đ Electric Fleets and Uncruel Meats
(030) Hungry Hungry Hippos, Birds, and Lab-meat substrates
Good Morning
Green Bite announcement: weâre launching a new section, Before the Bell. Weâll share weekly performance metrics that matter more for measuring the progress of society than the standard S&P 500 performance numbers we hear on NPR every day. What do you think is the most important metric to measure the USâ or the worldâs progress? Let us know!
Meanwhile: âElectric vehicles are on a tear. In the third quarter of this year passenger EV sales (including plug-in hybrids) passed 1.5m. This is about a tenth of global car sales, double what the proportion was a year ago. About three-quarters of those EVs rely just on battery power, rather than being plug-in hybrids. And most of the sales occurred in Asia. EVs are surging in China in particular. There, tiny, low-costs EVs are all the rage.â
(The Economist reports)
Top Deals of the Week
The company: Future Meat, a 3.5-year-old, Israel-based startup is creating what they call a âcultured meatâ: real meat made without raising livestock.Â
The raise: Future Meat is raising $320 million at a $600 million valuation. Tyson Foods is a part of the round. (CT)
Why weâre excited about it: Lab meat is exciting because if they can make a comparable product without raising livestock, they can reduce relative associated emissions by 80% or more. Future Meat claim this new round of funding will help them launch in US markets in 2022! Next year will be a big one for lab meat, with Memphis Meats expected to get to market first and Future Meat, among others, close on their tail.Â
The company: Sweep, a year-old, Montpellier, France-based team helps companies capture carbon emission data in their supply chain.
The raise: Sweep raised $22 million from Balterton Capital, New Wave, La Famiglia, and 2050. (VB)
Why weâre excited about it: Taking stock of where, why, and how emissions are caused in the complex global supply chain will be key in reducing them across the board. With the EU taking stronger action on requirements around emissions, European markets make a more attractive market for B2B services such as Sweepâs.
Other Deals This Week
STOKE Spaceâs fully-reusable rocket.
UBQ Materials, a nine-year-old, Tel Aviv, Israel-based company that say it has developed a plastic-like material made from 100% unsorted household waste, just raised $170 million in funding led by TPG Rise (TC)
STOKE Space, a two-year-old, Seattle-based space vehicle components manufacturer at work on a fully reusable rocket (it was founded by two former Blue Origin employees), has raised $65 million in Series A funding led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures. (PL)
Hippo Harvest, a nearly three-year-old, Half Moon Bay, Ca.-based sustainable agriculture company that grows vegetables in greenhouse environments and was founded by a former Google engineer, has raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Congruent Ventures (More)
Bird Buddy, a 17-month-old, Slovenia-based maker of a smart bird feeder, has raised an $8.5 million in seed funding from General Catalyst, among others. (Climate tech? Debatable. It helps people connect with nature, which weâre always happy to see.) (TC)
HURR, a four-year-old, London-based fashion marketplace that invites customers to rent or purchase pre-owned clothing, has raised $5.4 million in seed funding. Octopus Ventures led the round (TC)
Green Theory
The Reality of SciFi
Science Fiction lets us imagine other worlds: it can bring the dissonances of our time into relief with stunning analogies, help us dream of a brighter future, or warn against the proliferation of current trends. Frequently, these stories take place in the context of a world ravaged by natural disasters or a hostile climate, prompting the subgenre "CliFi", or Climate Fiction. With the form of the novel taking shape in the 17th century, Mary Shelley's 1818 Frankenstein is widely heralded as the first SciFi work of that kind. Now, with the lines between CliFi and climate reality blurring, the entire genre takes on new cultural weight.
Today, we have flashier technology, accelerating at a faster pace, than Shelley ever did, and yet SciFi continues to define and redefine public imaginations. While Elon Musk co-created his public likeness with the 21st-century reboot of hypercapitalist Tony Stark in Ironman, other artists continue to use the genre as a force for espousing higher values. Musk and his brand of science fiction fanatic are quick to overlook the utopian ideals their favorite authors championed on earth, and instead speak to favoring interpretations of space exploration as adventurous human destiny. On the contrary, Musk and the space capitalists seem more desirous of a new libertarian frontier for exploitation, as Newt Gingrich explained explicitly, and for which Musk continues to push. (More on all this Muskmania from Dr. Jill Lepore and the BBC)
Well-interpreted by the wealthy or not, SciFi holds troves of cultural critique, essential to the fight for climate security and justice. Still, a spotlight on modern works of SciFi and CliFi reveals a recurring trend: as in the displacement of Mary Shelley from her role as a founder of SciFi, male authors borrow and build upon genre-defining women's works, attracting acclaim and attention. Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future (2020) tells a global story of climate disasters and solutions, and Richard Powers' Bewilderment (2021) explores the role of empathy in grappling with a suffering natural world. For all these novels have to offer (and Powers' dedication to women authors such as Margaret Atwood) we must give recognition to Octavia Butler, and her 1993 SciFi novel Parable of the Sower, from which both of these books draw inspiration. Butlerâs main characterâs central inspiration is echoed by a key supporting character in Robinson's book.  Butler's same character stands out with her empathic feelings, just as Powers' young boy protagonist, and heâs coming to a theater near you.
When reaching for, or finishing, the flashy new book, you may enjoy a scan of what came before, rather than the latest, for your next read. And while Elizabeth Kolbertâs 2021 non-fiction work Under A White Sky captures the state of solar geoengineering as best a scientist can, to give credit to Robinson, the employment of such technology appears much more feasible after reading the opening chapters of Ministry for the Future.
The Closer
Worth a click through to watch this video. A bit more anthropocentric of a closer than usual this week but had to make an exception for Nazareth.Â
At first, I thought you were describing a Green Bite version of Snacks Daily, which would have been a fun name-mash-up (Green Snacks), but it sounds like you're describing the indicator, from Planet Money (no fun mash-ups) - check them out if you need inspiration!
Either way, good idea! I also liked the lit theory at the end as well. Great mix this week.