Where the CDR industry recruits
The carbon-removal industry does not recruit its scientists where the science is biggest. It recruits where the technology is a product. In the CDR Researcher Census, 6.9% of direct air capture researchers work in the corporate sector - the highest share of any pathway. Soil carbon, the largest field with 41,118 researchers, sits at the bottom: 1.7%. The order down the chart is a map of how far each pathway has crossed from science into business. Direct air capture (6.9%) and enhanced weathering (4.4%) lead - both are engineered, measurable, and defensible as products, the kind of thing a company can own. The agronomy-adjacent fields trail: biochar at 2.1%, soil carbon at 1.7%. Where the removal is a machine or a measured mineral reaction, industry shows up. Where it is a farming practice, it mostly stays in the university and the extension service. ...