Reversing Climate Change

This is a (Spotify) video excerpt from episode 332 with Clayton Aldern, Senior Data Reporter at Grist and author of The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains. In this video clip, we discuss how we hold people accountable when the heat has a statistically relevant negative impact on decision-making, impulsivity, etc. If we are so embodied as to predictably make worse conditions under stress, what does that mean for a world that will likely encounter more stress as a result of climate change? At what point should we focus less on responsibility, blame, and agency and begin to focus more on background conditions and our physical natures? Or is this even the right question? Tune in now to learn more, and listen to the rest of the show on audio wherever you listen to podcasts.

The wildfires in Los Angeles have gripped the country this past week. How could so much valuable real estate in prestigious zip codes populated at least in part by the rich and famous burn without recourse? Today's Reversing Climate Change podcast sees alumna of the show, Allison Wolff, return to discuss Vibrant Planet and the LA wildfires. We were originally scheduled just to catch up because it had been too long, but it turned out to be a serendipitous podcast. Allison has been working on understanding and managing fire risk for years and has built a data platform at Vibrant Planet that helps various entities like state agencies, utilities, and insurers understand and mitigate fire risk in areas under their responsibility.

Content warning: This episode discusses a scene in a video game that involves sexual assault during war. If you'd like to skip that section, it is from 7:57-8:35. There is a response that discusses the ethical choices in the game beyond that point, but it is more abstract and general about choices. Video games have not historically been amazing at storytelling. Games prioritize mechanics and gameplay while story takes a backseat. But that isn’t the case at 11 bit studios, which have produced some of the finest video games in recent years, including a series that takes place within a climate-changed world. Today’s Reversing Climate Change guest is Maciej Sułecki. Maciej worked on three games that RCC host Ross Kenyon is a huge fan of: This War of Mine, and Frostpunk 1 & 2. The conversation starts with The War of Mine, in which the player plays as a group of civilians trying to survive a fictionalized Siego of Sarajevo. Unlike most war games, the objective is not to win a battle (most characters are ill-su

In discussions about technology, and maybe especially within climatetech, the concept of the "Faustian bargain" is common. But what does it actually mean, and is it as simple as concept as it is typically considered? In today's special Halloween episode, Reversing Climate Change host, Ross Kenyon, intros the show by giving the necessary historical context to understand Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust, and to contrast it against Christophe Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Get ready for a dose of Romanticism. When the Faustian bargain is invoked, it usually means a bad deal—one with no upside except for a short-sighted one. And that may be true for Marlowe’s Faust, but Goethe’s Faust wins his bet with Mephistopheles and his soul is never damned. What does that mean for how we use the term, when persistent survival if not actual upside is reintroduced into the Faustian bargain? What if, at least according to Goethe, making a deal with the devil isn’t always as straightforwardly bad as one might think? Today’s guest

The Grounded podcast takes over Reversing Climate Change! Tom Previte of The Carbon Removal Show, founded a new biochar company in the United Kingdom called Restord. And like any good podcaster, he decided to make a show about it! Grounded: A Climate Startup Journey, just wrapped its five-episode first season documenting Tom's attempts to start a new biochar company. He walks listeners through so many of the basic questions of starting a business, and specifically a business in a new category like carbon removal. What standard should one try to work within? Which parts of the life-cycle assessment matter? Who actually wants this product?! What's especially novel about this episode is that Tom and his producer Ben Weaver-Hincks produced it in the style of Grounded, with voiceover segments and various other effects! Tom and Ross talk about how to make podcasts about carbon removal interesting, how various design decisions impact quality and frequency of publishing, and what we can do to get more people into CDR

