Courtesy Steve Payne

Courtesy Steve Payne

The Arctic ice pack is melting. For more than a decade, Steve Payne (MBA 1985), chair of the board of the Arctic Ice Project, has patiently explained the problem to anyone willing to listen: The disappearing ice is a harbinger of climate change but also a cause of it. Thick, old ice reflects 80 percent of solar radiation, helping to keep the planet cool. Brittle, newly formed ice is only half as effective and melts more easily. And open water reflects only 5 percent of the solar radiation warming the planet. Scientists predict that by 2030 the Arctic will be ice-free every summer.

The response Payne hears to this warning from potential funders and partners is different than it was even five years ago. “You don’t need to explain to people the severity of the problem,” Payne says. As he speaks in late August 2020, fires rage around Silicon Valley, where he makes his home and works as a partner at the mergers and acquisitions firm Architect Partners. A two-decade-long drought, a record-breaking heat wave, and a rare dry lightning storm had sparked 350 fires across Northern and Central California; it would soon become one of the worst fire seasons in memory for the region. “It used to be hard to convince people climate change was going to be a problem in our lifetime,” Payne observes. “Now it is a serious problem in our decade.”

The Arctic Ice Project is in pursuit of what Payne admits is an audacious climate change solution: restoring the Arctic ice to slow the effects of climate change. Leslie Field, who holds a PhD in electrical engineering and 58 patents, founded the nonprofit (formerly known as Ice911 Research) to develop the necessary technology. Field approached Payne, a longtime venture capitalist with an undergrad degree in engineering and public policy, for assistance in setting up the organization.

The Arctic Ice Project’s research focuses on materials-based solutions to ice loss—basically, substances that can mimic the beneficial reflective properties of old ice. After a decade of work, the organization has identified a promising option: reflective hollow glass microspheres. Made primarily of silica, a naturally occurring substance, the microspheres are similar to fine, white beach sand but with the ability to float. When spread across new ice, the microspheres increase the percentage of solar radiation reflected from 30 percent to 45 percent and allow this new ice to mature into more reflective ice. “It’s a high-leverage solution,” says Payne. Currently, the loss of Arctic ice is responsible for one-third of global temperature rise. A relatively small, targeted deployment of the material in the Arctic could have a large impact on global climate.

When Payne signed on for the project, he didn’t realize how important his volunteer effort would become. The Arctic Ice Project has sparked the interest of such organizations as the United Nations and the Arctic Circle Assembly. But he recognizes the group’s current challenge well from his own VC experience: “It’s time for us to put our foot on the accelerator and really scale up,” he says.

The Arctic Ice Project recently hired a new executive director and is in the process of expanding its board. Fundraising is key now. Payne estimates it will take $50 million over the next five years to demonstrate the effectiveness and safety of their solution. “That gives us time to still make a difference,” Payne notes. “If this takes 15 years, we’ve passed the tipping point—passed the point of being able to make a difference.”

Work is already under way to build the partnerships necessary to deploy the technology if testing proves successful; the Arctic Ice Project will not make that decision itself. “We need to build a global governance coalition so that democratic organizations can make the decision whether to do this or not,” Payne says. “We have to make these decisions together because our global climate is all interconnected.”

But, ultimately, Arctic ice restoration is only “a Band-Aid solution,” Payne says. To truly address climate change, the world has to come together and do the hard work necessary to shift away from a carbon economy and to cut greenhouse-gas emissions. “This buys us time to allow that transition to happen.”

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