You're listening to the reversing climate change,
podcast by the team at Nori. The carbon removal Marketplace.
This is a show about the innovators and entrepreneurs
developing solutions to climate change.
Hello and welcome to the reversing climate change
podcast. I'm Ross Kenyan I'm the creative
editor at Nori's carbon removal Marketplace.
Today I have with me, Theresa Carey to reset your a senior
staff writer at free think. And before becoming a journalist
I saw that you have as a former career, a previous career as a
professional Mariner and US Coast Guard.
Licensed Captain, that's a cool sentence to say.
Yes. Yep, that's right.
That's what I used to do. I feel like I'm being out on the
water on the ocean. So much is really what motivated
me to become a science journalist and take an interest
in learning more about our planet.
Yeah, I can see some of the ways that would naturally occur and
we're going to talk about your articles.
You've written a number of things for free think that
relate to climate change related to carbon removal and I want to
dig into that but I want to unpack a little bit of what you
just said. How did being a professional
Mariner lead you to science communication to journalism to
your current career? Well, my bachelor's degree is an
environmental science, so that's where I started.
And I think at the time though I chose it because I Doing well in
those classes and and you know, I enjoyed it but then I went on
to become a captain and I did that for quite a long time.
It's really challenging for women to be captains and I
worked really hard at it and I had made a lot of progress in
that industry and I'm still doing a little bit with that
industry. And I still really enjoy it very
much, but it was actually a trip sailing Expedition that I did.
The goal of the whole trip was to sail as far north as we could
to see an iceberg. It turns out you don't have to
say all so far north to see an iceberg.
But what happened that year or two things happened?
One was production company wanted to make a film about this
journey and so suddenly, I was this odd reality movie
personality which was very uncomfortable.
But the other thing that happened was the Petermann Ice
Island. Which was the largest Greenland
Iceberg on record broke from Greenland and was set adrift in
the currents. And so suddenly our goal was to
see the Petermann Ice Island. This historic Iceberg, and we
did get to see it or at least fragments of it.
It was massive. And just along the way, I talked
to scientists, I talked to fisherman my talk to people in
local communities and small, Nova Scotia towns and
Newfoundland towns, and just learned more about their
connection to the environment, and to the ice and, and all of
that. And it was very that part of the
journey, was really exciting for me.
I'm sorry, I'm just stung With Envy.
How did I end up having horrible landlubber career?
No, no, don't be, don't be that way.
I mean, it's, it's definitely a it was a different life, you
know. I lived on boats for a long time
and now, I have my first house. My first couch, my first readily
available everyday hot shower if I want, and it's just a
different life and it's, you know, there's a give-and-take to
everything. So How long were you selling?
Well, a lady never reveals her age and so that's not exactly
what I'm asking. I mean but you know, my age, if
I told you how I've been feeling actually, since I was eight
years old, I'll say that because I was eight years old and I
became a captain when I was 21. So I've been feeling a long time
and I've been working my very first job.
Well, my first job was as a florist but my first job when I
graduated high school was as a sailor.
And every job after that pretty Which when I was in college in
the summer, I would sail for work and and then after I
graduated, I just went into boats.
So long time, all sorts of boats, the reason I ask is, have
you been sailing long enough to notice climate changes with how
you've interacted with your sailing work?
We had John kretschmer on. He's fantastic.
Yeah. Yeah.
I love John's Brooks. And I love having him on, but we
talked a lot about that about. Out the process of going to
Bermuda and the window shrinking of hurricane season.
Concerns about trade winds, may be weakening or changing in some
ways. Have you noticed anything like
that on your end? I haven't.
Sailed as much as John, I have not noticed things like that.
I guess I've been sailing in Maine, a lot and I'm oddly
starting to see sharks. I don't I'd never seen him
before until like two years ago and mean Had recently a shark
attack which is very. I mean, I've never heard of that
happening. And when I kind of came up and
as a sailor in Maine, the older Sailors, you learn a lot from
the older Sailors and they would say, oh, there's no sharks in
Maine at the water's too cold. Well, I know that's not
necessarily true but I believed at the time and I never saw them
and and recently I have so it I don't know if that's an example
of the changing climate, or if it's just I'm noticing things, I
don't know. Yeah.
Sharks in Maine is being unusual.
I imagine there's probably more people in Maine than previously.
I know people who are not mainers, who have yet moved to
Maine. And I can only imagine mainers
do not like this very much, but is it possible?
It's more people in the water or or do you actually think it is a
temperature thing? Even if the water is a little
bit, warmer from climate change, it's still wicked cold.
And people don't spend a lot of time in the water up.
Here we go for a dip. We don't go for a swim, okay?
It's really cold. That's a fun piece of anecdotal
evidence though. That now they have, there's a
shark attacks and there's being able to see sharks.
Do you mean like though? They're able to see their Dorsal
fins? And poking out or yeah, right at
the surface that I mean II don't scuba dive.
Very often. And so, the only time I see them
here in maintenance at the surface, I'm trying to think if
there's other examples, I mean, there must be other changes.
The Northwest Passage has sellable now.
Oh yeah boats are going through there a lot now and you couldn't
get through there before. Have you ever made it up that
far? Baffin Bay and heading up or
not? Not yet, not that.
So far. No Newfoundland.
The top of Newfoundland is pretty much how far I've gone.
