Transcriber: Gord Palameta Reviewer: David DeRuwe
“You can’t solve climate change.”
That’s what my engineering professor told me
when he found out about my startup.
I said, “What do you mean?”
He said it again: “You can’t solve climate change.”
I realized there’s three possible reasons he would’ve said this:
One, he believes that climate change is a hoax.
Two, he believes that climate change is too big to be solved by a human.
Or three, he believes that climate change is too big to be solved by me.
Now, I’m not going to tell you
that an individual can single-handedly solve the climate crisis,
but I hope that by the end of this talk,
you’re going to be more convinced that you, as an individual,
have enormous power to change the future of the planet,
to influence the future of the planet.
And I’ll even go a step further to say
that the future health of the planet and the species that we share it with
depend on actions by individuals like you and me
to take it into our own hands.
And I’ll tell you how.
So let’s take a look at the problem:
I live in Toronto, Canada, and here, winters are getting warmer.
We’re getting midwinter heat waves,
spring is coming sooner,
and summers are getting hotter, longer, and drier.
In fact, 2020 was tied with 2016 as the hottest year on record, globally,
according to NASA.
Now, zoom out.
Imagine you’re in the vacuum of space.
Everywhere you look around you, it’s barren, it’s inhospitable.
Imagine you’re put on a rocky planet, like Mars, for example.
Every rock and grain of Martian dust is completely void of life.
In fact, it’s the same story everywhere we look in the solar system.
As far as we know at this point in 2021, Earth is the only place that has life.
Not only that, but it’s where we evolved, and we’ve adapted to it fantastically.
The atmosphere shields the most harmful solar radiation.
The magnetic field shields us from solar storms.
The air is rich in oxygen.
The gravity at sea level is one G.
It couldn’t be more perfectly suited for human life.
And relative to anything else in the solar system, the Earth is an oasis,
and I think it’s important to look at it in that way.
Now, when I’m standing on the surface, and I look up at the atmosphere,
it’s a vast body that seemingly extends forever,
but from the point of view of, say, the International Space Station,
you can just see how remarkably thin the atmosphere really is.
Say you magically place a road on the Earth’s surface
that extends perpendicular up into space,
and ignoring the laws of physics, if you drive on this road
at a comfortable 100 km/h, or 60 mph, you'll reach space within one hour.
Not only that, but you’ll pass
through about 80% of the atmosphere within 15 minutes.
So I hope that just gives you a picture of just how thin the atmosphere really is.
Now, the CO2 concentration,
the global atmospheric CO2 concentration at this time is 416.75 parts per million.
For reference, over the last 800,000 years it’s never exceeded 300 parts per million.
This is taken from ice samples in polar regions.
One study by “Nature” suggests
that the last time CO2 was over 400 parts per million
was during the mid-Pliocene era, about 3.3 million years ago,
where, at its highest,
sea levels were up to 20 meters higher than they are today.
This was caused by significant melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets.
Amsterdam, Miami, the whole of Bangladesh would have been underwater
except for a small portion.
Choose your favorite coastal city.
50 million years ago there were alligators and tortoises in the Arctic Circle.
So the Earth has been warmer,
the Earth can get warmer,
and the Earth is getting warmer.
Although Earth has had natural and gradual fluctuations in temperature over the eons,
the warming that is happening today is for another reason.
So imagine you look at a graph.
You have time in the x-axis,
and you have CO2 and you have global temperature rise in the other axis.
You can see a direct correlation
between CO2 emissions from about 150 years ago up to today.
It kind of looks like this, and it’s going nowhere but up.
There’s a resounding agreement within the scientific community
that humans are the cause of the warming that we’re seeing today.
So now that this is clear, we have a problem.
Thank you ... I’m joking.
Now let's talk about solutions.
We need to get to net zero carbon emissions by 2050.
According to the IPCC, or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
countries around the world are going to need to decarbonize significantly
in order to prevent a 1.5 °C warming.
