Reversing Climate Change

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, Climate Change on the Battlefield: International Military Responses to the Climate Crisis.

Though this show is not merely about warfighting and lethality. It's about what it means to have an apolitical...

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 this direction? Or is it better that it stay at the level of individual teams jockeying for brand value from climate action?

Today's guest is Dr. Aidan Preston, S...

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 with Absolute Climate (coincidentally, a sponsor of this episode!)

Listen is as Grant shares what he has learned about looking at so many technology and project developers, whether...

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 radical geoengineering approaches that may just be one more layer of intervention that we will likely manage just as badly?

This is an emotional show. It's...

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 many alumni from this podcast and the CDR industry.

We also discuss why the antihero is such a popular archetype, how you should construct your media diet, and the...

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 carbon projects. Ryan shares his experience in structuring large financial deals in the carbon removal and climate tech space.

Can carbon removal ever achieve scale without...

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 conference in Seattle October 20th-26th.

Right after that and until November 3rd is a passage they've chartered onboard the Statsraad Lehmkuhl that you can join as working crew.

Check out...

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 and Tumultuous Times.

She answers a bunch of questions I have about how much I should actually be staring into the abyss (but not whether it also stares back...

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: "quixotic", which gets levied at anyone who dares to dream a bit too big.

But is this a word kind of like "epicurean", whose true meaning is subverted by modern use...

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 deed! So God told the guardian angel to lower the onion into Hell to lift her out of the Lake of Fire...

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 "legibility" that Grant Faber and I apply to the carbon removal and carbon offsetting spaces.

Why do states prefer straight lines? Why do more organic shapes take place seemingly everywhere...

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, Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future.

Go read it, and listen to the shows I've done with David Grinspoon in the past! Links below.

“The real problem of humanity is...

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 companies that sell gases. Shipping merchant CO2 to the Canary Islands isn't cheap. If modular DAC can provide cheaper and less carbon-intensive CO2, that's surely a win for the...

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 Showing Up. He also adapted James M. Cain's novel, Mildred Pierce, which became an HBO miniseries starring Kate Winslett.

His novels in particular deal with our place in a world with a...

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 it's like working with an industry as established as pulp and paper, structuring joint venture deals with them, and showing them the potential upside to opening business lines in carbon removal.<...

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 necessary, and how to support its continued development.

The book will soon be published (August 4th, 2025), and you should grab a copy for yourself and for the policymaker...

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 carbon capture and/or removal to create a modular and distributed system of graphite production.

Before the Industrial Revolution we had artisanal production and cottage industries. Then we had centralization...

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 corporate climate action and national obligations? Do NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) impact corporate net-zero targets? Can corporate action satisfy national goals? Does that somehow leave us double-counting carbon removal?

This and so many more...

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 he thinks the current system is set up to fail.

Are we doomed to always face conflicts of interest? Do we inevitably end up thinking not in terms...

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 main lesson is: you're never designing a policy for just one case. That's just the first precedent that will determine how current and future employees...

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 they went to market against the advice of others all added up to being an XPRIZE winner.

Sometimes being mission-driven means breaking all of...

Everyone thinks of national and international governments leading or failing on climate change. But what about cities and smaller political entities? How can they lead on climate and carbon removal when larger entities may be focused elsewhere? Since carbon removal infrastructure is likely to end up at least partially within urban or periurban environments, how can we prepare ourselves and our policies for such a near-term future?

To answer these and so many more questions, Christiaan Gevers Deynoot, the Founder and Program Lead of the City CDR Initiative joins host Ross Kenyon (who also serves as a...

Carbon removal isn't that old. So for someone who's been involved in it for almost fifteen years... that's an elder. And today he's bringing the wisdom he earned the hard way.

Dave Addison is formerly the Virgin Earth Challenge Manager, an effort he began working on in 2010. That's about six years before I had even heard of CDR, so a long time indeed!

