How to get involved with Open Climate Fix

Jack Kelly
March 06, 2019 · @jack_kelly
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Photo by Scott Blake} on Unsplash

I'm building a non-profit called Open Climate Fix, entirely focused on using open-science to help fix climate change ASAP. We'd love help :) This blog post lists a few concrete things we need help with.

First, a quick disclaimer: OCF is still very, very young. We don't yet have funding, a bank account, or an online forum. (These things will come!) I'm spending the majority of my time meeting people (I've had over 100 meetings over the last 7 weeks, and plenty more planned - I'm trying hard to focus on meetings relevant to solar PV now). So, please be patient with me! Once I actually start writing code and releasing data, then there will be much more for folks to get stuck into.

In the mean time, here are a few ideas for how to help!

  • Please take a look at our list of Solar data & software and add any resources that you can find! e.g. we'd love help locating more sources of satellite data of cloud cover.

  • Take a look at the Solar Projects doc. Please comment on any projects that you'd like to help with. Heck, if you want, please go right ahead and take the lead on any of those projects :) For example, one great stand-alone project would be to build a simple website to allow people to enter the location of PV panels into Open Street Map. (Please comment on the doc if you do go ahead and start work on a project, so we don't duplicate work.)

    • The Solar Projects doc includes some 'research' sections. These sections contain lists of ideas for self-contained research projects, many of which don't require any coding (just spending some time googling stuff and/or contacting people). We'd people to take on these research projects!

  • Please help with openclimatefix.org website! (Code is on GitHub). Feel free to submit pull requests for small changes. For big changes, please describe your proposal in the issue queue before you start coding, just to make sure no one else is already working on something similar! I'm working on some more content, but I'd love help making that content look good :)

  • Join the OCF web discussion forum.

  • Data! Do you work at an organisation with solar PV power timeseries data or PV location data or satellite imagery? (e.g. an inverter company, or a solar analytics company)? Or do you know someone who does?! If so, please get in touch. I'm very hungry for good PV data!

    • If you have PV power data, please either email it to me (jack@OpenClimateFix.org), or upload the power data to PVOutput.org.
  • Map the geographical location of PV systems in Open Street Map, using tag:generator:source=solar.
  • Domain expertise! If you know about cloud forecasting / aerosol forecasting / determining the toplogy of the electricity network / related things then please email me (jack@openclimatefix.org)!
  • Erm... it's always awkward talking about money but, um, if you are into climate philanthropy - or if you know of anyone who's into climate philanthropy - then please email us (info@openclimatefix.org)! My intention is that Open Climate Fix will reduce emissions by millions of tonnes (at least), at a cost of a few dollars per tonne. (i.e. considerably cheaper than most other interventions).
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