Reversing Climate Change is a podcast that bridges science, technology, and policy with the richness of the humanities. From the forefront of carbon removal and climatetech to explorations of literature, history, philosophy, theology, and geopolitics, we dive deep into the people, ideas, and innovations shaping a better future for the planet and its inhabitants.
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What do you think of a developer who pitches a carbon dioxide removal buyer as they are coming out of the restroom? Or can't even enjoy some friendly scones while we all get caffeinated? Or interrupt conversations with business cards?! Forgetting that buyers are people with names and feelings and limited social energy is a tough look to beat. At a recent Carbon Unbound in Vancouver, today's guest—Taylor Insley, the Director of Strategic Planning for Terraset—was on a panel that made a splash: sh...
I wrote two pieces for Rainbow earlier this year. The first argued that carbon markets need field engineers, not just scientists. Erica Dorr, Rainbow's head of science, read it and pushed back: the binary was too clean, the caricatures too neat. I wrote a response piece about her work as a scientist applying her knowledge in carbon dioxide removal. Today I brought both subjects of those essays onto the show to hash it out together. What is science and what is engineering? It sounds like a questi...
Martin Freimüller is the co-founder and CEO of Octavia Carbon, a direct air capture company in Kenya. He's been listening to this show since 2020 and credits it, generously, with pulling him into carbon removal in the first place. He's also someone who thought I'd taken a wrong turn lately with grim prognostications, and he had an idea he wanted to talk through. His pitch: carbon dioxide removal is the prodigal son, and it's time to come home. We've spent the last few years building CDR as a sep...
Every industry needs a Schelling point. For carbon dioxide removal, it's Carbon Unbound. Unbound Summits' CEO and Founder Oliver Katz joins host Ross Kenyon to chat about building the CDR industry's flagship in-person events, the economics of conference organizing, why the adaptation event series didn't work, the pay-to-play dynamics of industry speaking slots, and whether carbon removal professionals need to take themselves less seriously. Listeners can get themselves 10% off of Carbon Unbound ...
Sometimes you read a poem on a carbon removal podcast and it's goofy. Sometimes you read a poem and people start writing you wanting to share their own favorites... Matt Schmitt, CEO and co-founder of Structure Climate (a company I formally advise), was inspired by the recent Emily Swaddle episode where we spoke about poems that mean a lot to us. He wrote me immediately to read a poem of his own and share what it means to him and his labor in carbon dioxide removal. The poem is "If—" by Rudyard ...
US federal carbon dioxide removal policy is a fragment of its former self. But are rumors of its death greatly exaggerated? (Sorry, Mark Twain.) Eli Cain, Deputy Director of Policy at the Carbon Removal Alliance, comes on the show to give a reality check on US federal policy for carbon removal. Where is the action still happening, and what do we have to look forward to? Despite a political environment that looks grim from the outside, Eli makes the case that real progress is happening: $125 mill...
If the US pulls out of climate action, is there room for China or another country to fill the leadership void? Or without the US, does climate multilateralism fall apart entirely? This episode is a direct response to my recent monologue episode, "How Carbon Removal Loses: The End of "Pre-Compliance"", which walked through the political risks to climate and carbon removal policy in a world where the US pulls back. I looked at Canada, the EU, its various member states, and Japan as possible safe h...
I've had a poem stuck in my head, and it isn't one of biophilia and whimsy. It's about liminality, death, and interregna. Let me read for you one of my favorites and one of the all-time classics of Enlighs literature, William Butler Yeats's "The Second Coming". While beautiful for its own sake, I'll also make a case for the defense of useless things, an argument for the horror genre as a serious art form, and a close reading of a poem that has become a kind of shared vocabulary for moments when ...
This is the kind of episode you put on and laugh along with us. This isn't the one where you'll get super quick tech takeaways within 30 minutes that you can drop at your next meeting. It's something else entirely. Emily Swaddle, co-host of The Carbon Removal Show and one of the funniest people in carbon removal, joins Ross for a wide-ranging conversation about life, art, language, climate communications, and the absurdity of having a career in all of the above. A good chunk of the reason The Ca...
