Welcome to episode #4 of Climate Workers Anonymous, where those workers in climate can share their anonymous and unverified thoughts, feelings, and experiences about their work. What do you dare to think when you might not be judged for it? What’s your heretical thought, your foolish hope, or your hard-won experience? Share it here for publication on the written Substack and to be read in the podcast version.

In this episode’s introduction, I explain a bit more about the limits of the show, and why if you believe there is any sort of questionable behavior by specific parties you should consider contacting an investigative journalist whom you respect. They are much better equipped to evaluate truth claims in this way and typically have anonymity protocols far more sophisticated than what I can offer. I keep this show anonymous and unverified to make sure there is room to discuss the truth of experience and feelings without having to do the hardboiled work of others. I hope that makes sense!

Visit the Substack here to read the submissions for yourself.

Thank you again to everyone who has submitted to the project!

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Thank you for listening to and reading Climate Workers Anonymous. Subscribe to Substack here, and be sure to subscribe in whichever podcast app you use. An amazing rating and review on those podcast apps does a world of good. Would you please do that for me now? Here’s Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

If you’d like submit your anonymous hopes, fears, or experiences to Climate Workers Anonymous, you can use this Tally survey or email climateworkersanonymous[at]protonmail.com, though I believe the Tally survey is more secure. Do not communicate anything you wouldn’t want a hacker to have access to, including an email address that could be linked to you if you email the account on Protonmail.

Sincerely,

Ross KenyonCurator of Climate Workers Anonymous

Warning: these submissions are anonymous and unverified.

We’ve barely even started Climate Workers Anonymous and I’m already receiving such challenging and intriguing pieces of feedback, and so many submissions. Thank you to everyone who has participated to date and taken time to share something real with this project.

A friend of mine wrote me right before I recorded this episode and mentioned that he wanted fewer hot takes and more stories, and emotional content beyond anger. It set me to thinking about anger and how I understand its usefulness or lack thereof.

I wrote a fair amount about this topic in the Substack posting of this podcast. If you are only seeing this in your podcast app, head over to the Substack for the full experience. You can also read all of the submissions over there rather than only listening to me read them.

Also, stay tuned for an episode of my other podcast, Reversing Climate Change, which will soon feature a fuller exploration of the Bhagavad Gita.

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Thank you for listening to and reading Climate Workers Anonymous. Subscribe on Substack here, and be sure to subscribe in whichever podcast app you use. An amazing rating and review on those podcast apps does a world of good. Would you please give Climate Workers Anonymous a full rating and great review for me now? Here’s the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

If you’d like submit your anonymous hopes, fears, or experiences to Climate Workers Anonymous, you can use this Tally survey or email climateworkersanonymous[at]protonmail.com, though I believe the Tally survey is more secure. Do not communicate anything you wouldn’t want a hacker to have access to, including an email address that could be linked to you if you email the account on Protonmail.

Warning: these submissions are anonymous and unverified.

Today we have thirteen(!) submissions to read that cover despair, rage, and other feelings about working climate that the authors could not say aloud.

The intro to this show also explains why this project isn't an act of investigative journalism, but a collective art project about feelings. I can't verify the claims of submissions and don't seek to. I alter submissions when it feels necessary to preserve the spirit of the project, but I freely admit I am trying to figure out where the editorial line might be.

If you submit, I hope you can respect this approach.

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Thank you for listening to and reading Climate Workers Anonymous. Subscribe on Substack here, and be sure to subscribe in whichever podcast app you use. An amazing rating and review on those podcast apps does a world of good. Would you please give Climate Workers Anonymous a full rating and great review for me now? Here’s the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

If you’d like submit your anonymous hopes, fears, or experiences to Climate Workers Anonymous, you can use this Tally survey or email climateworkersanonymous[at]protonmail.com, though I believe the Tally survey is more secure. Do not communicate anything you wouldn’t want a hacker to have access to, including an email address that could be linked to you if you email the account on Protonmail.

N.B. there were actually only thirteen submissions; not fourteen! I skipped a number in there.

Here it is: the first show with anonymous submissions to Climate Workers Anonymous. In this episode there are six short thoughts (or four depending upon whether technology has its say), and one longer one.

There are big thoughts and analysis. There are feelings of dread and hope. Listen in for yourself.

Also, this episode starts with some of my thoughts on some of the ethics and aesthetics of a show like this, as well as a few quotes:

" I am human. Nothing human is foreign to me."

— Terence

" Your energy recycles into every possible relation to everyone else's energy, even Brad's. You've been predator and prey with him, friends, enemies, brother, sister, mother, child."

