The feature documentary 2040 poses this question: What would the world look like in 2040 if we embraced the best climate solutions already available to us? One such solution involves restoring ocean ecosystems through marine permaculture, a strategy that leverages kelp forests to drawdown CO2.
Dr. Brian von Herzen serves as the Executive Director of the Climate Foundation, the organization using marine permaculture to regenerate life in seas and soils with the goal of reversing climate change in our lifetime. On this bonus episode of the podcast, Brian returns to the show to discuss his appearance in 2040 and explain what the Climate Foundation is working on now as they shift from R&D to building an industry.
Brian introduces us to the fundamentals of marine permaculture, exploring its capacity to regenerate life in the ocean and feed billions of people in the process. Listen in for insight on becoming an ocean entrepreneur and learn about the potential for marine permaculture to drawdown carbon (at a remarkably low cost) and move us from fear to love—one kelp forest at a time.
More from the show
Ad-free episodes and other benefits come with a paid subscription.
Carbon Removal Newsroom, the news show that ran alongside this one, is over. Its episodes are still up, on the feed Climate Workers Anonymous now uses.
Carbon Removal Memes is still going.
Resources
Email info@climatefoundation.org
Brian on Reversing Climate Change EP034
The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help by Amanda Palmer
Permaculture Design Principles
The One-Straw Revolution: An Introduction to Natural Farming by Masanobu Fukuoka
The University of Tasmania’s Permaculture Research
David King’s Piece on Climate Change Intervention in The Washington Post
Full Transcript
Ross Kenyon: Hey, everyone. Welcome to Season 2 of Reversing Climate Change. We are doing that podcast thing now and launching a Patreon. You can find it at patreon. com slash noripodcasts. There are various tiers with different types of goodies available. Do you want to receive a special newsletter digest of what norinauts are reading that week? Be a part of a nori book club? Get special access to nori events? Go take a look at patreon. com slash noripodcasts for what we’re offering. And in that spirit of being lean in that startup kind of way that, you know, we like to do, this list of goodies is subject to change and we’d very much like your feedback.
Is there something that you’d really like to see, but it isn’t listed here? Honest feedback does a lot to help us shape what we offer to you. You can send an email to podcast. nori. com or fill out our podcast survey anonymously in our newsletter, which you can find at nori. com slash subscribe. And thank you so much for listening to another season of Reversing Climate Change. Hello and welcome to the Reversing Climate Change Podcast. I’m Ross Kenyon. We have a bonus episode with an alumnus, Dr. Brian Von Hertzen. You are back on the show, Executive Director of the Climate Foundation and Globetrotting for Marine I was watching 2040 by Damon Gamow.
Is that how you say it, Brian? Damon Gamow?
Brian von Herzen: Damon Gamow. Yeah. Greetings from Perth. It’s great to be here. And we love working with Damon on the 2040 film. That was such a great opportunity to showcase our chance to draw down in the soils and the seas and be able to work towards a healthy climate by 2040.
Ross Kenyon: I heard about it through the Drawdown Seattle group. The organizer reached out and said, hey, you want to watch this? We’re doing a live screening. I said, sure. And I was wondering ahead of time if any familiar faces would appear, lo and behold, Brian Von Hertzen out there on a boat looking like a real nautical professional out there. Very, very cool. So yeah, how did that happen? And what exactly were you doing with Damien?
Brian von Herzen: Well, you know, I’m reading this book and podcast right now by Amanda Palmer called The Art of Asking. And this is all about, you know, leaning into the change that the earth needs. And we ask our friends, my friend had a 39 foot Hinkley sailboat, beautiful boat. He spent like 12 years. Just restoring the hull and building the whole thing and getting it out. We got Damon down in Woods Hole, our hometown in Massachusetts. We got out on the sailboat and we shot this and it was just so much fun to capture that.
