Reversing Climate Change

Ross Kenyon
  • 4.8 (277)
  • Earth Sciences
  • Updated Weekly

Reversing Climate Change is a podcast about carbon removal and climatetech that keeps wandering off into literature, history, philosophy, theology, and geopolitics on the theory that the technical and scientific questions stop making much sense without them. Hosted by Ross Kenyon, who did not go past a year of political philosophy PhD coursework and has visibly not let it go. Paid subscriptions live on Substack @ https://rosskenyon.com. © Carbon Removal Strategies LLC

  1. 1d ago

    Climate is pitchfork time! Neurodiversity, anger, & candor—w/ Dimitry Gershenson of Enduring Planet

    What happens when you ask Dimitry Gershenson how he's doing? He tells you. This confuses people at parties, and by his account it works surprisingly well on investors. Today's guest is Dimitry Gershenson, the co-founder and CEO of Enduring Planet, which provides "founder-friendly working capital and financial advisory services to climate startups and SMBs," often lending against a government grant or contract. They recently closed a second fund more than twice the size of their first. We get into why so much climate content reads like it went through legal, the op-ed on impact investing in an age of autocracy he held back until his fund closed (a major investor bailed anyway), how much (or how little) of his work runs on anger, and what being on the autism spectrum is like while running a company of almost 120 people. And Dimitry tells the story of a field trip with his old Berkeley professor John Harte, who gave the bleakest two-word summary of climate change I've heard in a while, followed by a surprisingly useful second answer. Full disclosure: I have a referral agreement with Enduring Planet, so if you go talk to them, tell them I sent you. Enduring PlanetCourageous Capital: Impact investing in an age of autocracy, Dimitry Gershenson and Jed Emerson, ImpactAlphaTake risk, act swiftly and seven other tips for deploying catalytic capital the right way, Dimitry Gershenson, ImpactAlphaWith $12M second fund, fintech startup aims to pump more cash into climate entrepreneurs, GeekWireEnergy and Resources Group, UC BerkeleyRadical Candor, Kim Scott This episode's page on the web Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack Books from the show, at Bookshop My other show, Climate Workers Anonymous

    Climate is pitchfork time! Neurodiversity, anger, & candor—w/ Dimitry Gershenson of Enduring Planet

  2. Oct 15

    Katharine Wilkinson on Climate Wayfinding & why climate work is (unfortunately) spiritual work

    I've known Katharine Wilkinson's work for a long time, but only recently got a monkey wrench far enough around my heart to open it up and engage with it seriously. Her new book is Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home, and she says plainly what most of climate work treats as a fluffy nice-to-have: the core of this work is spiritual, and she probably knew it at 16. Dr. Katharine K. Wilkinson co-founded and leads The All We Can Save Project and co-edited All We Can Save with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. She was lead writer of Drawdown and co-hosts A Matter of Degrees with Dr. Leah Stokes. Listen in as she reteaches Ross how to listen to the wisdom centers of his body, and why it is that we have grown so practical that we have lost touch with such a basic skill. Links Climate Wayfinding, at Bookshop The All We Can Save Project Human on Earth, Katharine's Substack A Matter of Degrees The Carbon Wave by Leah Stokes, at Bookshop Plum Village Thinking Little with Mary Berry (episode 422)Resources This episode's page on the web Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack Books from the show, at Bookshop My other show, Climate Workers Anonymous

    Katharine Wilkinson on Climate Wayfinding & why climate work is (unfortunately) spiritual work

  3. Sep 24

    The palm nutcracker that became a carbon dioxide removal company—w/ Uzoma Ayogu of Biochar Industrial Group

    What do you do when none of the machinery you imported works? If you're Releaf, you build your own nutcracker, name it Kraken, and get it working with about six weeks of runway left in the middle of COVID. And once you have a huge pile of palm kernel shells sitting around, why not get really into biochar? Today's guest is Uzoma Ayogu, cofounder and CTO of Releaf and cofounder of Biochar Industrial Group (BIG), which just closed a $1.5 million pre-seed. Releaf cracks palm nuts from smallholder farms in Nigeria, where equipment built for plantations met thick-shelled nuts that arrive wet, dusty and full of rocks. BIG is the carbon dioxide removal side, spun out because Releaf's investors understood agriculture and supply chains and did not understand the voluntary carbon market. They bought their pyrolyzer from a Ukrainian manufacturer during a war, installed it without the manufacturer's engineer, and Uzo slept in the factory on a yoga mat for two weeks. Uptime went from around a third to 87 percent. We also get into cassava yields, what Y Combinator told them when they got in, and my own YC story, which ends with Nori getting in and saying no. This Episode's Sponsor EcoEngineers: a full-service advisory and consulting firm focused on carbon dioxide removal, decarbonization, and carbon markets. Listen to the RCC episode I made with David LaGreca from EcoEngineers about how to choose, hire, and fire carbon market contractors. And the one with Rudy Krehbiel, also of EcoEngineers, on which story carbon dioxide removal is actually in and what it costs to be inside the wrong one. 2026 EcoForums Training Series: Navigating Global Carbon and Fuel Regulations, Market Mechanisms, and Life-Cycle Analysis Fundamentals Resources Full disclosure: Uzo, Kenna, and I met in the AirMiners Launchpad Accelerator program and I have worked with them in a few programs since. Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change SubstackBecome a paid subscriber for bonus content and ad-free episodesMy other show, Climate Workers AnonymousReleafBiochar Industrial GroupBIG raises $1.5m to turn African farm waste into carbon removal, TechCabalAirMinersHow Releaf is scaling Nigerian biochar, my piece for RainbowBooks from the show, at BookshopResources This episode's page on the web Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack Books from the show, at Bookshop My other show, Climate Workers Anonymous

