Air mining from the bottom up
January 30, 2020
If you want to watch this message instead of read it, here's the video.
I've seen a huge change in the AirMiners community, and we're only our first month into 2020.
As you know, AirMiners is the world's largest community of scientists, entrepreneurs, and engineers working to mine carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Over the past month, we've got some big "validation moments" as a community. Microsoft committed to investing $1B into carbon neutral and carbon removal technologies over the next 3 decades. That's huge validation because it means that this industry is just beginning. This industry is going to be around and it's going to grow.
I'm also surprised to see validation coming from the military. The Department of Defense invested in direct air capture technology. They want to see more direct air capture technologies that can take carbon dioxide out of the air and make fuel with it.
That's all great validation, but it's top down. That's BIG organizations making BIG moves.
What I'm most excited about in 2020 is the bottom up stuff I'm seeing. Individual people doing interesting and powerful work.
For example, after that email about carbon credits I sent out last week, a bunch of people emailed me and asked "hey I'm looking for carbon credits, how do I buy them", "what makes sense?" "Are carbon credits just a lie to help me sleep at night?". Other people have studied it all and really gone through it and figured it out. It's great to see this awakening.
This is the stuff you wouldn't see in the news. This is all happening behind the scenes. Entrepreneurs are starting companies on AirMiners Slack, raising money (congrats Nori!), and planning conferences. This starts with just one, then two people getting together and say "what if we tried this?". It's working!
A few more examples....this website called ClimateCareers just launched. It's focused on jobs in climate opportunity.
Climatescape just launched a database of all the opportunities in the broader climate sphere.
The Determined just launched a new index called Climate Podcasts, "Just a bunch of really good podcasts on our climate crisis". If you haven't checked out the podcast MyClimateJourney, Jason Jacobs is terrific.
I'm seeing so many more people say "I don't have the whole picture, I haven't studied this for the last decade. But I know *this* is missing. I built it. Here it is."
It's super exciting to see all these developments take off. New validation from the top, new inspiration from the bottom.
I'm curious, what are you noticing that hasn't made the news?
SUBSCRIBE
I write a weekly newsletter highlighting the AirMiners community and carbon removal industry.
Every week you’ll get insider perspective and community stories from the cutting edge of carbon removal.
The purpose of this newsletter is to accelerate the carbontech industry by speeding up connections, progress, and coordination. It's ideal for people working in carbon removal already, or beginners who want one individual's perspective. People curious about carbon removal are encouraged to sign up and see what sticks.
Subscribe here to get the next weekly update as soon it comes out.