Cool. Okay, well, I'm always
interested because I'm just want to be sailor, sitting here
reading, John's books reading Paul through, you know, living
that quarantine travel fantasy life.
So, you know, if you hear of any else any other things like that,
I find that to be really fascinating.
But in any case we can get into the meat of what you're
covering. Here.
So you ended up ad free. Think everything has a really,
distinct editorial voice and Vibe about it.
How would you describe for you think and you're beat there?
Rethink everything. We strive to tell stories that
have a solution or someone working on a solution.
It doesn't necessarily even have to be a proven solution.
Very often, it's not but just instead of focusing on the Doom
and Gloom and the problems that are happening in the world, we
try to focus on the solution. Now of course any solution is
going to be to a problem. So therefore in a story I would
write out also talked about the problem but A story We aim to
tell a solution and generally speaking.
It's very focused, very interested in technology not
exclusively though. Yassir.
Some of the articles that I see that you've written recently,
and I think a listener should get a strong sense of both a
free-thinking also, you Teresa. So here to go metal, eating
trees, could clean up abandoned mines?
You see, we diet could eliminate most of cows Greenhouse
emissions can see we'd Save the Planet, autonomous trash eating
boats, clean up, water pollution.
So there's there's a theme running through that and it
sounds like You've identified solutions to problems or, you
know, sort of outlandish solutions, that people are
working on two gigantic problems.
Mhm, I would say, outlandish is interesting because it depends
on perspective. When I first went, if I were, if
I had never worked at free thinking, I was reading these
articles, I would say, well that's pretty crazy and these
far-fetched wild ideas, but having worked at free think and
having to tell a new story every day and talk to the people that
are doing this, there's just a lot of amazing stuff going on.
On in this world and it doesn't seem too far-fetched now it's
it's really interesting what people can do and what people
are coming up with and how outside of the box people are
thinking. Yeah I suppose you know since
these are in like bench scale and being tested people, trying
to figure this out, it sounds magical and kind of strange but
I suppose if we did this 10 years from now many of these
things would be you know this is an industrial scale deployment
and you have other things you be covering which Would sound
outlandish? So felt like maybe if we ask the
people in the past are we going to be able to put satellites in
orbit? Or are we going to be able to
genetically modify things or change the planet?
So much that it warms it up a little bit?
People be like no that's crazy, it's impossible and now we're
doing it. How do you deal with the risk of
false positives and covering a story where you're like?
Oh, that was to exuberant. There's nothing behind it.
It was a bit flashy and caught our eye, but looks like there's
not a lot of meat on those bones.
So I sometimes have a hard time spotting stories like that if
it's if it's too, if it hasn't really been tested or studied
and knowing that, yes, this is this is working how its intended
to. I mean, I try to say that in the
article like here are here are the risks are here the
challenges. They're still working with our,
here's the unknowns, but sometimes that's hard to
identify, I got a great editor, Dan who helps out a lot with
that. And just I try to ask a lot of
questions from From from other people in that in that field of
study to see what their perspectives are.
And you know I learn a lot from people that way you have a damn
beer. Yeah yeah.
And Dan for a long time that guy is a very sophisticated BS
detector. I would not want to try to sneak
something by that guy. Yeah, I would agree.
We don't always agree on things but I would say that every time
he edits one of my articles And poses a challenge for me, it
always improves the article in the end.
That's good. It's good to have a relationship
with an editor like that. I've, I've heard less happy
relationships with editors so why you had those 20?
So everybody has that. Hmm.
Yeah. You've written for a number of
other Publications to do you think that the beat you're
covering now has continuity with those other Publications or do
you like to write about other things too?
So my training is in science journalism.
So that's a pretty broad beat, but I think I've written like to
politics stories and to Art stories and hundreds of science
ones. And then my personal interest is
in environment. And then recently, because of my
bachelor's degree and then recently genetics.
And so, if I'm trying to focus my beat down from this broad
science beat to something more specific, it's now honing in on
environment and genetics. Attics.
And then even more recently, I've become more interested in
climate and carbon and climate technology and Solutions.
In that respect, there's an entire beat just for carbon
removal and then amount of startups coming out.
I can't even keep up with them anymore.
I need your help Teresa, please start covering the.
I know I need help. I need your help to its to tell
me ideas of look into because you know every time I hear one
of these ideas like like you mentioned the two articles I
wrote The kelp forest in the genetically, modified trees.
And I'm working on a story now, about sand and mineral erosion.
That could lead to carbon sequestration.
It's just pretty wild. It's pretty amazing.
And so it's exciting to learn about.
I think that's one of my favorite things about this job
is that I get to learn all these cool things.
It is cool. Where are you working on a story
about Olivine? And yes, weathering.
See, I just need to listen to more of your podcasts I guess.
Yes, what did you do a podcast on it?
Actually I should I should find that one if you did.
Yeah, we've done some. We've had project Vesta on a few
times. I know there's other folks
working on enhanced weather and we've had great Dipple on from
University of British. Columbia has a lot of the it's
like, yeah, science behind it. So yeah, both the science and
the deployment side, we've done episodes.
There's a lot to cover the, it's actually really hard to know and
I also Have a hard time sometimes sniffing out exactly
what is legit versus what? Sounds good.
It's feel like I need. I need people on my team with
better chops on that. Don't want it.
I don't want to be overly exuberant either.
