Episode 176: Dr. Michael Dorsey, Sunrise Movement

Sep 27

Today's guest is Dr. Michael Dorsey, Global Energy, Environmental, Finance, and Sustainability Expert.

Dr. Dorsey is a serial organization builder and leader in for-profit, non-profit, scholarly, and governmental realms. Dr. Dorsey is an active investor, co-founder, and principal of Around the Corner Capital. Through Around the Corner, Dr. Dorsey maintains active relationships and agreements in the U.S. and beyond with various partners from Barrett Capital, to the California Clean Energy Fund, to Silverleaf Partners, the Royal Bafokeng Holdings (South Africa), Univergy (Japan/Spain), the World Bank and many other institutions and high net-worth individuals driving the global renewable revolution.

In non-profit realms, Dr. Dorsey helped to co-create the northern California headquartered Center for Environmental Health. In 2013, Dr. Dorsey and two former student collaborators co-created the predecessor to the Sunrise Movement. Beyond this, Dr. Dorsey sits on several non-profit boards. In academia, Dr. Dorsey was a professor in the environmental studies program at Dartmouth College.

Dr. Dorsey's significant government engagement began in 1992 as a member of the U.S. State Department Delegation to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, "The Earth Summit." Dorsey was a task force member of President Clinton's Council on Sustainable Development, a member of Senator Barack Obama's energy and environment Presidential campaign team, and was appointed to the EPA's National Advisory Committee.

I was excited about this discussion because Dr. Dorsey is a profound climate activist, environmental investor, and public advocate. In this episode, Dr. Dorsey explains his theory of change and what motivated him to focus on climate. We also dive into a discussion on single-solution rhetoric, why our leadership is failing, and how to create a more sustainable and just future. Dr. Dorsey is an incredible guest.

Enjoy the show!

You can find me on twitter @jjacobs22 or @mcjpod and email at info@myclimatejourney.co, where I encourage you to share your feedback on episodes and suggestions for future topics or guests.

Episode recorded September 16th, 2021

In Today's episode we cover:

Dr. Dorsey's climate path, what he focuses on, and what motivates him
How Dr. Dorsey chooses what to focus his time on and the evolution of his professional career
A discussion on the climate crisis as social injustice
How we make a substantial change
What is broken about our current systems, how we are misled by our leaders, and what the future looks like
Sunrise Movement and young climate activists' impacts on the climate fight
Dr. Dorsey's theory of change
The importance of decarbonization and carbon capture
Why Dr. Dorsey thinks fixating on one climate solution is detrimental to our success

Links to topics discussed in this episode:

Sunrise Movement: https://www.sunrisemovement.org/
Dr. Dorsey Op-Ed: Greater Innovation Is the Solution to Bitcoin's Carbon Footprint

Jason Jacobs: Hey, everyone. Jason here. I am the My Climate Journey show host. Before we get going, I wanted to take a minute and tell you about the My Climate Journey, or MCJ as we call it, membership option. Membership came to be because there were a bunch of people that were listening to show that weren't just looking for education, but they were longing for a peer group as well. So we set up a Slack community for those people that's now mushroomed into more than 1,300 members. There is an application to become a member. It's not an exclusive thing. There's four criteria we screen for: determination to tackle the problem of climate change, ambition to work on the most impactful solution areas, optimism that we can make a dent and we're not wasting our time for trying, and a collaborative spirit. Beyond that, the more diversity, the better.
There's a bunch of great things that have come out of that community, a number of founding teams that have met in there, a number of nonprofits that have been established, a bunch of hiring that's been done, a bunch of companies that have raised capital in there, a bunch of funds that have gotten limited partners or investors for their funds in there, as well as a bunch of events and programming by members and for members, and some open source projects that are getting actively worked on that hatched in there as well. At any rate, if you wanna learn more, you can go to MyClimateJourney.co, the website, and click the Become a Member tab at the top. Enjoy the show.
Hello, everyone. This is Jason Jacobs and welcome to My Climate Journey. This show follows my journey to interview a wide range of guests to better understand and make sense of the formidable problem of climate change and try to figure out how people like you and I can help.
Today's guest is Dr. Michael Dorsey. Dr. Dorsey is a recognized expert on global energy, environment, finance, and sustainability matters. He's a serial organization builder and leader in for-profit, nonprofit, scholarly, and governmental realms. In the for-profit area, Dr. Dorsey is an active investor and co-founder and principal of Around the Corner Capital, an energy advisory and impact finance platform. In the nonprofit realm, in '97, he helped co-create the Northern California headquartered Center for Environmental Health. In 2013, he and two former student collaborators co-created the predecessor to the Sunrise Movement.
Beyond this, Dr. Dorsey sits on several nonprofit boards. He served 11 years on the National Board of the Sierra Club. I was excited for this one because Dr. Dorsey has such a breadth of experience. And especially for someone like me who spent my entire career in small, high growth technology companies, super important to understand the areas that Dr. Dorsey's deep on when evaluating the best ways to address the climate crisis. Dr. Dorsey, welcome to the show.
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with you.
Jason Jacobs: Well, it's such an honor to have you. And I have to say, this discussion is intimidating for me personally for two reasons, or at least two, I should say.
Dr. Michael Dorsey: It shouldn't be.
Jason Jacobs: One is just [laughs]... I mean, one is just the magnitude of your accomplishments, and the other is that your experience is in areas that I have been working to understand better, but historically do not have a lot of experience or training with. And so I'm sensitive to just what I don't know coming in.
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Like what?
Jason Jacobs: Well, for example, the storyline with climate is... And I guess we'll, we'll jump right into it here.
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Let's get in.
Jason Jacobs: It's not, uh, typically how we [inaudible 00:03:46], but hey, it's a-
Dr. Michael Dorsey: [laughs] That's why we're here. I wanna get in. I don't wanna play games. [laughs]
Jason Jacobs: It's a crazy Thursday [laughs].
Dr. Michael Dorsey: [Laughs].
