Ep 204 | Kelly Erhart
Fighting for a Livable Future: Exploring Frontier Climate Interventions
Description
While current conversations about global heating tend to center around a few well-established pieces of science, we don’t often hear about the scientists and leaders working at the frontier of what is still unknown about Earth’s systems. This includes unpredictable tipping points and cascading effects of our rapidly changing climate, as well as the unconventional adaptation strategies that might help us maintain a stable planet. What is the newest climate science being researched right now, and what areas are we still needing to explore as we fight for a livable future?
In this episode, Nate is joined by climate philanthropist Kelly Erhart to discuss the urgent state of climate science and emerging response strategies beyond traditional mitigation and adaptation. Kelly explains the climate research that reveals increasingly alarming risks, including natural feedback loops such as glacier collapse, declining albedo (the reflectivity of Earth), and methane release from melting permafrost. They also discuss frontier emergency climate interventions such as oceanic carbon sequestration, atmospheric methane removal, and glacier stabilization strategies, among others – while emphasizing that none of these replace the need for the drastic reduction of emissions.
What are the biggest climate questions that are currently being researched? How can an interdisciplinary approach help us better understand the climate mitigation and adaptation options available to us? And finally, how do we, especially the youngest among us, maintain hope and motivation to continue working towards better outcomes for humanity and the planet?
About Kelly Erhart
Kelly Erhart is the Director of Partnerships at both Outlier Projects (a climate philanthropy) and Gigascale Capital (a climate venture capital firm).
Her work at Outlier Projects focuses on funding teams that are accelerating research on efforts to improve forecasting of catastrophic risks, and research on tools that could help stabilize climate systems at the necessary speed and scale. Previously, she was a repeat climate non-profit founder and entrepreneur; including co-founding Vesta, a pioneering ocean-based carbon dioxide removal approach.
Erhart’s multidisciplinary background spans climate technology development and commercialization, nonprofit leadership, entrepreneurship, and philanthropy. Erhart was also named one of Forbes 30 under 30 for Energy and Green Tech in 2026.
In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President
That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher
We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF
This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor
Show Notes & Links to Learn More
Download transcriptThe TGS team puts together these brief references and show notes for the learning and convenience of our listeners. However, most of the points made in episodes hold more nuance than one link can address, and we encourage you to dig deeper into any of these topics and come to your own informed conclusions.
00:00 – Kelly Erhart, Outlier Projects, Gigascale Capital, Vesta
01:10 – Olivine weathering, Geoengineering
03:40 – Kelly’s waterless toilet company
04:00 – Carbon dioxide removal (CDR)
04:24 – San Francisco orange skies, IPCC report on CDR
04:55 – Ocean alkalinity enhancement
05:28 – Mike Schroepfer
07:08 – Successes in deploying renewable energy, planetary tipping points
08:00 – More than $1 trillion went into clean energy in 2023
08:12 – 90% of new energy sources coming online in U.S. are renewable
08:20 – Our emissions are still not decreasing enough, renewables are being added on top of fossil fuels instead of replacing them
09:04 – Global effects at different degrees of warming
09:43 – The climate is becoming more sensitive
10:07 – Pollution clean-up, aerosols, and short-term warming
10:50 – Methane and CO2 releasing from natural systems (wetlands, melting permafrost, tropical forests) as a result of anthropogenic climate change
11:20 – Climate tipping points and cascades
11:52 – Collapsing ice sheets, vanishing summer sea ice, loss of Amazon rainforest
14:42 – 1.5 degrees C of warming hit earlier than expected
14:53 – Human (population) overshoot
15:20 – David Suzuki says it’s too late on climate change, and we must focus on local work