I need a damn beer. Basically dry, run everything by
Dan beer, I think he's pretty busy.
Okay. Sorry.
I'm not sure how much it doesn't have to edit out without
embarrassing, Dan. I think we can embarrass them a
little bit more into Be okay. Okay, okay, that's, that's good.
Yeah, I saw this, this article actually, we talked about it, a
lot when it came out your article.
Should we genetically engineer carbon hungry trees?
Definitely a captivating title. Why don't we dig into this a
little bit and talk about some of the details here?
What is happening in this story? Well, I think I just started
with that question. Should we could we genetically
engineer trees that soak up more carbon and just started emailing
people who are looking into this and asking them how it works.
One of the consistent things that everybody says is that, you
know, when we first learned about climate change, I remember
that John Denver's on plant a tree and you'll save for your
tomorrow or something like that to clean the air that kind of
rings in my head all the time because it all comes back to the
forest and that the rainforest and how it sequester's so much
carbon and it does that because it's an old growth forest.
The old growth forest sequester's way more carbon than
a new tree. I think it's something like it's
in that article but I think it's about fifty percent of all the
carbon that sequestered and trees is in 1% of the of the
trees, which is old growth and so it takes a really long time
for a tree to become an old-growth tree.
The idea with these genetically modified trees is that they'll
grow faster will become like an old growth tree.
And twenty years or 50 years and sequester just hunt a ton of
carbon. So that's one way that they're
trying to store more carbon and trees but it also has other
they're also trying other things too like deeper Roots because if
the route you know if a tree gets chopped down or it burns in
a fire or dies from an insect infestation and it falls to the
ground and rots. Then all that carbon is released
back into the atmosphere. So all the sequestering that had
happened. And is, you know, now, back in
the atmosphere, all the carbon and but the roots will stay
buried, even with a forest fire, even with insect infestation,
The Roots will stay buried. And so, another thing that
they're looking into is making the roots go deeper and longer
and by doing so they can sequester more carbon deep in
the ground, and they're doing that with trees and crops.
So, I thought that was interesting.
And then there's actually a third way, which really seems
Very futuristic to me that the idea that these trees, could
they modify the trees to make the carbon stored in the wood
and the wood is harder and stronger.
So it's a very good for building material, Ultra, strong wood,
and then the other one is that it can they can transfer like
the biological Pathways from corals into the trees and then
the trees will form like a calcium carbonate, which they
can Harvest from the trees and used as a feedstock.
Top four plastic, which that seems pretty wild to me.
I imagine like a treat, you know, the Money Trees dollar
bills grow on trees. I imagine, like, bricks of
plastic growing on trees, which I know is not how it looks.
But the in my head that's how it looks.
I read this. I had to reread this sentence or
paragraph a couple times. Hmm.
Where does the calcium carbonate come from?
How do they harvest it? Do they know yet?
So I got two answers that question, and it's not entirely
clear for me, but one answer, was it forms like a powder and
it falls to the ground and they can collect it actually.
That's the only answer, I got a powder or a larger, you know,
material that falls to the ground and they can collect it.
Okay, that one sounds. So remarkably get that you have
to admit. That's outlandish.
Yes, I do. I'm skeptical about that one
like the making trees grow faster.
I really believe science is, capable of doing that and deeper
Roots. Yes, yes.
But the other one, I'm not betting on it yet, but it made
it all. So, you know, in some ways makes
sense because the person I spoke to Charles delisi, he said that
corals are capable By doing this, they make a calcium
carbonate. So if they're, if they can
transfer, the biological Pathways from the corals then,
the trees should be able to do this too.
This is where I wanted this to go as well.
So with crisper transgenic modification, your oftentimes
taking a gene from an unrelated or very Loosely related to
organism and injecting it into a new genome.
So I'm Coral gene into a tree genome actually one of the
claims in here that maybe is a good place to start.
Is that some of the scientists were speaking with we're saying
that conventional hybridization and plant breeding Actually can
be riskier in some ways. Then transgenic modification.
I find that sort of a strange thought, but there's probably a
logic to it. Why do you think that is?
I think that there's a lot of resistance to genetically,
modify it especially genetically modified crops as being
unhealthy or these alien crops that we shouldn't be eating.
And so there's this public perception of genetically,
modified plants. And It doesn't entirely match
the scientific consensus about these plants which most
scientists would say know they're safe, it's fine for eat
them. It's not what you think if
they're not alien plants and I talked to scientists who was
working with the America still is working with the American
chestnut, William Powell. And he was working to
genetically, modify the chestnut to basically bring it back.
Not for carbon sequestration but his work was it was The chestnut
was basically wiped out from this fungus, but a lot of the
routes remained, and if they try to sprout a new tree, they would
be wiped out by the fungus again.
So he's creating this genetically modified American
chestnut, that is resistant to this fungus.
So it can grow and survive and doing that with genetic
engineering. He explained to me that the
old-fashioned way the hybrid breeding or the interbreeding
has more unintended consequences, it has has more
things that you can't control. Role versus using crispr, you
can change tiny things at a time.
You can change one gene at a time and see what happens, the
hybrid reading. There's all these other genes
that are being changed that are out of their control just by
chance. And so that's why there's less
risk with the high-tech solution.