Jason Jacobs: I mean, the storyline with climate is just how intersectional everything is and how you can't decouple innovation from climate justice, from social justice, et cetera. And I believe that, but I also spent my whole career in innovation with blinders on, for example. And I've never worked on a systems problem like climate. And as we talked about in pre-recording-
Dr. Michael Dorsey: I think that's a problem of Sili Valley. Some people call it Silicon Valley. But this problem of suspended animation, Sci-Fi beliefs, you know, beliefs in the absurd I would call them is, I think it's unfortunate distraction, aberration, you know, idiocy that proliferates in Sili Valley, you know? This idea, you know, even the, the recent debates, you know, that, you know, data's just data, you know? I mean, people that were literally saying that, you know, eh, if you know about [inaudible 00:04:46] and building machines to deal with data, you know, this is stuff that's obviously rooted in race, uh, rooted in, you know, politics.
So thinking that you are somehow not connected to that, that's just bullshit. And anybody who is saying that either, A, is lying, or B, doesn't know what they're talking about. There's no way to escape these things. You can pretend they don't exist. But it's not possible to do so, particularly when some of the foundational things, if we just look at data, you know, technology, a lot of which the foundational things that people use are rooted in race, politics, class, these sorts of things. So, so you may think that you don't have anything to do with that, but that's just, that's just nonsense. And that doesn't mean that that's a problem, but it's just a point of fact. I mean, this is just the, the world in which we live is like this. There's no way to sort of get outside of it, you know? So.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And before we get too far down the path, Dr. Dorsey, if you don't mind, it'd be great to just hear a little bit about your story and, I mean, how you would describe the work that you do and maybe a bit about the journey and, you know, start wherever you like and take it at whatever zoom y- level you like. But just that, that led you into doing the work that you do today.
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Well, you know, I would say given the title of the Pod, you know, Climate Journey, I certainly did not start on that by no means, you know? I would not have imagined in my wildest dreams that seated elected officials in the planet's most powerful country would seek to suspend reality or adopt the view that fairytales and fantasies were the way in which that they should govern. So initially, I was working a lot, uh, you know, my early research is on biodiversity because I just assumed that climate and energy were things that serious individuals, individuals with integrity, Bona fide leaders, would begin to tackle.
And I certainly didn't assume, and this is, you know, back in the late '80s, you know, early '90s that these, quote unquote, elected officials and leaders as it were, not just government officials but, you know, heads of business and so forth d- uh, didn't assume then that these folks would outright lie, believe in fairy tales and fantasies and then dogmatically almost in a kind of more like a religion than, you know, leadership experience, try to pedal a bunch of bankrupt ideas and try to gain office in the highest offices of the land as it were, both on the government side or on the business side and run businesses based on lies and chicanery and hucksterism. I did not see that all. I know there are a lot of problems with climate but I, I thought people would be approaching these things in a much more serious manner than certainly they have over the last 20 years, and really, more than they were doing even to 30, 40 years ago.
And so I was working on biodiversity and people kept saying, you know, you should be thinking about, you know, climate as well and energy. And I think the one thing that facilitated some of that course correction is that, the area that I was looking at in biodiversity was the creation of commodities, you know, from the forest, the way in which biological material gets commodified, monetized, and so forth.
And I began to see some of the same issues and problems happening on the energy side, particularly in terms of the creation of carbon markets and their large scale deployment, you know, through vehicles like the European Union and Emissions Trading Scheme and so forth. And so a lot of the bad ideas, bad policies, bad models that I was seeing in terms of the creation of commodities and the use of market instruments to attempt, poorly, to manage biodiversity, to attempt to get out ahead of the unfolding biodiversity crisis, some of the same concepts and ideas were being taken whole cloth into trying to manage climate, the creation of carbon markets, the creation of essentially carbon and energy commodities.
And I had spent a lot of time, you know, my doctoral work was on looking at these problems and how these market approaches do not work, how they do not deliver results for biodiversity. This was happening in climate. And so, that's what caused me to pivot to begin to look at climate because one of my concerns was certainly, like I said a second ago, I didn't believe for a minute that people would try to pretend that there was not a climate problem. But I also did not want similar sets of individuals, or individuals working on climate, to use strategies and approaches and techniques and policies that demonstrably were bankrupt, for lack [laughs] of a better metaphor, and demonstrably would not enable us to get out ahead of the climate crisis at the scale and rapidity and urgency that we need.
And I think that that early work that I was doing with many other colleagues played out and proved out that, you know, the planet's largest carbon market place, the European Union and Emissions Trading Scheme, or System as they call it now. They renamed it. All the data is in after, you know, essentially two decades of that, you know, broken system running, it hasn't actually driven innovation at all by its own assessment and its own measures. It hasn't actually got out faster reductions in emissions in Europe or in the various concatenated markets that are, you know, nominally connected to it. It hasn't driven innovation in other marketplaces like California and elsewhere, probably now in China even though these other markets have taken advice from it.
So the work that we were doing on biodiversity, we pivoted to basically the, I would call that work, warning people that this approach to trying to and manage environment and solve environmental problems around biodiversity, isn't working in biodiversity. Bio-prospecting and curding commodities in nature and definature swaps doesn't result in protecting biodiversity. This is now, it's a fact. Lots and lots of data on this. We wanted to sort of warn people, and we did, that using these approaches on climate, creating carbon markets, doing stupid things like offsets and so forth, is not gonna get you the results that you need to scale up the response to tackling the climate problem.
And we testified on this and we were looking at, not only how it won't deliver the results that you need, but also how to trade a whole sea of other problems, you know, criminal activity, false counting, double counting, a whole litany of problems in terms of how you measure what people are offsetting, how you may indeed aid abet the mismanagement of, you know, forest resources and so forth that you put under these, you know, dodgy, you know, corrupt offset schemes and et cetera.
So we took that work early in the early naughts, and began to work on climate. And I think, you know, with some success, I think, you know, testifying, you know, in Washington and in Sacramento and, you know, working with Interpol and others on why this dust bin, just like the pink sheets of climate innovation, you know, multi-billion dollar stuff on a good day, right? Why would you even f- fool around and waste time with such nonsense when you've got multi-trillion dollar renewable energy marketplace? And that's going by, you know, literally [inaudible 00:12:32] magnitude and it's growth and so forth. Exponential growth here. Why even fuck around with nonsense like carbon markets and, and offset, you know, shenanigans and so forth? We didn't get to that point at the beginning but we ultimately got there and I'd say a lot of that work has proven to be the case empirically.
