Pique Behind the Curtain Vol. 37

A newsletter for those who are interested in climate solutions, media and film production

July 07, 2022

Announcing Pique’s Fundraise

Telling more stories on climate solutions

Welcome back to our weekly newsletter, Pique Behind the Curtain. If you’ve come in search of climate content, new film features, and all-around positive vibes, then you’ve come to the right place. If you’re enjoying this, don’t just keep it all for yourself. Please share it with a friend!

We’ve Got Some News

When we started working on Pique over a year ago, our vision was to build a media company that could help change the narrative around climate change. Instead of anxiety-provoking headlines and dire outlooks, we wanted to push the focus to solutions and innovation. Instead of drawbacks, we wanted to talk about drawdown. Our goal is to pique curiosity and drive action, with the long term vision of mobilizing millions into climate action.

Since we launched 10 months ago, we’ve released 30 micro-documentaries on climate tech startups from Berkeley to Bangalore. Our content has over 7 million views across platforms. We’ve crossed over 100k followers on TikTok, where we’ve released several micro-series on Nature-Based Solutions with Alaina Wood, Climate Success Stories, and Climate Action on a Budget.

We know that we can’t do this alone. Today, we’re humbled to announce the close of a $1 million pre-seed fundraising round led by the global climate venture capital firm Amasia, with participation from Baruch Future Ventures and Fairbridge Park.

We are grateful to you, our readers, viewers, allies, and fellow we-are-worried-about-climate-change-and-want-to-do-something-be-inspired-and-help-our-fellow-world-citizens community.

Read the full story in Protocol and our press release.

This funding will accelerate our content development, allowing us to produce more films and new types of shows. Oh, and we plan on hiring for a few roles in the future too. Drop us a note here if you or anyone you know would be interested:

  • Director of Social Media

  • Social Media Manager

  • Graphic Designer

  • Writer

  • Story Producers

  • Video Editors

  • Assistant Video Editors

  • Business Development

  • Grant Writer

Read the full story here.

We’ve Got a Cool, New Look Too!

Since it’s announcement day, we’re excited to unveil our updated logo, icon and color scheme:

New Release: Ep. 30 Huue Bio

For the last century, colors like indigo, which is used to make our blue jeans, have been made with harsh substances like cyanide and formaldehyde. Dyeing is the dirtiest part of denim production, traditionally relying on fossil fuels to be produced. But what if we told you there’s another way? It’s actually pretty sweet.

Huue Bio is using sugar instead of toxic chemicals to make dye. By leveraging proprietary bioengineering, their team creates microbes that mirror nature’s process and consume sugar to enzymatically produce dye. Biosynthetic indigo has five times less toxicity compared to chemical sources and is just as effective and easy for jeans makers to utilize.

It’s a win-win-win. Win for the planet, win for business, and win for you since you can now not only rock a pair of jeans but feel ecologically responsible too. 🤘👖

Watch the full video here.

Nature-Based Solution: This Italian Police Policy is the Bees Knees

The Carabinieri police force in Italy is renowned for taking on the hardest criminals in the nation, most notably the mafia. However, a specialized force tasked with preserving the environment and woods is currently combating an entirely different kind of group.

Right now, beehives are located on the rooftop of the force’s headquarters in Italy. Using bees as biodiversity indicators, they’re gathering useful information (which is often difficult to come by) about atmospheric conditions and pollutants that may be present in urban areas, such as dioxins and other substances.

The Carabinieri are seeing excellent results at the hands of their fuzzy and buzzy friends, and they have no plans to wrap up the project anytime soon. In fact, it’s the complete opposite! With a new €500,000 commitment to expand the beekeeping project to other cities throughout the country, officials in charge of the pilot case have hopes that pollinating and planet-helping little researchers will make a beeline for other European countries soon.

Watch our TikTok on all the buzz here!

Good Climate News!

This week in good climate news 🌍:

Have You Scheduled Your Climate Check-up?

Science research publications have long expressed concern about the severe repercussions that continued pollution and global warming could entail. Now, one of the oldest medical magazines in the country has now made a commitment to spreading awareness of the negative consequences that climate change is having on people's health.

The New England Journal of Medicine is extending its coverage of the connection between climate challenges and public health beginning with the issue released on Thursday. The coverage will begin with a series on the negative effects of fossil fuels on health. The Journal intends to regularly address the subject going forward, both on its pages and in its linked periodicals.

Why should fossil fuels matter to medicine, and why do they matter to medical journals in particular?

Air pollution and climate change are primarily driven by the extraction and consumption of fossil fuels. It’s estimated that 8.7 million people per year die from particulate air pollution caused by fossil fuels - and the true number of deaths directly related to climate change is still unknown. In addition to causing and exacerbating a wide range of ailments, air pollution and climate change also contribute to heat-related illnesses, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, allergy disorders, vector-borne illnesses, pregnancy problems, and mental health issues.

And as we already know, the felt effects of climate change are widely disproportionate. Health implications are not equally distributed, despite the fact that almost everyone is affected to some degree. Even though they contribute comparatively less to greenhouse gas emissions than wealthy regions, low-income communities and specific racial and ethnic groups frequently suffer the worst effects - effects exacerbated by economic inequality and institutional racism.

Focusing on communicating how to mitigate and adapt to climate change is just the start of much-needed attention on the effects of climate challenges by top medical academics.

And the NEJM’s decision is a bigger deal than it may seem at first glance. Consider public knowledge about the link between smoking tobacco and lung cancer and how it has progressed over time. Aggressive anti-smoking campaigns and advertisements in the United States have contributed significantly to the steady decline in regular tobacco use since the 1970s. Those campaigns were founded on the cornerstones of respected medical journals that linked smoking to various ailments including cancer and asthma.

Medical journals mostly focus on treatments, new drugs, new procedures, and new tests. Making the root cause of diagnoses a publication priority, as was done with tobacco, is a public health service more than anything else. And it’s one of great influence and importance.

Raising awareness and incorporating a climate lens into medical training is critical to equipping physicians with the knowledge necessary to practice medicine in the 21st century. As more publications like the New England Journal of Medicine make climate health a priority, we can hope and expect that the policy to support it will follow suit!

What We’re Watching, Reading, and Listening to

Searching for more positive climate content? Look no further!