Plan Sea: Ocean Interventions to Address Climate Change · Wil Burns and Anna Madlener

Dr. Sara Nawaz and Dr. Terre Satterfield on Just, Responsible and Socially Viable Carbon Removal

·46 min·3 clips

Terre Satterfield separates fossil-fuel industry expertise from fossil-fuel industry control.

1. Plan C examines just, responsible, and socially viable carbon removal through offshore direct air capture and storage. 2. Will Burns hosts Sara Nawaz and Terre Satterfield, whose research addresses social and regulatory conditions for marine carbon removal. 3. The episode asks how carbon removal can move urgently without reproducing historical exploitation or excluding vulnerable communities. 4. Sara Nawaz describes Solid Carbon as an interdisciplinary feasibility study led by Ocean Networks Canada and supported by the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions. 5. Solid Carbon proposes wind-powered direct air capture followed by sub-seafloor injection of compressed liquid CO2 into porous basalt. 6. The project is being modeled near Vancouver Island and Washington State in the Cascadia Basin before technological trials begin. 7. Nawaz and Satterfield draw on public surveys, expert surveys, and qualitative workshops with First Nations and environmental NGOs in Victoria, British Columbia. 8. Satterfield says drilling and injection can make offshore carbon removal resemble oil and gas extraction, reinforcing public suspicion. 9. The guests argue that full-life-cycle assessment must include wind turbines, floating direct-air-capture systems, seabed drilling, injection, shipping, and port construction. 10. Satterfield identifies Canadian First Nations as marine rights holders whose traditional territories and origin narratives include coastal waters and the seafloor. 11. Nawaz frames participatory and inclusive decision-making as preferable to solutionism centered on one technology. 12. Satterfield says community engagement needs resources, trusted advisers, impact-and-benefit agreements, and meaningful decision authority. 13. The guests argue that a clear community rejection should carry ethical and strategic weight, even when regulators have issued research permits. 14. Nawaz warns that proceeding after a community says no can generate backlash against related projects and technologies. 15. Satterfield says public concern about the deep ocean contradicts an “out of sight, out of mind” assumption. 16. Satterfield proposes separating fossil-fuel industry technical skill from fossil-fuel industry control of carbon removal. 17. Nawaz describes fossil-fuel participation as an empirical trade-off between logistical capacity and losses in public trust. 18. The interview format moves from the Solid Carbon design to consent, social license, independent engagement, and risk communication. 19. Marine CDR researchers and public-engagement practitioners will value this episode. 20. Listeners seeking engineering details without governance analysis may skip it.

As heard by us

A careful look at whether marine carbon removal should move ahead when communities say no.

Carbon removal at sea is often sold as an engineering challenge, but this episode keeps returning to the people asked to live with the consequences.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want the carbon-removal question no permit can settle: what happens when communities say no?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Plan Sea: Ocean Interventions to Address Climate Change