How do we conduct science when there isn't a single isolated variable? What does that mean for carbon removal not taking place in a controlled environment? How does science even work?! Today's show originated from a question of how open-system carbon removal research can be conducted given that in a less-controlled environment, isolating for a single variable with replicability is less obviously possible. Does the scientific method really demand that, or is that some sort of pop culture understanding of science that needs to be challegned? To answer that question, host and co-founder of the Nori carbon removal marketplace, Ross Kenyon, asked Dr. Holly Jean Buck of the University at Buffalo and Anu Khan of Carbon180, to read two books and come on Reversing Climate Change to discuss them. The two texts are some of the foundational works of modern philosophy of science: Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and Paul Feyerabend's Against Method. Kuhn argued that paradigms are the

What is it like to go to war? What does the experience have to teach us, and could it in any way be a spiritual endeavor? What does the Temple of Mars have to teach us in a climate-changing world? Karl Marlantes is a Rhodes Scholar who put aside graduate studies at Oxford University to lead a Marine rifle platoon in Vietnam in 1968. He is featured extensively in the Ken Burns/Lynn Novick documentary series, The Vietnam War. His memoir, What It Is Like to Go to War, and novel, Matterhorn, address what we ask our nation’s young warriors to do from within a cultural environment that denies the multifaceted truth of what it means to be a warrior. His recent novels Deep River and Cold Victory address big questions of agency and what it means to recognize oneself as a historical actor. Is combat terrifying? Exhilarating? Mystical? Carnal? Is it everything all at once? If we only acknowledge the experience as negative, how might that cause repression and misunderstanding in a world unlikely to leave war behind perma

If you're going to write about the Oregon Trail or the Mississippi flatboat era, why not go gonzo? Does it make for better history or just better bar stories? What can you really learn about change by recreating epic journeys in contemporary times, and what can that teach us about how we live upon this planet? Today, adventurer and author Rinker Buck is on the show to discuss his odysseys. In particular, his flatboat ride from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, and his mulecart passage of the entire Oregon Trail. If you're gasping reading that last sentence, you need to read his books. Obviously, these landscapes have massively changed over the centuries, and their environmental history reflects human wants and desires, some good and others less so. How are they shadows of their former selves, which could you not tell which century you're currently in, and which are making beautiful comebacks? What does it teach us about the country so many of our listeners call home? How does the American experience prep

When the world feels increasingly tame, what does it mean to reclaim our wildness? Can we appreciate the benefits of industrial civilization while connecting with our evolutionary roots? Can we get ourselves back to the garden? In this poignant conversation, Academy Award-winning filmmaker Craig Foster shares insights from his experiences diving in the Great African Sea Forest and the inspiration behind his new book, Amphibious Soul: Finding the Wild in a Tame World. Host and Nori Co-Founder Ross Kenyon asks Craig some unanswered questions he has about My Octopus Teacher, the experience of fame from winning the 2021 Best Documentary Feature Oscar, whether evolution has prepared us for fame, and Craig's adjustment back to civilian life. Craig discusses the profound lessons learned from marine life, emphasizing the importance of a deep connection with nature and the critical role biodiversity plays in the survival of our planet. Ross and Craig discuss their various stories of interspecies communication and

The world is becoming wealthier. Is that a good thing? Or should we be looking to simpler and less material lives? How does a middle class global population affect climate change, for good or ill? On today's show, Dr. Homi Kharas, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and author of The Rise of the Global Middle Class: How the Search for the Good Life Can Change the World, elaborates on what it means to be middle class, emphasizing the relevance of choice as a defining characteristic. People drop the concept all the time, but it isn't really clear what is meant by it. Is it about per capita earnings? Security? The type of labor done? Something else? He explores how the middle class's values and choices intersect with issues like climate change and government policy. Dr. Kharas sheds light on the evolution of capitalism, arguing that it has always adapted to societal changes, and suggests that this continued evolution is optimism-inspiring. He counters the narrative of a trade-off between mat