Jason Jacobs: So taking a step back, what led you down the path of studying biodiversity in the first place? Where did that come from?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Huh. Well, I've been always just both fascinated and in awe of natural systems. And really, for me, I was particularly interested not so much in biodiversity as a kind of system of nature decoupled from human beings, you know? I come out of a anthropological tradition, tradition that's somewhat related to ecological anthropology, economic anthropology, and then one that is also rooted in sort of a theoretical disposition called political ecology. And that is one that's trying to understand the way in which political economic systems have implications for ecosystems. So really, it wasn't so much a focus only on, you know, biodiversity or ecosystems from the vantage of some biologists and some, and not all, but may biologists who look at those systems, you know, isolated or almost again in a kind of pretend-like way as if they're somehow not connected to human systems, but really looking at the way in which political economic processes impact natural systems, ecosystems in particular.
So it was that interest that I, you know, had as far back as I can remember really. Back in elementary school days and Scouting, you know, trying to understand, you know, how were certain parks managed in certain ways, you know, who had access to them, what were the, the systems that enabled people to utilize them, how did they work in terms of, you know, surrounding communities and so forth. So that is something that I've been, you know, doing, my gosh, for probably close to four-fifths or, or three-fourths of my life, wondering about those questions.
Jason Jacobs: It sounds like, from the earliest days, it was the intersection... I don't wanna put words in your mouth, I'm just-
Dr. Michael Dorsey: [laughs]
Jason Jacobs: ... parroting back to make sure that I understand it.
Dr. Michael Dorsey: [laughs]
Jason Jacobs: But the intersection of natural systems and justice as it relates to the way that, that us as humans in- in- interact.
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Yeah, I, I, I, I don't, I don't know if I would call it justice. I think you can say that. That's a, it's a fair interpretation. I think I've always been interested in the intersection of political economy and ecosystems or natural systems. So the way in which, to put it crudely, capitalists or if you follow the money, what happens? What are the impacts of political economic forces in institutions? What results do they have on ecosystems, both small and very large, you know? Both in your backyard as it were, a- as well as up to the level of, not just the planet, but now the galaxy, you know?
Jason Jacobs: Okay, so I'm gonna try again. So is it natural systems and the way that the human systems are built and engage with those natural systems?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Yeah, but it's not just human systems. It's really the political economic system, right? There's a predisposition, particularly amongst maybe too many people in the United States. And lots of people, you know, even beyond the US for that matter, to just assume that, oh, individuals can do these things. But there are structural processes, you know, happening all around us. Yeah, they have individuals in them, but those structures are, you know, the sum is greater than the individuals that, you know, make those structures. So I'm particularly not just interested in individuals or humans as it were, but really political economic processes and structures and institutions and what those things do to, in this case, ecosystems and previously biodiversity, now climated energy.
Jason Jacobs: Got it. Wow. And so, so h- here's a question. You take any one of those things, you take the US government, you take the Chinese government, you take one particular type of energy, you take energy in the aggregate, you take racial inequality, like any one of these things, it's a massive undertaking both to understand where we are, to understand the history of it, and then to begin to understand what the different levers are for the future and which ones might have ripple effects or unintended consequences and wh- and which ones could be more impactful than others. That's before you even look at how that fits in to the overall system and all these other levers as well which are equally as massive in undertaking. So one issue or thing I struggle with is just, it's paralyzing. Like, where do you even start to begin to understand it, let alone to, to act on it?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: It may be paralyzing, you know, for some. I think, you know, fortunately, thankfully, we have pick in this country, and many other countries for that matter, we have tremendous, I'll call them knowledge resources, you know, certainly universities, the Academy as it were, but a great number of institutions far beyond the Academy, some far beyond, some closer aligned to, you know, universities and so forth. So we have a way in which to gain access. None of those things that you mentioned, racial issues, China, you know, the US government, you know, none of those things requires you to engage them from scratch, right? We have the literature, we have, you know, bodies of work that you can access, that by no means, may seem daunting at perhaps first glance, but you have a great number of people that have taken some time to, you know, do a gestalt on racial justice in the United States, you know?
It's not a problem that has an infinitely sided, if there is such a thing, uh, [laughs] you know, cube of some kind, you know? It, it's not a kinda of Tesseract or some gargantuan dodecahedron that you never can, you know, ever see the other side of 'cause it's maybe constantly rolling around in your mind. There are places where we can, you know, engage. There's scholars, there's institutions where we can start with these things.
And that, I mean, while that's a very common path for people that, you know, go on and, and get PhD like me and many, you know, colleagues and peers, you don't need to go get a PhD to start with a body of literature. It's accessible and it's probably, nowadays, given, you know, the internet and so forth and, and digital media, it's, you know, much, much more accessible than it was, you know, even a decade ago, and certainly more accessible for many, many people than it was definitely, you know, kind of, you know, in the '90s and before the '90s really. And that's a good thing.
That, for some, might be challenging and some people, you know, former students of mine and, when I was teaching, or some, not all, but some were at loss, you know, at a loss to discern the quality of sources of material. I don't think that that's that difficult at all, but nevertheless, even trying to juggle that with that small problem, I think it's a small problem, there are ways to do that.
And so there are ways of engaging literature, there are ways of starting on these issues, there are ways of, and not just doing it on your own, you know? Every piece of literature you engage, there's the person that's written it so you can reach out to those individuals a- and be in touch with them. Many folks are, are working on these, you know, issues, in a variety of and varying levels of complexity and it's relatively easy to work with different institutions on these things. I think so.
Jason Jacobs: So, I mean, you've done so many different things and so many different aspects of industry or philanthropy or activism or the world, do you have a personal mission and do you have consistent criteria that you use to assess what projects you get involved with and where to spend your time, or does it vary a lot from project to project? And also, has it evolved much over the course of your professional life or has it stayed fairly consistent?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Yeah, you know, that was perhaps the one question in the questions that you sent over to me that I appreciated the most, you know? Too many of these interviews and pod-like things and whatever are, people aren't doing their homework and I, I appreciate that you and your team clearly did by what you sent me. And that particular question was the one that compelled me to sort of, you know, reflect the most because I don't know if I would say that... I certainly wouldn't say I have a static strategy for approaching problems. There's certainly been an evolution in the way I look at things and particularly now, given the fact that more of what I do is, you know, on the business side as it were, on the money making side, you know? Call it what you like.