You know, my partner Rebecca got a picture of that sailboat On the front cover of Wooden Sailboat Magazine. And it’s just one of these classic Hinckley 39s. It was so much fun being part of that. But that’s it. It’s this sustainable marine culture, permaculture if you will, that is where it’s at. It’s about using renewable energy sources, whether it’s marine solar near the equator, wind energy at the higher latitudes or wave energy when we can to effectively provide the energy we need to provide deep water irrigation to our kelp forests and our seaweed farms 24 hours a day.
And that’s what we’re testing from the Philippines to Tasmania.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, you’re in Australia right now. You just got out of quarantine on arrival.
Brian von Herzen: Yeah, we’re just getting out of quarantine. We had a half year in Singapore. We managed to get a visa for Australia. And we’re going to set up our international headquarters for the Climate Foundation in Queensland. And we’re going to be doing engineering tests with our key partners, Hatch Limited, out of Toronto, California. They’ve got 10,000 professionals working with deployments in 150 countries. And for the second year, they’ve signed up for a major pro bono initiative to design the marine permaculture at the 100 square meter scale, the 1,000 square meter scale, and the commercial scale.
And we’re thrilled to be working with partners like that and Minter Ellison, law firm out of Australia, who’s really helped us on permitting, on IP development, and ultimately on building the future that we need to see deployed across the Pacific Ocean to enable regenerating life in the ocean, feeding the billions of people that rely on the ocean for food, and ultimately measuring that carbon export of these regenerative interventions to see how this is part of getting us back to a healthy climate.
Ross Kenyon: How much of your choice of Australia is you paying homage to Bill Mollison?
Brian von Herzen: Bill is huge. I’m working with Bill and with Dave Holmgren to really lean into permaculture. Dave Holmgren told me that Bill’s original inspiration for permaculture was actually from the Tasmanian California. That was Bill’s original story. And so, you know, I missed meeting Bill by just a few months before he passed away. But this idea that Bill got started with the whole idea of permaculture really from watching the marine ecosystem and then taking it to the terrestrial forest. But now we’ve gone full circle and say marine permaculture is critically important to our survival as a species to regenerate life in the ocean, make sure we’ve got enough food for billions of people, and ultimately getting our carbon budget back into balance.
Ross Kenyon: Someone listening, if you’re not familiar with what permaculture is, we’ve done a couple episodes, one of which is with Brian that you should definitely listen to get up to speed. But Brian, how would you introduce someone to a concept as broad as permaculture in a little bonus episode like this? Can you help someone get up to speed really quickly about how you’re thinking about this?
Brian von Herzen: Well, Dave Holmgren has written on the dozen design principles of permaculture. And it’s really about living in equilibrium with the forest and sustainably harvesting from that forest to sustain life. But furthermore, to identify the gaps that may exist and to address those gaps as needed to ensure a healthy and thriving ecosystem that can support humans and other animals. I mean, it’s really, we are part of nature and we should not That’s the root cause of most of the problems. And so by being part of nature, we can live in equilibrium with nature.
And what we are doing is taking those 12 permaculture design principles and applying those to the marine environment so that we can have healthy seas and healthy soils that will result in a healthy planet.
Ross Kenyon: I see it. I usually introduce people by saying something like creating systems that feed themselves such that they’re not reliant upon external inputs, especially synthetic ones. You have this sort of like closed loop or they call them guilds often in permaculture, but things that just work well together such that you have what’s the one straw revolution line about lazy man’s farming. It just sort of comes together without you having to actively manage and like steer inputs into it. Is that kind of how you see it or am I missing something there?
Brian von Herzen: The fewer inputs, the better. The beauty about kelp forests is that they don’t need any fertilizer, they don’t need any fresh water, and they don’t need any land area. And we realized that there was this little sliver of life on the edge of the Pacific Ocean that was actually We’ll see you next time. The most productive ecosystem on the planet. And if we can identify what’s needed in terms of substrate and irrigation to enable that kelp forest ecosystem to thrive further offshore, USEEZ goes out 300 kilometers And if we can effectively enable that entire exclusive economic zone to be opened up to doing sustainable marine permaculture, we can in fact rescue the life on the planet when we’ve got marine heat waves, when we have Al Nino, when the upwelling shuts down and we lose shoreline kelp forests, these marine permacultures offshore can keep the sardines alive, they can keep the sea lions alive, they can keep the seabirds alive, regenerate those ecosystem services offshore even during times of climate disruption.