Last year, Dave started Planetary Practitioners, a consultancy founded on a long-run vision of helping much more of humankind access decent work in net-positive industries. You can read his writing and keep...

Should every dollar spent in carbon removal be maximally catalytic? Or is it okay to try to get a really good deal for your net-zero target? What even is this industry for?!

Joining the show today—somehow for the first time ever—is Robert Höglund, a long-time CDR-watcher and writer; Co-Founder of the carbon removal's data repository-of-record, CDR.fyi, and the Head of CDR at Milkywire.

Robert endures a barrage of questions about how his thinking on carbon removal has changed over the years, and him and host Ross Kenyon try to ferret out what...

Everyone's focused on carbon credit offtakes and Voluntary Carbon Market purchases, but the compliance markets represent the vast majority of carbon assets in circulation. How do these markets work, and how might carbon removal interact with them in the future?

Mike Azlen is the CEO and CIO of Carbon Cap Management LLP, a firm which trades within various compliance markets.

We discuss why private traders like his company can help price discovery in compliance markets, and address some common criticisms of market-based approaches to climate change (both VCM and compliance markets.)

Carbon removal...

Seemingly everyone in carbon removal says they want more data transparency and the sharing of scientific results. Why isn't open science more present, and how can we get more of it? Could a pre-print server for CDR be part of the solution?

Today is the official launch of CDRXIV ("cee-dee-archive"), a new initiative from CarbonPlan that aims to spur scientific conversations within the carbon removal community.

On this episode, Freya Chay (the CDR Program Lead at CarbonPlan and a Member of the Advisory Board to CDRXIV) and Tyler Kukla (a CDR Research Scientist at CarbonPlan...

Carbon removal only has a few exits. Today’s guest was involved in two of them, and he’s bringing his lessons.

Jim McDermott is the founder and CEO of Rusheen Capital Management, LLC, an investment firm that makes a few early-stage bets and works with companies much more closely than most investors do. He's had a long and storied career in energy and as the founder and CEO of Stamps.com.

Jim shares his lessons from exiting 1PointFive and Carbon Engineering to Occidental Petroleum (who also just bought Holocene, another direct air capture company). He l...

In carbon removal, landing a major offtake agreement—like Microsoft’s purchase of 44,000 credits from Carba—is often seen as the holy grail. But what happens next? How does the money flow, and can debt financing bridge the gap between signature and scale?

In this episode of Reversing Climate Change, host Ross Kenyon unpacks the deal between Microsoft and Carba, a waste-to-value biochar company turning landfill-bound biomass in Minnesota into durable carbon removal.

With credits to be delivered over five years, Carba needed capital to ramp up production. Enter Structure Climate, which is financing the deal t...

Fair warning: this episode spoils a lot of (older) media.

Antiheroes make for great television. But why are we obsessed with them? Why are they in nearly all prestige dramas? Is this a result of our cultural beliefs, or is it (re)producing a culture of cynical realism? What impacts might it have for politics and climate change?

This ascendancy of the antihero is a trend I've been watching (and often enjoying) since my teen years. Shows like The Sopranos helped bring television to its lofty artistic status, but it did so by confusing the nat...

It's a jarring phrase. There's an even more jarring version of it in this episode. You've been warned.

Economists are well-known for gnomic sentences that can sound cruel. For some, that's one of the job's many perks. But that doesn't mean that there isn't some truth in representing decisions as trade-offs.

Today is a bonus monologue episode where I am going to unpack this phrase (and its nastier cousin) and explain what it has to teach the carbon removal industry as it grapples with the tension between scale and quality.

This Episode's Sponsors<...

You should know about my friend Heidi Lim. She's a leading voice of carbon removal on TikTok.

She's been making short-form content for ages but today's show is her first foray into long-form. I have the honor of being her first guest and co-releasing the episode.

It is my sincere honor to help Heidi launch her new content on YouTube!

We get real in this show, talking about the difficult and sometimes unsung work of climate communications, why our world feels so screwed up, and the black hole of tech jobs that suck...