But for me, if there are a few sort of touchstones, you know, they would be in general, not so much on the money making side or on the activism side or philanthropy, but across the board as it were is looking for things that ultimately can deliver justice in a large way, in a way that is fit for a purpose and at the scale of which we need it in society, and trying to align with individuals and institutions and organizations that share that view. And also similarly, not just sharing the view because, you know, like my dad used to say, you know, ideas and views are like assholes. Everyone's got one. But really trying to deliver on that notion of delivering justice in a way that is fit for purpose and at the scale to which we need it.
So that, that's something I think that strives, for me, cuts across what I'm doing. No doubt there's probably folks out there that know some of the projects that I'm involved in that, you know, can be critical about, you know, to what extent is, you know, X doing, you know, that at scale, and look at those other problems in there. But I think in the main, that's something I've been committed to working on. It's something that, you know, I'm part of the Series A round of change finance which is CHGX, the ticker. We went IPO in '17 on a nice [inaudible 00:22:48] and, you know, it's a fossil fuel free ETF. And the CEO there, Andrew, my good buddy, loves to say that, you know, basically we're the, you know, and ETF of the Fortune 500 without the 400 largest assholes. But some might complain and say, well it's only narrowly focused on, you know, being fossil fuel free. What about all these other things? What about, you know, companies that are, I don't know, doing prison labor. We, we try to weed those out incidentally, but we have some other screens that we use, not just fossil fuel free only.
So some might wanna nitpick and say, well, that thing isn't doing enough on justice, you know, across the board. But my response would be, it's a, a vehicle to attempt to deliver on that larger ethos of, you know, scaling justice in the biggest possible way to ultimately, hopefully benefit the greatest number of people. So again, scaling justice at, that's, you know, at scale and fit for purpose and trying to, you know, realize that in a big, big way. So, so that's something that, you know, cuts across both the business work that I do, as well as the advocacy, you know, work with different organizations, as well as other sorts of things. And, and ultimately even to some extent, you know, I, I, I think personally, trying to actualize that and deliver that.
Jason Jacobs: Is there a specific problem that you're focused on? I mean, you talk about delivering justice. What problem are you aiming to solve with your life work?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Well you know I'm a subscriber to the idea that injustice everywhere and it's [inaudible 00:24:28] is an aphorism now, you know? Injustice anywhere really is a threat to justice everywhere, right? So I would say that if we can begin to tackle in a meaningful way, in a meaningful way that reduces things like uncommon equality, reduces the burden that, that we see falling disproportionately on the poorest of the poor in this country, and really around the world.
Of those that are the poorest of the poor, we know we've got great data on this, that those folks that are the poorest of the poor pay a disproportion of income if they have it. And if they don't have income, they pay literally with their health and wellbeing to a crisis that they're contributing the least to, in this case, the climate crisis. So those that are poor but, being poor by definition means you emit less, you know? Poor folks oftentimes don't have a, certainly two cars or two houses. Sometimes don't have a car at all, you know? They're dialed into a public transportation system if they can afford it. Sometimes you, you see the poorest of the poor are walking long distances. We see this quite often in local media. You hear that story of the guy who walks so many miles and some good Samaritan decided to, to pony up and get the person a car 'cause they would see that person when they were driving to work.
So we know that those that are at the bottom of our society, they bear a disproportionate amount of problems, whether it's paying money, whether it's, you know, having their health and wellbeing compromised. So I'm trying to attach myself with projects and with investments and with initiatives that I believe can ultimately do something to check that problem. I think that there's an upside there, you know, with change finance to some extent. I believe certainly in, you know, the kind of core of my business is on renewable energy. We do renewable energy at utility scale. I know full well that putting more, you know, wind and solar, we don't wind. We do a little bit of wind but 99% PV. That delivering that utility scale at scale is the secret sauce as it were, and it's not really a secret, but the secret sauce on thwarting the sort of, unfolding climate crisis which is absolutely upon us.
And I think right now, our portfolio in Spain, we have just over three gigawatts in development. That right now is 10% of the Spanish target for the whole country for 2030. Th- they have a 30 gigawatt target that they've set in, in motion. So I hope that we will have even a smaller percent because hopefully that target will grow in Spain but I think that the position we, we now have with that amount of PV assets in development is ultimately contributing to checking the climate crisis, as well as delivering in this case a commodity the cheapest way to generate power is, you know, when it's solar renewables. So that work, I believe that plays some role, some may when they do the math, may say it's ultimately marginal, but I think it plays a role in trying to stave off injustice.
Jason Jacobs: We clearly have a climate problem and we clearly have an injustice problem. Are they the same problem?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: You know, they unfortunately become that, I would say. They become intertwined in a way that the other exacerbates the other, you know? So it's been known I would say... It's funny, the knowledge of the climate problem is actually quite old. It's, [laughs] it's much older than a lot of people assume. You know, it wasn't the data gathering at Mauna Loa in Hawaii in the US that sort of first revealed that there is this crisis. You go back to the late 1800s and, you know, Swedish physicist, Svante Arrhenius, basically worked out the math for the greenhouse effect and what would happen if there was, you know, basically, uh, running up of carbon emissions and, for the most part, he got the forecast right. Some small errors in his math but he, he basically got it right. So there, I think there was a longer understanding of this problem of global warming than a lot of people know about or even, you know, recognize. I've written about this stuff, the history of climate science as it were.
But I think now, fast forward h- after essentially a solid generation, sadly, uh, this'll be a stain on humanity when scholars look back, you know, two, 300 years from now. And this generation, we've always had sort of a, through the short arc of humanity, modern society as it were, there've always been I would say a bumpy relationship with science, you know, and put that in quotes. But I think it's this generation that will go down in history as having had the leaders of the most powerful agencies, institutions, and governments having adopt fanciful, you know, thinking.