Right now, the world's climate policy architecture is under siege. The US has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement and UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Right-wing populism is rising across Europe. And Europe itself is torn between defending against geopolitical threats and sustaining the climate policies it has spent years building. What happens to carbon removal in this environment? And what happens to CORSIA—The Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation...
The foundational assumption of carbon removal has been the "pre-compliance" story—that the voluntary carbon market and early corporate offtakes are necessary but not sufficient, and that we're all waiting for compliance to automate demand. That story depends on Japan, Canada, the EU, and the UK carrying the torch while the US sits on the sidelines heckling. In this monologue episode, I walk through why I no longer think that story holds. Right-wing populism is surging across every country the pr...
Is all of carbon removal really just about alkalinity? There's a case to be made for quite a lot of it. Weathering, ocean alkalinity enhancement, even parts of direct air capture—they all come back to manipulating pH and moving basic materials to where they can cancel out excess acid in the atmosphere and ocean. Omar Sadoon is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at Planetary Technologies, an ocean alkalinity enhancement company working to remove carbon by adding carefully-sourced alkaline mat...
Sometimes when people think they are coming at an issue from first principles, they're already pretty far downstream. What if rethinking an issue means really blowing past the current framework entirely and figuring out how to get the result in an entirely new way? Emma Fuller is the Cofounder of Fractal Agriculture, a firm which takes minority equity stakes in farmland to help farmers switch to more regenerative practices. Listen in to hear more about how to do business in an extremely creative...
Carbon removal used to have technology developers who were also project developers. But oh, the times they are a-changin'... What happens when grizzled CDR veterans pluck technology off the shelf and focus on developing projects that produce highly insurable, investable, and offtakeable carbon removal credits? You get something like Residual Carbon. Ted Christie-Miller is the cofounder of Residual and is on the show to discuss the lessons he learned from one year as the carbon partner of numerou...
Sometimes we talk carbon removal. Sometimes we talk poetry. Come let me read you one of my favorite Walt Whitman poems from "Song of Myself" in Leaves of Grass . We'll also explore why it's okay to love only some elements of a work of art, and why Whitman's kaleidoscopic view of grass is so remarkable. A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of ho...
Are we trying to get parts per million of greenhouse gases down as quickly as possible? Or are also trying to solve the nested problems of fertility, toxicity, and resilience as well as the systems that got us here in the first place? In this episode, I contrast high carbon-efficiency biomass burial approaches (Biomass Carbon Removal and Storage/BiCRS) with biochar and other methods that sacrifice some carbon efficiency but generate wide-ranging cobenefits. We explore commodification, fungibilit...
Host Ross Kenyon reflects on the concept of vocation, exploring what it means to find purpose and meaning in one's work, particularly in climate tech. He delves into J.R.R. Tolkien's short story "Leaf by Niggle," using its narrative to discuss themes of art, duty, interruption, and the nature of creative calling. The episode also weaves in deep theological discussions, examining complex ideas of mercy, justice, and redemption through characters like Gollum, Judas, and Javert.
Are we going to figure out how to get along on a highly stressed planet? Or are we unable to break the patterns that have gotten us here in the first place? Are we too hard-nosed or too woo? A secret third thing?! Today's show features Eugene Kirpichov, founder of Work on Climate, a very popular climate community built to help people transition into climate work. But the longer Eugene stared at the nested set of problems humanity is facing, it no longer seemed like a simple issue of employment a...
So many people think they need to dream up wild new tech to be successful at carbon removal. But one of CDR's most ascendent companies is relentlessly simple. They're so linear that I scrambled to make sure I wasn't missing something... In fact, if you've ever received coaching from me about simplicity, this is where I'm sending you from now on. I recently completed Noah Deich and Dr. Jen Wilcox's UPenn continuing education course, CDR Executive Education Program/Purchasing Carbon Removal Credit...