It's not as alien even though the hybrid breeding seems like a
natural process and it is, but it has more unintended
consequences. Is that is that how he explained
it to me? And I really appreciate it as
explanation just because I'm I'm really aware of the genetically
modified, the public perception, the resistance to it.
And so I'd like to is explanation because now it gives
me a way to understand it and explain it to other people.
I think, That is a really fascinating point.
I think some of the concerns about GMOs, I think are a bit.
Yeah, not science-based. But there's a concern about like
an influence on one's body and alien organism that we don't
know a lot about it's unnatural and therefore bad.
And you might say well those concerns are overblown, some of
the more sophisticated concerns. I see about GMOs are things like
their bread too. Resist certain types of
pesticides and they're used to, to scale monoculture
agriculture, which is not really good for the planet, not good
for the environment. The pesticides aren't really
good for us to consume in many cases either so I don't know.
Is there a distinction being made there?
Or is it more on that first concern?
Where much of the debate is happening?
No, I think that's good. I feel like the debate isn't it
isn't a strong of a debate in the scientific Community as it
is in the public eye. The public.
And so I think that when people talk about it, they say oh it
needs to be not, I need to eat plants that are not genetically
modified and you ask them, why? And I've never hurt really hurt
a good understanding or explanation of why just like
people say I need to eat plants that are only organic because
it's healthier. Okay.
Why? I mean when it comes down to it,
what pesticides are being sprayed on that crap?
Like yes certainly there are a lot of pesticides that are not
healthy for us too. I eat.
But there are some that are also harmless that's not that big a
deal and some plants use less pesticides and others to grow.
And so when you really dig down into it, there's a depth of
understanding that I just don't think is quite reached the
public yet. And that's kind of sounds mean,
but I feel like I'm just coming into this understanding to and I
read about this every day. So I need to be humble about it
as well. I just think that.
Yeah, the public perception is exactly like you said, is this
alien plant? It's not how it was it supposed
to be there for, it's not But I'm sure that can happen.
But I'm sure there's a lot of GMO plants that are just fine.
Yeah. I think some of it and so far as
we're talking about pesticide and its relation to the GMOs, I
know, some some plants are relatively fine to eat
conventional agriculture. I think bananas have a pretty
thick skin. I'm told.
That's pretty safe. You don't want to do that with
strawberries. You like you, like you want
organic strawberries. In my understanding I heard the
same. Nothing about grapes either,
wash them really really well or always buy the organic which are
organic grapes. Are wicked expensive.
We had Paul Greenberg on recently and but one of his
lines from one of his fish books is that the story around tuna
and mercury became so simplified, it was just tuna.
Bad mercury, bad. Because the American buying
public Can Only Hold like one simple piece of advice and their
head at a given moment. Hmm.
And even what we just talked about with regard to pesticide
There are GMOs I think is already like beyond the Nuance
threshold. That is available.
Hmm. Yeah, we're all like that
though. And not I'm a science journalist
and I have I feel like like I said, I'm in this, I'm reading
this all the time, but I have these habits that I follow that,
make no logical sense to me anymore, like I read something
somewhere about tomatoes in cans reacting with the can.
And so I only buy box Tomatoes or fresh tomatoes obviously but
boss Boxed tomatoes. And now, it's just become a
habit, and I couldn't tell you at all, why?
Although I hope there's a very good reason for it, but I don't
remember what it was. I have so often started stories
in my personal life and probably on the podcast to like I read
something. And when I say, I read
something, like I saw a headline that I didn't further
investigate but nobody repeat now.
Yes and, you know, my goal is to come on this podcast and not
make a fool of myself. I probably shouldn't have said
the Tomato story but we all have a tomato story.
So That's okay. I doubled down on it for you so
it's okay. Yeah.
So one of the questions I had about this to that, I'd be
curious to ask, maybe you don't have the answer to this and
maybe this is a future podcast. But I know that the microbiome
that interact with Flora, for instance, I know, for Oaks and
truffles, the relationship between these two organisms.
I don't know that it's super well understood it seems very
specific when truffles don't appear, I think sometimes it's
puzzling to people who are even experts being like, Why didn't
that work? Here, Works 50 feet over there
and I wonder about making these small transgenic changes.
Is it possible at altars some of these more or less understood
microbiotic relationships. That were just barely starting
to dive into, I think that's totally possible.
And I actually talked to some of the scientists about this.
They called those unknown knock on consequences.
So you know, you changed the tree and then by Also the local
ecosystem and the truffles then therefore are impacted somehow
and that's totally possible. And so, in order for these
trees, these genetically modified trees to be approved to
be in the wild, they have to look into all of that.
And they have to study how the tree impacts the ecosystem and
four trees. That's really challenging
because the life cycle of a tree is very, very long decades.
And so, I did speak to one person who said that he was not
in favor of We modified trees but is in favor of genetically
modified crops because the life cycle is much shorter a year,
you know you plant a crop that grows you harvest it and it all
happens in a year and so therefore it's a lot easier to
study the local ecosystem and how it's impacting what those
knock on consequences are you could do several cycles of a
study like multiple years in a row.
Where as if you were trying to study a tree, you wouldn't be
able to do that. You'd have to find other ways to
get results to your study much quicker.
There's a sulk Institute harnessing plant initiative they
are working on genetically modified plants for carbon
sequestration again with deeper Roots faster growth rates but
they're they're plants across apps as opposed to trees.
