Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. It's all about
Speaker 1: the climate. We're gonna talk about the author of a
Speaker 1: book about climate restoration, a different way of really protecting
Speaker 1: our environment and really making a difference. Yeah, I get
Speaker 1: you know. It's interesting, Carol. We talked about technologies that
Speaker 1: can actually help us avoid a catastrophe when it comes
Speaker 1: to climate change, and the author who's going to be
Speaker 1: joining us in just a second, Peter Fakowski, argues that
Speaker 1: there are actually technologies out there that are safe and
Speaker 1: effective in reducing carbon Yeah, this is an interesting dude.
Speaker 1: He's an m I T. Educated physicist and engineers worked
Speaker 1: for NASA. Uh. He's also worked at the fair Child Slumberg,
Speaker 1: a AI Intel lab in Palolato, California. So he looks
Speaker 1: at this from a very it sounds like scientific way.
Speaker 1: So let's get to Peter. He joins us now via
Speaker 1: zoom from Los Altos, California. Peter, it is good to
Speaker 1: have you here with us. We've only got a certain
Speaker 1: amount of time. Climate anything with the climate is a
Speaker 1: big topic that you could spend hours on. Tell us
Speaker 1: about your thesis. What is climate restoration? Well, climate restoration
Speaker 1: is very interesting. It's the it's the goal of restoring
Speaker 1: the climate that humans have actually survived long term, and
Speaker 1: so it's much more radical than the conventional thinking of
Speaker 1: trying to reduce the damage. It's uh, it's the engineering
Speaker 1: idea of we want to restore what works for human
Speaker 1: beings well, and it turns out that we have the
Speaker 1: technology and the finance to do it. We just need
Speaker 1: to start talking about it because we've been talking about
Speaker 1: a much worse goal. What's interesting is I've never heard
Speaker 1: of this technology that you argue we have right now.
Speaker 1: Ocean pasture restoration for example, synthetic limestone manufacture, seaweed permaculture,
Speaker 1: and methane oxidation. These are the four technologies you say
Speaker 1: that can help us get us there. Let's start with
Speaker 1: ocean pasture restoration. How does it work? Yeah, so the
Speaker 1: four methods. First of all, the reason that you have
Speaker 1: an heard about them is that we haven't had to
Speaker 1: goal of restoring the climate yet. These have all been
Speaker 1: around for quite a while. Um Ocean pastor restoration also
Speaker 1: called ocean iron fertilization. It is this the same process
Speaker 1: that Nature uses to uh to cool the planet before
Speaker 1: ice ages, and so nature removes a trillion tons of
Speaker 1: C O two before for each ice age. There have
Speaker 1: been ten in the last million years. And we know
Speaker 1: how to do the same thing. And the idea is UH.
Speaker 1: We all know that photosynthesis like trees, absorbs CO two.
Speaker 1: But the trouble with trees, of course, is that they
Speaker 1: end up dying after a few decades and the carbon
Speaker 1: goes back into the air when the trees wrong. In
Speaker 1: the ocean, when plants grow, they sink and so and
Speaker 1: then there's no oxygen in the deep ocean, and so
Speaker 1: the carbon. They take the carbon with them as they
Speaker 1: and of course a lot of the plants are eaten
Speaker 1: by fish and all the detritus sinks into the deep ocean.
Speaker 1: And as I said, that's how nature uh cool the
Speaker 1: planet for our ice ages. And so the way this operates,
Speaker 1: and it was tested ten years ago. It was tested
Speaker 1: also by Mount Pinatubo thirty years ago. UM is uh local,
Speaker 1: it's localized, and it's intermittent. So you do it. They
Speaker 1: do it in eddies, which are about a hundred miles
Speaker 1: in diameter in the ocean. And UH. The eddy contains
Speaker 1: the iron. The iron is phenomenally small amount. It's like
Speaker 1: a hundredth of a teaspoon per square meter, and um,
Speaker 1: within days it turns green from blue. Blue is beautiful,
Speaker 1: but it's not green. Green is where you have photosynthesis.
