Bionic Planet: Reversing Climate Change by Restoring Nature
by Steve Zwick
We've entered a new epoch: the Anthropocene, and nothing is as it was. Not the trees, not the seas – not the forests, farms, or fields – and not the global economy that depends on all of these. What does this mean for your investments, your family's future, and the future of man? Each week, we dive into these issues to help you Navigate the New Reality.
Episodes
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123 | A Science Paradox: Would Francis Bacon Have Survived Greenpeace and Exxon?
A tree grows out of the ground. But does it come from the ground? Four hundred years ago, Jean-Baptiste van Helmont planted a willow tree in a carefully weighed pot of soil to find out. His experiment produced evidence he couldn't fully explain—and helped open a trail of discovery connecting...
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122 | How Climate Solutions Lost the Megaphone — and How to Take It Back, with Reverend Dr. Gerald Durley
Season 12 of Bionic Planet begins by going backwards. Climate change has fallen off the public radar just as the need for workable solutions has become more urgent. I've long argued that the great tragedy of climate and biodiversity finance is that those who understand it most have their noses to...
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121 | Michael Greene: Carbon Cowboy or Lone Ranger Part 2 – The $200 Million Land Heist in the Amazon
In this episode of Bionic Planet, we finally catch up with Michael Greene — the carbon developer branded a "land grabber of epic proportions" in The Washington Post, and now at the center of an unfolding saga that feels more like a political thriller than a conservation story. When Greene began...
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120 | Indonesia is Still Moving its Capitol, and Nobody Cares?
In this episode of Bionic Planet, we delve into the pressing issue of climate change and its profound impact on coastal ecosystems, particularly focusing on blue carbon. We kick off the discussion by highlighting Indonesia's monumental decision to relocate its capital from Jakarta to Borneo due…
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119 | Blue Carbon Pioneer James Kairo on How Mangroves Combat Climate Change: First of Three Parts
Like what you hear? Support us at patreon.com/bionicplanet. Today's guest, Blue Carbon Pioneer James Kairo, brings us into the fascinating world of mangroves and their immense economic and ecological value. Our journey begins with a brief overview of mangroves, which, despite covering only 0.01%…
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118 | Kenyan Herders Say Judgement Against Them Based on Forged Signatures / Continuation of Episode 117
In this episode of Bionic Planet, we continue our dive into the complex and often contentious world of community conservancies in northern Kenya, focusing on the Biliqo Bulesa and Cherub Community Conservancies. The episode opens with a powerful statement from community members, emphasizing that...
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117 | Kenyan Pastoralists Cry Foul on Western NGOs, Media. First of two parts
In this gripping two-hour episode, we pull back the curtain on misinformation campaigns targeting carbon projects in Kenya's Northern Rangelands. Through interviews with local leaders—including Mohamed Shibia, director of the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) carbon program, and elders Peter…
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116 | James Mwangi and Kenya's Great Carbon Valley
In this episode of our podcast, we dive deep into the transformative potential of Africa in the global shift towards a sustainable future, featuring an insightful conversation with James Mwangi, co-founder of Dahlberg and a leading advocate for innovative climate solutions in Kenya. We begin by...
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115 | Unpacking Donald Trump's Very Weird Environmental Orders
In this episode of Bionic Planet, Season 10, Episode 115, we dive into the significant environmental implications of the executive orders signed by President Donald Trump on his first day in office. Originally, we had planned to focus this season on Africa, but the rapid changes in U.S....
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114 | Michael Greene: Carbon Cowboy or Lone Ranger? Part 1
In this episode of Bionic Planet, I delve into the complex and often controversial world of conservation in the Amazon, featuring Michael Greene, a figure recently spotlighted in a Washington Post article that painted him as a land grabber. However, my intention is to provide a more nuanced...
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113 | The Future of Environmental Finance: Strategies for Biodiversity and Climate Solutions, with David Hill and George Kelly
This episode of Bionic Planet is a rebroadcast of David Hill's podcast, "How to Avoid Moving to Mars." In it, Professor David Hill, CBE, speaks with George Kelly, the Chief Executive of Earth Recovery Partners in the U.S. George has been a pivotal figure in the realm of mitigation banking and...
