Welcome!
Welcome! My name is Michael Campos. I work as a climate tech venture capitalist, and I spend a lot of time thinking about how companies and governments can reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
I’m starting this project because we need to get more creative about both climate change mitigation and adaptation. Over my lifetime, climate has gone from fringe to mainstream. This is for good reason: We’re past 1 °C warming; there were 93 “active large fires” in the US at one point this summer; we’ve dumped ~200 zettajoules of energy into the ocean since 1993.
Companies and governments will do a lot of good work reducing emissions. Hopefully we’ll get to net-zero, even net-negative someday. But look around: the technological path to 2 °C warming is narrow, the political path is nearly nonexistent, and 2 °C wasn’t a great goal in the first place. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t reduce emissions (we should), and it also doesn’t mean there’s no difference between 3, 4, and 5 °C (there most certainly is). But in any of these cases we’ll also need to adapt to a profoundly changed planet in the next decade or two. We already are.
We’ll need a bigger toolbox. Some technologies we take for granted won’t work anymore. Other technologies that don’t work today will soon make a lot of sense. Some emissions sources will go away; others will appear for the first time. I want to explore what those technologies will be and who’s going to build them.
It’s not all doom and gloom, I promise! OK, some of it is doom and gloom, but that’s not going to be our main focus. There are many more talented writers covering the doom and gloom of climate change. I find that strangely heartening.
A bit more about me: I’m an investor at Azolla Ventures (formerly known as Prime Impact Fund). Before that, I worked at ARPA-E in the US Department of Energy, funding “crazy-enough-to-work” energy R&D. Before that, I was a grad student chemist toiling away in lab; before that, the child of two scientists in the DC suburbs. I say this not to convince you I’m qualified to do anything in particular, but to set expectations: I’m a nerd who likes strange ideas, and I get the chance to see more strange ideas than most. I’m also sure that from time to time, I’ll step in something I don’t mean to. In the spirit of learning in public, please bear with me – we’re all here in good faith.
As for format: We’ll aim for one post per month. We’re going to start out with a series of explorations and recurring segments covering mitigation and adaptation technology. Some may stick, others won’t. We’ll adapt. I reserve the right to blow it all up and turn this into a blog about my yellow lab.
Please share your thoughts and let me know where I mess up! You can reply directly, leave a comment, or find me below:
Note: The views expressed here are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of Azolla Ventures or Prime Coalition.
Love it! Can’t wait :)