Interview
a16z Podcast | Making a (Really) Wild Geo-Engineering Idea Real
- The proposed rewilding of Northern Siberia, Alaska, and the Canadian Yukon with ice age grassland biomes aims to mitigate climate change by preventing Arctic warming and permafrost carbon release, leveraging grasslands' higher albedo and ability to facilitate deeper winter cold penetration compared to tundra or forest regions.
- Biological outcomes and methodological uncertainties include the potential for significant carbon release from decomposing organic matter, the likelihood that deforestation or tree removal via heavy machinery would worsen climate conditions, and the possibility that the absence of large herbivores historically enabled forest expansion in the Arctic.
- Genetic reconstruction faces biological limitations due to DNA decomposition over thousands of years, with objectives shifting from exact mammoth replication to engineering furry, fatty Asian elephants with specific mammoth traits, while Beth Shapiro estimates approximately 50 gene edits are required, though the systemic effects of these changes remain uncertain.
- Technical timelines vary by expert, with Ross Anderson estimating artificial womb technology for gestating these creatures is over 10 years away, whereas George Church predicts a mammoth-like creature could be created within five years, subject to variable uncertainties.
- Developmental risks involve potential considerable suffering for the initial generations of modified animals and behavioral challenges stemming from elephants' reliance on cultural transmission and grandmother-led teaching in the wild.
- Financial and operational expansion depends on current support from the NSF and the Russian government, with future scalability contingent on negotiating grand-scale peace with human populations to address conflicts between conservation goals and local economic incentives, such as poaching for ivory in depressed mining towns.
- The project's context includes a comparison to the American Prairie Reserve in Montana and a historical reference to the timing of scientific publication readiness, noting that ideas regarding warming dangers required resubmission in 2006 before being published that same year.