Mad Scientists

Ever notice that when you go offline for two days, you miss some jaw-dropping headlines? As if pulled off the script of the dark comedic pages of "Don't Look Up," scientists last week chained themselves to the door of J.P. Morgan Chase to draw attention to the climate disaster financial institutions and the government have been ignoring. The April 6th protest was one of more than a dozen scientist-led protests worldwide after the latest UN climate report. The news might have been only a blip on my newsfeed if not for spotting this heartfelt message from NASA scientist Dr. Peter Kalmus.

Climate activist and political scientist Dr. Tadzio Müller put it this way: "life in 10 years on this planet will be significantly negatively impacted everywhere by the climate crisis for everybody, but we're not doing anything about it. We're just ignoring it."

The role of business leaders
Hearing from entrepreneurs in a recent panel, Climate Policy for Startups, with Anne Hoskins from solar company SunRun and Peter Minor of carbon capture technology firm Carbon180, the technology exists; it's the political will that needs development.

Of particular importance is not only stopping carbon emissions but removing them from the air. For now, carbon capture requires enormous capital investment but, as we've seen with other net-zero technologies, will only be economically viable once it's been properly funded.

Climeworks just raised $650MM for their carbon capture technology for individuals and businesses. Sweep is a carbon management platform out of France that raised a $73MM Series B. Carbon Capture builds the industrial machinery to do as its name suggests. They just raised a $35MM Round A.