And that’s what it’s all about is having that equilibrium. And the amazing thing is with sunlight and some deep water, you’ve got a thriving kelp forest. That’s all it takes.
Ross Kenyon: What’s been the hurdle for getting this mainstream? It seems like you’re doing a lot of the research saying this works at 100 square meters, let’s try it at 1000. And it seems like a big part of your research in this trailblazing is about the commercial viability of these systems. Is that what you’re working on basically?
Brian von Herzen: Yeah, it’s about crossing from the science and the basic science we know through to the commercialization. And we call that crossing the valley of death. And quite frankly, it takes like $10 million to get from the R&D to a successful and growing industry. And that’s what we’re doing right now. And so, we’ve had some help from foundations. We’ve done a crowd funder down in Australia with the Intrepid Foundation, and we’ve raised two-thirds of a million dollars for a kelp forest deployment off of Australia that will demonstrate this at maybe hundreds We’re fundraising right now in the U.
S. with the climatefoundation. org website and 2040 to do a crowd funder centered on the U. S. And the idea is that in the Pacific Ocean, we’re going to raise a million dollars to deploy a thousand square meters. And then we’re looking to develop the commercial scale hectare that will be the basis for the family kelp forest farmer. Stretching from Australia to the States. And in fact, the subsistence seaweed farmer in Philippines, there’s a quarter million subsistence seaweed farmers who are each allowed to farm one hectare of tropical red seaweeds and enable And that we’ve developed the cashflow positive economic model for that one hectare.
And each member of those families can do a hectare. And then once we get that working in the Philippines, there are 2 million subsistence seaweed farmers in Indonesia. That need this technology because those folks, they’re living on the front lines of climate disruption. The water is too warm. The nutrient levels are too low. We are having to deal with this and fill those nutrient value chain gaps so that we can regenerate the productivity of the kelp forest and the seaweed farms and make sure that nature has what she needs to enable us to get back on track with a carbon balance.
Ross Kenyon: I believe this is the same technology you brought up last time you were on the show, but it involves taking cooler water that’s deeper down and pumping it up to where the farms actually are growing seaweed. Is that right?
Brian von Herzen: Yes, that’s right. We’ll use in the tropics marine solar energy. In the higher latitudes, like temperate zones, there’s plenty of wave energy off the west coast of the U. S. and across around the world in temperate latitudes. And I was just on the phone today to some of Our colleagues in University of Tasmania who are looking at wave energy to enable the upwelling of water to actually provide the irrigation that the kelp forests need. And that’s exactly the kind of technology we can use because it’s local use of energy. It’s easy to harvest that energy.
There’s copious amounts of it. And this is exactly what we need in order to make those kelp forests thrive offshore.
Ross Kenyon: So in this future where there’s families farming like a hectare out in the Pacific right off the coast of California or whatever, if that’s a future lifestyle that’s possible, are they imitating permaculture in the sense that there’s multiple income streams that are interacting? Are they farming oysters and scallops at the bottom of these kelp forests? What is happening in between all these various creatures in there?
Brian von Herzen: Well, near shore in the harbors and bays, it’s eutrophic enough, it has enough nutrients that the kelp forest can have a sustainable harvest and you can have shellfish as well. And they’re eating the microalgae. And some of the macroalgae, it turns out, as you go further offshore, We’re very enthusiastic about having a sustainable seaweed harvest and a sustainable fish harvest. You know, each morning I love to eat celery and sardines because that’s a great combination, one of my favorites, but we plan to grow a trillion sardines that are going We want to regenerate the base of the food web for the entire oceans.
And getting those sardines back, it’s all about build it and they will come. Because if we build the kelp forest, we create enough fish habitat that those sardines will live And so this is really the key is the sardines, the anchovies, the small salmonids. These are the forage fish that will regenerate life in the ocean.