— I Heart Huckabees

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Thank you for listening to and reading Climate Workers Anonymous. Subscribe on Substack here, and be sure to subscribe in whichever podcast app you use. An amazing rating and review on those podcast apps does a world of good. Would you please give Climate Workers Anonymous a full rating and great review for me now? Here’s the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

If you’d like submit your anonymous hopes, fears, or experiences to Climate Workers Anonymous, you can use this Tally survey or email climateworkersanonymous[at]protonmail.com, though I believe the Tally survey is more secure. Do not communicate anything you wouldn’t want a hacker to have access to, including an email address that could be linked to you if you email the account on Protonmail.

Welcome to the first episode of Climate Workers Anonymous. If you are listening on your usual podcast app, you might notice that the old feed for Carbon Removal Newsroom has been officially repurposed for this new project. I started Carbon Removal Newsroom a very long time ago. My name is Ross Kenyon, and I’m a former cofounder of the Nori carbon dioxide removal marketplace and registry. This show is a dedicated space for the hard, often unspoken truths of working in the climate and carbon dioxide removal (CDR) sectors.

Founding a company or working in the climate sector is notoriously difficult. Beyond the business mechanics, climate workers face a unique burden: they are actively trying to capture a dilute gas and stabilize the atmosphere for the survival of humanity, often while relying on an economic system that doesn’t reward this behavior at scale. (We still haven’t quite figured out how to decarbonize.)

Workers and founders frequently have to project unwavering strength to buyers and investors. They have to suck up to companies that they might actively wish didn’t exist in the first place. Expressing this feeling, or any of the doubts, exhaustion, or frustrations can feel like a massive professional risk. Bottling up these feelings takes a severe emotional toll.

When I was a teenager, I really loved the collaborative art project PostSecret. Climate Workers Anonymous invites you to share your hidden thoughts, moral dilemmas, artwork, and naive hopes without fear of career repercussions. Whether you are wrestling with the ethics of doing business with billionaires who seemingly don’t care about much of anything but themselves, heavily polluting companies, or are simply exhausted by the slow pace of global change, this is a place to be heard.

Telling the truth about the reality of working in climate is a productive, necessary action. I hope you will join us in this experiment!

Send us your stories for audio and text publication here or at [email protected].

Thanks for listening!

Sincerely,

Ross Kenyon

Recommended supplemental listening: “When Bad Companies Buy Good Carbon Removal” from my other show, Reversing Climate Change.

For the full experience, community, and to support the project, please subscribe to Climate Workers Anonymous on Substack here.

So much is happening in the world of biochar. It's both a physical product and can also be a more abstract concept called a "carbon removal". How is the industry balancing the divergent business logic of these two different markets, and what challenges and opportunities will it face?

In today's episode of Carbon Removal Newsroom, producer and guest host Asa Kamer interviews Myles Gray, the program director of the US Bicohar Initiative about their 2023 Global Biochar Market Report.

Biochar is responsible for a huge amount of currently delivered durable carbon removals. It's more shovel-ready than other forms of carbon removal, which have much higher CapEx requirements and are betting more on future cost-curves than present deployment. However, some participants in biochar production can face challenges from those concerned about additionality, among other issues.

The discussion covers the production scale, market dynamics, economic challenges, and the growing number of biochar producers, particularly in the Global South. Gray also highlights the importance of high-quality standards, the role of innovative business models, and the need for better market development for physical biochar to help scale the industry globally. Listen in to learn more.

On This Episode

⁠⁠Asa Kamer

Myles Gray

Resources

US Biochar Initiative

USBI's 2023 Global Biochar Market Report

Connect with Nori

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Nori⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Nori’s X account⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Nori’s other podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Reversing Climate Change⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Nori’s CDR ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠meme X account

Everyone used to say carbon removal was supply-constrained. Now everyone says it is demand-constrained. So which is it?

Today's show has Dr. Gabrielle Walker, Co-Founder of the carbon removal marketplace CUR8 and the Founder of Rethinking Removals, an NGO working to change the conventional environmental story around CDR. She is hosted by Nori's VP of Supply and Methodology, Radhika Moolgavkar.

Dr. Walker discusses her long history in the climate space, including time spent in carbon capture, and how she works to address questions from corporate buyers.

The conversation covers the importance of portfolios in carbon removal strategies, the necessity of immediate action, and the challenges of gaining local and environmental community support.

Additionally, Dr. Walker delves into major stories in carbon removal for 2024, including the XPRIZE finalists, Europe's policy actions, and private industry investments.

