Reversing Climate Change

Wren recently purchased a majority stake in Pacific Biochar, one of carbon removal's most prolific credit deliverers. What led to this deal, and will this model be emulated in a 2026 that might find carbon removal companies interested in (or maybe desperate for) deals that prolong runway and keep their companies alive? Wren is one of the oldest marketplaces (and so much more) in carbon removal...

What if microbes could help us mine responsibly? What if astrobiology—the study of life beyond Earth—held clues for how to fix the way we extract resources  on  Earth? Today’s guest is Liz Dennett, CEO and founder of Endolith, a biotech startup using microbes to boost copper recovery from mining waste. With a PhD in astrobiology, experience at NASA, and a career spanning oil, gas, and data science...

World War I profoundly changed the world. Nation-states replaced empires. Russia went communist. Fascism arrived. The West's claim to being the most civilized peoples on Earth was supremely undermined. And out of so much suffering, we received a holiday prioritizing grief and mercy. This bonus episode is me speed-running World War I and sharing some reflections on Armistice Day, Remembrance Da...

Adaptation begins at home. But it doesn't end there. What do you plan on doing with your family as climate change gets worse? Are you already making plans whether to stay or go? How should states respond as people flee disaster? Who should get access to fish stocks as they migrate to new regions? Once one starts asking these questions, they really don't stop... Today's guest is Susannah Fisher, au...

Is climate change a fringe and woke distraction in military planning that inhibits lethality? Or is it invaluable strategic context for this century's power projection? What kinds of missions will soldiers be asked to perform in a world that is getting hotter and more complex? Today's guest is Erin Sikorsky, Director of The Center for Climate and Security and author of the new book, Climat...

Much of legacy media is dying. You know what isn't? Live sports. Where the outcome is uncertain, people want to watch. That means bringing together large numbers of fans and athletes. And what does that all add up to? Emissions. And emissions that could potentially be detached from profitability, leading to budgets large enough to support meaningful carbon removal. But will sports leagues move in...

What happens when you build a list of very nearly every carbon dioxide removal company in existence? You get access to intriguing data and the pride of a very laborious job done well. Presumably you also get to take a nap. Grant Faber is a long-time carbon removal community fixture working on Life Cycle Analysis and Techno-Economic Assessment. Formerly of the Department of Energy, he now works wit...

I came back from New York Climate Week energized. I loved seeing everyone. But many of the conversations I had profoundly scared me. We're staring into the abyss of deep overshoot, and it's staring back into us. What would it mean for us to make peace with a world that doesn't decarbonize fast enough? That doesn't scale carbon removal before tipping points are reached? That is forced into more rad...

We all want to make sure carbon removal works. But who is working to make it beautiful? And could creating beauty be one of the most important jobs in all of climate? Leila Conners is a filmmaker who has been making environmental films for decades, including legendary ones like The 11th Hour  with Leonardo DiCaprio. Her latest opus is  Legion 44 , which is a wonderful documentary highlighting so m...

Or "project finance", for that matter? Or are these just the current words we say at happy hours? Today, we attempt to nail down some of these definitions so we might have a chance of achieving either of these concepts. Ryan Covington is an attorney and partner in the Climate Projects team of Philip Lee (US) LLP, focused on the development and financing of engineered and nature-based car...

Are you interested in sailing from Seattle to San Francisco on a sailing vessel older than World War 1?! Well, you can at the end of October 2025. Moreover, you'll be crewing alongside me. I recently joined the team of Maritime Blue as an Executive in Residence, working with ocean tech startups on commercial strategy, storytelling, and go-to-market. They're putting on a fabulous ocean conf...

Raising kids is hard enough. How do we do it now when existential dread is such a major part of youth experience? And how do we keep ourselves mentally healthy enough to be good at both our professional climate work and parenting? Today's show is with Ariella Cook-Shonkoff, psychotherapist and author of the new book, Raising Anti-Doomers: How to Bring Up Resilient Kids Through Climate Change a...

Is that a noble man rejecting modernity and embracing tradition? Or is it a lunatic with a lance trying to disembowel a shepherd? The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes (Saavedra) is the much beloved literary classic—and perhaps the world's first true novel—but its reputation goes far beyond the book itself. The character has spawned his own adjective: "qu...