Speaker 1: And then within another week or so fish start coming
Speaker 1: in and feeding on there on the the luncheon counter there, uh,
Speaker 1: and and off you go. When it was tested, they
Speaker 1: were told that they just a question a hundred million
Speaker 1: tons of CEO two. That sounds like a lot. What's
Speaker 1: interesting is you know, and we're gonna continue the conversation
Speaker 1: just a moment and maybe talk about some of the
Speaker 1: other methods and just got about a minute here and
Speaker 1: then we'll continue on the other side of the break.
Speaker 1: But I do wonder at the same time, do we
Speaker 1: not also though you need to think about reducing our
Speaker 1: carbon footprint? Yes, we absolutely do. Well, yes, and no
Speaker 1: that we we need to reduce our carbon footprint. Worrying
Speaker 1: is really less effective than doing it, and so I've
Speaker 1: focus on just do it. Uh. You know, I'm planning
Speaker 1: to have an electric car be my next car when
Speaker 1: my current car wears out. And I think probably a
Speaker 1: lot of the people listening are already planning on that,
Speaker 1: so that transition is happening, but we haven't been thinking
Speaker 1: about actually restoring the climate. And especially for our young listeners,
Speaker 1: plan on being around rather than giving up the ghosts,
Speaker 1: because if you plan on being around, then you'll pay
Speaker 1: attention to these big four solutions. I want to continue
Speaker 1: with that and talk seaweed permaculture and exactly what it
Speaker 1: is and how it gets carbon out of the ecosystem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: seaweed permaculture is a variation on on the iron fertilization.
Speaker 1: So as I said, Uh, the important thing in the
Speaker 1: ocean is when you grow plants, when they die, they
Speaker 1: sink with is no oxygen and the oxygen stays out.
Speaker 1: And with seaweed permaculture, the for the nutrients that are
Speaker 1: missing are brought up from the deep ocean in a
Speaker 1: large pipe solar powered, takes very very little energy, and
Speaker 1: then um, the seaweed grows. Some of the seaweed is used,
Speaker 1: uh is actually harvested and sold for products, some of
Speaker 1: which sell for a thousand dollars a ton um. And uh,
Speaker 1: probably half the seaweed ends up falling deep into the ocean. UH,
Speaker 1: some of it cut, some of it just naturally falling,
Speaker 1: and it's fairly simple. The difficulty is you've got they
Speaker 1: build a structure that this the help grows on and
Speaker 1: and that takes some technology. But just like the the
Speaker 1: iron fertilization, it's uh, that's a commercial product, and so
Speaker 1: so it pays for itself a peter you spent, it's
Speaker 1: a commercial product. Let's talk an end there because I'm wondering,
Speaker 1: if this is so effective, where's the money in it?
Speaker 1: And I asked that in the you know, the question
Speaker 1: not in a cynical way, but in a way that
Speaker 1: motivates companies to do this to make sure that we
Speaker 1: have a future. Yes, it's an interesting challenge because uh,
Speaker 1: you know, of the we have are the four U
Speaker 1: pathways and they're all self financing UM and this is
Speaker 1: the same model that put a c O two into
Speaker 1: the air. That is, we had companies selling us heat
Speaker 1: and energy which had a by product putting CEO two
Speaker 1: up with these for products, the the uh, the seaweed,
Speaker 1: the limestone, the ocean fertilization which leads to fish. You
Speaker 1: get product which has a byproduct of pulling CEO two out.
Speaker 1: Right Now, the challenge is UM and This is something
Speaker 1: that we're dealing with right now, is we're afraid to
Speaker 1: list these on the on the open market because the
Speaker 1: customers I canna say, wait a minute, my retirement depends
Speaker 1: on it. And so we want to make sure that
Speaker 1: people doing this are primarily interested in restoring the climate
Speaker 1: for our children and grandchildren, only secondarily interested in making money. Well,
Speaker 1: it almost sounds like you've gotta have governments involved who
Speaker 1: recognize these methods and before it gets too late. Peter Fakowski,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, founder uh In Shermany Meritus, a
Speaker 1: Foundation for Climate Restoration. Check out his book that has
Speaker 1: got the title of Climate Restoration in it. Thanks for
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