15:57 – Both mitigation and adaptation will be necessary for climate changes
17:03 – Multilateralism
17:24 – Cuts to U.S. (environmental) science research at federal level
18:44 – How long CO2 stays in the atmosphere
19:02 – Open system carbon removal
19:27 – State of CDR, CDR Factsheet, Need ~10 gigatons of removal annually
19:37 – Carbon capture and storage, carbon capture utilization and storage
20:19 – The ocean is a huge carbon sink
20:22 – Ocean has become about 30% more acidic since the Industrial Revolution
20:38 – Carbonate, carbonic acid
20:48 – Ocean alkalinity enhancement could draw down gigatons of CO2 annually
20:55 – We need 10 gigatons of carbon dioxide removal annually to meet IPCC goals
21:48 – Olivine
22:42 – Currently removing tens of thousands of tons of CO2 annually via CDR
26:30 – Superpollutants are responsible for about half of today’s warming
26:44 – Superpollutants: Methane, black carbon, fluorinated gases
27:20 – Methane cycle
27:29 – Hydroxyl radicals and chlorine radicals in atmosphere
27:40 – Need to balance methane production with atmospheric radicals’ capacity to turn methane into CO2
28:02 – Methane is responsible for ~0.5 degrees C of global heating to date
28:08 – Methane emissions: Energy sector, Livestock
28:20 – Oil and gas industry solutions to methane reduction
28:27 – Enteric livestock emissions make up a large share of total methane emissions
28:38 – The Global Methane Hub
28:45 – A Research Agenda Toward Atmospheric Methane Removal
29:00 – Livestock methane emissions by country
29:35 – Mitigation of methane production through feed manipulation, More info
30:05 – Cattle produce majority of the methane coming from livestock emissions
30:26 – Soybean production and deforestation in South America
30:52 – Methane emissions from thawing permafrost and tropical wetlands
31:07 – Methane feedback loops and climate models
31:13 – Global methane levels
32:50 – Resalinating wetlands to improve sink ability
32:59 – Atmospheric methane removal
34:45 – Frankly #109: Peak Oil, Ponzi Pyramids, and Planetary Boundaries, Luke Gromen: “Peak Cheap Oil and the Global Reserve Currency”
35:47 – Glaciers are driving rising sea levels
35:58 – Continental glaciers, Effect of glacier collapse on water supply
36:10 – Melting sea ice decreases albedo
36:24 – Thwaites Glacier, potential impact on sea level rise
37:04 – Number of people living in coastal zones
37:29 – Thwaites Glacier potential collapse timeline, feedback loop of fractures
38:31 – Sea ice melt and salinity, AMOC current collapse
39:22 – U.S. and Australia; countries least likely to talk about climate change
41:06 – Bill Plotkin on TGS
41:55 – Example of glacier refreezing itself to ice bed
42:06 – Kim Stanley Robinson – The Ministry for the Future, TGS Episode
42:12 – Pumping water from under glaciers to refreeze them
42:20 – Thermosiphon
42:40 – Thermosiphoning would require drilling ~10,000 holes in Western Antarctic Ice Sheet
43:02 – Ted Parson (TGS Episode), Edward Parson and David W. Keith – Solar Geoengineering: History, Methods, Governance, Prospects
43:52 – Stratospheric Aerosol Injection
44:46 – Earth reflects ~30% of sunlight, increase of albedo by 1% could decrease global temperature by 1 degree
45:20 – Drop in Earth’s albedo, Cloud feedback and climate sensitivity
45:45 – Atmospheric carbon dioxide measurements
46:50 – 1965 “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment” report to President Lyndon B Johnson
47:08 – Volcanoes affect climate change, Mount Pinatubo
47:15 – Phytoplankton, phytoplanktons’ role in seeding clouds
49:00 – AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol (Move 37)
49:02 – TGS Episodes on AI: Episode #203, Reality Roundtable #20, Episode #184, Episode #180, Episode #71
51:22 – Edward Parson and Jesse Reynolds – Solar geoengineering: Scenarios of future governance challenges
53:05 – The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering
53:27 – The Degrees Initiative
53:58 – Sheldon Solomon (TGS Episode), Terror management theory, Sheldon Solomon, et al. – The causes and consequences of a need for self-esteem: A terror management theory
55:22 – Joanna Macy and her work, Reality Roundtable on The Work That Reconnects
57:13 – Octavia E. Butler – A Few Rules for Predicting the Future
1:05:56 – Derailment risk, Positive tipping points