Really I, I think we had the, the age of empire, I think when all is said and done and we, when we pitch out 100 years from now and certainly 200 or 300 years from now, I think it'll be fair to say that this is the age of the kakistocracy, the rule of idiots and bad men and incompetence, you know? Really ruling over large swaths of the Earth, if not the entire thing. It's hard to say that now, but the previous American President will absolutely go down as, you know, again, kakistocratic ruler. There was a time where people were recording his lies and so forth and he is a Bona fide liar, but really just a incompetent.
So but, because of that generation, you know, this, you know, 30, 40 years of these incompetents, you know, mismanaging the climate problem, that mismanagement has webbed and interlocked something that didn't necessarily, I don't think, had to be. But it's really molded it almost together with injustice and where now, the failure to get out ahead of the unfolding climate crisis has huge, huge downsides for those on the margins. They've been dying more so than wealthier people, those that are the poorest of the poor. They get harmed typically first. When the waters flood, they don't just have their house basement flood, they drown in that water. They die in that water.
Uh, witness, you know, between you and me, i- in New York about 50 odd folks died from the aftermath of the most recent hurricane to sack the United States, Hurricane Ida. The super majority of that half a century of individuals were black, brown, and poor folks living in substandard, unofficial, illegal housing and they literally drowned. They died. They were murdered, I think it's fair to say, by those folks that had been incompetently mismanaging the climate crisis. So, yeah. Right now climate is absolutely bound up with these problems.
Jason Jacobs: And when you look at the existing system, and I guess, I'm not sure if I'm talking about the US system or the system globally that exists if there is a single system, I guess there isn't. But, I mean, is it incremental changes to the existing system? Do we need to scrap the systems that we have and, and rewrite from scratch? When you envision a system that functions better, what is it specifically that it would have that our existing systems do not have? And then, how do we even begin to take steps to get there?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Well, you know, I think in the interim, the pathway will be one of incremental changes as many folks that want, [C-changes 00:32:34], that want to completely abolish systems, have to still fight to do so. So as they fight for that larger change, which I think is absolutely necessary, absolutely required, those folks that are doing that agitation, as well as the sum of the folks that are pushing, you know, against that, the counter-insurgents as it were. I think it's fair to call them. Each side will get these sort of incremental, you know, advances, as well as some setbacks. No doubt. But I think we're also gonna some big surprises.
One example of that's, you know, close to my work and our business is, in terms of the price of renewable energy. I think it's fair to say that everybody in the business, you know, and whether it's PV or wind, we saw the prices trending downward but none of us predicted with any degree of confidence and accuracy the speed at which real energy, the cost of it would decline, you know, almost essentially exponentially the price has fallen out. Right now we're in a space where O&M, Operation and Maintenance, for solar assets, that's not quite for wind but almost, basically for wind and solar for the most part, essentially the same, we're margin zero, even though people put that into models for, you know, selling the assets. We certainly do. It's essentially zero. Nobody saw that happening.
And we're gonna be inching into a place where the payback periods, well, the payback period is continuously shrinking. We're now at a worldwide average of about, you know, six year payback on most utilities scale, you know, assets. That will continue to decline and we'll be in a space where the term or the asset which is, you know, 10, 15, some people are still doing 20 year terms on big, big projects, you basically with the payback being, you know, 20, 25% of the term, the assets like an annuity, you know?
And so, that also means that energy could nominally be provided to bottom Quartile, bottom Quintile, the bottom two Quintiles, about two, you know? So half of, of a country or a given area that's served by some, you know, renewable asset could arguably get that energy for free. We certainly don't have that, but it's those sorts of things where the incremental work, so those of us who've been trying to put solar in the ground and put it on roofs, suddenly there's a breakthrough and a C-change happens.
So I think what we're gonna see and what we need, it's hard to predict when you're gonna get these C-change events. But I think the incremental work that a lot of us are doing will catalyze and inspire and generate some C-change activities that some of which may be, we may be able to foresee and predict them. Some of which will just appear, almost out of thin air, and have, you know, sort of revolutionary consequences. And I think, we don't have that conversation so much, you know, on the energy side, but I think we're there in the energy side where we can actually give away free energy and still make a lot of money from it. We don't have that obligation to do that. But we're in that space now. And that could have huge implications on, you know, the world as we know it certainly 'cause energy is so key for so much stuff.
Jason Jacobs: Well going back to your statement about how this will be the era, I forget the exact word, but how we've been-
Dr. Michael Dorsey: The era of idiots.
Jason Jacobs: Yeah.
Dr. Michael Dorsey: The kakistocrats. [laughs]
Jason Jacobs: Yeah, exactly, that, that was the one. Uh, and I asked you what should be different about it and y- and you talked about some technological breakthroughs. I mean, what about the ruling part? Where does they play and, like, what is it that's wrong with how we're being led today and, and what vision do you have for how we should be led in the future?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: So that is the one thing and I do go back, I would say that we obviously need a leadership that's not defined by incompetence and idiots and a Bona fide, just, I will just stick with incompetence. Incompetence that a running government particularly, you know, being the President, it's a recipe-
Jason Jacobs: Is that because the wrong people are running or is it because of the way our system works, or, like, what, what is broken? Like, have you been able to diagnose what it is that's broken about our system that leads to that result?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: I think that there's a lot of things, you know, now. I think, you know, in this country, and in many other countries around the world, you know, the over-reliance and the over-indulgence in social media, the way in which people receive information, not just news but just information through those mediums. And then also the failure, not simply to just disconnect, you know, but the failure to seek out information news that is rooted in credible sources, the failure for that hunger, as well as not just social media, but the news media in general, you know, peddling, you know, a lots of lies, really much more interested.
I, I think it's fair to say that most news now is more about entertainment than it is about the provision of news. And so we're in a moment where the commoditization of media, I think it disables a great amount of people in this society as it were to make sense of their world. And then, if you can't make sense of what's literally in front of you in your own house, let alone on your street, let alone in your city or your town or your village, or wherever it is you are, or your country, then being able to hold leaders accountable is fleeting at best. Some people don't even know how to do that.
