A Climate Change with Matt Matern

Today, Matt speaks with Bren Smith, co-founder and co-executive director of GreenWave, about his journey from commercial fisherman to pioneer of regenerative ocean farming. Bren shares how a cod collapse in his native Newfoundland and two hurricanes that destroyed his farm led him to a model that grows seaweed and shellfish with no water, fertilizer, feed, or land - while rebuilding ocean ecosystems. They also discuss GreenWave’s new State of the Kelp Industry report and how kelp is shifting from a “hero climate ingredient” to a working-class problem solver.
Check out GreenWave at https://www.greenwave.org
Read the State of the Kelp Industry report here: https://hub.greenwave.org/lms/resources/state-of-the-kelp-industry/
Bren’s book, Eat Like a Fish, is available wherever books are sold.
Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
Bren Smith Bio:
Bren Smith is co-founder and co-executive director of GreenWave and owner of Thimble Island Ocean Farm. A lifelong commercial fisherman turned regenerative ocean farmer, he pioneered a zero-input model that grows seaweed and shellfish while restoring marine ecosystems. He is the James Beard Award-winning author of Eat Like a Fish and a winner of the Buckminster Fuller Prize and the Curt Bergfors Food Planet Prize. His work has been profiled by 60 Minutes, CNN, The New Yorker, the Wall Street Journal, and National Geographic, and he was named one of Rolling Stone’s “25 People Shaping the Future.”
Episode Resources
GreenWave website: https://www.greenwave.org
State of the Kelp Industry report: https://hub.greenwave.org/lms/resources/state-of-the-kelp-industry/
A Climate Change on Apple: https://bit.ly/accapplepodcast
A Climate Change on Spotify: https://bit.ly/accspotifypodcast
A Climate Change on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ACCvids
Music Credits
Music:
Theme song - SMOOTA, “Save It! (The Mother Earth Boogie)” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BRuPWPgrvA)
Additional music - Stereo Reform, “Midnight Synthesizer (Instrumental)”

Today, Matt is joined by Dr. Garrett Boudinot, founder and CEO of Vycarb, to talk about a new approach to carbon capture and storage that works with water instead of pipelines and underground wells. Garrett explains how Vycarb's reactor turns CO2 into bicarbonate and stores it safely in the ocean for tens of thousands of years. He shares why traditional carbon capture has been so expensive and hard to site, and how Vycarb bypasses the costly steps to target costs as low as $50 a ton. He also previews what's next as Vycarb scales from its Brooklyn Navy Yard pilot to full commercial projects.
Check out Vycarb at vycarb.com
Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
 
Know a local hero for the planet? Nominate them for Cox Conserves Heroes, funded by the James M. Cox Foundation. Nominate Aug 3–16, vote Sept 28–Oct 4 at cox.partners/cch.
 
GUEST BIO
Garrett Boudinot is the founder and CEO of Vycarb, a climate-tech company pioneering a water-based approach to carbon capture and storage. He earned a PhD studying global carbon cycling and its impacts on ocean and forest ecosystems, then led a carbon-management research program at Cornell University. As an inaugural Activate New York entrepreneurial fellow, he founded Vycarb to accelerate the ocean's natural carbon-storage process - and to measure it in real time. The company runs a pilot at the Brooklyn Navy Yard that captures CO2 and permanently stores it in the East River, and is now scaling toward full commercial projects in the US and abroad.
 
EPISODE RESOURCES
Vycarb: vycarb.com
A Climate Change on Apple: https://bit.ly/accapplepodcast
A Climate Change on Spotify: https://bit.ly/accspotifypodcast
A Climate Change on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ACCvids
 
MUSIC
Theme: SMOOTA - "Save It! (The Mother Earth Boogie)" 
Additional music: Stereo Reform - "Midnight Synthesizer (Instrumental)"