You are condemned to be free, and yet how much responsibility do you bear for the structures you inhabit? Do your individual consumer choices matter, or is it some distant political economy? Should we enjoy our time in nature on snowmobiles, or is that just one more bootprint on the road to hypocritical perdition? Do you need to be perfect in order to be an activist? In this episode, Nori cofounder Ross Kenyon, and Thanks-A-Ton cofounder Siobhan Montoya Lavender, discuss the new short film from Protect Our Winters and professional skier Amy Engerbretson, The Hypocrite. In this wide-ranging discussion, Amy discusses why she made The Hypocrite, which deals with how she went from climate ignorance, through the guilt of her carbon footprint and that of skiing, and became an imperfect climate advocate. She emphasizes the importance of systemic solutions over individual perfectionism, revealing the often-paralyzing effects of aiming for personal purity in environmental activism. The film aims to inspire action by

Carbon removal is often conceived of as only separating greenhouse gases from ambient air. But what if it also creates other valuable products in the process? Should they still be selling carbon credits? Does this competition make it harder for carbon removal companies that can't produce additional value streams? What are the trade-offs here, and is financial additionality the right place to intervene if intervention is even necessary? In this episode of the Reversing Climate Change podcast, Nori Cofounder Ross Kenyon interviews Eric Matzner, an alumnus of Carbon Removal Newsroom and Cofounder of Project Vesta who has a new venture leaving stealth mode called Metalplant. This is Metalplant's podcast debut! This innovative project combines hyperaccumulator plants and enhanced rock weathering to extract nickel from soil and crushed rock while removing carbon from the air. Eric discusses the economics of co-producing nickel and carbon offsets, addressing the challenges of carbon removal scale-up, and his

Why does death exist? Does getting older always mean getting wiser? Should we look to experience or youth for breakthroughs? In today's episode of the Reversing Climate Change podcast, Nori Cofounder Ross Kenyon is joined by Dr. Venki Ramakrishnan, a 2009 Nobel Laureate in chemistry and author of the new book, Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality. Despite growing lifespans, it isn't clear that we have become less avaricious or kinder as a species, at least to the extent that may be desired. Would that change if we had radically longer lives? Is that even likely at this point? Venki challenges much of the discourse around anti-aging, immortality, trends made fun of in Silicon Valley like blood boys, consciousness uploads, and much else. And of course, they discuss if and how this will impact the world's attempts to grapple with climate change. Resources Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality Connect with Nori ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

How should a climatetech company think about its brand? What if it's B2B? What if it needs to be both trustworthy and idiosyncratic at the same time?! In today's episode of Reversing Climate Change, Nori Cofounder, Ross Kenyon, is joined by his colleague, Heidi Sloane, Nori's Senior Marketing Manager. Heidi led Nori's recent rebrand, which took it from a more playful B2C feel to something more sturdy and B2B. We used the agency Odi to help us with it. Great job, Odi! Heidi explains how a brand can retain its personality and uniqueness while also communicating that it is serious about what it does and can be trusted. Just because one can sometimes act like a clown, doesn't mean one needs to dress like one. If you don't believe me, ask Leslie Nielson. They also discuss how to lead stakeholder engagement in a way that minimizes conflict or typical committee dysfunction and make sure feedback is heard and synthesized without fetishizing consensus. Resources Odi Connect with Nori ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Seems like a new book on climate-friendly cooking is constantly being released. Do they matter, or do they unfairly place the burden of political economy and social change on the lowly consumer? What type of cooking might actually be impactful, and why? Why do we even bother cooking anyway? In today's Reversing Climate Change podcast, Nori Cofounder and Director of Creative & Marketing, Ross Kenyon, is joined by Tamar Adler, a James Beard awardee and author of several books, including An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace, The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z, and Something Old, Something New: Classic Recipes Revised. Tamar shares her unique approach to cooking which emphasizes the beauty of the endless transformation of ingredients, utilizing and elevating leftovers, and making food an enduring lifestyle rather than a collection of discrete meals. This focus on transformation, leftovers, and creatively utilizing so many of the parts we often throw away, has an obvious climate an

