Inevitable

In this episode, I interview Sarah Kearney, founder and executive director of Prime Coalition. Sarah founded Prime Coalition in 2014 to build a tribe of courageous philanthropists that believe market-driven technology innovation and deployment is critical to our fight against climate change. Prime's approach is based on her prior experience with the Chesonis Family Foundation, graduate research at MIT, and her personal drive to ensure that our children won't have to confront increased geopolitical conflict over dwindling global resources. She believes the world needs a robust marketplace of catalytic capital investment intermediaries like Prime and that she will spend her whole career trying to help build it. We cover a number of topics, including an overview of PRIME and how the model works, why it matters for philanthropists and for the breakthrough innovation that is needed to help address climate change, and where else this model can apply beyond climate change over time. Sarah was a terrific guest, in that she is quite knowledgable, mission driven, and as high energy as they come. She’s also patient with all of my beginner questions, as “catalytic capital” was not a topic that I was very familiar with. I hope you enjoy the show! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and provide suggestions for future guests or topics you'd like to see covered on the show. For more information and to sign up for updates on My Climate Journey visit: www.myclimatejourney.co Links discussed in this episode: Prime Coalition: https://primecoalition.org/ The Fink Family Foundation: http://www.thefinkfamilyfoundation.org/about-us.html Program Related Investments: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundations/program-related-investments Quidnet Energy: http://fortune.com/2015/06/16/philanthropists-back-energy-startups/ Breakthrough Energy Ventures: http://www.b-t.energy/ventures/ Evok Innovations: https://www.evokinnovations.com/ Donor Advised Funds: https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-organizations/donor-advised-funds Impact Assets & Tim Freundlich: https://www.impactassets.org/about_us/team/timothy-freundlich Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.Connect with MCJ:Cody Simms on LinkedInVisit mcj.vcSubscribe to the MCJ Newsletter*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

In this episode, I interview Sanchali Pal, the co-founder and CEO of Joro, and app and community to help people automatically track their carbon footprints, discover and stick with low-carbon habits, and see their small steps add up to big impact for for themselves and the planet. I have known Sanchali for a while and have found her to be both very smart, and incredibly mission driven. I was a little apprehensive to bring her on as a guest, because I have found myself a bit skeptical about the impact that changing consumer behavior can have on the problem, given how deep the hole we are in is and how limited our time horizon is to act. But this is an important topic and debate, and Sanchali is as knowledgable on the issue as anyone. We cover a number of topics in this episode, including the role of consumer behavior change in the climate fight, what types of behavior change is most impactful, and what levers we have to impact consumer behavior most effectively. We also chat about what other areas can be helpful to the problem beyond the role of consumers. I really enjoyed this discussion, and Sanchali did a good job of educating me and making the case for why consumers play an important role. I hope you find this episode as valuable and informative as I did! Enjoy. You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and provide suggestions for future guests or topics you'd like to see covered on the show. For more information and to sign up for updates on My Climate Journey visit: www.myclimatejourney.co Links: Food, Inc.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food,_Inc. IPCC: https://www.ipcc.ch/ Joro: https://joro.tech/ Ant Forest by AliPay: https://www.alizila.com/how-alipay-users-planted-100m-trees-in-china/ Carbon Offset: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset Mobile Carbon Footprinting Project at MIT: https://climate.mit.edu/projects/mobile-carbon-footprinting-project-mit Katharine Hayhoe: https://twitter.com/khayhoe Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.Connect with MCJ:Cody Simms on LinkedInVisit mcj.vcSubscribe to the MCJ Newsletter*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

