Cooling Earth with everything from mushroom bacon to giant sky parasols | Eben Bayer (climate-tech founder)

Mar 31, 2026

Eben Bayer, climate-tech founder who builds mycelium materials and MyBacon, explores radical ways to protect Spaceship Earth. He talks mushroom-based foods and materials, and an audacious plan for stratospheric parasols offering “shade-as-a-service.” Short scenes cover the science, engineering tradeoffs, business model for utilities, and why active climate control deserves serious consideration.

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ADVICE

Match Biomaterials To Local Economics

Do target solutions to where economics and policy make them competitive, as Ecovative's packaging scales well where disposal costs for styrofoam are high.
Eben notes mushroom packaging thrives locally and where waste costs create demand, like Europe.

ANECDOTE

Five Years To Make MyBacon Work

Eben describes five years of single-SKU focus at MyForest Foods to develop MyBacon, emphasizing taste, crispness, and pack layout as core engineering challenges.
He highlights ergothioneine, fiber, and protein benefits as part of the product story.

INSIGHT

Mycelium Food Reallocates Resource Flows

Replacing animal agriculture with craveable alternatives shifts resource flows: sawdust into high-quality protein instead of boiler BTUs.
Eben frames mycelium foods as a new domesticated crop that reduces livestock impact while delivering desired taste.

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Climate-tech founder Eben Bayer is on a mission to protect Spaceship Earth. And he says it's time for climate control, i.e. active measure that cool the Earth. Why? " Because all other reasonable approaches have failed miserably," he says, slapping the table for emphasis.

Eben is the co-founder of Ecovative and MyForest Foods, the makers of MyBacon, which is sold in more than three thousand stores. It’s a non-meat bacon, made from mycelium, which (more or less) means mushrooms roots. Fewer people eating meat —> fewer farting animals —> a cooler planet.

And Eben's latest Earth-cooling idea is (nearly) out of this world. Eben wants to put giant parasols in the stratosphere where they could block sunlight from reaching Earth. With "shade-as-a-service" a maxed-out utility (say in Phoenix) could pay for shade to cool a city or an individual could pinpoint a shadow over their backyard for an afternoon barbecue.

The idea is in its early stages, but Eben says it's feasible and it's the kind of big idea we need to get climate change under control. And while the idea of messing with the sun may sound scary, he says we alter the climate in all sorts of ways already: " We are geo-engineers. We farm animal livestock. We live on Planet Earth. We have impact. We emit CO2. We should not limit ourselves to modifying just one or two atmospheric gases to modify the planet. It's not how we operate, and it's an unbelievably constraining framing if you actually want to address this problem in a practical manner... When you start to take that frame, the options open way up."

Eben is a fascinating guy — very steampunk in his approach to entrepreneurship — and I'm sure you'll find this interview eye-opening.

And a special shout out to my field producer for this onsite recording from Troy, NY: my eleven-year old son, Julian! He was my camera and sound guy and he also makes his long-awaited (YouTube!) debut to ask Eben a question about protecting Spaceship Earth. 🤩

Thanks also to PopTech, the amazing tech conference where I first met Eben, and where he became a fellow more than a decade ago as he was just scaling up.

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Music by Jonathan Zalben