So yeah, it is certainly possible.
And the concern about the effects on the ecosystem, Yes.
And one of the concern not to pile on because I think it's a
cool idea, but I don't have a tiny bit more and then we can go
into being wizardly and optimistic about technology in
the future. Will you cut that deal with me?
Is that okay? I mean, it's not just because
there's these possible consequences, I'm not doesn't
mean I'm not optimistic if they're looking into it.
That's a good thing, I think so. I think that's the right angle.
I worry about stuff like this just because it lends itself so
naturally to this, Fire for a single solution.
So I could see say for instance, that you know, deep-rooted
hardwood trees that are easy to grow and store.
A ton of carbon like figurative ton.
A lot of carbon is stored by them.
I could see them Timber companies deciding that.
Oh actually we're going to plant enormous plantations of trees
and straight lines that are all the same.
We're going to do this and it might be good for the sake of
carbon, but that is not really In ecosystem, it's sort of a
simplified simulacrum of Nature and I worry, that's for sure.
I don't know that this would find its way into a diverse
ecology, so much as being new plantation crop.
Is that something that might happen?
I think that could totally happen and I think also the
other appeal, they might plant them in rows, like you said.
But they also if they have stronger would they might more
readily chop them down and watched a little bit defeats the
purpose of Equestrian the carbon unless they're chopping it down
for building material, then then it's still trapped in that
would. But if they're chopping it down
for something that's ultimately going to go in a landfill like
making paper or something like that, then it would release that
carbon back. So, yeah, that could happen but
I don't think that would be a reason to not do this plan like
genetically modified trees to sequester carbon because there
will also be people that will plant the trees and keep them
planted. It might be used for both
purposes, I don't know. But We're going to be planting
trees in rows and chopping down trees, regardless.
I don't think that, I think we need to try slowing down the
subway. See what God has in this
problem, but people want think there are things they want their
space but you know. And so that's going to happen.
Regardless, I think that's a really good point on the margin.
What is happening here? Is it that we're, you know,
cutting down old-growth forest and replacing it with a
genetically modified tree Plantation.
I hope that's not the case because that would be I hope we
keep the old girl. I hope we protect the old growth
and plant these new trees and planting new trees.
And so maybe this would be replacing some of the less
sophisticated. Tree, plantations.
Hmm, something like that. Okay, that sounds more
reasonable. I will have to, we'll have to
see, I think so. I'm sort of echoing some, we
talked about this ahead of time, actually, the wizard profit
Takata me. Hmm, Charles see man, free think
Super wizardly. Lee, right?
So I'm playing against you today.
I'm playing. I have to fill in for the role
of the prophet and the prophet would say we should have we
should keep things natural. We should have never chop down
the trees and I mean obviously right.
Like that's what the ideal. What?
We're here in this situation already.
It's been done. So that's no longer an option.
I think what about that? I think that's a really good
concern. I see lots of Articles getting a
written. Although my science chops aren't
strong enough to say one way or the other, which way the
evidence points. But I see a lot of concern about
how's the world heats? The ecosphere will have less and
less ability to retain carbon. Which is really concerning if
you care about soil, Force, Etc. That's a major problem.
If the, in fact, I just saw an article this morning about the
Amazon becoming a net emitter rather than a net single it's
happens is that is enormously concerning.
So if that were to happen globally we would have to find
ways to make the ecosphere adopt and adapt quickly.
And if we were to just, you know, lean into our profit
instincts and say, well it's not natural, it's bad design.
Being at the world Burns, is that what happens?
I mean, isn't that we already had all these goals for planting
more trees by 2020, and we didn't reach those goals.
We save the rainforest. Remember that everybody had that
bumper sticker? And now look what's happened to
our rainforest? Like you said, it's emitting
more carbon and that's because it's being chopped down or it's
on fire or things like that. And so I really think we need to
do both. We need to protect what we have,
because it takes care of our Planet but also just because
it's beautiful who doesn't like to run and play in the forest.
And then we need to try to find these other high-tech Solutions
and not just because we need to really work on the planet but
also because it's interesting and exciting to learn about and
so I think that's a reason to do something to the guy.
I think that's right. Do you any of this Illusions you
come across given your urine free things.
Wizardly bent. Spook, you have you ever come
across something? We're like, all right.
That's a bridge too far. No.
Q. I think it in genetics more so
than in the environment I think sometimes what concerns me and
genetics is all these consumer genetic tests that promise to
tell you about this risk or that risk.
I think that there to me that's concerning because it's really
hard to understand risk. I just did a story that kind of
touched a little bit on the difference between absolute and
relative risk which is depending on what test you get, you're
getting different types of risk in its Hard to understand all of
that. That's like, statistics at the,
at a higher level than I learned in high school.
So I concerned about that. And then also just massive
amounts of people donating their DNA to these open databases is
concerning because we're all connected.
And So eventually you'll be able to track everybody somehow.
Maybe maybe I'm just still thinking about like Gattaca or
those movies that that do that but yeah I have concerns about
those Basis. So, you're saying that in the
future enough, people will do 23andMe or your siblings will
have done it, even though you haven't and they'll be able to
map all the genetic predispositions for various
illnesses etcetera and they clean app.