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112 | Fantasy Football and Dynamic Baselines: New Tools for Impact Assessment
In Episode 112 of Bionic Planet, titled "Fantasy Football and Dynamic Baselines: New Tools for Impact Assessment," we unpack the often misunderstood concept of dynamic baselines and its origin in synthetic controls, using fantasy football as an analogy. The episode begins with a clear and...
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111 | The False Dichotomy Between Reductions and Removals (Rerun)
Support Bionic Planet: https://www.patreon.com/bionicplanet Recent updates from the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) have pushed an old debate into public awareness, highlighting a perceived divide between emissions reductions and carbon removals. While SBTi's new guidelines focus on…
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110| Ecological Economics, Systems Thinking, and the Limits to Growth
Support Bionic Planet: https://www.patreon.com/bionicplanet Guests: Jim Pittman (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamespittman/) Matt Orsagh (https://www.linkedin.com/in/matt-orsagh-a1b8417/) Steve Rocco (https://www.linkedin.com/in/steverocco/) Books Referenced: Ecological Economics...
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109 | How Brazil's Quilombola Communities are Planting the Seeds of Sustainability for Small Farms Around the World, with Vasco van Roosmalen of ReSeed
Support Bionic Planet: https://www.patreon.com/bionicplanet In episode 109 of Bionic Planet, we learn how the Quilombola people of Brazil are blending the IPCC Livelihood Vulnerability Index Assessment with soil carbon methodologies developed under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) to save...
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108 | The Washington Post's Head Scratcher of a Carbon Story
Photo by Karol Stefański on Unsplash Support me at patreon.com/bionicplanet Related Links to Follow In episode 108 of Bionic Planet, I delve into a recent article published by the Washington Post that is riddled with inaccuracies, false premises, and misleading information. The episode serves as…
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107 | Francis Bacon and the Prehistory of Climate Finance. Second in an intermittent series on the Untold Story of the Voluntary Carbon Market
Support Bionic Planet: https://www.patreon.com/bionicplanet Books referenced in this episode: "The Discovery of Global Warming" by Spencer Weart (Hypertext version): https://history.aip.org/climate/index.htm "Lavoisier in the Year One" by Madison Smartt Bell:...
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106 | Steve Discusses the "Tribes of the Climate Realm" on the Smarter Markets Podcast
This episoed of Bionic Planet is technically an episode of Andrew Greely's podcast, Smarter Markets, where I appeared as a guest to discuss my new vertical "The Tribes of the Climate Realm." It's not a series but a vertical, where episodes will drop intermittently over the remainder of the year…
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105 | The Role of Carbon Credits in Conservation: A Case Study from Guatemala
In this episode of Bionic Planet, we delve into the inspiring journey of Marco Cerezo, the director of Fundaeco, a conservation NGO based in Guatemala. Marco shares his lifelong dedication to nature conservation, sustainable community development, and the fight against climate change. He recounts...
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104 | Transition Finance: How Carbon Markets REALLY Work, with David Antonioli
In episode 104 of Bionic Planet, I delve into the intricacies of carbon finance with my guest, David Antonioli. We explore the concept of transformational finance, where carbon payments are used to catalyze sustainable practices that can eventually stand on their own. We discuss the limitations…
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103 | Jen Jenkins on Purists, Pragmatists, and Science-Based Targets
In Episode 103 of Bionic Planet, titled "Purists, Pragmatists, and the Science-Based Targets Initiative," we delve into the complex world of emission reduction targets and the challenges companies face to reach net zero emissions by 2050. The episode explores the Science-Based Targets Initiative...
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102 | Understanding Science and Communicating Uncertainty in Climate Solutions, with Gil Pontius (AKA, Dr Stardust)
In this episode, I had the pleasure of interviewing Robert Gilmore Pontius, Jr., a geography professor at Clark University specializing in geographic information science. Dr. Pontius shared his expertise in computer simulation models of deforestation and the impact of land change on humans. Dr....
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101 | Interface, Inc May Have Outgrown Offsets, but Most Have Not
Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/bionicplanet Two weeks ago, climate pioneer Interface Inc announced they would become carbon-negative across all their operations by 2040, enabling them to move beyond the use of carbon credits. Some people heralded this as a sign that the days of...
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100 | The Untold Story of the Voluntary Carbon Market
Become a patron at https://www.patreon.com/bionicplanet In Episode 100 of Bionic Planet, part of the Tribes of the Climate Realm vertical, we delve into the origins of the voluntary carbon market -- a story that has never been told before. Today's show is the first of many offering a truer,...