Today, Matt is joined by David Fenton - veteran progressive communications strategist and host of The Fenton Forecast - for a conversation about the climate movement’s biggest failure: how it talks, or doesn’t talk, about the crisis. David explains “blanket of pollution” metaphor, and why framing climate action as sacrifice backfires, the soaring insurance costs hitting Americans’ wallets, and the fossil fuel industry’s push for legal immunity as climate lawsuits close in. 
Check out The Fenton Forecast here: https://www.fentonforecast.com
Learn more about David’s work: https://davidfentonactivist.com
David’s book, The Activist’s Media Handbook, is available wherever books are sold.
Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
Guest Bio:
David Fenton has spent more than fifty years helping progressive movements win. In 1982 he founded Fenton Communications, the first public relations firm built for nonprofits and public-interest causes, and pioneered the use of PR, advertising, and social media for the environment, public health, and human rights. He is the author of The Activist’s Media Handbook: Lessons from 50 Years as a Progressive Agitator, a senior advisor to Yellow Dot Studios, and host of The Fenton Forecast podcast.
Episode Resources
The Fenton Forecast: https://www.fentonforecast.com
David Fenton: https://davidfentonactivist.com
The Activist’s Media Handbook
Yellow Dot Studios: https://yellowdotstudios.com
A Climate Change on Apple: https://bit.ly/accapplepodcast
A Climate Change on Spotify: https://bit.ly/accspotifypodcast
A Climate Change on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ACCvids

Today, Matt speaks with Tom Chi, founding partner of At One Ventures and a founding member of the Google X team behind Waymo, about using deep tech to restore ecosystems instead of just slowing the damage. 
They talk about the drone companies replanting mangroves, coral reefs, and seagrass beds, and how the cost of restoration keeps falling by half. Tom explains that a park ranger in 1926 had a Jeep, a map, binoculars, and a clicker, and today the tools are mostly the same. He also shares his concerns about who is steering AI right now, why regulation may protect an economy rather than slow it, and a simple idea he calls the aperture of care.
Check out Tom's book, Climate Capital: Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future: https://www.tomchi.com/
Learn more about At One Ventures: https://www.atoneventures.com/
Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
Guest Bio:
Tom Chi is the founding partner of At One Ventures, a venture firm that invests in deep-tech startups working to make humanity a net positive to nature. He was a founding member of Google X, where he led the teams that created self-driving cars, wearable augmented reality, and deep learning artificial intelligence. Trained in physics and electrical engineering, he is a named inventor on more than 75 patents and has worked on projects at Microsoft and Yahoo. He is the author of the national bestseller Climate Capital: Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future.
Episode Resources
Tom Chi website: https://www.tomchi.com/
At One Ventures: https://www.atoneventures.com/
Tom Chi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thegoodtomchi/
A Climate Change on Apple: https://bit.ly/accapplepodcast
A Climate Change on Spotify: https://bit.ly/accspotifypodcast
A Climate Change on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ACCvids

Today, Matt speaks with Dr. Linley Dixon, Co-Director of the Real Organic Project and cohost of the Real Organic Podcast, about why how we grow food may be the climate lever we're ignoring. Linley explains that synthesizing nitrogen fertilizer alone accounts for 1-2% of the global carbon footprint. They also dig into what's gone wrong with the label people trust. Only about 1% of US farmland is certified organic while roughly 80% of our organic blueberries are imported, fraudulent "organic" grain shipments undercut American farmers, and the USDA allows soil-less hydroponics to carry the same seal as a soil farmer. 
Learn more about the Real Organic Project: realorganicproject.org
Listen to the Real Organic Podcast: bit.ly/realorganicpod
Saving Real Organic: In Defense of Science (Sept 18-19, 2026, Churchtown Dairy, NY): Event info
Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
Guest Bio:
Dr. Linley Dixon is Co-Director of the Real Organic Project and cohost of the Anthem Award-winning Real Organic Podcast. A soil scientist with a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from the University of Florida and a Master's in Soil Science from West Virginia University, she spent two years as a post-doc at the USDA's Systematic Botany and Mycology Laboratory before turning to organic policy. She has farmed organic vegetables at Adobe House Farm in Durango, Colorado since 2010, and launched the Real Organic Project's farmer-led certification program in 2018 - now over 1,100 farms nationwide.
Episode Resources
Real Organic Project: https://realorganicproject.org
Real Organic Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/real-organic-podcast/id1573111162
Find a Real Organic certified farm near you: https://realorganicproject.org/farms
A Climate Change on Apple: https://bit.ly/accapplepodcast
A Climate Change on Spotify: https://bit.ly/accspotifypodcast
A Climate Change on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ACCvids
 
If you enjoyed this episode of A Climate Change, here is a list of some recent episodes curated especially for you:
The Founders Loved the Land…and Left One Thing Unfinished
How We Feed the World Without Frying It, with Michael Grunwald
Fast Fashion Is Killing the Planet, with Marci Zaroff
 

