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 means for carbon removal, the climate, and the United States moving forward.

Resources

Become a paid subscriber of Reversing Climate Change

Listen to The CDR Policy Scoop episode with Noah Deich

Grant's Substack

Grant's recent RCC episode on coproduction and additionality

Don't make me link to the ASMR deportation video

There are a bunch of episodes I've made with thoughtful conservatives. Poke around the catalog if you'd like. I'll add some more links later if I have the heart to do it.

Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget (I mistakenly say OEM in the show):

"We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected... When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want their funding to be shut down so that the EPA can't do all of the rules against our energy industry because they have no bandwidth financially to do so...We want to put them in trauma."

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 for the missing middle of carbon removal buyers.

Do you work at (or know someone who works at) a company that could be passionate about supporting cutting-edge carbon removal companies? Are you a high-net-worth individual? Involved in philanthropy? If so, please reach out to Tito Jankowski directly (tito[at]airminers.com) and see how you can work together to grow CDR during its Dark Night of the Soul.

Additionally, if you personally want to support CDR in non-monetary ways, come join the so-called Rebel Alliance in AirMiners. We'd love to have you.

Thank you so much for your love and support of carbon removal!

Resources

⁠Become a paid subscriber of Reversing Climate Change

Join the AirMiners Buyers Club by emailing Tito Jankowski directly: tito[at]airminers.com.

Form to join the Rebel Alliance

AirMiners's website

Frontier

Symbiosis

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 quick game of bioenergy: friend or foe!

Always more to discuss on forestry, and I doubt this show will be the final word.

Resources

Become a paid subscriber of Reversing Climate Change

Arbonics's website

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 episode, Ross chats with Anu Khan, the Founder and Executive Director of the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative to discuss her work of building an ark for carbon removal methodologies and how that work informs policy and the growth of carbon removal.

Thirdly, is the original body of the podcast where Ross speaks with Radhika Moolgavkar, formerly the VP of Supply & Methodology at Nori, and Rick Berg, formerly Nori’s Director of Methodology, about the development of Nori’s Direct Air Capture + Storage methodology.

They discuss the importance of open methodology development for transparency and trust, and ungating their work so that others can use it and adapt it under the right Creative Commons licensure.

The nuts and bolts of how the expert advisory panel and public comment period work, as well as how that feedback filters back into the methodology, is explained.

The podcast also covers the decision behind selecting DAC amongst all of the other CDR methodologies, the challenges in methodology harmonization across registries and geographies, and how to handle the future of methodological updates as the industry evolves and more is learned.

Resources

Become a paid subscriber toReversing Climate Change

Read Nori's DAC+S Methodology (coming soon!)

Carbon Removal Standards Initiative

Nori's Creative Commons license

Stationary bandit theory

"The Constitution of No Authority" by Lysander Spooner

ICROA andICVCM

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?

1. In your podcast app of choice, please give the show a full rating and/or review. The two most impactful are Apple Podcasts and Spotify, but if you use a different app that has ratings or reviews, please help me there with a great rating and/or review.
2. Will you please become a paid subscriber of Reversing Climate Change? For $5/month, you will get bonus content, ad-free listening, and more features as they get rolled out. This is very impactful and adds up!
3. If you are a podcaster or aspire to become one, here are referral links for the recording platform I use called Riverside, and the editing platform I use called Descript. I can recommend both without reservation.
4. Tell a friend about the show! If there is an episode you love, please tell someone, share it on social media, and just help me grow the show.

If you have feedback of any kind that you'd like to share, please send it to carbon.removal.strategies[at]gmail.com.

Thank you so much for helping the show. It is deeply meaningful to me.

Sincerely,

Ross

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:

Then we all discuss if and how adopting children could or should fit into one's vision of climate activism.

This was a fun and big show to do! I hope you enjoy the change-up in format.

Resources

Here are the verses from the Bible that are referenced:

"...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."

- Philippians 2:12

"Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.

Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:

That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly."

- Matthew 6:1-6

All quotes from the King James Version

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 also not hewing so closely to orthodoxy that we might be missing important insights? How can we set the stage to understand the true landscape of disagreement so that we can come to better decisions and not be driven by ideology in improper ways?

Today's podcast features Reversing Climate Change alumnus, Grant Faber, returning to the show. Grant is sui generis in our sector for his deep involvement in life-cycle and techno-economic assessment. He is the Direct Air Capture Hubs Program Manager at the U.S. Department of Energy. Prior to DOE, he ran a consultancy focused on life cycle and techno-economic assessment where he worked with many different startups, accelerators, and investors working on carbon removal and carbon conversion. Before that, he worked with Twelve, Heirloom, and the Global CO2 Initiative.

Importantly, we invite you to engage with this material and come to your own conclusions. Part of what makes carbon removal such an intellectual adventure is just how much room there is for creativity and deep thought!

Resources

Grant's website

Grant's previous RCC appearance

Grant's article, "Carbon removal, co-products, and system boundaries"

Eric Matzner from Metalplant's RCC appearance

"Crediting challenges when carbon removal comes with avoided emissions" by CarbonPlan

The trope of the monkey paw

A few Robert Höglund pieces on temporary carbon removal: #1, #2, and #3

Here's the quote from Gandalf from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Return of the King:

"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."

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? What might Dante make of our current predicament?! This show's got it!

If you like the show, would you please become a subscriber here? It makes a huge difference to the show's sustainability. And if you aren't able to do that, would you please give the show a great rating and/or review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whichever podcast app you use that has that ability?

Thank you so much for listening! Please let me know in the comments if you would like anything in particular.

This is a (Spotify) video excerpt from episode 332 with Clayton Aldern, Senior Data Reporter at Grist and author of The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains.

In this video clip, we discuss how we hold people accountable when the heat has a statistically relevant negative impact on decision-making, impulsivity, etc. If we are so embodied as to predictably make worse conditions under stress, what does that mean for a world that will likely encounter more stress as a result of climate change? At what point should we focus less on responsibility, blame, and agency and begin to focus more on background conditions and our physical natures? Or is this even the right question?

Tune in now to learn more, and listen to the rest of the show on audio wherever you listen to podcasts.

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 make things more difficult.

If human bodies are so susceptible to environmental conditions, what does that say for justice? How are we meant to understand agency and determinism? How do we hold one another accountable while also practicing forgiveness for human frailty?

There are no shortage of big questions today! Enjoy.

Resources

Clayton's writing on Grist

Clayton's website

The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Brains