If only there were a podcast that broke down all of the ways climate professionals broke into their industry...

Michael Gold is a communications expert and consultant at Word Clouds Consulting and the host of the new podcast, Climate Swings. This show traces guests' stories and explains how they landed a job working on one of humanity's most significant problem sets.

Check out the episode of Climate Swings I did with Michael retelling my odyssey into climate work here! Be sure to subscribe to his show, give it a great rating and review, and send...

Sometimes, we skip right over the life stories of guests. Othertimes, it's everything. Today, it's everything.

Returning to the show after several years is Carbon180's Executive Director, Erin Burns.

Erin grew up in a coal mining family in West Virginia, got her start in Joe Manchin's Senate office, and has had a long and impactful career in carbon removal.

Today, Erin (re)explains how the budgeting process works in the United States federal government and how the appropriations process intersects with it. What is the difference, and where can voters get involved?<...

The clean energy transition sure needs a heck of a lot of mining. What do we do when there are environmental or spiritual costs to getting the materials we need for EVs and batteries?

Ernest Scheyder is a Reuters reporter covering critical minerals, and the author of The War Below: Lithium, Copper, and the Global Battle to Power Our Lives.

His reporting strives to let audiences draw their own conclusions about where the line should be on environmental extraction, which is a rarer approach than maybe meets the eye.

Tune in to also...

Nearly a decade ago, I was introduced to the concept of the Keynesian Beauty Contest. It is one of those concepts that I keep coming back to time and time again.

I recently participated in a two-month Product-Market Fit workshop led by Peter Nocchiero of Alternate Future and Koray Parmaks of Carbon Zero Capital. So I've been living and breathing PMF.

Here is a short monologue bonus video episode where I talk about the Product-Market Fit issues of climatetech and carbon removal, a now-outdated reference to how TSLA bears kept getting crushed, and relate them...

I first heard the idiom "worse things happen at sea" in Monty Python's Life of Brian, and it's true.

Ian Urbina has made a career of telling stories of the ocean. From piracy, illegal fishing, and sea slavery to seasteading and rogue carbon removal experiments, he's covered the gamut.

How does one continuously report on topics of concern to relatively intimidating people? As the old line goes, "Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed; everything else is public relations."

In today's episode, Ian and host Ross Kenyon discuss these topics...

For fans ages 21 and up!

It's often hard to know how sustainable or ethical an alcoholic drink is. Very little disclosure is required on most labels, and many of the recipes are proprietary. What is a conscientious drinker to do?

Shanna Farrell wrote A Good Drink: In Search of Sustainable Spirits in order to answer this exact question.

She and host Ross Kenyon discuss the strange world of amaros (or "amari" if you're really going for it!), whiskey, agave, and gin, and try to figure out how to even begin approaching this difficult...

What is geopolitics, and has it returned? Did it ever really leave? And how will this affect the future prospects of carbon removal?

Today's guest is Sarah Godek, a Washington DC-based international relations researcher. She and Grant Faber co-wrote an article on Carbon-Based Commentary called, "Carbon security and the geopolitics of carbon removal".

We discuss the tension between strategic liberalism and realism, how the world is changing under the second Trump Administration, as well as if and how the Great Game is currently being played and what implications that has for climate change and CDR.<...

My podcasting editing platform Descript informed me of a new integration with ChatGPT where it would make me a custom video. I complied in perhaps the most annoying and meta way possible.

That video exists at the end of this podcast, but first, I have thoughts I'd like to share on what this process made me feel and think about.

I've heard so many takes on artificial intelligence and art, and I have several of my own that I don't often hear reflected. Mine pertain to the sociological purpose of art, and of developing aesthetic...

When you take a major pay cut to work in government, you don't expect unceremoniously fired by the Department of Government Efficiency with a change in administration. But it happened to friend of the show, Grant Faber.

Grant Faber was the United States Department of Energy's Direct Air Capture Hubs Program Manager until he was let go as part of the recent firing of probationary federal employees.