On This Episode

⁠Dr. Gabrielle Walker

⁠⁠Radhika Moolgavkar⁠⁠

Resources

Dr. Walker's LinkedIn

Dr. Walker's Twitter

Rethinking Removals

⁠CUR8

Connect with Nori

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Nori⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Nori’s X account⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Nori’s other podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Reversing Climate Change⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Nori’s CDR ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠meme X account

The XPRIZE remains one of the top stories in carbon removal and one of the largest funding sources for CDR start-ups. The Elon Musk-backed competition will award $50 million to the winning CDR startup in 2025 and send $10 million to three other runner-up teams.

Over 1000 teams worldwide have applied since the award was announced in 2021.

This month, XPRIZE released the detailed “Getting to Gigaton” report, which provided comprehensive data and analysis of the top 100 teams. A few weeks later, they announced the top 20 finalist teams competing for the grand prize.

The report and the selection of the top teams provide a state of play for the industry by showing what methodologies are most ready to grow to a gigaton scale, according to XPRIZE's expert CDR judges.

Today's show is with Nikki Batchelor, the Executive Director of XPRIZE Carbon Removal, and Mike Leitch, the Senior Technical Lead, about how they selected the top 20, what they found in this report, and what comes next for the competition.

On This Episode

Nikki Batchelor

Mike Leitch

⁠Radhika Moolgavkar⁠

Resources

“Getting to Gigaton”⁠ report

Connect with Nori

⁠⁠⁠⁠Nori⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠Nori’s X account⁠⁠⁠⁠

Nori’s other podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠Reversing Climate Change⁠⁠⁠⁠

Nori’s CDR ⁠⁠⁠⁠meme X account

Lots of news in carbon removal this past week! Frontier made their largest-ever purchase of $58 million from relatively new BiCRS company Vaulted Deep, Climeworks unveiled their Mammoth facility in Iceland, and Microsoft purchased 3.3 million tons of CO2 from BECCs in Sweden.

These deals represent significant private market volume in CDR. But a new report in Nature called The carbon dioxide removal gap” highlights some of the policy needs that remain to get carbon removal where it should be to keep us on track for our climate goals.

Listen in today to learn about VCM and policy updates from the world of carbon removal, and understand some of the biggest deals this space has yet seen.

On This Episode

⁠⁠⁠Wil Burns⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Holly Jean Buck⁠⁠⁠

Radhika Moolgavkar

Resources

Nature report, "The carbon dioxide removal gap”⁠

Connect with Nori

⁠⁠⁠Nori⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠Nori’s X account⁠⁠⁠

Nori’s other podcast ⁠⁠⁠Reversing Climate Change⁠⁠⁠

Nori’s CDR ⁠⁠⁠meme X account

Biochar is an increasingly global carbon removal pathway. What does it look like to do business in Ghana and India? What does it mean for biochar to be decentralized?

Mart de Bruijn is the Co-Founder and Director of Carboneers, a Dutch biochar company working to implement carbon removal solutions in India and Ghana.

The conversation covers the challenges of securing enthusiastic participation from local farmers, navigating cultural and regulatory landscapes, and the technical aspects of biochar production. Additionally, the episode sheds light on the crucial role of monitoring, reporting, and verification in ensuring the efficacy of carbon credits, alongside the future expansion plans and potential bottlenecks faced by distributed/decentralized carbon removal systems.

This episode is hosted by Radhika Moolgavkar, Nori's VP of Supply and Methodology.

On This Episode

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Radhika Moolgavkar⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠Mart de Bruijn⁠⁠

Resources

Carboneers⁠

Europe has a lot happening for carbon removal, and on several different levels. What is the state of CDR policy and industry?

Today's episode has Nori's VP of Supply and Methodology, Radhika Moolgavkar, on hosting duties, and Sylvain Delerce, the Associate Research Direct of Carbon Gap, joining the show to catch listeners up on Carbon Gap and the latest on European carbon removal news.

Sylvain highlights the European Union's efforts to structure and fund the industry amidst broader regulatory efforts, and how Carbon Gap fits into the ecosystem.

The conversation also covers the importance of distinguishing carbon removal from carbon capture and storage (CCS) in policy texts, the need for a clear EU vision on CDR, and the potential impact of the Net-Zero Industry Act and the Carbon Removal Certification Framework on the industry. Sylvain also discusses the role of individual European countries in advancing CDR and the potential for France to deploy significant carbon removal solutions by 2050.

On This Episode

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Radhika Moolgavkar⁠⁠⁠⁠

Resources

"Decoding the Net-Zero Industry Act – Implications for carbon removal" by Carbon Gap

"Envisioning a carbon removal strategy for Europe" by Carbon Gap