Inevitable & Obvious

Plan C for Civilization — Ben Kalina

SRM Is Coming Faster Than You Think — Ben Kalina on 15 Years Filming Climate’s Most Controversial Idea Sunlight reflection has spent decades as an idea scientists batted around at academic conferences. Now venture-backed companies are racing to build deployment systems, state legislatures are passing bans on weather modification research, and the public still mostly thinks the contrails overhead are a government plot. Ben Kalina has been pointing a camera at this entire evolution for fifteen years. Plan C for Civilization, his documentary on the field’s emergence as serious research, is the closest thing we have to a real historical record of how this is unfolding. We talked about what changed Ben’s mind about the timeline, why average audiences leave his film more curious not less, the strange dynamics of venture capital entering a space that runs on trust, and what of the Stardust Solutions optics problem can and cannot be engineered away. Ben Kalina is a documentary filmmaker and a professor at Drexel University. His new film Plan C for Civilization follows the emergence of solar geoengineering research, centered on David Keith, the SCoPEx experiment at Harvard, and the late entrance of Make Sunsets. The film is currently in festival distribution and screening tour. More at plancforcivilization.com [https://plancforcivilization.com]. Key topics with timestamps * (02:00) The fifteen-year project — How a film begun in 2009 ended up documenting a field that took most of that time to become real * (05:30) David Keith, Ken Caldeira, and the 1998 Aspen meeting — The origin moment that drew two researchers in by trying to prove the idea ridiculous * (07:40) Why SCoPEx mattered symbolically — A small experiment that did the work of declaring solar geoengineering research a legitimate field * (09:20) The Make Sunsets entrance — Move-fast culture meets a field that desperately needs trust * (13:30) The choice to go to Sweden — What the headline missed about the actual procedural reality * (16:30) Time and the climate conversation — Why the carbon curve has changed how Ben thinks about decisions * (19:50) From “scare them straight” to “help them grapple” — How a fifteen-year project changed its own purpose * (23:00) What the focus groups show — Why average viewers come away wanting more research, not less * (28:30) The fall tour — Taking the film to states with proposed weather modification bans * (36:00) Storytelling and fiction — Why direct air capture, ocean iron fertilization, and SAI all need better cultural artifacts * (46:30) Slow science versus move fast — The dichotomy the field is currently navigating * (54:30) Stardust and the trust problem — Why isotopic markers cannot do all the work * (58:00) Who is actually in this field — Fifteen years with the researchers Notable quotes “This stuff is coming at us, solar geo, much, much faster than most people realize. There’s probably some major decisions that are going to start getting made in the next few years. And the public has no clue. And if they do, they think they’re talking about chemtrails.” — Ben Kalina “When you start talking about making the planet more reflective, that’s a ‘could possibly go wrong’ thought. That’s a classic ‘why the hell would we do that.’” — Ben Kalina “We could have the science down to a T with solar geoengineering. You could have isotopic markers on the particles you’re putting up there, and there’s still going to be a big piece of this that is just trust.” — Ben Kalina “Nobody in this field is a climate denier. They all come to this kind of as a career last resort, after having sort of figured out that there’s nothing else where they can contribute.” — Ben Kalina “Stardust Solutions, in this moment, being an Israeli company of former nuclear scientists funded by Silicon Valley tech billionaires whose stated goal is to change the planet’s temperature, and accidentally, by the way, name themselves after the empire’s plan to build the Death Star.” — Ben Kalina Get full access to Inevitable & Obvious at www.inevitableandobvious.com/subscribe [https://www.inevitableandobvious.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Iceland Declared AMOC Collapse a Threat — Páll Gunnarsson, Founder of Reykjavík Institute

Iceland is the first country to formally declare a potential AMOC collapse a national security threat. Páll Gunnarsson, founder of the Reykjavík Institute, has been close to the political process that produced that declaration. He explains why a country of 400,000 people moved faster than larger Atlantic-rim nations, what made the declaration possible, and why he believes intervention capability research has to advance in parallel with climate science rather than after it. We also dig into his case against the standard moral hazard argument (the idea that climate interventions undermine decarbonization ambition) which he reframes as enforced vulnerability, the position of telling the most vulnerable people in the world to remain vulnerable so that wealthier societies feel pressure to act. And we talk about what comes next: a September pledging event in the EU around the OceanEye initiative, an emerging coalition-of-the-willing approach to research governance, and what happened the first time Reykjavík civil society sat down to discuss climate interventions in public. Subscribe for free and get more detailed show notes at inevitableandobvious.com [https://www.inevitableandobvious.com/] Get full access to Inevitable & Obvious at www.inevitableandobvious.com/subscribe [https://www.inevitableandobvious.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Building Governance From Scratch — Janos Pasztor, Former ED, Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative

A former UN Assistant Secretary-General spent seven years trying to get world leaders to talk about planetary cooling. Most of them told him the same thing: "We can't talk about this publicly." Janos Pasztor led the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative [https://c2g2.net/] (C2G), the first organization to systematically bring solar radiation modification governance to governments, diplomats, and the UN system. In this conversation, he walks through what those private meetings actually sounded like, why a landmark UN event was killed by COVID days before launch, how a Pakistani minister's first question revealed what actually drives national policy, and why the biggest gap right now isn't research or technology but the societal conversations that still aren't happening. Chapter Timestamps * [00:00] Opening: “We can’t talk about this publicly” — what Janos heard behind closed doors * [02:21] What was C2G, and what does “governance” actually mean? * [06:59] Breaking down SRM governance into manageable pieces — research, decision-making, and the question of what happens if the answer is no * [11:44] The case against unilateral deployment — counter-geoengineering and the IPCC’s warning * [19:13] “What planet are you coming from?” — how reception shifted from bewilderment to engagement * [23:51] The Belgium UN event that COVID killed, and what it would have meant * [29:19] Why politicians are afraid to go beyond the 1.5°C frame * [35:02] How countries actually develop positions — the multi-layered feedback loops behind government policy * [41:47] “What do Pakistani scientists say?” — the global south, Degrees Initiative, and building local capacity * [47:57] What C2G learned about trust, impartiality, and opening doors * [53:12] The biggest gap right now: societal conversations that aren’t happening * [56:33] What keeps Janos awake — geopolitics, bandwidth, and the timing problem * [1:01:42] If C2G were active today, what would it do differently? Links and Resources * Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G): c2g2.net [https://c2g2.net] If this kind of inside view conversation where we talk about how governance actually works, what's happening behind closed doors, and what isn't, then subscribe at inevitableandobvious.com [https://www.inevitableandobvious.com/]. Every episode brings you into a direct conversation with the people navigating the hardest questions in climate intervention. Next up: we're continuing to build this picture of the emerging ecosystem with more voices you won't hear anywhere else. Get full access to Inevitable & Obvious at www.inevitableandobvious.com/subscribe [https://www.inevitableandobvious.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

"Are You Going To Stop Me Cooling The Earth?" — Luke Iseman, Founder of Make Sunsets

Luke Iseman is putting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere with high-altitude balloons and selling cooling credits to pay for it. And he doesn’t care if you approve. Make Sunsets is maybe the most polarizing company in climate interventions right now, and I wanted to have Luke on the show so we could learn more about how they think and what their goals are. We discussed the question that if we assuming cooling the planet is necessary (and we both believe it is), does that justify acting without institutional permission? We get into the energy math on carbon removal, the governance question, and a wealthy customer who may be planning to personally fund enough deployment to measurably cool the planet. Chapter Timestamps * 01:22 — What Make Sunsets actually does and how cooling credits work * 05:07 — The energy math against carbon removal: why CDR needs 20x global energy production * 07:00 — Luke’s vision for 2100: nuclear energy, 10x global prosperity, and table stakes * 10:50 — “We’ve been geoengineering since the industrial revolution” * 15:11 — Theory of change, the wealthy customer revelation, and “are you going to stop me?” * 19:40 — Deployment risks: monsoon disruption, weaponization, and the Pentagon’s response * 25:27 — Luke’s critique of governance approaches being taken today * 30:29 — The smallpox analogy: does innovation precede or follow institutions? * 38:36 — What success looks like for Make Sunsets in 10 years (0.1°C measurable cooling) * 47:39 — The Mexico ban that wasn’t, and why getting the facts right matters * 53:19 — What the field needs: “bold action” vs. “analysis and meetings” * 55:07 — Paul’s post-interview reflection: where he agrees and where he doesn’t Notable Quotes * “Are you going to stop me? And unless someone is going to do that... the cat’s out of the bag. Anyone can do this.” — Luke Iseman * “Unless you are breaking the law to build nuclear reactors, I don’t want to hear about CDR from anyone proposing it as a serious climate solution.” — Luke Iseman * “People are obsessed with developing governance for something for which there’s no demand. You govern things for which there is demand.” — Luke Iseman, quoting a friend * “I have a lot more respect now for the institutions that govern things that can help make decisions, the social license and legitimacy that comes from working through much more traditional systems.” — Paul Gambill (post-interview) * “Every day that we wait to do solar geoengineering is needless lives lost, species extincted, and tipping points flirted with.” — Luke Iseman Links and Resources * Make Sunsets [https://makesunsets.com]: Luke’s company, where you can buy cooling credits * Termination Shock [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57094295-termination-shock] by Neal Stephenson: the novel that inspired Luke to start Make Sunsets * “Why Countries Aren’t Ready for Climate Interventions Yet [https://www.inevitableandobvious.com/p/why-countries-arent-ready-for-climate-interventions]” (Inevitable & Obvious) This and every episode I publish is free because I want these conversations to reach as many people as possible. Paid subscriptions are how I keep doing this work independently. They allow me to follow the research on climate interventions and meet the researchers, practitioners, founders, and policymakers shaping how this landscape evolves. Paid members get access to our community chat, where we discuss the latest developments in climate interventions and make sense of them together. If you found this conversation valuable, I’d appreciate your support. Get full access to Inevitable & Obvious at www.inevitableandobvious.com/subscribe [https://www.inevitableandobvious.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

What We Don’t Know About Cooling the Planet — Dakota Gruener, CEO of Reflective

Stratospheric aerosol injection might be one of the only interventions that could reduce global warming on the timescales that actually matter, but we don't yet know enough to say if it's completely worth the potential tradeoffs, and we're not on track to find out in time. Dakota Gruener is the founder and CEO of Reflective, an independent nonprofit trying to change that by radically accelerating the research. In this conversation, we talk about what it would take to actually evaluate SAI: • The tools Reflective has built to map the unknowns • The case for something like clinical trials for the atmosphere • Why Dakota thinks the worst outcome isn't deployment but decisions being forced before the science is ready. Subscribe for free at inevitableandobvious.com [http://inevitableandobvious.com] Get full access to Inevitable & Obvious at www.inevitableandobvious.com/subscribe [https://www.inevitableandobvious.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]