In today's episode, Grant explains what he was working on, what it was like being at the DoE during this turbulent time of Trump 2 & DOGE, and what it...

There are a lot of companies that want to buy carbon removal and don't have the budget to participate in Frontier or Symbiosis. What are they to do?

Until now, they either had to pay expensive consultants or vet projects and contracts themselves and stand by their choices alone. No longer!

The new AirMiners Buyers Club could not be arriving at a better time. Federal policy for carbon removal is in an extremely turbulent moment. Buying momentum is not growing to the degree that we need to see. The AirMiners Buyers Club aims to solve...

Seemingly nothing generates hotter passions in carbon credits than forestry. Can credits count against fossil emissions? Is there enough of it to make a difference? What is the appropriate way of funding it?

Today's guest is Lisett Luik, Co-Founder and COO of Arbonics, an innovative forestry company in the Baltic that straddles the line between carbon removal and other services forests can provide.

We discuss if and how forestry can fit into carbon removal, help the planet avoid tipping points, and adequately motivate land managers to employ better practices.

We also play a...

How do registries create carbon removal methodologies? Who should be involved in the process, and to what degree? How does one balance all of the competing attributes and stakeholders?

Today's episode is a show in three parts:

First, Nori co-founder and host ofReversing Climate Changeintroduces the context for the main segment which was recorded the better part of a year before its airing. He explores whether or not the quasi-regulatory requirement for registries not to also be marketplaces leads to proprietary methodologies.

Secondly, as Nori has closed down since the recording of this...

Dear listener,

Thank you so much for being a fan of the show. You could be listening to anything with your one wild and precious life and I do not take that for granted. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

Now that the show is independent, I am working to make it financially viable. Can I count on you to help support Reversing Climate Change by doing any of the following?

It is sometimes claimed that adoption could be a climate solution. After all, if there are kids needing parents and parents wanting kids, adopting might replace the desire to create more children. Is adoption something we should encourage to reduce environmental risk?

Today we have four(!) parents of adopted children on the podcast. Each of them tells their story at the start of the show, including:

Additionality is typically considered a major marker of quality in carbon removal. But what do we do when carbon removal suppliers are producing other types of products and services that make them less dependent upon voluntary carbon market revenue?

Perhaps even more importantly, how do we have a productive disagreement on this topic? Bringing up some concerns can open one to criticism. But we also depend upon people thinking differently in order to advance our understanding of the world and the types of value we create. How do we make sure we aren't encouraging crackpot analysis while...

Of all of the world's climate podcasts, here is why you should, with your one wild and precious life, listen to Reversing Climate Change.

The tl;dr is I am a long-time carbon removal and climate tech entrepreneur who comes from the humanities (rather than science) and I am programming shows on climate unlike what you're likely to hear elsewhere. Shows with legendary travel writers to worlds that are disappearing? A Vietnam veteran discussing what Jungian archetypes can teach those thinking of their climate activism as a type of warfare? Survivalism in the age of 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...

When we think of climate change, we might think of droughts, floods, wildfires, emigration and climate refugees: but what if the call is coming from inside the house? What if it impacts the way we think and act?

Today's show is with Clayton Aldern, Senior Data Reporter at Grist and author of The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains.

Clayton explains where additional climate risks will be coming from, and much of it is how much even small changes in heat can increase impulsivity and crime, decrease test scores, and generally...

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...

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 se...

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...

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 asse...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Everyone right now is talking about regenerative agriculture. What does it look like when major cash crops work to improve their practices? How can the Department of Agriculture and agricultural science programs at universities support the changes so that major commodity operations can derisk their transition?

In today's episode of Reversing Climate Change, Nori Cofounder Ross Kenyon is joined by Nori Supply Account Manager, Jada Dormaier, to discuss Nori's partnership with the Texas Climate-Smart Initiative. Dr. Julie Howe, Project Director of the program and Soil Scientist at Texas A&M, joins the show to talk about her...