So I would say that, not just social media, you know, 'cause I, I don't wanna give some of the charlatans and Sili Valley too much credit or massage or stroke the egos too much to think that they're controlling the universe, but it's really, it's more the media broadly defined and the way in which it's more about making money than it is about delivering credible ideas, credible information, information that is ultimately, I think, crucial to not just understanding the world, but enabling us to formulate ideas that are fit for purpose, that have integrity. So I think that that's a big, big culprit and that enables folks that are charlatans, that are idiots, to come to power, to rule over people, to harm them in various ways, and to use them and manipulate them.
So people are able to use these broken systems and they are doing this to confuse people, to trick them. And so it's that nexus of some systems rooted in really just monetizing for the sake of monetizing, not delivering, you know, credible information. And then people that have learned how to exploit that. And, you know, witness, I mean, you know, great data from folks in Sili Valley, you know, about how, you know, Facebook and Instagram and these forms of social media inspire particularly young children, young women especially, to self-harm and to, you know, having suicidal ideation. Tons of information about that and lots of data that these companies have, you know, done their own research recently, you know, leaked in, in the press. But yet, these companies continue at pace. So folks again at the top, wealthy folks, you know, they block their children and folks 'cause they know that these instruments can actually lead to, you know, it could harm kids and are harming children.
But a lot of people don't have that luxury. A lot of people are, you know, being fed things that they don't need. And that has huge consequences certainly for individuals, but also for society at large. And it keeps certain problems, like, climate, like, economic problems, you name the various problems. Like the problems of wayward leadership, it keeps those things playing out and ultimately harming people. You know, witness the kakistocratic previous US administration, you know, basically completely mismanaging the global pandemic and resulting in, you know, the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, you know?
Jason Jacobs: So do you think that the rise of Greta or the rise of the Sunrise Movement would've happened at the pace it did, to the magnitude that it did, without social media?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Potentially. I think, you know, just as you have certain individuals that are exploiting the media, and it's really broader than social media, but the media, to more nefarious untoward ends to harm people, I think you also have people that are leveraging the media, including social media, to attempt to solve big problems. Nominally what we were talking about in the climate crisis. So I think at the same time, there are, and there have been, you know, venues for people to get their messages out there. I think social media has enabled some folks to do that in a way that is beneficial. I don't know, you know, if we could, we go back pre-Twitter, pre-Instagram, pre- you know, Facebook. Most people [laughs] don't even know why the damn thing's called a Facebook unless you went to the Ivy League schools, you know, the origin of that name.
But there is a time before then where you had social movements that were well-known, widespread, you know, the US Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-Apartheid Movement. These movements were Bona fide global movements, had nothing to do with social media as we now know it, and they resulted in, you know, C-changes in, one, in the case of the US Civil Rights Movement, C-change in the, the way business is conducted in the planet's most powerful country, bar none. It also resulted in a complete change of the awful, evil system of Apartheid in South Africa. Those movements, those social movements for justice, uh, had absolutely nothing to do with social media as we know it.
So I think it's an open question, but I, I certainly d- wouldn't believe for a minute if Zuckerberg and all of his bag men and bag women turned off that operation would the world continue at pace? Absolutely. You know, could it probably be better? Probably. Would people be less subject to suicidal ideation because of being connected to that nonsense? Absolutely. That's sort of a point in fact, right? The thing creates that and if you turn it off, then that thing wouldn't be creating it. Maybe something else would. That's up for discussion and debate.
Jason Jacobs: Uh-huh [affirmative]. And so getting tactical, so if we wanted to get out of this era into an era of more intelligent leadership and you're aware facts mattered, and you're aware there was less inequality, an era where we were more in harmony with the planet and natural resources that we rely on to sustain us, and other life forms, I mean, you talked about it'd be incremental in the short term and it would lead to bigger things over time, what's your theory of change? How do we get there? What things should we be pushing on the short term? What cha- things should we doing longer term? I mean, you helped get the Sunrise Movement off the ground, but you're also a solar entrepreneur. Like, I'm trying to understand where in your view we should go from here?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: So, for me, this is not a, a question that is answerable in a single sort of formula or sentence, you know? There isn't like a magic pill, you know? I don't know if it's blue or red, whatever they take in the movie, that's so the movie. Uh, [laughs] you know, that one can just be given and presto, magic, you know, abracadabra. All problems are solved. I think if there is, for me, as you call it, a theory of change, it is one that is about working to deliver justice at scale and seeking out institutions and individuals that are committed to doing that and being a part of projects that try to deliver that. I think from my vantage, that's something that is relatively easy to be aligned with. It's not like the Civil Rights Movement or Human Rights Movement. It's some kind of big secret cabal that you can't find a phone number for. You know, [laughs] you can't get an email for or you can't connect with individuals that are working on those sorts of things.
And so similarly, we have in this country, and we have really around the world, it's a global movement, yeah. It's not just for Greta, you know? She's a little bit late on scene actually in just in temporal and absolute time-wise, you have a global movement for climate justice. You have a global movement for energy justice. You have many, many activists, not just even dozens but more in the thousands and tens of thousands that are working on this. And it's relatively easy to get connected to them. It's relatively easy to lend support to them, whether if it's just in the form of writing a check or doing, you know, I'll call it critical, but let's say low level grunt work, you know? Writing letters and so forth, you know? Visiting elected officials trying to, you know, hold your own elected officials accountable or doing something more sophisticated like trying to run to be an elected official yourself.
These networks you can easily plug into. They're readily available and they're just as easy as walking over to McDonald's and ordering a sundae or whatever it is you like to order at McDonald's if you like to order anything from that place in the first place. And I think that their fact of that, the reality of that, is sometimes lost on people. Sometimes people think, you know, how, how do I get plugged into this? Well, I hate saying it, but I'll say it, Google is your friend, you know? You can really find out, you know, what people are doing and get involved in these things. And I think that that's much easier than not.
