The Safest Path to Stable Climate Is Designing New Plants
Plant biotechnology and technologically enhanced gardening as tools for biospheric stewardship.
Read in Palladium MagazineSource essay: The Ecology of Arcadia (PDF)
Team
Patrick Mellor
Founder and biological-program lead
Scientific practice
Current work
Patrick currently leads Carbocene’s work in continuity of living plant research, greenhouse and propagation systems, photosynthesis-enhanced tree research, new plant-biotechnology development, field and institutional development, and preparation for longer-term grants and partnerships.
His work is grounded in direct plant care, propagation, greenhouse maintenance, experimental planning, biochar, and field activity. The person developing a research direction is also present for the daily conditions that allow plants, records, observations, protocols, and practical knowledge to persist.
That direct involvement connects scientific ambition to biological time: seasons, growth, stress, recovery, and the accumulated judgment required to keep an experiment alive. Research directions move forward according to their current technical status, funding, rights, and appropriate scientific relationships.
Scientific and intellectual formation
Background
Patrick studied biological sciences, paleobiology, and botany at Oxford. He later studied and taught philosophy at San Francisco State University, with research interests involving consciousness, episodic memory, empathy, temporal representation, attention, and early modern rationalism.
He was selected as a Foresight Fellow in 2019. During that period he developed decomposition-resistant wood as a biological carbon-storage concept, bringing together paleobiology, plant biotechnology, and the need for longer-lived forms of biological carbon.
Patrick later co-founded Living Carbon and served as chief technology officer. He founded Carbocene as an independent nonprofit institution to preserve living research, practical knowledge, and experimental capacity while developing work for public benefit and longer scientific time horizons.
Historical role
Living Carbon
Patrick later co-founded Living Carbon and served as its chief technology officer, helping build its early scientific program in enhanced photosynthesis, biological carbon storage, plant transformation, greenhouse research, and field development. Carbocene is an independent nonprofit institution and does not represent or speak for Living Carbon.
From argument to living technology
A scientific program built across writing, plants, and institutions.
In that earlier role, Patrick helped conceptualize and develop a plant-biotechnology program spanning photosynthesis enhancement, biological durability, propagation, greenhouse systems, growth evaluation, biomass analysis, and preparation for field work.
The program was collaborative and depended on scientists, horticultural staff, transformation partners, forestry researchers, and operational teams. Patrick’s role connected its deep-time scientific argument to biological design, living material, and the practical work required to move experiments toward the field.
He founded Carbocene to preserve long-horizon biological capacity while developing new research through an independent nonprofit model.
Selected earlier work
Work that helped shape Carbocene.
Before founding Carbocene, Patrick developed and published work across paleobiology, plant biotechnology, forestry, and philosophy. These articles, talks, and academic publications helped form questions that Carbocene now carries into practice. They are part of his prior record, not work produced by Carbocene.
Palladium articles
Ancient Upheavals Show How to Geoengineer a Stable Climate
What the paleoclimatic record reveals about carbon drawdown, climate stability, and active biological intervention.
Read in Palladium MagazineSource essay: Deep Time Perspectives on Climate Change (PDF)
Talks
Decomposition-resistant “superwood” as a biological carbon sink
A 2019 Foresight Fellowship presentation exploring decomposition-resistant wood as a biological carbon sink.
Watch the presentationAcademic work
Enhanced Photosynthetic Efficiency for Increased Carbon Assimilation and Woody Biomass Production in Engineered Hybrid Poplar
Peer-reviewed controlled-environment research reporting increased photosynthetic efficiency and above-ground biomass in engineered hybrid poplar.
Patrick is one of sixteen co-authors.
View the journal recordView the full archive of earlier work that helped shape Carbocene
Selected reporting on earlier work
Independent accounts of the research and its development.
Fast Company
These “supertrees” are engineered to capture more carbon
Early direct attribution of the combined photosynthesis-and-retention framework.
Read the Fast Company reportScience
To fight climate change, a biotech firm has genetically engineered a very peppy poplar
Experimental results and independent scientific context.
Read the Science reportMIT Technology Review
Inside the quest to engineer climate-saving “super trees”
Long-form scientific and intellectual history.
Read the MIT Technology Review accountThe New York Times
For the First Time, Genetically Modified Trees Have Been Planted in a U.S. Forest
Field-planting milestone.
Read The New York Times reportMongabay
Genetically engineered trees stoke climate hope — and environmental fears
Balanced scrutiny of the technology’s promise and unresolved ecological questions.
Read the Mongabay reportThese sources concern work conducted before Carbocene’s founding. They document Patrick’s professional and scientific history and do not imply present sponsorship or endorsement.
Poetry
Patrick is also the author of Alkali Shores , a 2019 collection of poems concerned with biological and cultural history, desert ecology, perception, mythology, and planetary time.
Institutional continuity
From personal maintenance to a durable nonprofit home.
Patrick took responsibility for maintaining research capacity whose scientific value outlasted its original commercial context. For a period, he kept much of that capacity intact through direct labor and personal financial support while Carbocene’s nonprofit structure was being established.
The purpose is not to leave the work dependent on one person. It is to move living material, records, technical memory, and research development into an institution that can support collaborators and outlast individual circumstances.
Carbocene is the institution
Build biological research that can outlast its founder.
Patrick’s role is to lead biological programs while building the conditions for scientists, landholders, students, funders, and community researchers to participate in durable work.