Reversing Climate Change is many things: a repository of deep dives into carbon removal, a way to intimately understand the thought processes of the folks at Nori working to build a scalable carbon removal marketplace, and a massive catalogue of the infinite number of climate-adjacencies that tickle host Ross Kenyon's brain. And sometimes you've got to get back to basics and reintroduce a topic to catch new listeners up. To that effect, today's show is twenty minutes on the basics of carbon removal.

In this episode, Ross Kenon, Cofounder of and Director of Creative & Marketing at the...

What does it mean to work "in Product", let alone at a company working on climate change? What is the difference between Product and Engineering? And what the hell are they building in there anyways?!In this conversation, Nori cofounder Ross Kenyon is joined by Nori's Head of Product, Patrick Tsao, to discuss Patrick's role in scaling climate action. How much of this work is strategy, how much is building tools, and are we meant to be empirical or aprioristic "first principles" thinkers? What are the risks of each?Patrick emphasizes the struggle of understanding and meeting customers' goals...

What does regenerative agriculture mean to you? Whither Big Regen?

To Will Harris, author of A Bold Return to Giving a Damn, One Farm, Six Generations, and the Future of Food,it means restarting the cycles of nature—making them healthy again. This week on Reversing Climate Change, Ross Kenyon and Jada Dormaier from Nori are joined by Will Harris to discuss his remarkable journey from industrial to regenerative farming.

The conversation is simultaneously a beginners introduction, and a deep dive into regenerative farming practices.

The conversation covers the shift from efficiency, the co...

A disaster has arrived. Do you have the right supplies? The right mindset? Are you ready?

Last time this topic came up, we spoke with David Pogue on enormous questions of how to choose where to live and to make sure you are relatively prepared for the climate-changed future. This show is downstream from there: what do you do given that you potentially are not moving somewhere else and need to keep yourself and family safe immediately?

In this episode of Reversing Climate Change, Ross Kenyon hosts Jeanne Chilton Devon and Bill Fulton, authors of...

Is there a tectonic shift away from corporate offsetting and into corporate insetting?

In this episode of Reversing Climate Change, we sat down with Lia Nicholson, Head of Sustainability at Terrascope, to discuss the sexiest topic of all—carbon accounting.

Historically, corporations faced justified criticism for opting to buy low-quality carbon offsets instead of making tangible efforts to reduce their own emissions. Lia highlights a significant recent shift from traditional offsetting to insetting, where companies account for carbon-negative behavior within their value chain rather than outsourcing it to a service provider.

As co...

What's the hallway buzz about carbon removal in Dubai? Is carbon removal a fringe topic or top of mind for attendees? And what's it mean for major climate events to happen in petrostates? Who's ready for Baku, 2024?!

It’s COP28, the 28th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the international gathering at which member nations converge to outline their ambitions and responsibilities in regards to climate change.

Reversing Climate Change host Ross Kenyon spoke with Tito Jankowski, CEO of Airminers, who was literally in Dubai while recording. Ti...

Forget merely about melting polar ice caps—expansion of deadly diseases is possibly the true Pandora’s Box that climate change is rapidly opening.

In this episode of Reversing Climate Change, host Ross Kenyon is rejoined by Zoya Teirstein, staff writer at Grist, to discuss the intricate and chilling intersection of climate change and disease.

The way Zoya puts it, climate change is taking the Earth and shaking it like a snowglobe: pathogens are meeting up in new configurations and wreaking havoc. She covers these proliferating diseases and their connection to climate change in her time...

"I won't be able to live with the realization that I could have done more and I didn't."

In this episode of Reversing Climate Change, host Ross Kenyon engages in a candid conversation with Ed Begley, Jr., a seasoned environmental activist and Hollywood actor. Unpacking his Hollywood journey and introducing his memoir, To the Temple of Tranquility and Step on It!, Ed provides a humorous yet insightful look into his life and passion for the environment.

