What Is This?
Healing Earth with Technology is an independent, science-based serial that ran weekly on Substack from May 2021 to July 2025, when the author, Dr. Jonathan Burbaum, turned his attention to building a new company, Modulus Water. Over 182 issues, it investigated climate science, engineering solutions, energy policy, and the integrity of scientific institutions — with a consistent emphasis on primary data over received opinion.
This site is a self-contained archive of every earlier issue. All images have been downloaded locally and all internal links work, so the archive can be browsed entirely offline with no connection to Substack.
How It Started
The newsletter was born during the COVID-19 pandemic, prompted by the widespread failure of world leaders to follow scientific evidence during the crisis. The founding observation was this: Science is routinely misunderstood, and that misunderstanding has catastrophic consequences. If leaders and the public had a better grasp of how science actually works — not as a set of pronouncements to be obeyed, but as a competitive, self-correcting process for separating truth from conjecture — the pandemic response could have been vastly more effective.
With that concern as a catalyst, Jonathan turned to an even larger question: climate change. Not as a pundit offering talking points, but as a working scientist building arguments from raw data, one installment at a time.
The Arc of the Argument
The serial unfolds in roughly four phases:
Phase 1: The Evidence (Issues 1–14, mid-2021). The first installments establish the physical case for global warming from primary data — temperature records, carbon-cycle chemistry, ocean observations, and IPCC reports. These early posts ask, and answer, foundational questions: Is global warming real? Where did all that carbon come from? What do we actually know?
Phase 2: The Healing Series (Issues 9–22, mid-to-late 2021). The twelve-part "Healing" series forms the backbone of the newsletter. It moves from diagnosis to prescription: evaluating decarbonization, renewable energy, nuclear power, desalination, irrigation, and geoengineering as potential solutions. The series culminates in a conclusion that carbon removal via engineered means is not optional but essential — and that no single approach is sufficient on its own.
Phase 3: Deep Dives (2022–2024). With the core argument in place, the newsletter branches into extended investigations of practical solutions. From a pure science perspective, increasing net planetary carbon capture through nuclear-powered desalination and irrigation is one way; Another is, paradoxically, to clearcut tropical rainforests and plant sugarcane instead. Finally, Jonathan developed an eleven-part engineering exploration of "a third solution" beyond nuclear power and environmental destruction; There are multi-part analyses of IPCC Working Group III recommendations; the economics of solar at the cost of coal; holoeconomics and energy transitions; hydrogen as a fuel; agrivoltaics; and detailed examinations of carbon-footprint claims for everything from Boeing to Bitcoin. These are the most technically demanding installments and include some of the most popular posts in the archive.
Phase 4: Institutions and Integrity (2024–2025). In its final year, the newsletter pivots toward the institutional and epistemological failures that undermine climate progress: the crisis in scientific publishing, academic integrity, the distortions introduced by advocacy organizations, and the emerging role of AI in both helping and harming scientific discourse. The three-part "Beyond DeSci" series proposes a new architecture for scientific trust. The "Evolution of Elon Musk" series examines how technology leadership intersects with public policy.
The Guiding Philosophy
From the very first issue, the newsletter operated under a single maxim:
Science is a sport that wrestles truth from conjecture.
The implication is that science is not a source of authority to be "followed" but a competitive, adversarial process that everyone should understand well enough to evaluate for themselves. The newsletter aspires to demonstrate that process transparently, including the moments where a scientist changes his own mind in light of new data.
Several recurring principles appear throughout the archive: cherry-picking data is scientific malpractice; objectivity is everyone's core challenge; advocacy without engineering is just more unnecessary hot air; and the question "If it sounds unbelievable, then why do you believe it?" should be applied universally, including to one's own assumptions.
About Jonathan
Dr. Jonathan Burbaum is a molecular scientist trained in organic chemistry and molecular biology, with an Ivy League scientific pedigree supplemented by decades of entrepreneurial and business experience. His career has spanned human health, alternative energy, and technology development. He has served as a Program Director at ARPA-E (the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy within the U.S. Department of Energy), where he helped direct federal investment in breakthrough energy technologies. He describes himself as a "pragmatic utility infielder" who combines ivory-tower science with street-smart business judgment to develop practical solutions to existential problems.
Where to Start
If you are new to the archive, there are several good entry points depending on your interest:
For the core argument: Start with Is Global Warming Real? (Issue 1), then follow the Healing series through to its conclusion at The Only Solution (Issue 21).
For engineering deep-dives: The eleven-part Developing a Third Solution series is the most technically substantial sequence in the archive.
For the most-read posts: The landing page is sorted by reader popularity. The most popular post across the newsletter's history is Low-cost Desalination and the ARPA-E Summit, followed by Healing (Part 12): Reducing the Only Solution to Practice.
For the latest thinking: The final posts before hiatus include Academic Fan-Fic of a Painless Net Zero Future and AI Is Turning the Corner.
About This Site
This archive was generated from the original Substack publication at healingearth.substack.com. Posts are organized by category and searchable by keyword. Each post includes navigation arrows to adjacent issues and category badges linking to related content. The archive was last generated on January 25, 2026.