    The palm nutcracker that became a carbon dioxide removal company—w/ Uzoma Ayogu of Biochar Industrial Group

  4. Sep 17

    Which story is carbon dioxide removal actually in?—w/ Rudy Krehbiel of EcoEngineers

    Every industry runs on a mythology, and carbon dioxide removal has several of them available at once. There is the hype cycle, where the trough of disillusionment is a phase you survive on the way to mainstream adoption. There is the solar cost curve, where a technology is expensive and clunky for years and then abruptly cheaper than everything else. There is Moore's Law, and also the one where the world returns to normal after the next election. Each of those carries a promise about the ending that may not deliver. Rudy Krehbiel thinks some of those stories are misleading us, and this episode is about working out which ones. My introduction runs long because I wanted to talk about Charlie Kaufman's Adaptation first, a film about a man who does not know what genre he is in until the genre changes around him, and which you should watch whether or not you have ever thought about a carbon credit. Rudy works on strategic development at EcoEngineers, who also sponsor this show, and he came into carbon dioxide removal from startups and venture capital, which is why he keeps reaching for diffusion curves. His read is that we are at the innovator stage and mistaking it for a trough. His figures, and they hold up against CDR.fyi's April 2026 snapshot: fewer than 50 million tonnes contracted, barely over a million delivered, Microsoft alone accounting for 78.5% of the disclosed total, and a median purchase outside Microsoft still under 100 tonnes. Diagnose that as failure and you start prescribing medicine for a disease nobody has. The harder argument is the one about public goods. Solar panels and EVs deliver something microeconomic you would still buy if climate change did not exist. A tonne of carbon dioxide removed does not. That makes this, in Rudy's words, arguably the hardest public good anyone has tried to fund, and it is why he will not call the ending inevitable. I asked him to name the story we ought to be inside of. What he answered? You'll have to listen to find out. The Show's Sponsor EcoEngineers: a full-service advisory and consulting firm focused on carbon dioxide removal, decarbonization, and carbon markets. Listen to the RCC episode I made with David LaGreca from EcoEngineers about how to choose, hire, and fire carbon market contractors. 2026 EcoForums Training Series: Navigating Global Carbon and Fuel Regulations, Market Mechanisms, and Life-Cycle Analysis Fundamentals Rudy works at EcoEngineers and EcoEngineers sponsors this show. I would have had him on either way, and you should know the arrangement. Resources Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack for bonus content and ad-free episodesClimate Workers Anonymous, the other show I makeEcoEngineers"How Carbon Removal Loses", the episode Rudy and I keep circlingBelief that makes itself true: a hyperstition for carbon dioxide removalWhy Don Quixote is so misunderstoodHow non-human intelligence will change us, with D.W. Pasulka, where the Marshall McLuhan scene comes upAdaptation (2002), written by Charlie Kaufman, directed by Spike JonzeThe Orchid Thief by Susan OrleanStory by Robert McKeeDiffusion of Innovations, Everett RogersCrossing the Chasm, Geoffrey MooreGartner hype cycleCDR.fyi's demand structure snapshot, April 2026, the source for the Microsoft and Frontier concentration figuresPublic good, non-rivalrous and non-excludable, used correctly for once (my pet peeve)Whig historiographyAlternative für DeutschlandNational RallyHanging a lampshadeThe Bridge on the River KwaiLiberty ships and Victory gardensResources This episode's page on the web Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack Books from the show, at Bookshop My other show, Climate Workers Anonymous

    Which story is carbon dioxide removal actually in?—w/ Rudy Krehbiel of EcoEngineers

  5. Sep 10

    Thinking Little with Mary Berry, Executive Director of The Berry Center—RERELEASE