Ed's unique perspective on climate change, shaped by his experiences with addiction and an intense pursuit of the low-carbon...

Can a tiny life be meaningful?For this Thanksgiving Day episode of Reversing Climate Change, join us for stories about food, family, connection, and love.Ross reaches across the pond to speak with Helen Rebanks, farmer, shepherd, and author of The Farmer's Wife: My Life in Days. She is the wife of another farmer, James Rebanks, author of The Shepherd's Life: Modern Dispatches from an Ancient Landscape, and Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey, and each of them are personally prominent in the books of the other!From the serene and rugged Lake District in England, Helen shares the un...

Starbucks is finding new mountains to grow coffee on, agribusiness is developing drought resistant seeds, and the governments are building seawalls. So what can individuals and families do to adapt themselves?!

This week Ross is joined by David Pogue, CBS News Sunday Morning correspondent, former New York Times weekly tech columnist, and author of How to Prepare for Climate Change: A Practical Guide to Surviving the Chaos.

How do we adapt to the safety risks of major disasters? Should we embrace firearm ownership for when society breaks down? Or is a tactical flashlight a better...

Do carbon credit ratings help or harm the growth of carbon markets? How important is standardization to liquidity? Should we look to lessons from the bond market? Equities? Commodities? Derivatives? Precious metals? Real estate?! Get ready to go full high finance — it’s a show about market structure.

In this episode, Reversing Climate Change’s host and Nori Co-founder Ross Kenyon is joined by Tommy Ricketts, CEO and Co-founder of BeZero Carbon, a carbon credit ratings agency, and Matt Trudeau, the CEO of Nori, for a friendly debate about how the industry rates and prices carbon credits.

W...

Is hunting on the brink of extinction? Is that a good or a bad thing?

In this episode, we delve into the intricate connection between the art of hunting and our profound relationship with the natural world. Our is guest Bruce McGlenn, Founder and Lead Instructor of Human Nature Hunting—a program that, as Bruces describes it, is fundamentally and foremost about helping people reconnect or strengthen their connection to nature through hunting.

By delving into the immersive process of the hunt, we uncover the journey's transformative impact, from meticulous planning to profound reconnection with th...

What if you bought carbon removal, not as an offset, but rather as a gift?

This week we sat down with the founding team at Thanks a Ton (Laura Katayama, Tessaria Mihangel, and our own Siobhan Montoya Lavender), a carbon dioxide removal gifting startup on a mission to spread awareness about the burgeoning high-quality CDR industry.

“We take climate change very seriously, but try not to take ourselves too seriously” is a mantra the team lives by.

Thanks a Ton offers a platform where you can send the gift of carbon removal via a di...

In this week’s episode, the name of the goal is not ‘net zero’, it’s regeneration. We’re joined by Paul Hawken: author of many books including Drawdown and Regeneration, activist, and entrepreneur to talk about the tools that he believes can end the climate crisis. 

Paul takes us through the concept of "carbon tunnel syndrome," an overemphasis on carbon as a mere numerical figure, often favored by the tech industry. He also sheds light on the staggering statistic that less than 1% of the global population actively works on climate solutions. He also is quite skeptical that direct...

Solar geoengineering. It's not just a question of whether or not to do it, but of how it might be done and why.

This week we are joined by Shuchi Talati, founder of The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering, to talk about who is making decisions about solar geoengineering and whether or not populations most vulnerable to climate change have a seat at the table.

Solar geoengineering or “Solar Radiation Modification/Management (SRM)” is the large-scale and intentional intervention to increase the amount of sunlight reflected back into space. The purpose is to temp...

Imagine a biomass substance that reduces our reliance on petroleum and deforestation for physical products. This is the vision of Hexas Biomass, a company that is developing new raw materials from sustainable sources. Their flagship product, XanoFiber, has been bred to possibly be(!) a #carbonnegative fiber that can be used to create a wide range of products, from clothing to building materials.

