Today’s guest is Diego Saez Gil, co-founder & CEO of Pachama. Diego Saez-Gil is Co-founder & CEO of Pachama, a company focused on restoring the forests to solve climate change. Prior to Pachama, Diego co-founded Bluesmart (acquired by TravelPro) and WeHostels (acquired by StudentUniverse). Diego was awarded MIT 35 Under 35 and was selected High Impact Entrepreneur by Endeavor. Pachama is working to help restore the forests to solve climate change. They are developing technologies to brin...
Aug 01, 2019•39 min
Today’s guest is Noah Deich, the Founder & Executive Director of Carbon180. Carbon180 is a new breed of climate-focused NGO on a mission to fundamentally rethink carbon. They partner with policymakers, scientists and businesses around the globe to develop policy, promote research, and advance solutions that transform carbon from a liability to an asset. Their vision is to build a prosperous, carbon-conscious economy that removes more carbon from the atmosphere than we emit. Noah is a cleante...
Jul 29, 2019•49 min
Today’s guest is Alicia Seiger, a lecturer at Stanford Law School who leads sustainability and energy finance initiatives at Stanford Law, Graduate School of Business and the Precourt Institute for Energy. Alicia serves as Managing Director for both the Stanford Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance and the Sustainable Finance Initiative. Her work focuses on business and financial innovations to accelerate the transition to a decarbonized and climate resilient global economy. In 201...
Jul 25, 2019•46 min
Today’s guest is Pat Brown, CEO & founder of Impossible Foods, a company at the forefront of making nutritious, delicious meat and dairy products from plants to satisfy meat lovers and address the environmental impact of animal farming. Founded in 2011, the Bay Area-based company has now raised a total of $687.5 million from a host of backers including Khosla Ventures, UBS, Bill Gates, Serena Williams and singer Katy Perry. In this episode we discuss: Pat’s background as a chemist and the sa...
Jul 22, 2019•43 min
Today’s guest is Saul Griffith, the founder of Otherlab. Saul is a prolific inventor and entrepreneur but was trained as an engineer. He received his Ph.D. at MIT in the junction between materials science and information theory. Prior to MIT, Saul studied in Sydney, Australia and at UC Berkeley in metallurgical engineering. Since graduating in 2004 he has started numerous technology companies based in the Bay Area including Makani Power 2007-acquired by Google, Instructables 2006-acquired by Aut...
Jul 18, 2019•59 min
Today’s guest is Matt Rogers, the co-founder of Nest and now Incite.org. Incite turns big ideas to improve the world into big deals. They offer early money & support for changemakers through Incite Labs, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that makes grants and program-related investments to further charitable, educational, and scientific purposes, Incite Ventures, an investment fund that supports mission-driven enterprises through investments in businesses with the potential to scale, inspir...
Jul 15, 2019•1 hr 1 min
Today's guest is Joshua Posamentier, Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Congruent Ventures. Congruent partners with entrepreneurs to build companies addressing sustainability challenges, investing early across hardware, software, enterprise, consumer, deep technology, fin-tech, and business model innovation. Joshua oversees Congruent’s investments in PolySpectra, Sense Photonics, Energetic Insurance, TeleSense, Bellwether Coffee, Xtelligent, ArcByt, Fox Robotics, and Emergy Labs. He has rich exp...
Jul 11, 2019•45 min
Today's guest is Adele Morris, a senior fellow and policy director for Climate and Energy Economics at the Brookings Institution. Her research informs critical decisions related to climate change, energy, and tax policy. She is a leading global expert on the design of carbon pricing policies. She joined Brookings in July 2008 from the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) of the U.S. Congress, where she advised members and staff on economic, energy, and environmental policy. Before her work in Congress...
Jul 08, 2019•46 min
In this episode I interview Kiran Bhatraju the Founder and CEO of Arcadia Power. Arcadia Power connects customers to local community solar projects and purchases renewable energy certificates from wind farms on their behalf. To date, Arcadia Power has 250,000 customers that have produced 680,000 megawatt hours of clean energy. In this episode we discuss: How Arcadia Power is making it easy for customers to transition to clean energy. How Arcadia Power uses offsets and renewable energy certificat...
Jul 03, 2019•38 min
In this episode I interview Rich Powell, the Executive Director of ClearPath. Rich is the Executive Director at ClearPath and ClearPath Action, the DC-based organizations developing and advancing conservative policies that accelerate clean energy innovation. He educates policymakers on investing wisely in energy innovation, removing roadblocks to building and exporting American clean energy technology, and maintaining and promoting our baseload clean energy resources. Rich also leads ClearPath’s...
Jul 01, 2019•57 min
In this episode, I interviewed Susanne Brooks, Senior Director, U.S. Climate Policy & Analysis at Environmental Defense Fund. Susanne’s areas of expertise include climate change, U.S. climate and energy policy, and carbon pricing. Specifically, she works to develop and advocate environmentally responsible and economically sound policies aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants. Susanne’s areas of expertise include U.S. federal and state climate and energy poli...
Jun 27, 2019•37 min
In this episode, I interviewed Bret Kugelmass, the Managing Director of the Energy Impact Center. We covered a number of topics, including Bret’s background and what led him to focus so passionately on nuclear, his atypical entry point and tremendously successful podcast, the work he is doing at Energy Impact Center, and his ultimate vision for what Energy Impact Center can become and the mark he wants to leave on the world. Out of all of the people I’ve met so far in my journey, Bret is the clo...