Off-world settlements are sometimes proposed as an insurance policy for Earthlings. Or as an escape for the super-rich. Is it actually either of those things? How should we be considering humanity's relationship to the cosmos and off-world civilization? And is the Overview Effect worth a damn? On today's episode of the Reversing Climate Change podcast, Nori carbon removal marketplace Cofounder Ross Kenyon is joined by Zach Weinersmith and Dr. Kelly Weinersmith, science educators and authors all. Zach is also the person behind the long-running internet comic SMBC (Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal). They are the authors of the new book, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? Zach and Kelly are both sympathetic to space exploration, being avowed geeks of the subject matter. And yet, the further they dug into basically every facet of life off-world, the less likely it seems our species is ready for the challenges. Whether it be the ease of hu

Nutrients on Earth are essential for life on Earth. But they aren't evenly distributed. How do they end up in different places, and how does that affect life on Earth? How does life even work?! In this episode of the Reversing Climate Change podcast, Nori Cofounder Ross Kenyon is joined by Dr. Joe Roman, a conservation biologist and author of Eat, Poop, Die: How Animals Make Our World. An established view of how ecosystems emerge and change is through bottom-up processes, e.g. through chemistry or microorganisms. In this view, animals are often seen more as visitors passing through rather than as transformative agents themselves. Joe challenges this concept, arguing that much research has shown just how much mammals can change ecosystems, as well as carbon and nitrogen cycles! This has impacts for carbon removal, from ecosystem restoration to iron fertilization of the Southern Ocean. The conversation also explores the complex relationship humans have with predators and rewilding, and our desire to simplif

What does it mean to farm regeneratively? Or to farm conventionally, for that matter? Is regenerative agriculture size-dependent? What are its benefits and how does it work? Today's Reversing Climate Change podcast episode has Jada Dormaier, Supply Account Manager at the Nori carbon removal marketplace, join Nori Cofounder and Director of Creative & Marketing, Ross Kenyon, to discuss regenerative ag. Like our recent show reintroducing carbon removal generally, we thought it was a good idea to go back to basics on regenerative agriculture. We've put out lots of shows on the topic, but sometimes you need to redo the 101 and catch those newer to the topic up to speed. In this show, Jada talks about growing up on a farm, working in farm insurance, and then at Nori for the last several years. She has a huge amount of experience with farmers working to change their practices and just make sure their businesses stay afloat. There are plenty of misconceptions about food, farming, rural communities, and ag

Does liberalism's attempt to let us all pursue different visions of the good life ironically make the good life even harder to achieve? Should there be an established church? Are the people who hold these ideas politically ascendent, or likely to remain part of a small counter-revolutionary fringe? In this episode of Reversing Climate Change, Nori Cofounder Ross Kenyon invites Dr. Kevin Vallier, Associate Professor and Director of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics program at Bowling Green State University, on to discuss the rise(?) of Catholic integralist thought, with which he engages in his latest book, All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism. Vallier provides a comprehensive overview of integralism, a formerly default ideological perspective derived from various religious traditions (but especially Catholicism), which advocates for religious governance and the intertwining of church and state. He lays out its history, core ideas, and some speculation on its

When people think about innovation in carbon removal, they're probably thinking about physics or materials science. How do we make CDR faster, cheaper, more durable, or use less energy? What if we told you that a lot of the innovation that is coming is financial and/or contractual? In this episode of the Reversing Climate Change podcast, Nori Cofounder Ross Kenyon and Nori CEO Matt Trudeau are joined by Racheal Notto, Director of Carbon Markets Engagement at Kita, and James Kench, the Head of Insurance at Kita. Their conversation explores how insurance can play a key role in managing risks within the carbon markets, and why it isn't already more of a player. Insurance companies are the professed masters of risk management. Carbon markets have a fair amount of risk. Shouldn't there be a bigger crossover?! Kita, a London-based insurance company focusing specifically on insuring carbon projects, explains their goal of derisking high-quality carbon projects, and what that can add to all players in th