In this week's episode, Wendy Owens, CEO and Founder of Hexas Biomass, discusses the challenges and opportunities of integrating new raw materials into the existing supply chain. She introduces XanoFiber and its potential to revolutionize...

Is buying carbon credits like buying real estate? What would a tradable commodity market for the carbon removal industry look like?

In today's episode, Ross sits down with Matt Trudeau, Nori’s new CEO, to get a glimpse of how a veteran market builder thinks about building carbon markets that meet the challenges of a rapidly scaling industry.

Matt talks about the balance between standardization and innovation within carbon market development, discusses the evolution of financial markets, and explores the impact of high-frequency trading on fairness and efficiency.

Listen in to get a se...

Kenya is exploding into the Direct Air Capture scene. New York City is hosting the first ever global DAC conference. And while Al Gore is deeply knowledgeable about climate change, he might be wrong about carbon removal.

In this episode of Reversing Climate Change, Jason Hochman, the co-founder and senior director of the DAC Coalition, takes us on a foray into Nairobi, Kenya, where he recently attended the first Africa Climate Summit. We learn why Kenya and the countries along the East African Rift will be critical for carbon removal.

Coming up on October 16th...

In this episode of Reversing Climate Change, we are joined once again by Caroline Saunders, a skilled pastry chef and dedicated recipe tester, who channels her passion into crafting delectable treats using climate-friendly ingredients.

Ross Kenyon and Radhika Moolgavkar enthusiastically embraced the challenge of trying Caroline’s climate-friendly baking recipes. Discover who fared better in their quest to bake the perfect key lime pie!

Discover how Caroline’s journey towards becoming a climate-conscious baker was ignited in her personal life but then involved a radical career change out of environmental media and into studying abroad at Le...

Extreme heat. What does it feel like? Why is it getting worse and who is it impacting?

In this Reversing Climate Change podcast episode, we spoke with Jeff Goodell, contributing editor at Rolling Stone and author of The Water Will Come and his latest, The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death ona Scorched Planet.

Tune in to hear about Jeff Goodell's personal experience with extreme heat. Learn about what cities are doing to combat the urban heat island effect, and what the true costs of adaptation will likely be.

Could certain...

Does culture eat strategy for breakfast? What does a successful carbon removal community look like? Who ordered the veal cutlet?

Join us in this episode of Reversing Climate Change featuring Jason Grillo, Director of Partnerships and Operations at AirMiners. Discover how culture takes center stage at AirMiners, one of the major communities empowering carbon removal startups.

Explore the Kiloton Fund, the Bootup program, and Launchpad, which has already graduated 95 teams in two years. Deadline for the next cohort closes on August 11th, 2023!

How does AirMiners embrace hope amidst an often challenging and doomerist...

When you’re born into a winemaking dynasty, there’s a lot of momentum to carry on the family business. But also a lot of pressure to make your own mark. Carlo Mondavi is the co-founder and Chief Farming Officer at Monarch, creators of the Monarch Tractor, an electric smart tractor that may offer a better and safer product than conventional diesel tractors. Today he joins Siobhan Montoya Lavender and Ross Kenyon to discuss.

The conversation begins with Carlo's heartfelt motivation behind creating the Monarch Tractor. Witnessing the devastating loss of biodiversity caused by conventional herbicides, Carlo was...

How does it work to buy carbon removal credits from early stage startups and resell them later for profit? What does it mean to support carbon removal startups without equity financing? Are alternatives available beyond conventional venture funding? Enter: the AirMiners Kiloton Fund.

Tune in this week as the great Tito Jankowski, CEO and cofounder of AirMiners, returns to the show to talk about all of those questions, the general state of carbon removal, and how two goofballs like us ended up at TED Countdown in Detroit.

Connect with Nori

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Purchase Nori Carbon Removals⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠<...