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99 | Mombasa's Big Ship: Reviving Urban Mangroves by Raising Communities
Support Bionic Planet at patreon.com/bionicplanet In Episode 99 of Bionic Planet, recorded in Mombasa, Kenya, the focus is on the efforts to revive the coastal mangrove forests that protect the seaside city and support its fishing sector. The episode features guests from the community-based...
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098 | The Case of the Tangled Titles: Unraveling the Legal Complexities of Land Ownership in the Amazon
Today we're going to try and help you understand one of the most vexing components of the climate challenge — namely, the overlapping, interlinking, and contradictory land titles that determine control of so many tropical forests — in this case, the Amazon, the lungs of the planet. With no…
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97 | The Mosaic, the Minefield, and a Manifesto
Photo courtesey of HH58 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=70303656 This episode of Bionic Planet is entitled "The Mosaic, the Minefield, and a Manifesto." The "Mosaic" reminds us that there is no single solution to the climate challenge. Instead, we have a...
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096: Encore Presentation: Tim Mohin on Overcoming Information Asymmetry in the ESG Movement
Tim Mohin wrote "Changing Business from the Inside Out: A Tree-Hugger's Guide to Working in Corporations" back in 2012, after three decades in sustainability — first in government, with the US Environmental Protection Agency, and then at companies like Intel, where he served as director of...
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94 | Zimbabwe's Cannabis Queen, Zorodzai Maroveke, AKA "Dr Zoey"
Dr. Zorodzai Maroveke -- AKA "Dr. Zoey" -- heads the Zimbabwe Industrial Hemp Trust, which is promoting the uptake of industrial hemp as a climate smart alternative to wood, cotton, and plastic. Hemp, she explains, replenishes faster than wood, uses far less water than cotton, and has almost no...
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93 | Zimbabwe's Green Cheetahs, with Chiyedza Heri of the Ubuntu Alliance
Zimbabwean entrepreneur Chiyedza Heri runs the Ubuntu Alliance, a company that's helping farmers leverage carbon finance to shift to more sustainable forms of agriculture. She's one of more than a dozen young Africans I met at year-end climate talks in Dubai (COP 28) -- a new breed of…
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92 | COP 28 Article 6: Expectations for Final Day
With just one full day of negotiations remaining, Pedro Venzon and Andrea Bonzanni of the International Emissions Trading Association summarize the remaining issues under Article 6
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91 | Article 6 Update from Dubai with Kelley Hamrick Malvar of The Nature Conservancy
Article 6 negotiations, which focus on international carbon markets, remain stalled in Dubai. Kelley Hamrick Malvar of The Nature Conservancy offers a look into the current state of play and the road ahead.
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90| George Thumbi: Man of a Million Trees (5th Installment, "Carbon in Kenya")
Kenyan agronomist George Thumbi is helping farmers in the region between Tsavo East and Tsavo West improve their yields and their soil by shifting to agroforestry and other forms of sustainable agriculture.
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89 | How Agroforestry is Reshaping the Kenyan Countryside
This piece, adapted from a piece that first ran in 2016, serves as the fourth installment in our continuing series on carbon finance in Kenya. Today, we look at how carbon finance supports Sustainable Agriculture Land Management (SALM), which has doubled the average income of more than 30,000...
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88 | The Gospel of REDD+ According to Bees
In part three of our continuing series from Kenya, we hear how the Chyulu Hills REDD+ Project helped people switch from burning trees for charcoal to conserving forests -- the their benefit and the benefit of us all.
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087 | How Ending Deforestation Revived a Major River, Slowed Climate Change, and Saved Lives
Evans Maneno is Makueni County Ecosystem Conservator for the Kenya Forestry Service. He walks us through a tree nursery in the Chyulu Hills and explains how the Chyulu Hills REDD+ Project has reversed deforestation by helping people develop sustainable livelihoods -- reviving in the process a...
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86 | The Race to Save the Cloud Forests of Kenya's Chyulu Hills
A decade ago, the cloud forests of Kenya's Chyulu Hills were on the brink of collapse, threatening water supplies for the Tsavo and Amboseli Plains — and for the coastal City of Mombasa, 250 kilometers away. Then the Kenya Forestry and Wildlife Services teamed up with the Maasai Wilderness...
