Whether you’re just getting started with climate action or have been doing it for a while, the amount of resources in this space can be overwhelming. The ClimateAction.tech (CAT) Slack community is a great place to ask fellow CATs for recommendations and expertise in different areas, but keeping track of discussions and resources shared across numerous channels can be a daunting task. What’s more, these information-dense chats have a tendency to disappear in Slack’s history purgatory just when you need them the most.
This is where the CAT knowledge base comes in. The knowledge base, which runs on Outline, is a collaborative tool that complements the Slack community and allows any CAT member to record, collect, and browse community knowledge that can help you take climate action in different ways.
All you need to do to access this CAT treasure trove of knowledge is to log in with your existing CAT Slack account. (If you don’t have that yet, we invite you to join our community first.)
Jump easily from your Slack conversations to the knowledge base
Not only can you easily log into the knowledge base with your existing CAT Slack account, you can quickly access relevant knowledge base pages directly from Slack. Most channels in our Slack community have the relevant knowledge base page pinned to the top of the channel.
When you have an interesting discussion and would like to capture the shared resources or knowledge for future generations of CATs, just click the pinned link and contribute to the CAT knowledge base.
Take a knowledge base nosedive
We know the amount of pages in the CAT knowledge base can be overwhelming at first. To help you discover useful pages, we have started featuring one page each week in the CAT newsletter.
But you don’t have to wait for the weekly newsletter to do a deep dive on our collective knowledge. Here is a quick tour of everything you can explore in the knowledge base whenever you have a couple of minutes to spare and are looking for some inspiration.
Whether you’ve recently joined CAT, returning after a break, or just in need of a refresher about CAT activities, you can:
- Learn more About CAT as an organisation and our Community principles
- Browse notes from various CAT Events, such as the recent February 2024 Open Organizing Meeting
- Learn about CAT Projects, such as the CAT Mini Grants
We also use the knowledge base to capture community discussions and resources. You can:
- Explore the Climate Action Starter collection and perhaps browse the Climate courses, programs, and degrees recommendations to upskill or take a climate deep dive
- Green your practice by exploring resources from #greener channels, such as Greener Design or Greener WebDev
- Discover new topics from #topics channels, such as Behavior & Psychology,
- Make it easier for CATs to find locally relevant info from #local channels
- See archives of past conversations in the #ask-anything channel, such as the discussion on How do you cope with the emotional exhaustion from major news like the recent IPCC report?
Contributing your knowledge is easy
As you browse the knowledge base, you’ll notice that some topics and pages are less complete or up-to-date than others. The good news is that adding your own knowledge and recommendations to the knowledge base is super easy. Just start typing on any page where you find a typo, missing or out of date information, and fellow CATs will be instantly able to benefit from your expertise.
Don’t worry about getting this down perfectly, or doing something wrong. The Outline knowledge base is a wiki-like tool that preserves the history of edits, so it’s easy to revert to a previous version even if you happen to delete something by accident. And there are no limits to how many times you can edit a page, so done is better than perfect.
While most pages require a CAT Slack account to view, some pages are also available to the general public. In this case, you’ll see a notice on the top of the page.
Help a fellow CAT learn something new
We hope this brief tour of the knowledge base inspires you to browse the existing collection of CAT knowledge. Or perhaps even to dust off your bookmarks and help a fellow CAT learn something new by adding your own knowledge and recommendations to the CAT knowledge base.