They’ve chosen 1.5 °C because it is shortly before the point
where we’re going to have feedback loops or a tipping point,
which is where warming will cause more warming,
which will in turn, cause more warming,
and that’s a point we don’t want to cross,
so we’re going to set a metric for ourselves at 1.5 °C by 2050.
Preventing a warming to 1.5 °C is going to require mass innovation.
The entire technological structure of our society
is intrinsically linked to fossil fuels.
This is going to require mass innovation in all major carbon-emitting sectors:
energy production and distribution, transportation, agriculture,
heating and cooling units, material production,
especially concrete and steel,
and, of course, pulling excess carbon out of the atmosphere that already exists.
This is going to be hard,
and I picture it’s going to be the global challenge of the 21st century,
but the good news is that countries around the world
have now recognized and are seriously committed to solving this problem.
In 2015, 191 countries signed COP 21, or the Paris Agreement,
legally binding them to reduce their emissions drastically
to prevent a 1.5 °C warming above pre-industrial levels by 2050.
With commitment comes financial investment.
In Biden’s climate and environmental justice proposal,
the U.S. will contribute $1.7 trillion over the next 10 years
to a clean energy economy plan.
Now, of course, political commitments have a flaky track record
and they need to be followed through,
but the point here is that money is now being allocated
towards climate solutions on a colossal scale.
It’s never been seen before.
Now, let's talk about startups.
In recent years, some startups have gone
from inception to a $1 billion valuation within three years.
There are other startups that have reached 1 billion users worldwide within 5 years,
and I believe that this is going to be surpassed soon.
Startups grow unfathomably fast in 2021.
Let me mention a few global-reaching startups
that are spearheading the climate fight:
burgers for meat lovers made entirely from plants,
fully electric vehicles for basically anyone,
CO2-infused cement that makes an even stronger concrete product,
or seaweed-infused cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by about 80%.
And my company - we use drones to plant trees.
By scaling reforestation, we scale carbon sequestration,
and since trees are the most effective means
we currently have of pulling carbon out of the atmosphere,
this is where we’re making our dent on the climate crisis.
We set a mid-term goal of planting one billion trees by 2028,
but we don’t plan to stop there.
Not too long ago, in summer 2019,
with an idea and enough insanity to give it a shot,
we strapped a paintball gun to a drone,
and with a cooler,
we shot frozen gelatin-covered pods filled with soil mix and tree seeds
into the grass in my friend’s backyard.
We got a proof of concept.
We launched a Kickstarter campaign, and a company took off.
Since then, our tech has changed drastically,
and we’re now scheduled to plant hundreds of thousands of trees across the country,
partnered with some of Canada's largest forestry companies.
Soon we’re going to be moving internationally.
Last December, we had a few job postings,
and we received over 700 applicants for a few engineering positions.
My experience in this company over the last two years
has taught me a few things:
One, people care.
They want to do something.
They just don’t know where to put their energy.
Two, startups grow unfathomably fast in 2021.
And three, individuals, like you and me,
have a seriously disproportionate influence on the future of the planet.
So to bring this full circle, let’s put any lingering climate debate behind us:
Humans are responsible for the climate crisis we’re in today;
we have in the order of decades, not centuries, to figure this out;
and that puts a lot of responsibility on us, on our generation,
to create the future of the planet we want.
I envision this as a future that is sustainable,
and by sustainable, that means one that will last,
and I find that extremely exciting.
By joining or starting a climate-driven company with an audacious goal,
you can play a key role in creating that future.
Some good questions to ask are:
What are some alternatives to this carbon-intensive process
that don’t currently exist?
How could this technology be electrified?
In the words of Jocko Willink,
“How do you get up before 5 AM? You get up before 5 AM.”
In my words,
“How do you do something about the climate?
You do something about the climate.”
I’ll leave you with this thought:
You have the power to take an idea in your head and make it real.
If you do this, the future will thank you.
Thank you.