Ross Kenyon: I love it. And I also love eating sardines. I’m gonna have to try it with celery. It’s a very, I can imagine that taste combo. Seems very good to me. Is the problem here finance or property rights? Or is it something more biological in the sense that it’s temperature or biochemical, I should say? What is the reason this doesn’t already exist? What’s blocking it to date?
Brian von Herzen: Well, there are two gaps we have to address. We have to address nutrient value chain gaps in the ocean when the upwelling fails, when we get the big warm blob coming down from Alaska, when we get the next El Nino. These increasingly frequent climate disruptions disrupt the nutrient value chain that the nitrate, the phosphate, the micronutrients, that’s all from upwelling water. We’ve got to ensure that we can keep that upwelling going. Now, the second gap is a capital formation gap. Right now, it costs a million bucks So that’s really the opportunity is to cover that initial development funding.
Develop the technology, license it broadly through our Marine Permaculture Alliance, and really build a global network of folks that want to go and build those hectare-sized farms and make them all work. We’re developing food, feed, and fertilizer markets that are going to enable this industry to thrive. And that’ll fill the economic value chain gap that’ll help people do good while doing well. And I think it’s building an entire army of these that really is a key. Now, on the regulatory side today, if you tried to do an acre of kelp on the coast of California, you’d be dealing with 17 state and federal local agencies and federal agencies to try to get a permit.
And it could take decades, which is really a long time. But ultimately, we’re looking at developing a new model. And that is We register with the U. S. Coast Guard our marine permaculture vessel, which is a barge. It’s a ship that’s allowed 500 years of admiralty law. And that precedent of 500 years of admiralty law is an incredible precedent to say, this is a ship. It’s allowed safe passengers. And this safe passage means that we register with the Coast Guard and we’re allowed to sail the seven seas. It has some biofouling on it.
It’s got a bit more biofouling than the next ship. But qualitatively, it is exactly identical to the ships that sail the seven seas. And these marine permaculture vessels vastly simplify the permission that’s needed, basically a Coast Guard registration of a marine vessel to operate at sea. And so those are the regulatory and capital barriers that ultimately can address the nutrient value chain gaps that are happening due to climate disruption.
Ross Kenyon: All of those are interesting to me. Do you have to fly a flag? I know plenty of vessels register in Liberia and fly Liberian flags. I’m sure there’s other jurisdictions that are friendly for things like this. Are you having to fly an American flag or register here or some other combination? How does that work?
Brian von Herzen: Well, we’re in favor of working locally and thinking globally. And so I think whenever possible, use a local jurisdiction. The intent of marine permaculture is to enable local and regional thriving seaweed forests and industry and finfish, as well as occasionally So I think whenever we can work locally, we do. We have many countries like Philippines, we were able to get a permit to do the upwelling marine permaculture system in eight weeks. You know, so it’s just we go to the right countries. And it works really, really well. As the industry grows, we’ll see increasing pressure to enable these regenerative technologies to be accelerated because this is the change that the Earth needs.
And this is what we need to do to restore overturning circulation. You know, the Permian mass extinction happened because the ocean stratified. And there’s more and more peer-reviewed literature coming out on this. And so what we’re doing with marine permaculture is really staving off the Permian mass extinction one kelp forest at a time. And we’re doing it in an economically sustainable way. This is our chance to do good while doing well. And this is the change that the Earth needs on a timescale that the Earth needs. And that’s why we’re working so hard on it.
Wow.
Ross Kenyon: While you’re talking about doing good while doing well, are you also working with a nonprofit mentality too? It seems like there are grants being issued and you’re doing crowdfunding, but it seems like maybe the intention longer term is to license and be a for-profit entity. What’s the relationship between these different financial models?