Jason Jacobs: But what are the key changes that you're seeking? Like, 'cause we talk about how we're run by idiots and we talk about that you can phone bank, but what about that middle part about, like, here are the five things that matter and to rally around and to bring about, and if we can make these happen, that's how we get the most impactful progress. Or just anything to kind of hang on to?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Well, I, I don't, I don't know, I think that that kind of American, me-me-ism, sycophantic navel gazing individualism is a really distinctly American disease. I think it's a kind of a mental cancer that somehow, in some way, that too many people in this country, and not in other countries necessarily, but and not exclusively here. It's not universal, thank God, in, in the United States. But I think it's kind of a disease that people believe that if I had a recipe of five things, or three things, or one thing, some people like one thing. I want, they can't even... That then, and if I did that one thing, as if by magic or sorcery or witchcraft perhaps, that my life would be better, and the country would be better, and the world would be better, I think that's hogwash and nonsense. I mean, too often, I think this is actually one of the big problems with social media, you know? Again, the, the detritus of Sili Valley is that the focus in that box is on the end result, right?
You see the human with the perfect abs, but you don't see, 'cause nobody would watch it, you know? Two years of going to the gym in a very, very dull way, sometimes not wanting to go, sometimes maybe missing a day, you know? [laughs] You don't see that 'cause nobody would watch that, you know? Nobody would watch somebody walking in the, you know, dark of the morning or whatever doing that over and over and over and over again. So, I think we need to be thinking about processes as opposed to end points that are at least in the way media often presents them, disconnected from processes and that also means not focusing on individuals. And this is why I'm interested in political economic systems. Not individuals. Not human beings, but the systems in which the human beings are caught up in and are impacted by negatively and/or positively. We have to focus on that, you know, because it's that stuff that I think, and I know, gives us the critical tools and infrastructure to deliver these C-changes that we absolutely need. And it's also that same stuff that allows us to have those incremental changes as opposed to-
Jason Jacobs: What are the C-changes that we need?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Well, you know, let's focus in terms of climate given the, the nature of the Pod, you know, the name of the Pod. We certainly need not just for example, the more ambitious commitment that the current Administration has made which we already know is not enough, you know? [laughs] If you're a student of political economy, you kinda know that if the government says something, it's probably being conservative. It's probably not gonna be enough. So you know, a 50% commitment of reducing emissions is, is somewhere between 50 and 100% off the mark, you know, by 2030 which is a new commitment.
It sounded great, you know, it's double the commitment from this bad agreement, you know, which [laughs] you know, why would that even be important? Lots of environmentalists are going around and plotting. So in terms of climate, we now are in the space where we know that carbon neutrality is not enough, right? We've gotta get on about getting carbon pollution out of the atmosphere just as fast as we've gotta get on about, you know, getting to zero emissions. So there's a double problem now that we have, you know? We've gotta build out those renewal energy resources to reduce emissions drastically, but we've also gotta get out the carbon pollution that we put in the atmosphere because we, we know that the science is here that this stuff is actually gonna cause problems over a long horizon. So we've gotta speed up the way in which we reduce emissions much more aggressively than we're working to deal with it now.
So that, that's an absolute thing that we need to work on. And then in doing that, if, and I, I think it is certainly, if renewable energy, you know, and certainly other solutions, but let's just focus on renewable energy. If that is gonna be a critical part of the solution, and we're now in the space where we could potentially give away power generated by renewables for little to no cost for those that are the poorest of the poor, we ought to begin to think about how we can do that. Right now, nobody's thinking about that. Nobody. Nobody. Nobody anywhere, right? Nobody whose thinking about putting in renewable energy is thinking about how we can actually deliver on the right to energy as a human right. You know, people talk about that, you know, [inaudible 00:50:42]. But on the business side, there's nobody doing that.
And so that actually, that's the space of being, [laughs] like I like to say, around the corner, [laughs] you know? That's really what's around the corner. How we can deliver this free energy which is, it's essentially free. You know, when, when you're down at oh, and margin zero and then, that's called something you can give away and still make money. So we're not thinking about that. So we've gotta think about, we've gotta think about some of these, we gotta work- walk these problems in to the future and look at, well, okay. How do we quickly get to net zero in this case and reduce emissions? But then what comes after that? We can't just sort of, oh, net zero, done. We already know that that's not gonna be enough. The science is already there about why that's not enough.
So if that's true, then, well, what the hell comes next, okay? If we're today with O&M, margin zero, O&M, on renewable assets, well then what can we go further than that? And i- if we don't give it away for free, well this is how some of the math of the Green New Deal nominally works. We've got these assets that still, you know, generate a revenue positive and we can move some of these monies into other systems. We can take some of the monies that come out of renewables and put some of that, those returns into education, put some of those returns into healthcare, put some of those returns into other social services that we desperately need. You know, the reason why this pandemic is out of control is because, it's not because the public health system is broken. It's because it doesn't exist, right? So we need resources to build up that system because there will be future pandemics. This is guaranteed.
Jason Jacobs: If you could only change one thing that was outside of the scope of your control, what would you change and how would you change it that would most impactfully accelerate the transition?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Well, so you like this, one thing, thing. I don't think that there is such a one thing. This is not-
Jason Jacobs: Well, because if you don't have one thing, then you can say, well everything needs to change, and if everything needs to change, then nothing changes.
Dr. Michael Dorsey: W- well, but no. That, so, maybe this is a Sili Valley hangover of zeros and ones, you know? It's gotta be one thing or the, everything.
Jason Jacobs: I just like accountability. I like accountability-
Dr. Michael Dorsey: [laughs]
Jason Jacobs: ... and without, without specifics, there's no accountability. It's all just like grandiose talk.
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Well, no, no, no, no. I mean, I don't think there's anything grandiose about suggesting, you know, working out the math for delivering free energy, or very, very cheap energy to the bottom two or three Quintiles of society. I don't think there's anything grandiose about that and I think that that's actually easy math. It's more like arithmetic. It's not even calculus. But that alone would be a C-change into the way in which the lives of those bottom two or three Quintiles of society, they would hugely, positively impact them in a very, very positive way.
But that is not just the only thing that folks need. You know, folks at the bottom of, you know, society as rule, don't just only need free energy or a very, very cheap energy, okay? They also need healthcare. So I, I think what we have to do, and I, I think it's kind of, um, maybe crude simplification to be almost silly to think that solving one piece of an aspect of the climate crisis or the energy crisis, sort of produces through magic the corrections across all other sorts of problems. So, I don't believe that for a minute. And I, I think, you know, thankfully, thank God, you know, human beings are slightly more sophisticated than to, you know, at least, I'll say, sophisticated human beings are [laughs] thankfully more sophisticated than the meaning that, well, I'm only, I must focus on one problem and, you know, be damn all the rest of them. And if I focus on solving this one problem, it's by magic, we'll fix everything else. That's just nonsense. That's fantasy thinking.