Are we thinking about biochar financial strategy all wrong? It's not often a good fit for venture capital, but is it actually a great fit for private equity? It might be, at least if you can get the ticket size big enough... Today's guest is Alastair Collier, Chief R&D Officer at A Healthier Earth, a biochar project developer that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Pure DC, a data center project developer, who is supported by Oaktree Capital Management, a private equity firm (which in my unders...
Some decisions we don't expect to have big consequences. And yet, sometimes you wake up thirty years later in a world deeply altered by that little moment. Today's show is about when that happens in science. Dr. Tyler Kukla is a Research Scientist at CarbonPlan, one of carbon removal's preeminent watchdog nonprofits. He returns to the show to explore how a conservative estimation of how much carbon returns to the atmosphere after agliming with carbonate rock (all of it) in the 1996 IPCC report h...
Life gotten harder recently? You must have just leveled up. We all thought we were doing the very hard work necessary to scale carbon removal, but was this ultimately a false peak? When you climb to what you think is the top of the mountain only to find a lot more mountain lurking behind it? Today's show is with Noah Deich, a carbon removal mover and shaker with his thumbprint on many of the biggest organizations and policies in the world. He recently completed a year in the prestigious Stripe C...
The perennial fight returns... In one corner, there are the wizards: optimists who are betting that technology and economic growth can solve our problems faster than it can create them? In the other corner, prophets: who believe we have deeply lost in our way in ignoring limits and that we need to get ourselves back to the garden. How much wizard and how much prophet do you have contained in your own heart? Today's monologue episode has host Ross Kenyon exploring two recent books: Ezra Klein &am...
With a matchup like that, who would win? I love this chapter from Moby-Dick . It so perfectly contrasts sublime beauty of the world and the raw horror of life. I was thinking of it often while on my recent sailing trip aboard the Statsraad Lehmkuhl from Seattle to San Francisco. Sit back and let me read the chapter for you, and may it inspire you to crack open some Herman Melville. Resources Become a paid subscriber of Reversing Climate Change ...
It's that special time of year to put away worldly cares and focus on family, giving, and... carbon removal? Did I read that right? Come hang with Ross and CDR force of nature Sebastian Manhart to discuss family, parenthood, hope for the future, the quest to expand the moral sphere, and why we should be focusing on trendlines and not headlines. Happy Holidays, however you choose to spend it! This Episode's Sponsors Absolute Climate: the only standard that’s developed independent ...
Is the voluntary carbon market a club for saints? Or is it a hospital for sinners? Are we meant to understand all and then to forgive all? How much time are we meant to devote to idealistic abstinence-esque policies for change, and how much of our professional lives should go to harm reduction? Today's show deals with some of the biggest questions in carbon removal and carbon markets, and does it in just the kind of literary-philosophical ways that make this shows its own... whatever it is that ...
Gentle wind, sail, and ocean sounds with looped video taken during a trip from Seattle to San Francisco aboard the Statsraad Lehmkuhl for the One Ocean Expedition.
One could fly to the Bay Area in about ninety minutes, but what if it took a week, enormous amounts of teamwork on a 111-year-old Norwegian sailing barque, and caused a near-universal seasickness in thirty-foot seas? Today's show is a monologue about my experience sailing from Seattle to San Francisco on the Statsraad Lehmkuhl for the One Ocean Expedition. I'm an Executive in Residence at Maritime Blue, which sponsored this leg of the trip to raise awareness of the challenges facing the world oc...
Long a pariah climate solution, Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI) is having its mainstream moment. As the climate movement ponders the planet's deep overshoot, more conversations about geoengineering, solar radiation management, global cooling, etc. are taking place in the open. Moreover, for-profit entities are raising venture rounds, with Stardust recently announcing a $60M Series A to commercialize their approach to SAI. This moment is feeling genuinely new, and it feels this way to today...
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 with a record of doing things differently. Sophie Westover is their Head of Climate and is on the show ...