Brian von Herzen: Well, it’s really a hybrid. The research that we’re doing now enables tax-deductible contributions in year zero to the Climate Foundation in the U. S. , our counterparts in Australia, Canada, and the U. K. Most of the Commonwealth nations these days, We can enable this tax-deductible R&D to occur. Now, a hybrid is needed, and so we’re in the process of developing a marine permaculture alliance with our for-profit partners, Sea Combinator, who are based in San Francisco and are working to valorize excess seaweed So, there’s a real opportunity to build an industry here, and our vision for the Marine Permaculture Alliance is a broad licensing program where we’ve got reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing, and the improvements in the technology Our copy left back into the Marine Permaculture Alliance so we can accelerate the dissemination of improvements and intellectual property across the industry and enable rapid adoption that the earth needs to really scale this on a global scale and literally we have We have marine permaculture architecture that works from the equator to the Arctic.
So any open ocean area can be amenable to this kind of seaweed development and kelp forest regeneration. And it’s really the time is right to demonstrate this at scale. Wow, that is really, really exciting. We’re so happy to have volunteers around the world helping us to build capacity. And I think there’s a huge opportunity that we can vote with our feet in terms of the work that we’re doing, the projects we’re working on. And furthermore, when we can’t vote with our feet, to vote with our dollars, we’re... Doing a regular fundraiser, we hope to raise a million dollars to do the 1,000 square meters.
And whether it’s time or money or other resources, that’s really a chance to spread the word to get this out and really help launch these critical grassroots industries that are going to be the change that the Earth needs in order to regenerate life in the ocean and ensure we’ve got an Earth worth saving in the years ahead that’s got a biodiversity in the seas, biodiversity in the soils. And that’s the key to keeping our own civilization productive and alive and well-fed.
Ross Kenyon: Yeah, well said. What is your current thinking on the, I know you call it carbon export or carbon removal or however you want to frame it. What do you think the potential is for marine permaculture?
Brian von Herzen: Oh, it’s huge. You know, we just got this great coverage last week in an op-ed in the Washington Post. And it was done by Sir David King, who really helped launch and seal the deal on the Paris Agreement years ago in 2015. And David wrote very eloquently about how the direct air capture technologies will get us to a certain point in terms of cost performance. It raises attention and awareness. I think it’s fun to talk about Brent Constance and the Blue Planet Initiative to actually build an aggregate that’s made out of calcium carbonate and effectively turns grains of sand into gravel that you can put into roadways, into airports, into every concrete building you can imagine.
Freeze out and sequester the carbon for a long time. And that’s a very sustainable industry at several gigatons. And it’s one that I just did a lecture on. I saw Brent yesterday on our Stanford lecture in Leslie Field’s course on engineering and climate change. And I think that’s a great opportunity as well. Then Sir David King went on in this op-ed to talk about the potential for technologies like marine permaculture to effectively feed the world, regenerate life in the oceans. And draw down carbon at amazingly effective prices. We’re talking about, we like to say, the first gigatons on us.
Because as we grow food, feed, and fertilizer, we’re going to be fixing carbon and measuring that carbon export. And effectively, we can do it at And a negative cost of carbon on the first gigaton. Once we’re past that, even if we need to fix more to restore a healthy climate, we’ll be able to do so at really amazing cost points, hopefully well below $100 per ton. That means, at a cost of $80 per ton or less, that we’ve got a very sustainable approach to enabling the earth to be healthy, to ensure we’ve got the food security, to ensure we’ll have political stability around the world for years to come, and that we can actually draw down potentially gigatons of carbon as we develop this sustainable industry around the world in a distributed way.
Ross Kenyon: Well, if someone’s listening and they want to keep up with what you’re doing and your progress, where might you direct them?
Brian von Herzen: I would direct them to our Climate Foundation website. We’ve got updates that occur regularly with our newsletters. We have an ongoing crowd funder there. We’re really interested in building capacity and building a network with the Marine Permaculture Alliance that will enable the whole world to benefit from marine permaculture technology and ensure we’ve got the food security to ensure that we can have our civilization continue in a healthy way, even during times of marine heat waves and climate disruption. So we’re really looking forward to that. We’ve got an info channel there.