Jason Jacobs: But it, don't you worry that that's just gonna demotivate anyone that's focused on one problem without even trying?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: No, no, I, I, I don't believe, uh-
Jason Jacobs: It's like, if everyone, 'cause if everyone's focused on one problem and, and the message is that there's no one problem that matters, then no one's gonna get anything done and they're just gonna stick their heads in the sand and go back to doing what they're doing.
Dr. Michael Dorsey: I, I don't believe that for a minute. I think that sophisticated people have the ability, you know, and not to be too cliché but to not just walk and chew gum, but to nowadays, walk, chew gum, talk on the phone, uh, [laughs] you know, d- and that's, and I mean multitask. Sophisticated people have the ability to recognize that a problem that they're dealing with is connected to other problems. They can then align themselves with folks that are, you know, working on those many problems.
And basically what we're talking about it, you know, though they say there's no job description for the President, you know, this is a presidential kind of, you know, this is a really [inaudible 00:55:17] job description, you know? You don't get a President who says, well, I'm coming in here to go bomb somebody, you know? No. Th- they really have a large agenda and it's not an infinitely large, by the way, right? You know, the, you can go and look up, you know, any candidate. No matter what your political disposition is, you know? Right, left, center, green, red, whatever you want, you know, socialist, or you know, whatever, libertarian, whatever. They have a platform and so I think, I think what's important, if you're talking about changing society, I think you need to have a coherent platform. I, I don't think, I think it's nonsense, I think it's bullshit actually that, you know, somehow solving climate change will result in better healthcare. That's madness. I mean [laughs]-
Jason Jacobs: But you're just talking about leader of one country. There's a whole world like to think that one leader of one country could make a difference. There's a whole world out there. So why even focus on it?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: So that's why, to take the leader thing, this is why we have [FORA 00:56:12]. You know, fortunately there is some coordination of leaders, you know? Most people sort of mischaracterize this, but I have my own issues with United Nations. But you have FORA where countries come together and try to, you know, sometimes the focus is not the highest ambition goals. But it is creating a FORA and the FORA is, is sometimes necessary, you know? Look, even agree, you know, I want my nukes, you want your nukes, but we're gonna agree that we will at least come together and not just randomly use them, not do certain sorts of things. We have FORA that bring leaders together.
So I, I think that, you know, the multilateral system with as many problems as it has, and it has many, many problems, that that is a space where many leaders can come together to coordinate on solving this problem, particularly a problem like climate. I mean, look. The failure, I mean, I think actually maybe both climate and the pandemic are good examples of this. The failure and we, we're seeing this now in the pandemic, it's [inaudible 00:57:12] in our face I think. It's a little more hard to grasp with climate. I, I certainly see it with climate but I use the example of the pandemic. The failure to have good global coordination will force and enable this pandemic to linger on and potentially be more catastrophic and more deadly in a very short period of time. I got the vaccine the same day as the President in Mexico. That's not just like, a mess. That's actually fucked up. That's insane. That means that there wasn't good coordination just in North America as there should be to do it with getting out the vaccine.
So we have to have coordination on a whole slate of issues that does not mean, and I strongly disagree, vehemently actually, that well, someone is gonna say, well there's too many issues, you know? I can't do anything. Well, you know, that person, if they're so disposed, I probably don't need them anyway, right? I don't believe that we need everybody working on everything. I'm not that human being. I need people that have the ability to have a set of ideas and a set of issues and if they're not the expert in that issue, at the minimum to be able to, at the barest minimum, know about other experts that are trying to tackle that issue and hopefully potentially they'll see that issue as connected, biodiversity, climate, energy, water, let us say, to then align with those individuals to work on those things in a coherent way and a concerted effort to tackle that sort of multifaceted problem. That's actually the definition of sort of tackling, you know, these sort of sticky wicket problems. There aren't these sort of singular solutions that can be offered. You know, that's the, sort of the basis for actually a, a, a domain of research, you know, complexity of science. And people that are looking at these they are multi variable problems and it did.
There's a lot of space about how you can put this together that, you know, doesn't unfortunately boil down to, you know, a recipe. But I think it's a disservice to the one, the, that body of science out there, [laughs] that tells us how we can tackle these complex problems to just assume well, there must be some one thing we can do. No. You know, it's unfortunate people believe that, you know?
Jason Jacobs: Well this was such a comprehensive discussion. Is there anything I didn't ask that I should have or any parting words for listeners?
Dr. Michael Dorsey: Well, you know, I think if there's anything that we can really do is, recognize that tackling something like climate and other complex problems requires a lot of work. And it is a long, long battle to deliver, not just a solution to climate change, but to deliver something more and that something more is improving livelihoods. This isn't something that is simply just done and then you can go back to sleep. This is part of a, I think a life disposition, a lifetime commitment. And that sometimes, may be elusive to some, but I think it's something that people, a lot of people step up to. Many more should and hopefully many more will, you know?
Jason Jacobs: Well what a great point to end on. Dr. Dorsey I can't thank you enough for coming on the show. You've given me and I suspect listeners as well a lot to think about and I think it'll spur some interesting dialogue and debates as well which I think is really healthy and should help everybody no matter what side of these issues they come down on to learn and to build bridges, so thank you.
Dr. Michael Dorsey: I hope so. [laughs] Thank you. Thanks for doing this.
Jason Jacobs: Hey, everyone. Jason here. Thanks again for joining me on My Climate Journey. If you'd like to learn more about the Journey, you can visit us at myclimatejourney.co. Note: that is .C-O, not .com. Someday we'll get the .com, but right now .co. You can also find me on Twitter @jjacobs22 where I would encourage you to share your feedback on the episode or suggestions for future guests you'd like to hear. And before I let you go, if you enjoyed the show, please share an episode with a friend or consider leaving a review on iTunes. The lawyers made me say that. Thank you.