Climate-tech founder Eben Bayer is on a mission to protect Spaceship Earth. And he says it's time for climate control, i.e. active measure that cool the Earth. Why? “Because all other reasonable approaches have failed miserably," he says, slapping the table for emphasis.
Eben is the co-founder of Ecovative and MyForest Foods, the makers of MyBacon, which is sold in more than three thousand stores. It’s a non-meat bacon, made from mycelium, which (more or less) means mushrooms roots. Fewer people eating meat —> fewer farting animals —> a cooler planet.
And Eben's latest Earth-cooling idea is (nearly) out of this world. Eben wants to put giant parasols in the stratosphere where they could block sunlight from reaching Earth. With "shade-as-a-service", a maxed-out utility (say in Phoenix) could pay for shade to cool a city or an individual could pinpoint a shadow over their backyard for an afternoon barbecue. And whether you ordered the shade or not, the entire planet would benefit from the cooling intervention.
The idea is in its early stages, but Eben says it's feasible and it's the kind of big idea we need to get climate change under control. And while the idea of messing with the sun may sound scary, he says we alter the climate in all sorts of ways already: " We are geo-engineers. We farm animal livestock. We live on Planet Earth. We have impact. We emit CO2. We should not limit ourselves to modifying just one or two atmospheric gases to modify the planet. It's not how we operate, and it's an unbelievably constraining framing if you actually want to address this problem in a practical manner... When you start to take that frame, the options open way up."
Eben is a fascinating guy — very steampunk in his approach to entrepreneurship — and I'm sure you'll find this interview eye-opening.
And a special shout out to my field producer for this onsite recording from Troy, NY: my eleven-year old son, Julian! He was my camera and sound guy and he also makes his long-awaited (YouTube!) debut to ask Eben a question about protecting Spaceship Earth. 🤩
Thanks also to PopTech, the amazing tech conference where I first met Eben, and where he became a fellow years ago when he was just scaling up.
Chapters:
02:30 Why Eben uses the phrase "Spaceship Earth"
05:30 The birth of Ecovative
07:00 What makes mycelium so versatile
09:30 From mushroom packaging to open sourcing the tech
10:30 The quest to perfect mushroom bacon
12:00 Why non-meat bacon matters for spaceship earth
15:26 Why Eben says we need to take active measure to cool the Earth
18:26 The idea behind Sundial: shade-as-a-service
22:26 How Dan felt the cooling effect of a total solar eclipse: the snow firmed up
25:26 Why business model innovation matters as much as engineering
29:26 Dan's 11-year old son (and producer for the day) asks Eben a question
30:56 Be brave and be open to new ideas: how we'll cool climate
32:26 What Eben thinks we'll be talking about in 10 years: squishy computers
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Future on…
~ Dan