7: Solar Geoengineering: The potential & governance. What to know

04/11/23 • 37 min

The topic of climate change ignites impassioned debate worldwide - a topic that has made its way into mainstream dialogue, from wall street to mainstreet, and achieved an extraordinary amount of global investment. The ecosystemic implications of this are fascinating. A global issue - with implications for society, industry, economy and policy. A long-standing debate. Yet clear consensus and paths forward remain elusive, suggesting potential misalignment in systems of information, and incentive.
A leading concern is the belief that even the most aggressive reductions of greenhouse gas emissions are unlikely to prevent their harmful impacts - especially to those people, organisms and ecosystems that are already vulnerable. While many believe solar geoengineering shows great potential to manage some components of climate change - it also poses environmental risks and governance challenges of its own. As we consider the global level of discourse, investment in research and development, and regulatory activity - it’s imperative we
In this episode, our hosts Chris Potter and Marco Annunziata sit down with International Environmental Policy expert Jesse Reynolds to discuss the capabilities and limitations of solar geoengineering, and where we go from here.
Show Highlights:
“Cutting emissions is a collective action problem where everybody kind of wants to drag their feet and hope that the rest of the world does a good job. And then the benefits of costly emissions cuts go to the future, whereas the costs are born by the present.” –Jesse Reynolds
“Climate change economics often quickly gets into the trillions of dollars when you're talking about impacts or very aggressive emissions cuts. In fact, if anything, solar geoengineering looks too cheap, right? We don't need to reduce the cost. That's not a barrier here. So the question in terms of is it effective?It's yes ... but. It can be thought of best as a palliative or an analgesic, a type of a medicine that temporary suppresses some of the worst symptoms while a cure is being researched and implemented.” –Jesse Reynolds
“It turns out that the opponents of solar geoengineering have managed to stop these field experiments saying it crosses a rubicon, that this will legitimize something that we first need a global dialogue about. And you can see how it's the extremes feeding off of each other with the loser in this process being the generation of knowledge and trust that will be essential if solar geoengineering might be able to reduce climate change risks in the future, especially to the most vulnerable populations in the world.” –Jesse Reynolds
Guest:
Jesse Reynolds, Environmental Policy Expert
Co-hosts:
Marco Annunziata, Co-Founder, Annunziata + Desai Partners
Christopher Potter, Senior Research Scientist, Ecosystem Science & Technology Branch, NASA Ames Research Center

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6: Bio-Architecture: A New Renaissance for Building

Exciting intersections between the ecosystems for architecture, building and material science are forging pathways to regenerative architecture. ‘Bio-Architecture’, a fascinating take on using mycelium to create convergent new systems to generate food, jobs, and building materials that concurrently store carbon.
In this episode of the Ecosystemic Futures podcast brought to you by Shoshin Works in collaboration with NASA Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project, our hosts sit down with Christopher Maurer, architect and founder of Redhouse Studio, to talk about this new capability, and the critical role regenerative solutions play in creating greater ecosystem wellness.
Show Highlights:
“There are things that inert materials like steel could never dream of being able to do, things that only life can do. And that's why I think biomaterials are really exciting.” –Christopher Maurer
“It doesn't matter where you go, you're never going to have a shortage of problems. So the way that we look at this is to turn those problems into opportunities and bio architecture can generally do that.” –Christopher Maurer
“I wanted to be able to pair this ability to create impact through the design and the architecture, with the ability to get beyond sustainability honestly, because I think we're well past that at this point. We need to get to regenerative architecture and so that's where I see bio architecture as being the main driver for that.” –Christopher Maurer
Guest: Christopher Maurer, Principal Architect at redhouse studio architecture
Co-hosts:
Tom Cooke, Founder & CEO, Spacely
Vikram Shyam, Futurist, NASA Glenn Research Center
Series host: Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO of Shoshin Works

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8: Who Is Your Workforce: Past, Present & Future

Organizations both large and small alike, are finding it increasingly difficult to understand who exactly their workforce is, and how it is defined. The workforce has now developed into a complex ecosystem, with strategic orchestration required to align needs with outcomes.
When designing a workforce framework to exist within this ecosystem, factors to take into consideration include strategic alignment, worker satisfaction and safety, optimizing productivity along with job security and workforce planning. More detail can be found in the infographic here. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/intentionally-orchestrating-workforce-ecosystems/?
In today’s podcast episode, Dyan Finkhousen and her co-host Vik Shyam sit down with Liz Altman and Jeff Schwartz, two of the co-authors of the new book ‘Workforce Ecosystems’, to discuss the changing nature of the workforce and how people and technologies can work together to create value.

Workforce Ecosystems: Reaching Strategic Goals with People, Partners, and Technologies https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262047777/workforce-ecosystems/

Show Highlights:
“We're starting to see, and I think it's becoming a very accepted number, that between 30 to 50% of a total workforce is in some way a contingent workforce.” -Elizabeth J. Altman
“Employees and workers are asking for new degrees of flexibility, new degrees of growth. They're interested in the purpose and the values of their organization.” -Jeff Schwartz
“We need to redefine and rebuild our educational and our public policies for these 100 year lives in workforce ecosystems versus for the 60-65 year lives, which is what social security was based on when we passed it in the 1930s where a typical career was you studied for 20 years, you worked for 30 years and then you retired. So there's some big reframing going on both on the technology side and on the policy side as well.” -Jeff Schwartz
Guests:
Jeff Schwartz, VP of Insights and Impact at Gloat, Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, author WORK DISRUPTED, and co-author of WORKFORCE ECOSYSTEMS
Elizabeth J. Altman Assoc. Professor of Management, Manning School of Business, UMass Lowell; Guest Editor, Future of the Workforce, MIT Sloan Management Review; Co-author of WORKFORCE ECOSYSTEMS
Co-hosts:
Dyan Finkhousen, Founder & CEO, Shoshin Works
Vikram Shyam, PhD, Futurist, Convergent Aeronautics Solutions Project, NASA