In The Brothers Karamazov , the character Grushenka tells a story about an old peasant woman who never did a good deed in her entire life and went to Hell when she died. The woman's guardian angel petitioned God to let him search her life for a single good deed and if he found one, God would let her into Heaven. God agreed. It turns out she had once given a beggar an onion! Her single good dee...

One of my biggest podcasting regrets is not having been able to interview the anthropologist Dr. James C. Scott before he died in 2024. We had corresponded by email, but he'll forever be one of the ones who got away... Rest in peace, James. Your scholarship is still making people think. Today's show serves as an introduction to anthropology, and to some key Scottian concepts like "leg...

If there are so many inhabitable planets in the universe, why haven't we made contact with other civilizations? One terrifying answer is that very few civilizations are able to create world-altering technology without also killing themselves off in the process. This monologue episode introduces the concept of Great Filter Events through the work of Dr. David Grinspoon's outstanding book, E...

A $50M Series A?! In this economy? Aircapture recently raised a big round at a time when big raises in climatetech are hard to come by. Their secret? Producing a valuable product better for their customers than what currently exists, and not being dependent upon policy or carbon credits. They're doing modular direct air capture in places that otherwise need to buy merchant carbon dioxide from...

Writing fiction about climate change is notoriously difficult. Some authors have gone for massive ensemble casts to defeat the hyperobject . But what if one zoomed in to smaller, quieter, interpersonal stories? Jon Raymond is a screenwriter and novelist whose work I very much enjoy. He is a frequent collaborator of Kelly Reichardt 's, on films such as Old Joy , First Cow , Night Moves , and Showin...

Many hardtech entrepreneurs develop a technology and then figure out how to commercialize it. What happens if you find an industry with potential and then engineer a solution to open an entirely new market to them? Today's show is with two of the cofounders of CO280: Natalie Khtikian, the Chief Commercial Officer, and Jonathan Rhone, the Chief Executive Officer. Natalie and John explain what i...

When you finish painting the Golden Gate Bridge, it is time to paint the Golden Gate Bridge. With a subject as interdisciplinary as carbon dioxide removal, a beginner's mind can also be a great asset! Marian Krueger is the co-author of Race to Zero: How Companies Can Lead the Way to Climate Neutrality , an intoductory text to CDR that lucidly explains what carbon removal is, why it's neces...

We primarily talk about pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and ocean and storing it. But there are some places where we should actually be using it productively. Is graphite for lithium-ion batteries one of those places? Makoto Eyre is the Founder and CEO of Homeostasis, a Tacoma-based company making graphite from carbon dioxide. In the future they aim to colocate their reactors with car...

When you think of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, you probably aren't thinking about carbon removal. But should you be? Today's guest is Victoria Harvey, CDR Strategy Lead at ClimeFi. ClimeFi just structured the world's first Article 6.2 international transfer of durable carbon removal credits between Norway and Switzerland, and there's a lot to discuss! What is the relationship between corporat...

Many a business was launched in carbon credits trying to fix a conflict of interest problem. Has Absolute Climate cracked the code? Should registries get out of the methodology development business? Peter Minor, CEO and Co-Founder of Absolute Climate, is on the show today to talk about the many issues of trying to create an ultimate standard in carbon removal (hence the amazing xkcd meme), and how...

Salary is touchy. It's tied up with shame on all sides: are we being underpaid? Did we overpay for someone that is unfair? Is it too late to fix it?! Today, host Ross Kenyon monologues about the 2025 Salary Survey from the folks at CDRjobs (which you should go fill out right now!) , and shares some lessons he learned about designing HR policies the hard way and from experienced colleagues. The mai...

The Carbon Removal XPRIZE has been a major focal point of the CDR industry for years. And Mati Carbon just won the $50M Grand Prize. How did they do it, and how did their surprising and counterintuitive approach to enhanced rock weathering win over so many other contestants? Shantanu Agarwal is the Founder and CEO of Mati Carbon, and he's on the show today to discuss how the various novel ways the...