about the pandemic and climate change

What We Think About When We Try Not To Think About Global Warming, Per Espen Stoknes

Hope and Grief in the Anthropocene, Lesley Head

The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert

The Ecology of Wisdom, Arne Naess

The Mushroom at the End of the World, Anna Tsing

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