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085 | Can Ghana Leverage REDD+ to Save its Cocoa Farmers? A conversation with Roselyn Fosuah Adjei of Ghana's Forestry Commission
Ghana's cocoa economy is second only to Côte d'Ivoire's, but climate change threatens to decimate it. Today's guest, Roselyn Fosuah Adjei of the Ghana Forestry Commission, is charged with leveraging carbon finance -- and specifically REDD+ -- to avert that disaster.
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084 | Treeless Neighborhoods and Poverty: the Deadly Link and How to Address it
A 2021 study of trees in America showed that poor neighborhoods had far fewer trees than wealthier ones, and that translates into higher temperatures, poorer air, and more deaths. Jad Daley of American Forests explains the Tree Equity Score, what it means, and his organization's effort to plant…
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083 | What to Make of COP27, with Jos Cozijnsen of Climate Neutral Group
Jos Cozijnsen has been working the climate puzzle for decades -- first by helping to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol and then by helping NGOs like the Environmental Defense Fund craft legal policies with teeth. Today, he offers his take on the year-end climate talks (COP27), which took place last...
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082 | Every Tree on the Planet Mapped, with Sassan Saatchi of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab.
Under the Paris Climate Agreement, countries must document all of their greenhouse gas emissions and sinks, and that means measuring changes in tree cover. NASA Senior Scientist Sassan Saatchi has spent 30 years helping the world's space agencies and foresters do just that by blending the newest...
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081 | How to Build a Methodology, with Max DuBuisson of Indigo Ag
Just over four years ago, Max DuBuisson took on one of the most difficult challenges you can imagine: namely, spearheading the creation of a new carbon methodoilogy undr both the Verified Carbon Standard and the Climate Action Reserve. Dubbed the "Methodology for Improved Agricultural Land...
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80 | Forty Years of Sustainability Finance: Making ESG Work
Tim Mohin wrote "Changing Business from the Inside Out: A Tree-Hugger's Guide to Working in Corporations" back in 2012, after three decades in sustainability -- first in government, with the US Environmental Protection Agency, and then at companies like Intel, where he served as director of...
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79 | Clean Water and the Courts: a Pre-History of Sackett vs EPA
On October 2, 2022, the US Supreme court heard a case that could impact the quality of water across the United States. Sackett v EPA dates back to 2004, but the forces impacting the case date back to the 1960s and, arguably, centuries earlier. Today we revisit a 2019 episode, where we dove deep...
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78 | Helping Farmers Save Forests in Guatemala's Caribbean Coast
Marco Cerezo of Guatemalan NGO FUNDAECO explains how he's using carbon finance to help Guatemalan farmers demarcate their land and save surrounding forests. Related Links: https://www.worldlandtrust.org/news/2021/10/marco-cerezo/...
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77 | Where Does Healthy Critique End and Cynical Denial Begin?
The science-denial movement delayed action on climate change for decades, and now the tropes they used are creeping into coverage of emerging climate solutions. Here's one way of differentiating between honest inquiry and something more nefarious. Third of a three-part series. All links available...
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76 | Six Lessons from 45 Years of Natural Climate Solutions
When popular media get natural climate solutions wrong, it's usually because they're struggling to understand complex mechanisms that have evolved over more than 45 years. Here is a brief look back on that evolution. Second of a three-part series adapted from Ecosystem Marketplace Click here for...
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75 l Coverage of Climate Solutions Suffer the Same Fate as Coverage of Climate Science?
News outlets are finally allocating resources to coverage of climate solutions, and most reporters are trying to get these complex issues right. Some, however, are repeating the same mistakes that derailed coverage of climate science itself for decades. Adapted from stories that first appeared on...
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074 |Why the Global South Needs Voluntary Carbon Markets
We kick off Season Seven with a look at the Voluntary Carbon Market Global Dialogue and the six keys to making sure voluntary carbon markets work for the Global South. Guests: Adriaan Korthuis, Paul Butarbutar, Kuki Soejachmoen, and Annie Groth. Related Links: https://vcm-gd.org/...
About this show
We've entered a new epoch: the Anthropocene, and nothing is as it was. Not the trees, not the seas – not the forests, farms, or fields – and not the global economy that depends on all of these. What does this mean for your investments, your family's future, and the future of man? Each week, we dive into these issues to help you Navigate the New Reality.
Hosted by
Steve Zwick