Reversing Climate Change

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 ...

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 pri...

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 C...

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...

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 Minne...

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. Sho...

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 te...

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...

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 ...

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 th...

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 ...

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-Mar...

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 els...

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 ...

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 t...

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 ofte...

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, Gran...

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. Buyin...

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 ...