Climate 🌳

Getting started in climate ain't easy 🤷‍♂️

Here are some helpful resources that have helped me on my journey 🌳

ps: I have a similar collection for energy ⚡️

First Things First

• A mental model for combating climate change (Nan Ransohoff) → Great lens on the problem scape of climate.
• CDR Primer: Concepts (CDR.fyi) → Useful overview of foundational concepts.
• Why did renewables become so cheap so fast? (Our World in Data) → Primer on learning curves for renewables.
• The House of Day Zero (Art Lapinsch) → Understand the scope of the problem.
• Summary for Policymakers (IPCC) → Condensed version of the IPCC climate report. It's the golden standard for climate research.
• Interview: Ramez Naam, futurist, author, and investor (Noah Smith) → Understand where climate technology is at today.

How to Transition Into Climate Tech?

• Leveling Up for the Planet (Art Lapinsch) → My detailed account how I went from business generalist to climate professional in three steps.
• Finding a job in climate (Nan Ransohoff) → Great primer to see different routes into climate.
• Back to School: Why I Decided to Get a Law Degree at this Point in My Career (Art Lapinsch) → The thinking process and documentation of my personal climate journey.
• Guide to Software in Climate Tech (Climate Papa) → Comprehensive resource for software engineers looking to transition into climate.

📊 Business & Research

• Building and Scaling Climate Hardware → Climate startup playbook.
• Pale Blue Dot → Research memos in various areas of climate tech.
• Tracking Clean Energy Progress → IEA's technology tracker.
• Speed & Scale Tracker → Progress tracker across six decarbonization areas.
• Climate Investment Manifesto → Shanu's framework for evaluating climate investment opportunities.
• Carbon Removal Technologies → Sci-fi-esque ideas of how to fix the climate crisis.
• Solutions Library → Project Drawdown's overview of climate positive solution spaces.

💨 Carbon Removal & Other Greenhouse Gases

• CDR Primer → A curated primer from a dozen of experts on carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Particularly the "concepts" section is great.
• Energy Fundamentals of Carbon Removal (Ben James) → A critical look at the physics & costs of carbon removal technology.
• We Need To Take CO2 Out Of The Sky (Ryan Orbuch) → If you're interested in carbon removal, read this post first.
• Scaling Carbon Removal (Neil Hacker) → Technical primer to carbon removal.
• The $40T Market Hiding in Plain Sight (Christoph Bernkopf) → Technical and commercial analysis of other greenhouses gases (methane & nitrous oxide).

Climate Risks

• Why Near-Term Warming Matters (Spark Climate) → A good intro into near-term warming and associated risks/challenges.

Decarbonization Pathways

• Three Inputs Are Responsible for all Decarbonization Tech (Ben James) → Ben at it again. Primer on clean electricity, biomass, and carbon capture/removal.
• How can we repurpose the stranded assets? (Staffan Qvist) → Repurposing/decarbonizing coal plants via (1) nuclear or (2) geothermal.

Economics

• How to start an advance market commitment (Nan Ransohoff) - A guide to kickstarting new industries via demand creation.

Energy Efficiency

• Energy Efficiency for Homes (Canadian Government) → Comprehensive resource for home retrofitting.

Energy Storage

• The Big Guide to Batteries (Ben James) → Thorough 17-minute read about battery technology.
• The Cheesy Energy of Lithium (Juan David Campolargo) → A very thorough post/book about lithium's power in batteries, medicine, and nuclear physics.

Geo-Engineering

• Someone is going to dim the sun, and it will be soon. (Ben James) → A high-level overview of how geo-engineering could work.

Cool Technologies

Heat Pumps

• Heat Pumps, More Than You Wanted to Know (Calvin French-Owen) - Great primer on heat pumps.

💪 Personal Climate Action

• A Data-Driven Guide to Effective Personal Climate Action (Erika Reinhardt) → Erika wrote the seminal deep-dive on potential impacts of personal climate action.

🎙 Podcasts

Helpful Podcasts

• Catalyst w/ Shayle Kann → Each podcast focuses on a single topic.
• Climate One → Deep-dives on technical topics.
• My Climate Journey → Interviews with entrepreneurs and scientists working in climate. MCJ also offers a curated Slack community, which is great to get started.

My Appearances on Climate-related Podcasts

• Climate Needs a "F1 Drive to Survive" Moment (Climate Insiders) - Conversation about the lack of story telling in the climate space.
• Art Lapinsch's journey from tech founder to energy market obsessive (Another ClimateTech Podcast) - Main focus on policy, national security, and energy storage.

✍️ Great Writing

• Nicholas Yiu → Best writer on battery technologies.
• Noah Smith → Economist turned Substack writer, with ocassional posts about climate tech and energy.
• Pauliina Meskanen → My favorite writer for technical breakdowns/intro pieces.
• Tsung Xu → Most knowledgeable writer about the fuzzy front-end of material science. His Guide to the energy transition is an all-time favorite. Long read!
• Climate Tech VC → Best starting point for market breakdowns.
• CarbonBrief → Data-driven news about climate.

VCs & Capital

• Lowercarbon Capital → Probably the #1 firm in the game.
• Pale Blue Dot → European boutique VC focused on climate.
• 2150.vc → Climate tech for urban environments.

🤷‍♂️ Other Resources

• Climate Buddies → My collection of Twitter accounts to follow.
• Resources for the Future → Tutorials and intro reading about climate-related topics.

If you are interested in learning more, sign up to my newsletter where I write about climate, energy, and everything in between 👇

I'm here to make friends. Please hit me up if you want to chat.

Also, let me know which other resources I should add to this list.