Reversing Climate Change

Hannah Birge is the Director of Water and Agriculture and Nelson Winkel is the Platte River Prairies Assistant Preserve Manager and Soil Health Specialist with The Nature Conservancy in Nebraska. On this episode of Reversing Climate Change, Hannah and Nelson join Ryan and Christophe to discuss the conservation practices farmers are adopting in the Great Plains and explain how The Nature Conservancy supports them with funding, technical support and labor.

Bill McKibben is the author and environmentalist credited with penning the first book on climate change written for a general audience, The End of Nature. He is also a founder of 350.org, the first global, grassroots climate change movement. Bill was awarded the 2014 Right Livelihood Prize, the 2013 Gandhi Prize and the 2013 Thomas Merton Prize, and he was named to Foreign Policy magazine’s inaugural list of the world’s 100 most important global thinkers.

Chris Peacock is the CEO of AQUAOSO, A Public Benefit Corporation dedicated to building a water resilient future. Chris and his team use data science and machine learning to offer meaningful insight into water data and provide advanced water risk management and mitigation tools for the agricultural economy. Farmers, brokers, appraisers, lenders and water managers use AQUAOSO tools to identify, understand, monitor and mitigate water-related risks.

Tony Bova and Jeff Beegle are the CEO and CSO of Mobius, a mission-driven chemical company focused on eliminating waste by leveraging industrial organic waste streams to create new materials and chemicals. Today, Tony and Jeff join Alexsandra and Christophe to discuss the idea behind Mobius and explain how they are using the lignin stripped from trees by paper companies to make biodegradable plastics for agriculture.

Sarah is the Cofounder and CEO of Geospiza, a software company that helps corporations visualize, understand and take action around climate risks. Sarah has 10-plus years of experience in emergency management and public health, and she is committed to developing data-driven, evidence-based solutions to reduce risk and enhance resilience, especially for the most vulnerable. Sarah earned her Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Georgia and her Master’s in Public Health from Tulane.

Dr. Phil Taylor is the Cofounder and Executive Director of Mad Agriculture, a venture that aims to restore our relationship with Earth through the story, community and the practice of good agriculture. Mad Ag works on-the-ground with producers to design Regenerative Farm Plans, heal mismanaged landscapes, and help farmers and ranchers thrive—ecologically and economically.

Eric Kornacki is the President and CEO of THRIVE Partners, an organization created to provide communities with the tools to establish healthy, resilient, inclusive and vibrant economies. He is also the former Executive Director of Re:Vision, a venture that transformed one of Denver’s most marginalized neighborhoods by cultivating community food systems and developing a place-based economy.

Marissa, Mariana, and Paola explain how the microTERRA bioreactors turn the excess nitrogen and phosphorus in our waterways into fish food. They also describe their experiences in launching the microTERRA pilot in Mexico, discussing what they learned about leveraging every voice on the team to create a community of creative problem-solving.

Woody Tasch is the founder of the Slow Money Institute, a nonprofit dedicated to catalyzing the flow of capital to local food systems, connecting investors to the places where they live. Today, Woody joins Ross and Christophe to discuss how he developed the idea of Slow Money and explore the reasons why we can’t seem to get our money out of the markets and do something radically different with it—especially foundations whose investments are out of alignment with their missions.

Peter Brannen is an award-winning science journalist with expertise in ocean science, deep time, astrobiology, and the carbon cycle. Peter walks Ross and Christophe through the five major mass extinctions in Earth’s history, discussing what events triggered each extinction and how plant and animal life changed each time.