    Wendell Berry died on August 31st, 2026. A listener once made a Reversing Climate Change bingo card and one of the squares was just "someone mentions Wendell Berry," which turned out to be a rigged square. So rather than write another appreciation, I have pulled the conversation I had with his daughter in 2020 and recorded a new introduction to sit in front of it. The episode I made the week he died is here. Mary Berry runs The Berry Center in New Castle, Kentucky, founded in 2011 after a lifetime of farming. She started it because a forty-year local food movement had produced some very good farmers' markets and almost no change to the culture of farming, and because the best agricultural program her state ever had was being forgotten inside that very state. Listen in to hear more about why the local food movement concentrated on food and skipped land use and the economic lives of farmers, and what you do about any of this if you have no Henry County of your own to go back to. My new introduction is about that last part, and about whether those of who without such roots are like locusts, but somehow worse? What a grim sentence to pen, and there's a lot more coming on this topic soon... This Episode's Sponsor EcoEngineers: a full-service advisory and consulting firm focused on carbon dioxide removal, decarbonization, and carbon markets. Listen to the RCC episode I made with David LaGreca from EcoEngineers about how to choose, hire, and fire carbon market contractors. Listen to the RCC episode I made with Rudy Krehbiel, also of EcoEngineers, on which story carbon dioxide removal is actually in and what it costs to be inside the wrong one. 2026 EcoForums Training Series: Navigating Global Carbon and Fuel Regulations, Market Mechanisms, and Life-Cycle Analysis Fundamentals Resources Subscribe to the ⁠⁠Reversing Climate Change Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠Become a paid subscriber⁠⁠ for bonus content and ad-free episodesCheck out my new show, Climate Workers AnonymousThe original 2020 release of this conversationThe Berry Center, and Our Home Place Meat, and the shopThe Berry Center Farm and Forest Institute: the education program Mary describes as the Wendell Berry Farming Program of Sterling College, now run by the Berry Center itselfThe Agrarian Culture Center and the Archive of The Berry Center, which holds her grandfather's and uncle's papers from the Burley Tobacco ProgramThe Land Institute, and Wes Jackson's Becoming Native to This PlaceRemovals, avoidances, and what Wendell Berry thought of making tonnes fungibleWendell Berry, Jayber Crow and the Port William novels, and The World-Ending FireThe 50-Year Farm BillOrganic Valley, founded on what its founder knew about the Burley Tobacco ProgramFour Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry ManderBowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. PutnamGary Snyder The episode art is Winslow Homer's The Veteran in a New Field, 1865, oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Miss Adelaide Milton de Groot (1876–1967), 1967, accession number 67.187.131. Public domain, via The Met's Open Access program. Originally released in September 2020 as season 2, episode 30. Re-released September 2026 with a new introduction. Resources This episode's page on the web Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack Books from the show, at Bookshop My other show, Climate Workers Anonymous

    Thinking Little with Mary Berry, Executive Director of The Berry Center—RERELEASE

  6. Sep 3

    Removals, avoidances, and what Wendell Berry thought of making tonnes fungible

    Rainbow came into carbon dioxide removal from the outside, kept financing avoidances the whole time, and has watched the market arrive at the position it started from. The company I cofounded, Nori, was merciless about avoidance for its entire existence, so some of that is on me. Wendell Berry died on 31 August, at 92. He has more books referenced on this show than any other author. Early in Nori's life I wrote to him twice inviting him onto this very podcast by explaining that we were making tonnes of soil organic carbon fungible with one another, which may be the worst reading of an audience in my career. He said no both times, kindly. I still have the letters. Listen in to hear more about what it is like to meet someone from Verra and have the first sentence out of your mouth be "I used to think I was better than you", why the hardest parts of carbon market integrity turn out to be structural rather than a failure of anyone's willpower, what the Scouring of the Shire has to do with a methodology list, why I would keep rainforest over carbon removal if someone made me choose, and those ever-present wizards and prophets. This Episode's Sponsor EcoEngineers: a full-service advisory and consulting firm focused on carbon dioxide removal, decarbonization, and carbon markets. Listen to the RCC episode I made with David LaGreca from EcoEngineers about how to choose, hire, and fire carbon market contractors. Listen to the RCC episode I made with Rudy Krehbiel, also of EcoEngineers, on which story carbon dioxide removal is actually in and what it costs to be inside the wrong one. 2026 EcoForums Training Series: Navigating Global Carbon and Fuel Regulations, Market Mechanisms, and Life-Cycle Analysis Fundamentals Rainbow is a client of mine and I say so in the episode. They are not sponsoring this episode. I was just inspired by the work itself. Resources Subscribe to the ⁠Reversing Climate Change Substack⁠⁠Become a paid subscriber⁠ for bonus content and ad-free episodesRemovals, avoidances, and the rise of the portfolio mentality, the essay this episode is built on, at RainbowRainbow, the standard and registrySustained Neutralization of the Warming Response to Emissions through a Portfolio of GHG Mitigation Strategies, Ella Hughes, Zeke Hausfather, Randall Spock and Christopher Van Arsdale, CDRXIV, May 2026. This is the Google paper on stacking and bridgingThe Prodigal Son of Carbon Markets, with Martin Freimüller of Octavia Carbon, on his change of heart about the voluntary carbon marketJason Grillo writes Climagination, and was on the show for The Culture of Carbon RemovalRobert Höglund writes Marginal CarbonRereading The Wizard and the Prophet six years deeper into climate work, with Charles C. Mann, where the wizards and prophets framing comes fromThe impossible taxonomy of carbon dioxide removal, the previous episode about categories that misleadWendell Berry, 1934 to 2026, Kentucky LanternSix Wendell Berry books, and most of what this show has argued about for a decade, are on my Bookshop shelf. Book links go to Bookshop.org. They pay me a commission at no extra cost to you, and the rest goes to independent bookshops. Cover image: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Harvesters, 1565, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Open Access. Resources This episode's page on the web Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack Books from the show, at Bookshop My other show, Climate Workers Anonymous