Reversing Climate Change presents an enlightening conversation with Kevin Whilden, the co-founder and co-director of Sustainable Surf, where they delve into the captivating world of ocean restoration, the power of storytelling, and the remarkable phenomenon of blue carbon. Join Ross and Siobhan as they navigate the complexities of carbon offsetting, funding pathways for coastal and land-based restoration, and the profound impact of storytelling on driving environmental action.

The spotlight of the discussion falls on blue carbon, which refers to the carbon stored within coastal and marine ecosystems. These ecosystems, encompassing vital habitats such as seaweed, mangroves, and...

In this episode of the Reversing Climate Change podcast, cohosts Ross Kenyon and Siobhan Montoya Lavender are joined by Erika Reinhardt, Co-founder and Executive Director of Spark Climate Solutions. Together, they delve into the pressing issue of methane and its increasing significance in the climate zeitgeist, and when can we expect methane removal to appear?

The conversation kicks off with a discussion on why methane deserves our attention. Erika explains that methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with initial emissions being 120 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it is first released into the atmosphere. Despite its...

The carbon removal industry and science have evolved greatly since Nori was founded in 2017. In this special Reversing Climate Change episode, Nori's Head of Supply and Methodology Radhika Moolgavkar, joins host Ross Kenyon to talk through what’s changed, what’s still the same, and how Nori is evolving with a new net-zero-friendly ‘blended tonne’ that they just published a new whitepaper on this week.

What is this ‘blended tonne’ Nori is developing?

What did the carbon removal industry look like back in 2017? 

Why did Nori choose to start with soil carbon and how has soil...

What does a utopian second-generation Direct Air Capture (DAC) system look like, and how does it differ from what we have now?

In this engaging episode of Reversing Climate Change, Ross and Siobhan have a very frank and honest discussion with Sampo Tukiainen, a farmer, apiarist, meditator, rifleman and the CEO of C-Fix, a second-generation #directaircapture company that wants to do it all. After a brief intro to #DAC, they discuss the energy consumption of current facilities, and how second-generation technology offers potential energy savings compared to the energy-intensive first-generation methods.

Would DAC with co-benefits...

Making decisions for your garden and yard is often a yearly exercise. But for long-lived perennials, you need to start thinking about how climate change is going to impact your region. But don't start loading up on olive trees just yet...

Today on the Reversing Climate Change podcast, Sally Morgan, coauthor of The Climate Change Garden: Down to Earth Advice for Growing a Resilient Garden, teaches host Ross Kenyon about how to cope with a simultaneously drier and wetter world. What happens when temperate zones become Mediterranean? And what happens to zones already Mediterranean?!<...

In this episode, Ross and Siobhan are joined by Ongeleigh Underwood and Nikki Batchelor to delve into the newly released report from the Circular Carbon Network, an initiative of XPRIZE. The report provides valuable insights into the state of the Circular Carbon Market, addressing crucial questions such as who is building Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) projects and who is funding them.

The conversation explores the role of XPRIZE in fostering market growth and collaboration, and examines how companies have evolved since the last carbon-focused XPRIZE, which is when the report started gathering data. Ongeleigh and Nikki shed...

Beast and Cleaver, a butcher shop and charcuterie in Seattle, is on a mission to elevate the craft of butchery to true artistry. They want you to eat meat of higher quality, and yes, less of it.

On this episode of Reversing Climate Change, the founder of Beast and Cleaver, Kevin Smith, joins Ross to discuss his butcher shop’s unique approach to localized meat production in a carbon heavy industry.

Have you heard the expression “it’s the how, not the cow”? That very much reflects Beast and Cleaver’s ethos. With more and more peopl...

PlantVillage won the Carbon XPRIZE milestone award in 2022, and was awarded one million dollars. It aims to lift 200 million African farming families out of poverty. They are working to capture and sell a billion tonnes of carbon per year using biochar sequestration by integrating trees with crops on farms and using lumber for biochar. 

So what exactly is happening on the ground with biochar? And can we solve today's problems with the mindset that helped create them?

In today's Reversing Climate Change podcast, Dr. David Hughes, the Huck Chair i...