Basically everyone who has had a close relative, take the test,
something like that. Yeah, not even necessarily too
close but yeah, definitely. If your siblings done it then
then anybody who has her hands on that database can find out a
lot about you too. My mom actually got one of those
tests as a gift to my husband for Christmas one year and we
saved that box for months and I and I was like and I actually I
worked at the national Human Genome Research Institute as a
science writer on genetics at the time.
And I was learning for the first time about in depth about this
kind of stuff. And I remember saying, okay, I
support you, if you want to do this, but you're also making
decision for our unborn child and our whole family and I would
rather you didn't do it. And we ended up, we couldn't
give it away. I couldn't like, bring myself to
give it to someone who might want it.
Instead we just threw it out. Wow.
Are you concerned for genetic discrimination or Eugenics or
something scarier than those things?
What are you worried about? All those things are possible,
these consumer tests aren't there's not a lot of oversight
from the government. For those consumer tests.
So, I think that there's, I don't know what they're going to
do with the data in the future, but they've got it.
And then it's just like, okay, what can we find out about from
this test? That we really actually need to
know. That's going to change our life
in a positive way. Nothing nothing.
So it's supposed to tell you your ancestry, but it's only as
good as the number of people who have already given their data
because they compare it to a reference database.
It's only as good as the reference database, which is
pretty biased. And so it's like Well, this
isn't going to tell you much, anyways, it or even if it did if
you have European ancestry or this.
If it says this or that it doesn't matter.
It doesn't change our life in any way so but they caught the
Golden State killer. That's kind of cool, right?
Yeah, for everybody else but not for the Golden State killer.
I don't know that I want to make policy based upon what's a good
for the Golden State killer though?
No. But what about what's this?
Good for people like the Golden State killer was a killer.
Her but they can catch other people like they could catch a
person who had a child and gave the child away and moved on with
their life and they don't want to be found.
That's kind of a tough situation to be in.
They've done no crime and then they're suddenly found and
sought out. I don't know.
I just think that that's really interesting and I am interested
to see where this goes from here.
You know, I am certain that people have been found that
didn't want to be found or things like the connections have
been made for not for Killers, or for a criminals, but for
people have done no crime. They have made their lives a
little uncomfortable. Double, I'm certain that's
happened. Now, certainly it's made
people's lives more positive. They found people and reunited,
and in a good way to, but you just never know.
And I'm just really curious to see where it goes from here and
how this evolves and grows and changes.
Yeah, you got my gears turn in here.
Yeah, I, you know I'm a science writer and I'm supposed to be a
journalist. I'm supposed to be unbiased and
I am when I write I'm really open to learning from a lot of
people but as a human I have these I have a Ins and I have
ones that aren't necessarily rational, but that's just the
human brain. That's just how we are.
And so, yeah, I'm leery about the consumer genetic test.
Maybe, I can't pin it down exactly why.
But these are the things I'm thinking about.
No, I think it's fine to admit that I think it's, it's really
strange to think that journalists don't have their own
opinions and it's just the facts, ma'am.
That doesn't really exist to the extent that we think, I think if
you're able to acknowledge your biases and try to be Fair.
I think that's sort of the best you can hope for right?
Is there much more than that? Well, yeah and I am afraid, I
feel like I'm pretty fair in journalism.
I've been swayed back and forth. Many times about things where I
go into a story. And I think I personally have an
opinion about something and then I talked to someone and I've
totally flipped and then I talked to another person.
I've totally flipped, that's happened to me quite a bit and
so that's also another reason I love this chat.
I can't, I can't help but grow and evolve and so it's really
Exciting. I'm gonna let me spill out for
one second and I'd love to get you to weigh in on this with
regard to genetics. So I used to be pretty
loosey-goosey on bioethics. I think I've become more
conservative as I've gotten older and the sense where
previously. The idea of having designer
children, where you could select basically all of their genes and
their expressions, and sort of like customize a child, almost
like you would, a Character in a video game, that's too much
power for humans to have. I think I don't think that that
level of I can imagine status obsessed parent, tiger mom,
people doing this and it being just horribly oppressive and
disastrous and they should not actually have that ability.
I know that's coming. I've seen stuff coming out of
China about making progress on various things like this, but
it's just a company that came out just this year.
I did a story on it. Story.
I can't remember. Work it.
I think I'd have to look that up.
I think it was called Orchid, but they're doing consumer
genetic tests preconception. So, to parents before they have
a child can send in their spit, they'll get a report on their
genetic risk for common common diseases, like heart disease or
schizophrenia or concern is not that common, but more common
than like, I mean pregnant, women can get tested right now
already for certain genetic. Like diseases, but they're
usually ones that. And now we're getting into the
nitty-gritty of genetics. But the tests that we have now
are for diseases and conditions that have the genes have been
identified for. And so they could tell the
mother your child has a 50% chance of having this disease or
your child has a hundred percent chance or no chance.
And then this new test that came out where you can send your spit
in before you have a child. They'll say the relative risk
based on this reference database that they're comparing to that
your My at some point in the future, develop heart disease,
which involves many genes, not just one, and then also your
environment, what you eat, and how you live.
And so, I think that's really interesting to say, okay, I'm
going to now, choose an embryo, they can do this to that,
they're promoting this with this test that for people, people can
opt for IVF and send these embryos to be tested and then
choose the healthiest embryo to have a baby.