In this episode, I interview Pamela Templer, ecologist and biology professor at Boston University. Pamela is broadly interested in ecosystem ecology and the influence that plant-microbial interactions have on nutrient cycling and carbon exchange, and is particularly interested in the effects that human activities such as climate change, urbanization, and air pollution have on forest ecosystems. Her lab currently examines a variety of nutrient sources, including rain, fog, and atmospheric deposition, and how plant-microbial interactions influence nitrogen and carbon retention and loss within natural and managed ecosystems. It was fascinating to talk to Pamela, as her and her students are literally on the front lines in the woods, getting a first-hand look at how climate change is impacting our forests. She also helped shed light for me on how research labs at universities get funded, and what steps she is taking to make sure that the work they do isn’t just academic, but ends up having impact in the world. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and provide suggestions for future guests or topics you'd like to see covered on the show. For more information and to sign up for updates on My Climate Journey visit: www.myclimatejourney.co Links for topics discussed in this episode: Pamela Templer's Bio: https://www.bu.edu/biology/people/profiles/pamela-templer/ Templer Lab at Boston University: http://people.bu.edu/ptempler/ Boston University URBAN Graduate Program: http://sites.bu.edu/urban/ The "Climate Change Across the Seasons Experiment" in New Hampshire that Pamela's students and lab conducted: http://people.bu.edu/ptempler/workDetails/climateChangeWinter.html National Science Foundation: https://www.nsf.gov/ Feasibility of Harbor-wide Barrier Systems for Boston Harbor: https://www.greenribboncommission.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Feasibility-of-Harbor-wide-Barriers-Report.pdf Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.Connect with MCJ:Cody Simms on LinkedInVisit mcj.vcSubscribe to the MCJ Newsletter*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

In this episode, I interview Joseph Stagner, the Executive Director, Sustainability and Energy Management at Stanford University. Over the past several years, Joe and his team transformed Stanford’s energy infrastructure by electrifying its heating system, replacing its gas-fired power plant with grid power, creating a unique system to recover heat, building massive tanks to store hot and cold water, and building a solar power plant. This project cut the campus’s total greenhouse gas emissions 68 percent and is lowering the system’s operating costs by $425m over 35 years. Joseph was very gracious to come on and talk about the origins of this project, the hurdles his team met along the way, the results so far, and where it is going in the future. We also covered how these learnings can be applied to get other universities and entities with large campus infrastructures to follow suit. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did! Joseph is a rare one, in that he not only has a firm grasp on the problem and what is needed, but he’s gone out and deployed it at scale and is posting amazing results. His story struck me as a real bright spot in what, at times, can feel like an uphill battle. Enjoy! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and provide suggestions for future guests or topics you'd like to see covered on the show. For more information and to sign up for updates on My Climate Journey visit: www.myclimatejourney.co Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.Connect with MCJ:Cody Simms on LinkedInVisit mcj.vcSubscribe to the MCJ Newsletter*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Welcome to the inaugural episode! Our first guest is Daniel Hullah. Daniel is a longtime cleantech investor, who has seen it all, yet is still smiling. We had a great convo about some of the history of cleantech investing/innovation, where some of the biggest opportunities are, the role of strategics vs startups in pursuing that innovation, and how it all fits into our broader climate change problem. Tune in, and enjoy! You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and provide suggestions for future guests or topics you'd like to see covered on the show. For more information and to sign up for updates on My Climate Journey visit: www.myclimatejourney.co Links for topics discussed in this episode: Blackrock’s Report on climate-related risks in the market: https://www.blackrock.com/us/individual/literature/whitepaper/bii-physical-climate-risks-april-2019.pdf Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.Connect with MCJ:Cody Simms on LinkedInVisit mcj.vcSubscribe to the MCJ Newsletter*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant

Hello everyone, and welcome to My Climate Journey! I created this podcast to bring you along on my journey to better understand the climate change problem, and to identify areas where I or other people concerned about this problem (like you?!) might be able to help. Here's what you can expect: This will be a journey in every sense of the word. We will be learning in public as we go, as we interview guest after guest, and as we work to develop mastery in all aspects of the podcasting medium. Each week we will bring on a new guest, from a wide range of backgrounds, to talk through this problem space with them, learn more about their area of focus, and talk about what things can be done to make their area move faster, and for our path towards a solution to move faster overall. We will do our best to bring on guests from multiple sides of contentious issues, to further our own efforts to better understand the issues, as well as those of our listeners. We will not hold back from asking hard questions or engaging in lively debate, but our aim is to make sure every guest feels like they have been treated fairly and given a chance to express their views. Our goal is not only to surface the differences, but to find common ground across people with opposing viewpoints as well. If done right, you should leave each episode feeling more informed and better armed with actionable steps you can take to help out, all while being entertained along the way. You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and provide suggestions for future guests you’d like to hear on the show. For more information visit: www.myclimatejourney.co Enjoyed this episode? Please leave us a review! Share feedback or suggest future topics and guests at info@mcj.vc.Connect with MCJ:Cody Simms on LinkedInVisit mcj.vcSubscribe to the MCJ Newsletter*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant