Reversing Climate Change

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 episodes
Climate Workers Anonymous, the other show I make
EcoEngineers
"How Carbon Removal Loses", the episode Rudy and I keep circling
Belief that makes itself true: a hyperstition for carbon dioxide removal
Why Don Quixote is so misunderstood
How non-human intelligence will change us, with D.W. Pasulka, where the Marshall McLuhan scene comes up
Adaptation (2002), written by Charlie Kaufman, directed by Spike Jonze
The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
Story by Robert McKee
Diffusion of Innovations, Everett Rogers
Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore
Gartner hype cycle
CDR.fyi's demand structure snapshot, April 2026, the source for the Microsoft and Frontier concentration figures
Public good, non-rivalrous and non-excludable, used correctly for once (my pet peeve)
Whig historiography
Alternative für Deutschland
National Rally
Hanging a lampshade
The Bridge on the River Kwai
Liberty ships and Victory gardens

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.⁠
⁠2026 EcoForums Training Series: Navigating Global Carbon and Fuel Regulations, Market Mechanisms, and Life-Cycle Analysis Fundamentals⁠
Resources
Subscribe to the ⁠⁠Reversing Climate Change Substack⁠⁠
⁠⁠Become a paid subscriber⁠⁠ for bonus content and ad-free episodes
Check out my new show, Climate Workers Anonymous
The original 2020 release of this conversation
The Berry Center, and Our Home Place Meat, and the shop
The 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 itself
The Agrarian Culture Center and the Archive of The Berry Center, which holds her grandfather's and uncle's papers from the Burley Tobacco Program
The Land Institute, and Wes Jackson's Becoming Native to This Place
Removals, avoidances, and what Wendell Berry thought of making tonnes fungible
Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow and the Port William novels, and The World-Ending Fire
The 50-Year Farm Bill
Organic Valley, founded on what its founder knew about the Burley Tobacco Program
Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam
Gary 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.

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.
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 Substack⁠
⁠Become a paid subscriber⁠ for bonus content and ad-free episodes
Removals, avoidances, and the rise of the portfolio mentality, the essay this episode is built on, at Rainbow
Rainbow, the standard and registry
Sustained 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 bridging
The Prodigal Son of Carbon Markets, with Martin Freimüller of Octavia Carbon, on his change of heart about the voluntary carbon market
Jason Grillo writes Climagination, and was on the show for The Culture of Carbon Removal
Robert Höglund writes Marginal Carbon
Rereading The Wizard and the Prophet six years deeper into climate work, with Charles C. Mann, where the wizards and prophets framing comes from
The impossible taxonomy of carbon dioxide removal, the previous episode about categories that mislead
Wendell Berry, 1934 to 2026, Kentucky Lantern
Six 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.

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

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