And so to have that eyes likelihood of having a healthy
baby I find that very interesting just like you're
talking about and I find it very concerning that this is a
privilege afforded only to the wealthier people because IVF is
really difficult or, and very expensive.
So, if I wanted to have another child, you know, people around
me are choosing the healthiest babies.
I don't think I'd have that option for me.
It's kind of weird to, then it would just like, make this Gap,
you know, I don't know what I'm trying to say.
Now, I'm just wondering but I found that story.
Very interesting concerning also optimistic to that you could
have a healthier baby. So I think it'd be if you knew
that you could easily prevent your child from inheriting
Huntington's or something like that like you'd of course want
to do that. But I also well Huntington's is
different because that's pinpointed to a specific Gene
and if one parent Parent has it. The child has a 50% chance of
getting it. You can do a test on the embryo
and you can say, yes, this child will develop Huntington's at
some point in their life. I must a diverse from a car
accident or something, but the inheritance pattern is very
easily understood. The genetics are absolute.
Your child has a 50% chance of getting this, whereas heart
disease is not the same. It's a whole bunch of or
diabetes. It's a whole bunch of disease
genes involved in creating that disease and the environment and
so it's like a The risk that's like, well, your child might be
50%, more likely to get this. Then these other people, this
other group of people, and that's hard to understand that
kind of risk is hard to understand.
Now, thanks for clarifying. That I only bring it up as an
example to say that. For instance, I have a friend
who only wants to buy a house when he is able to design it
himself. I'm like, but you're going to
design things wrong and you won't know about it until it's
Bill. Bill.
And then you'll have no one to blame, but yourself, and that's
how I feel about choosing too much about your child's
genetics. Like, what if you opt for all
these things and somehow they still something's just not
right? Or you like I almost like the
randomness protects you against this bad choosing that you did
and isn't our isn't it? Our flaws that make us
interesting in our life challenges that make us grow.
Yes, I think if you could have, I think everyone points to
Bioshock, right? Did you ever play those games?
No, I don't even know what that what that is.
So if you're interested in genetics, this is like one of
the main. I don't know if it counts as a
satire, it's more of like a giant morality play that's based
on Colony at the bottom of the ocean.
That is based on a sort of looser reading of Ian, Rand, and
the Nietzsche's ubermensch, and it's all done through genetic
engineering. Great these, this race of
Supermen and women. And of course, it doesn't go
very well actually. I don't know as much about those
games I probably should but I want to also talk about running
tight since you know, you're a Manor there.
Either mainers or new mainers or some mix.
Why did you decide to cover this story about seaweed and running
tide? Well I love seaweed is like
another irrational thing of mine.
I can't explain why but I find seaweed seaweed so interesting.
And so when I learned that there was a group working on
sequestering carbon with seaweed, I had to find and there
were so close to me. I had to find out more.
That's won't the only reason why I love any seaweed story.
Yeah. They're in there they're
definitely doing something really interesting and and
far-fetched to know we were talking earlier about things
that seem so far-fetched. This And also to me seems really
far-fetched but also really possible.
How's it work? And we're called Nori.
We're looking forward to a future of things like this.
Hmm. Seaweed can sequester carbon
just like any plant, just like the tropical rainforests only
this is an ocean forest and it needs sunlight to grow but it
needs depth to sequester the carbon.
So it grows really well near the shore where the sunlight
penetrates the water. But And if it were to die there
and decompose, there might be fish that eat it, it would
decompose and it would release that carbon.
And so it needs to be a really, really deep water in order to
lock that carbon in where the environment limits
decomposition. And so that's kind of the catch,
that's what makes it. So tricky to use, seaweed to
sequester carbon because it only grows in shallow water and you
want it to end up dying in deep water.
And so that's what they're figuring out, how to do it
running tide, they are growing. Going offshore kelp forests at
the surface of the Water by floating them on biodegradable.
Buoys and then when the when the forest when the kelp from gets
big enough really long and heavy than the whole thing sinks,
they're setting them adrift out in the deep water.
When it gets big enough, the whole thing sinks, the buoy
sinks, the the kelp, the little miniature kelp forest sinks.
And the idea is that it syncs all the way to the sea floor and
just kind of stays there forever sequestering, the carbon work
can't do. Decompose there's a there's a
mystery here though, in between the Surface and the depth.
There's a chance that a fish might eat it or it might start
to decompose. And so my question that kind of
was left a little bit unanswered.
During the story is, how can they measure how much of it
reaches, the deepest part and does actually get sequestered?
I need to know that if they're going to be a marketable as a
carbon offset, then you know exactly how much is being
sequestered. And I didn't understand how
they're measuring that but that's what they're working on.
This year is studying the feasibility and how to measure
what's being sequestered. I'm told it's relatively easy,
maybe it, maybe it's not. I do you know how they do it?
No, I just, I am sort of bias isn't the right word, but I'm
sort of the ocean strikes. Me is incredibly Dynamic and
hard to measure. What's happening inside of it.
That isn't to say, soil is easy. In fact, it is not, but ocean
strike me as being really changeable and fluid.
If you'll excuse, Use the pun, but I think once you go into
deeper water, I think it's relatively stable there's less
impact from currents and things like that, but I'm just, it's
sort of doesn't make sense in my head, like, how could this be
measured accurately? But I'm always told that it's
easier that I think in soils, in fact, in some cases more
difficult but now that I'm on the spot, I can remember who
told me this might just be like a headline I read.