    Removals, avoidances, and what Wendell Berry thought of making tonnes fungible

  7. Aug 27

    The scariest current parallel from Hitler's Mein Kampf

    CW: this episode discusses genocide People reference the Weimar Republic's transition to Nazi Germany often. But I think they're missing perhaps the most relevant and frightening insight from Adolf Hitler's memoir, Mein Kampf. It isn't just that economic uncertainty produces political radicalism. It's that bad things can happen when a group which has dominated a multiethnic empire for a long time is expected to start sharing more political and cultural power with the groups they once ruled. If you haven't listened to the previous episode, "The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way—Hitler, Chaplin, & The Great Dictator on climate", go read the article and listen to the episode on Substack. It'll make more sense if you do! This Episode's Sponsor ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EcoEngineers: a full-service advisory and consulting firm focused on carbon dioxide removal, decarbonization, and carbon markets⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Listen to the RCC episode I made with David LaGreca from EcoEngineers about how to choose, hire, and fire carbon market contractors.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠2026 EcoForums Training Series: Navigating Global Carbon and Fuel Regulations, Market Mechanisms, and Life-Cycle Analysis Fundamentals⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Resources ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out my new show, Climate Workers Anonymous⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and become a paid subscriber⁠ Resources This episode's page on the web Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack Books from the show, at Bookshop My other show, Climate Workers Anonymous

    The scariest current parallel from Hitler's Mein Kampf

  8. Aug 20

    The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way—Hitler, Chaplin, & The Great Dictator on climate

    CW: this episode discusses genocide and suicide. I swear I didn't mean to make this episode. All I intended to do was to read ⁠the wonderfully moving speech at the end of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator⁠. But somehow that meant that I had to process so much about World War II, the personality of Adolf Hitler, and why monsters can also be boring and/or extremely goofy. This monologue episode wends its way through the particular moment in history this film was made and why that is significant (as well as what the film got wrong as a result), Hannah Arendt, Mel Brooks, Louis Theroux's manosphere documentary, the banality of evil, why so many huge leaders of countries and companies feel so adolescent, how weird the History Channel was with Hitler content when I was a kid, and so much more. There is still so much that didn't make it in, but I think I'll share some more soon, in particular about what I find to be the most terrifying part of Mein Kampf. To be continued... This Episode's Sponsor ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠EcoEngineers: a full-service advisory and consulting firm focused on carbon dioxide removal, decarbonization, and carbon markets⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Listen to the RCC episode I made with David LaGreca from EcoEngineers about how to choose, hire, and fire carbon market contractors.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠2026 EcoForums Training Series: Navigating Global Carbon and Fuel Regulations, Market Mechanisms, and Life-Cycle Analysis Fundamentals⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Resources ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out my new show, Climate Workers Anonymous⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and become a paid subscriber⁠ ⁠Watch the full Charlie Chaplin speech here Resources This episode's page on the web Subscribe to the Reversing Climate Change Substack Books from the show, at Bookshop My other show, Climate Workers Anonymous

    The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way—Hitler, Chaplin, & The Great Dictator on climate
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About

Reversing Climate Change is a podcast about carbon removal and climatetech that keeps wandering off into literature, history, philosophy, theology, and geopolitics on the theory that the technical and scientific questions stop making much sense without them. Hosted by Ross Kenyon, who did not go past a year of political philosophy PhD coursework and has visibly not let it go. Paid subscriptions live on Substack @ https://rosskenyon.com. © Carbon Removal Strategies LLC

Information

  • Creator
    Ross Kenyon
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2026
  • Episodes
    439
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Ross Kenyon
  • Show Website
    Reversing Climate Change

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