They can email us at info at climatefoundation. org. And we’re looking forward to really building capacity to ensure that the ocean has what she needs to regenerate life, to stay healthy, and to ultimately help humans balance their carbon budget.
Ross Kenyon: Great. And also you should watch 2040 and you can see Brian being a sailor man. Living that life aquatic, us just being jealous watching you out there, Brian. Seems like you’re having a lot of fun.
Brian von Herzen: Well, we’re looking forward to having you come out, Ross. You know, there’s nothing I love better than snorkeling on a I’ve got to tell you, nature has voted with her fins. We’ve got on our marine permaculture in Philippines, there are millions of sardines. There’s these tuna fish. I just got off our phone with our team this morning and there’s like... Hundreds of tuna fish cruising around enjoying the abundance that is on the marine permaculture. We’ve had a family of dolphins spend more than a month with us hanging out. We’ve got some videos of these dolphins frolicking and jumping into the air.
This whale shark swam 200 kilometers to hang out with us for three days and eat some of the bounty that’s coming off the marine permaculture. So nature is voting with her fins. That’s got to be the greatest validation. And being able to see that up close, you actually go snorkeling and check this. Wonderful island of life living in the deep ocean. It’s just a heartwarming experience. I look forward to sharing that with so many of your listeners and with you because it’s really a chance to witness up front and close and personal the way that we’re able to regenerate life in the ocean.
Ross Kenyon: What kind of potential do you think there is for ocean entrepreneurship, for lack of a better term? I’m sure there’s people listening who are looking for their next step. And a lot of people are looking at climate tech right now, but I don’t see the ocean getting a lot of love. Where should they be looking?
Brian von Herzen: Well, it’s early days, but I think having that marine engineering experience, getting in the ocean, going snorkeling or swimming or surfing, that’s the kind of hands and feet in the water that are really important. And so I think building that comfort with the oceans is great. And as people see films like 2040... Inevitably, you know, we fall in love with the ocean, with the kelp forest, with the charismatic megafauna that live there, like the leafy sea dragon and the wonderful lobsters and there was this octopus. That’s what drives people to be the change that the earth needs.
And that’s the kind of fulfilling doing good while doing well. That I think makes such a huge difference. And so I think it’s that connection to the ocean that’s really critical. And as we build our capacity and basically grow this industry, we’ll have exponential opportunities, I think, to, you know, truly enable these marine Peter Thiel invested a bunch in seasteading some years ago. And we like to say marine permaculture is the reason for seasteading to exist. In other words, this is the irrigated farming that enables the communities on the sea to thrive.
And ultimately, it’s all about building The tribe of abundance and moving from the economics of scarcity towards the tribe of abundance where we have enough to share with ourselves and our neighbors. And that’s a completely different mindset. It’s a completely different world. And it’s really moving from fear to love. And that’s what we’d love to see happen one kelp forest at a time.
Ross Kenyon: That’s a lovely sentiment. Well, thanks for being here, Brian.
Brian von Herzen: Oh, my pleasure, Ross. It’s great to talk with you and catch up again. It’s so great to be back on the Nori show and podcast. And we’re looking forward to working together towards building that regenerative future that we all need.
Ross Kenyon: Oh, absolutely. Definitely on the same team here and would be happy to have you back on when there’s more progress. It sounds like you have a lot of irons in the fire, so maybe it won’t be nearly so long next time.
Brian von Herzen: Oh, we’re looking forward to bringing in regular reports from the Western Pacific, hanging out here during the pandemic and bringing that technology across the Pacific as soon as it’s safe to do so.
Ross Kenyon: Terrific. Well, let’s do it again. And thanks again, Brian.
Brian von Herzen: Oh, thank you, Ross. Take care.
Ross Kenyon: Well, thank you so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate and review it in Apple Podcasts and or Stitcher. It really helps us a lot to get this content to a wider audience. If you think what we’re doing is useful, interesting, fun, hopefully all three, we’d certainly appreciate your rating and review. You can keep up We are also now on Patreon at patreon. com slash noripodcasts if you’d like more content, engagement, and community. And thank you so much for your support.