Today, Matt speaks with Jeffrey Prosserman, CEO and co-founder of Voltpost, about a simple idea with big potential: turning the lampposts and utility poles cities already have into electric vehicle chargers. Jeffrey shares his path from leading product development at Samsung to founding Voltpost, and explains why more than 40% of Americans, those without a private garage or driveway, still can't conveniently charge an EV at home.
Learn more about Voltpost at https://voltpost.com
Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
GUEST BIO
Jeffrey Prosserman is the co-founder and CEO of Voltpost, a venture-backed company based in New York and San Francisco that retrofits lampposts and utility poles into electric vehicle charging platforms. Voltpost's mission is to decarbonize mobility by democratizing charging access, making public charging as common as the streetlight. Before Voltpost, Jeffrey was Director of Innovation at Samsung and spent more than 20 years working at the forefront of technology. In 2022, he graduated from Columbia University's Sustainability Management program to focus full-time on building climate technology solutions.
EPISODE RESOURCES
Voltpost website: https://voltpost.com
A Climate Change on Apple: https://bit.ly/accapplepodcast
A Climate Change on Spotify: https://bit.ly/accspotifypodcast
A Climate Change on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ACCvids

In this milestone 250th episode, Matt Matern goes solo for the final installment of our “250 for 250” series - tracing what the people who founded the country actually believed about land, soil, and stewardship. From Thomas Jefferson’s near-daily weather diary and George Washington’s soil-saving crop rotations, to the myth of endless abundance baked into the American character, Matt lays out what the founders left us: a genuine love of the land, and a dangerous belief that it could never run out.
This episode is part of our “250 for 250” series, marking America’s 250th anniversary by revisiting the figures and stories in our environmental history when ordinary people changed everything.
Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
EPISODE RESOURCES
Thomas Jefferson’s Weather Observations (Monticello): https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/weather-observations/
George Washington and Agriculture (Mount Vernon): https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/george-washington-and-agriculture
Held v. Montana - Montana Supreme Court ruling (NPR): https://www.npr.org/2024/12/19/nx-s1-5218285/montana-supreme-court-backs-youth-plaintiffs-in-groundbreaking-climate-trial
Green Amendments For The Generations: forthegenerations.org
A Climate Change on Apple: https://bit.ly/accapplepodcast
A Climate Change on Spotify: https://bit.ly/accspotifypodcast
A Climate Change on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ACCvids
 

Today, Matt speaks with New York Times bestselling biographer Brian Jay Jones, author of Becoming Dr. Seuss and the new book The Capitol: The Surprising Biography of an American Building. Brian traces Theodor Geisel’s unlikely path - from advertising man to the most beloved children’s author in America. They dig into the making of The Lorax: the cookie-cutter condos eating up La Jolla’s coastline that made Seuss furious, the nine months of writer’s block, and the Kenya trip where he drafted the whole story in 90 minutes on the back of a notepad. Brian also shares the story behind his new biography of the U.S. Capitol, and how he was inspired to write it after January 6, 2021.
This episode is part of our "250 for 250" series, marking America's 250th anniversary by revisiting the figures and stories in our history when ordinary people changed everything - from Dr. Seuss and the little orange creature who speaks for the trees, to the enslaved craftsman who cast the Statue of Freedom atop the Capitol.
Check out Brian’s work here: brianjayjones.com
Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
 
Brian Jay Jones Bio:
Brian Jay Jones is a New York Times bestselling biographer known for chronicling the iconic creative figures who shaped American pop culture. He is the author of biographies of Jim Henson, George Lucas, Washington Irving, and Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel, whose life he traced in Becoming Dr. Seuss: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination. His newest book, The Capitol: The Surprising Biography of an American Building, was published by Dutton in June 2026. A former U.S. Senate speechwriter and policy adviser, Jones is a past president of Biographers International Organization and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Episode Resources
Brian Jay Jones website: brianjayjones.com
Becoming Dr. Seuss: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1524742783
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/565982/becoming-dr-seuss-by-brian-jay-jones
The Capitol (Dutton, June 2026): brianjayjones.com/book
A Climate Change on Apple: https://bit.ly/accapplepodcast
A Climate Change on Spotify: https://bit.ly/accspotifypodcast
A Climate Change on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ACCvids

