Climate Restoration with Peter Fiekowsky | EP159

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Can we actually restore Earth's climate to safe pre-industrial conditions? According to scientist and entrepreneur Peter Fiekowsky, the answer is yes. 

Fiekowsky has developed a framework for vetting climate solutions. His meaningful solutions will be 1.Permanent 2.Scalable 3. Financeable and 4. Practical

Then he created a long list of possible solutions and ran them through his framework. What emerged, and is documented in his book Climate Restoration, are four remedies that will surprise and hopefully delight you.

In order to remove 1 trillion tons of pollution from the atmosphere… We need to do these 4 things:

1.  Synthetic limestone manufacture
2. Seaweed permaculture
3. Ocean Iron Fertilization, OIF
4. Enhanced Atmospheric  methane oxidation EAMO

What's fascinating is that over the course of the past two years since he wrote the book he's whittled the list down to just two of these… can you guess which two? I couldn't.

In this episode, Peter Fiekowsky and I break down his framework and explore the four, now two critical solutions that we humans can apply today to remove excess carbon from the atmosphere. Note that his arrived upon solutions largely mimick natural processes, like the explosion of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 which pumped iron dust into the sky and then the ocean.

Fiekowsky argues that most current climate proposals are too incremental. Instead of just stabilizing today's unsafe CO2 levels, we should boldly aim to get back to under 300 ppm like in pre-industrial times. He makes an optimistic case that for around one billion dollars per year, we could launch natural carbon removal processes to hit that target by 2050.

Fiekowsky delves into how public pressure and endorsements from environmental organizations are key to convincing governments and philanthropists to fund climate restoration.

Key Takeaways

1. What are some key permanent, scalable, financeable methods for removing excess carbon from the atmosphere?
2. How exactly does ocean iron fertilization work to draw down carbon?
3. How can public pressure and endorsements help drive governments and philanthropists to fund climate restoration solutions?

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