And now I'm just making stuff. Totally, we learn things.
It's also how we learn the wrong things.
Someone said something in are minors once and I was like, that
sounds good. I'm going to pair it this back
for the next three years. Trying to figure it out though.
Yeah, they do he did say they're putting trackers on these buoys
so they'll know where they go at the surface but I would imagine
once they reach a certain depth, those trackers are no longer
giving them any information. Yeah, I think as I made there's
a big enough buffer and maybe they're conservative with how
many tons are actually being sunk.
Maybe. Maybe it just works with having
a conservative estimate. I don't know.
I should have them on that. They should, they should come
talk to us. I think it's really cool.
I love that people are now thinking about blue carbon and
really creative ways. I think the potential there is
enormous, and you're a sailor. So, clearly.
Yeah, this gets your Hackles up, I spoke to Adam basket running
tight and he was fantastic and you could tell he was just super
passionate about doing this as a service to our world.
You know, he was really enthusiastic about and really
optimistic about it too. And I don't think he was just
feeding me lines. I really think he was excited
about it and made me excited about it.
That's good. One thing though, that's
interesting. That Adam said and then also
some of the people I talked to who were working on the
genetically modified trees failed Giddings.
He works at a think tank, a theme that kept coming up, was
this idea that these things are buying as time?
So locking and carbon to buy us time and I'm just like buying
time for what for the real solutions.
I want to know what those are. You know what's coming after
these carbon sequestering solutions that are are, you
know, just exploding right now. What's what are we buying time
for? I don't know.
I think it gets pretty speculative the farther out, you
go. Mmm, I'm also curious how many
new categories will be created Beyond enhanced weathering or,
or the caliper soil or trees. What are the what are the things
we don't even know about yet? Is that sort of where you're
going with this? I mean I think it's I think it's
endless and maybe it's just because I started this beat
recently but I just see this more and more often in the news
and More and more new things popping up.
I actually do think it's not just my perception.
I think that it actually is growing because I also read that
the number of companies who are committing to Net, Zero goals,
tripled in the last year. And so there's a huge demand for
for the carbon sequestering. Carbon offset purchasable carbon
offsets, so people are going to be trying to Find a way to meet
that demand. I think so.
I think it's going to happen and I think NetZero inherently
favors carbon removal to relative to previous offset
iterations. So I think there's a bright
future for carbon removal. I think we're going to see a lot
of it. I also love seeing new projects
pop-up. I think this week, I saw we're
recording this in the beginning of May.
So I saw heirloom just came out. Did you see that?
No, some new director. R capture initiative that you
just lead us where they float, the balloons up into the air,
and they cool was cool. And they can collect the carbon
up there and ice crystals. I think that's a different one,
actually. Oh, so you're proving the point
though because there's I saw that one too.
There's just a huge amount of brain power and money.
That's going towards this. Oh yeah, I'm looking forward to
it too. I hope.
Will you keep covering this beat and dig it into these Solutions?
Mhm, yes. I hope so.
I also want to some of the questions that I have about
this. The more I learn about it is
this idea of Net Zero, we have these goals of Net Zero by 2050
or 2030. There's different benchmarks.
I want to know. Are these companies also
outlining a plan to get to that Benchmark?
Or do they say? We're going to be there by 2050,
and then do nothing for the next five years because they've got
plenty of time. And so I'm curious, there has to
be. You could say, oh, we'll be
there by 2050. And then you can make your buck
now because people want to buy from these companies that are
making these promises, they want to invest in them.
And then they, they may never reach them or maybe only get
started on it 20:45 and not have time to reach the goal and we've
made a lot of environment goals that we never met.
And the other thing that I have a question about is what does
NetZero even mean? Because I think of Microsoft,
which has a Leave. They have their goals to become
carbon - which is even better than that zero and then there's
BP which wants to be Net. Zero are they also including the
downstream emissions from the products that they sell?
Are they responsible for accounting for that too?
So these are just questions that I have.
It's like I said, I'm still learning about it, so it's
really interesting. Maybe, you know the answer to
those know. I don't they're good questions
though and people are still trying to figure out what
exactly it means to be Net Zero. Although I think that's in the
process of being much more codified.
Now, for instance, one thing I know that pertains to what we do
at Nori, is that to count as Net Zero.
Their carbon removal has to be practiced with at least 100
Years of permanence, which is new.
We'll see, though. I don't know about which Scopes
need to be included. That's always an active area.
For life cycle assessment fights, I don't know, but we
will see. I'm sure there will be plenty of
cool companies. Doing amazing things.
I'm sure they'll be some shell game activity.
It's pretty much exactly what you'd expect.
Basically, you have job security is what I'm trying to say.
Hmm. There's a lot to cover, so
you're okay. Good.
Yeah. Well Teresa have someone to
follow the work of you and your colleagues, where would you
direct them? The website, free think.com.
And then mine is well, my name is Theresa Carey and my website
is Theresa Carey.com. I put my favorite articles there
but free think.com is a place to go.
It's not just environment that we write about our carbon,
there's several great writers on the writing team.
The the topics are super diverse and the videos are stunning.
The videos are indeed very beautiful to links to all those
things are in the show notes. And thanks so much for being
here Teresa. Thank you.
It's been fun. Well, thanks so much for
listening. If you like what we do, please
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