Today, Matt speaks with Philip Nel, University Distinguished Professor of English at Kansas State University and one of the world's leading Dr. Seuss scholars, about The Lorax and its place in the environmental movement. They trace the book's origins, from the coastal construction in La Jolla that made Seuss angry, to the trip to Kenya that finally unlocked the story he scribbled on a hotel laundry list. They also dig into the logging industry's counter-book Truax, why The Lorax keeps landing on banned-book lists, and how Lady Bird Johnson built an environmental campaign around it.
This episode is part of our "250 for 250" series, marking America's 250th anniversary by revisiting the figures and stories in our environmental history when ordinary people changed everything. Dr. Seuss, and the little orange creature who speaks for the trees, is one of them.
Learn more about Philip's work at philnel.com
Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
GUEST BIO
Philip Nel is University Distinguished Professor of English at Kansas State University, where he directs the Program in Children's Literature. He is one of the world's leading scholars on Dr. Seuss and the author or editor of fifteen books, including Dr. Seuss: American Icon and Was the Cat in the Hat Black? His work takes children's literature seriously as a cultural and political force, and he has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, NPR, CNN, and more than 300 media outlets.
 
ABOUT THE “250 FOR 250” SERIES
In 2026, America turns 250 - and A Climate Change reaches its 250th episode. To mark both, host Matt Matern is recording a run of solo episodes that revisit the moments in American environmental history when ordinary people changed everything: the fights, the movements, and the laws that built modern environmental protection. The throughline is simple - caring for the air, water, and land isn’t separate from the American story. It is the American story.
 
EPISODE RESOURCES
Philip Nel's website: https://philnel.com
Was the Cat in the Hat Black? and Dr. Seuss: American Icon: https://philnel.com/books/
We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom (mentioned in the episode): https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250203557/wearewaterprotectors/
A Climate Change on Apple: https://bit.ly/accapplepodcast
A Climate Change on Spotify: https://bit.ly/accspotifypodcast
A Climate Change on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ACCvids

Today, no guest - just Matt, with the story of what one writer called “the best idea America ever had”: the national park. In 1872, in a country built on private property, the United States set aside Yellowstone as land that could never be owned by anyone - and then handed the idea to the world.
Matt traces how it happened: the writer John Muir and President Theodore Roosevelt, whose 1903 campfire in Yosemite helped put 230 million acres under protection; the birth of the National Park Service in 1916; and the system today - 433 sites, 85 million acres, owned in equal measure by every American. Then he turns to the present: the 2025 push to sell off public land, the bipartisan coalition that stopped it, the budget fight that quietly removed the guardrail keeping parks federal, and the global “30x30” movement to protect 30% of the planet’s land and water by 2030. The throughline: these places have never protected themselves.
This episode is part of our “250 for 250” series - solo episodes marking America’s 250th anniversary by revisiting the moments in our environmental history when ordinary people changed everything.
Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get podcasts.
ABOUT THE “250 FOR 250” SERIES
In 2026, America turns 250 - and A Climate Change reaches its 250th episode. To mark both, host Matt Matern is recording a run of solo episodes that revisit the moments in American environmental history when ordinary people changed everything: the fights, the movements, and the laws that built modern environmental protection. The throughline is simple - caring for the air, water, and land isn’t separate from the American story. It is the American story.
EPISODE RESOURCES
Key references for this episode:
Yellowstone - park history & the 1872 Act (NPS): nps.gov/yell/learn/historyculture/park-history.htm
The National Park System - 433 sites / 85M+ acres (NPS): nps.gov/aboutus/national-park-system.htm
Theodore Roosevelt and Conservation (NPS): nps.gov/thro/learn/historyculture/theodore-roosevelt-and-conservation.htm
The Antiquities Act of 1906 (NPS): nps.gov/subjects/archeology/antiquities-act.htm
The National Parks: America’s Best Idea (PBS / Ken Burns): pbs.org/kenburns/the-national-parks
National Parks Conservation Association: npca.org
30x30 / California’s conservation goal: californianature.ca.gov
A note on John Muir: Muir’s legacy is complicated. Alongside his conservation work, he made racist remarks about Black and Indigenous people - something the Sierra Club, which he founded, publicly acknowledged and began reckoning with in 2020 (sierraclub.org).
Show links:
Matt Matern on LinkedIn: bit.ly/ACClinkedin
A Climate Change on Apple: bit.ly/accapplepodcast
A Climate Change on Spotify: bit.ly/accspotifypodcast
A Climate Change on YouTube: bit.ly/ACCvids