Jun 24, 2019•47 min
In this episode, I interviewed Alex Flint, the Executive Director of The Alliance for Market Solutions. Alex joined AMS as executive director in May 2017. He previously served as staff director of the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, senior vice president of governmental affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute, and as a member of President Trump’s transition team. The Alliance for Market Solutions (AMS) is an organization of conservative leaders addressing two of America’s ...
Jun 20, 2019•47 min
In this episode, I interview Nathaniel Stinnett, the Founder and Executive Director of the Environmental Voter Project. Nathaniel Stinnett founded the Environmental Voter Project in 2015 after over a decade of experience as a senior advisor, consultant, and trainer for political campaigns and issue-advocacy nonprofits. Hailed as a "visionary" by The New York Times, and dubbed "The Voting Guru" by Grist magazine, Stinnett is a frequent expert speaker on cutting-edge campaign techniques and the be...
Jun 17, 2019•56 min
In this episode, I interview Gustaf Alstromer, Partner at Y Combinator and former Product Lead of Growth at AirBnB. Prior to AirBnB, he led Growth at Voxer and was the Co-Founder and CEO of Heysan (YC W07), which was acquired by Good Technology in 2009. In October of 2018, YC published a Request for Startups that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere which YC President Sam Altman described as “the most elaborate RFS we have put out.” Gustaf is one of the partners at YC that spends a portion ...
Jun 13, 2019•51 min
In this episode, I interview Matthew Nordan, the Managing Director at Prime Impact Fund and the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of MNL Partners. Matthew also sits on numerous boards including Greentown Labs, Sense, and Quidnet Energy. As you may know from listening to Sarah Kearney’s episode, Prime Impact Fund is an early-stage venture capital fund focused on breakthrough climate innovation. Before Prime, Matthew was a venture capital investor at Venrock, one of the world’s oldest and most succe...
Jun 10, 2019•58 min
In this episode, I interview Gary Yohe, the Huffington Foundation Professor of Economics and Environmental Studies at Wesleyan University. Most of his work has focused on the mitigation and adaptation sides of climate change. A quick reading of Professor Yohe’s bio will give you a sense of what a heavy hitter he is: He is the author of more than 175 scholarly articles, several books, and many contributions to media coverage of climate issues. He has been involved since the early 1990’s with the ...
Jun 06, 2019•1 hr 8 min
In this episode, I interview Dan Yates, the Co-Founder and former CEO of Opower, an energy software company he took public and ultimately sold to Oracle for $532 million. I was eager to speak with Dan, as he started Opower from a place of concern about the planet. It was clearly a financial win, but I had so many questions. Was it a win in terms of fulfilling the initial mission? How does he feel now about climate change vs when he started Opower in 2007? How is he evaluating what kinds of proje...
Jun 03, 2019•48 min
In this episode, I interview Bob Mumgaard, the Co-Founder & CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems. I was looking forward to this interview for many reasons. I had many questions about fusion, how close it is to primetime, what the benefit to the world would be if it gets there, and what barriers stand in its way. And also about CFS, how it came to be, how it is positioned in the fusion landscape, and where it is in its evolution. Bob is a great guy, as knowledgeable as they come, and also prett...
May 30, 2019•45 min
In this episode, I interview Sarah Kearney, founder and executive director of Prime Coalition. Sarah founded Prime Coalition in 2014 to build a tribe of courageous philanthropists that believe market-driven technology innovation and deployment is critical to our fight against climate change. Prime's approach is based on her prior experience with the Chesonis Family Foundation, graduate research at MIT, and her personal drive to ensure that our children won't have to confront increased geopolitic...
May 27, 2019•51 min
In this episode, I interview Sanchali Pal, the co-founder and CEO of Joro, and app and community to help people automatically track their carbon footprints, discover and stick with low-carbon habits, and see their small steps add up to big impact for for themselves and the planet. I have known Sanchali for a while and have found her to be both very smart, and incredibly mission driven. I was a little apprehensive to bring her on as a guest, because I have found myself a bit skeptical about the i...
May 23, 2019•37 min
In this episode, I interview Pamela Templer, ecologist and biology professor at Boston University. Pamela is broadly interested in ecosystem ecology and the influence that plant-microbial interactions have on nutrient cycling and carbon exchange, and is particularly interested in the effects that human activities such as climate change, urbanization, and air pollution have on forest ecosystems. Her lab currently examines a variety of nutrient sources, including rain, fog, and atmospheric deposit...
May 20, 2019•34 min
In this episode, I interview Joseph Stagner, the Executive Director, Sustainability and Energy Management at Stanford University. Over the past several years, Joe and his team transformed Stanford’s energy infrastructure by electrifying its heating system, replacing its gas-fired power plant with grid power, creating a unique system to recover heat, building massive tanks to store hot and cold water, and building a solar power plant. This project cut the campus’s total greenhouse gas emissions 6...
May 16, 2019•43 min
Welcome to the inaugural episode! Our first guest is Daniel Hullah. Daniel is a longtime cleantech investor, who has seen it all, yet is still smiling. We had a great convo about some of the history of cleantech investing/innovation, where some of the biggest opportunities are, the role of strategics vs startups in pursuing that innovation, and how it all fits into our broader climate change problem. Tune in, and enjoy! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 and email at info@myclimatejourney.co,...
May 13, 2019•38 min
Hello everyone, and welcome to My Climate Journey! I created this podcast to bring you along on my journey to better understand the climate change problem, and to identify areas where I or other people concerned about this problem (like you?!) might be able to help. Here's what you can expect: This will be a journey in every sense of the word. We will be learning in public as we go, as we interview guest after guest, and as we work to develop mastery in all aspects of the podcasting medium. Each...
May 07, 2019•3 min
