Meet the Founder of Cascadia Carbon: Alex Wick

What do you currently do and what’s your favorite part about it?

I am the founder/CEO of Cascadia Carbon Inc. We are working with CODEX, a carbon offset data exchange, to engage previously excluded individuals and communities to plant, care for, maintain and steward trees, with the ultimate goal of creating a dynamic catalog/inventory of all the living trees in the world. I am only one person, which often makes my work feel overwhelming, and have difficulty distilling our value proposition down so people understand the importance of what we do, but I helped develop a framework “greenpilling” which can help individuals understand the importance of trees in the face of climate change, the impending biosphere collapse, and likely the resulting chaos. My favorite part of Cascadia Carbon Inc. is our expansive vision: we are planning to work with NASA, SacceX, and orbital dynamics to grow redwood trees and other plants on the moon and mars, and the bigger our company grows, the more carbon we remove from our biosphere, by enabling individual to engage in direct climate action via tree planting in their neighborhood. We plan to reach gigaton scale before 2040, with 2Gt stored, verified, and validated five years later, and to scale to over 10Gt by 2050. 🌙🌲🚀

How did you get started with your Tech Career?

I built a desktop computer from components my senior year of high school, but my fascination with technology goes back much further. I remember using basic “VR” setup at the lliberty science center in NYC back in middle school, I think? I didn’t particularly like the feeling of being in “VR”, but it was enough to spark my interest in technology.

If Utopia were a color what color do you think it’d be and why?

630 & 660 nanometers, which is reddish, or Green. Photosynthesis is green, and chloroplasts use the 630 & 660 nanometer wavelength of light to produce all the bioavailable energy on Earth. Photosynthesis is really cool because it is anti-entropic, that is, it allows organisms to build complexity from energy and basic nutrients, without “waste”, other than Oxygen, which is a valuable commodity. Truly a miracle, and the foundation for a “utopia”.

Tell us more about the things you write/make/manage/build!

I am working on developing CODEX: A Photosynthetic Fintech. We are a public benefit corporation which is dedicated to building a verifiable offset database of individual, geotagged trees that allows previously excluded individuals and communities to join the lucrative voluntary carbon market and aligns economic value and environmental good.

What’s your favorite thing about the internet?

The ability to connect instantly with others, share research, findings, and insight, and plan/find your community. The pseudo-anonymity is an interesting sub-feature, which makes it special, too.

It’s an apocalypse of ‘walking dead’ proportions and you can only own a singular piece of technology, what would it be?

Absolutely, 100%, a bicycle. Nearly silent, it amplifies human power and allows you to travel swiftly and silently, taking advantage of massive existing car-centric infrastructure, and is easy to repair.

The noise from firearms and cars will 100% attract zombies/attention. Stay silent, stay secret. Use a bike.

What is your least favorite thing about the internet?

How it amplifies human flaws, and makes it so much easier to take and hold a less nuanced position. It’s perceived anonymity. The way the algorithm centers cheap virality and excludes neurodiversity and nuance.

If you were given $10 million to invest in something today what would you invest in and why?

My personal growth. Food and water. Pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. A bicycle. A freshly made caprese sandwich. Stocks, but you’ll need to sign an NDA and pay me to know which ones, as I’m a “superforecaster”. 😉

What’s something you’re currently learning or excited to learn?

I am always excited to learn. My area of expertise lies primarily within the biological sciences and creative art and music, specifically as it relates to climate science. As such I have many gaps of understanding within the social and political milieu. Topics I am always interested in learning more about are psychology/human behavior, astrophysics, and virality/social pop culture.

Would you rather travel 10 years into the past or 10 years into the future? Give reasons for your answer.

Neither, the present is all we have. If forced to choose, ten years into the past, I'd be able to redo many of my decisions, and “play the markets”/“predict” the future/and become a more accurate shaman/superforecaster. It depends on the parameters though. Would I remain the same age? Skipping forward or backwards seems dangerous.

How do you feel about AI?

It is sufficiently advanced/complex as to be indistinguishable from magic, and therefore, to me, is essentially a godhead. It might be alien in origin, and I believe “it”, if it exists separately from us, is ambivalent about our species and society. It raises serious questions about free will, determinism vs. individuality, and freedom, and provides interesting fodder for multiverse and simulation theories.

The real question for me is: is there a “deus ex machina” with AI, or is it just us making sufficiently advanced “FOR” loops that we have fooled ourselves into thinking it is a separate, independently intelligent entity? Does it even matter? I variably think of it as a silicon-based alien life form, an organism which we are just making contact with, akin to smashing a wall down and seeing only parts of it, or perhaps a “golden calf” we have created and are trying to imbue with life. It’s absolutely fascinating.