Breaking Green

Will we act? IPCC's Code Red for Humanity with Dr. Michael Dorsey.

August 30, 2021 Global Justice Ecology Project / Host Steve Taylor Season 1 Episode 3
Breaking Green
Will we act? IPCC's Code Red for Humanity with Dr. Michael Dorsey.
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In this episode of Breaking Green, we talk with  eminent environmental scientist, Dr. Michael Dorsey, about the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report and current UN effort to address our collective future.

The IPCC has issued a code red on climate change. The report states that there is an imminent risk of hitting the internationally agreed upon limit of 1.5 degrees in just decades and that immediate action is needed to avoid global warming's most dire consequences. But is there the political will to act? What solutions are being proposed? Are they likely to work or just technofixes designed to prop up business as usual?

Breaking Green is produced by Global Justice Ecology Project.

Breaking Green is made possible by donations from people like you. 

Please help us lift up the voices of those working to protect forests, defend human rights and expose false solutions.  Simply click here to send a donation or text GIVE to 1 716 257 4187.


Steve Taylor  
Welcome to Breaking Green, a podcast by global justice ecology project. on Breaking Green, we will talk with activists and experts to examine the intertwined issues of social, ecological and economic injustice. We will also explore some of the more outrageous proposals to address climate and environmental crises that are falsely being sold as green. I am your host, Steve Taylor. Antonio Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, called the sixth report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a code red for humanity. The report made clear that humans have already heated the planet by 1.1 degrees Celsius since the 19th century, with the last decade likely being the hottest in 125,000 years. The report also states that there is an imminent risk of hitting the internationally agreed upon 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold for global warming within just decades. The report warns that nations no longer have the ability to prevent climate change from worsening over the next 30 years, and that we now need to invest in protecting vulnerable populations. Offering a glimmer of hope, the IPCC noted that with intensive action, some of the worst effects of climate change may still be avoided. But is there the political will to do so? What solutions are being proposed? Are they likely to work or merely techno fixes designed to prop up business as usual? In this episode of Breaking Green, we will ask eminent environmental scientist and activist Dr. Michael Dorsey about the recent IPCC report and the current UN efforts to address our collective future. Dr. Dorsey holds a BS and PhD in natural resources and environmental policy from the University of Michigan. He also holds a Master's of Forest Science from Yale, and an MA in anthropology from Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Dorsey was an assistant professor in Dartmouth College's Environmental Studies program, and the director of the college's climate justice research project. Among his academic positions, Dr. Dorsey was a visiting professor at Wesleyan University has served as faculty at the University of Kwazulu Natal in South Africa, and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Dr. Dorsey also served as a director of the Sierra Club and is a founding member of the Center for Environmental Health. He also served at the US EPA during the Obama administration, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. With decades of leadership as an activist, administrator, and educator, his accomplishments are too numerous to mention here. Dr. Dorsey, thank you for joining us, 

Dr. Michael Dorsey  
Steve. It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me. 

Steve Taylor  
So Dr. Dorsey, you have worn so many hats. You have served as director of the Sierra Club, have been an outspoken public academic and activist and have even worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the EPA. Before we get the climate change, I would like to ask you, what brought you to focus on the environment personally, and professionally?

Dr. Michael Dorsey  
Well, you know, just a correction and minor one. So I did work at the Jet Propulsion Lab. But I was on the advisory, or I served the EPA in an advisory capacity, I was never an employee at the Environmental Protection Agency, but had the pleasure to serving two administrators there, you know, on the National Advisory Committee of the EPA, the NAC, as it were, and served both Administrator Jackson, and also administrator McCarthy, during the Obama administration. It was a great honor to serve two leading environmentalist as it were. And two folks that I think are, you know, trying to keep environmental policy, full of integrity. But, you know, for me, um really, you know, I've been working on these issues, broadly called environmental issues, now sometimes called sustainability or sustainable development issues. Really, since, you know, a very, very young age, you know. Back in Michigan, where I was born, you know, I've had the opportunity to be involved in the Boy Scouts group, more recently looked upon less favorably than it was, you know, arguably, you know, decades ago, but still, I think serving as an important beacon then in design I said today for young folks to experience environment and to engage with it, and to, perhaps for some to move on to protecting it. And that's, that's the legacy that I sort of stepped through one of being, you know, fortunate and privileged enough, you know, initially starting in a Cub Scout troop that was run by my great aunt, my late Great Aunt Betty. Just so happens that today on 28th of August is her birthday. So it's it's definitely a wonderful time to have this discussion. But starting in the cub scout, you know, troop with her and going into the Boy Scouts gave me an opportunity to see nature in Michigan and ultimately, around the world, I had the chance to attend the 16th world Scout Jamboree in Australia, you know, as a Boy Scout, you know, having having left the cub scouts, and see many, many places across the US from certainly across the Great Lakes, but also in the upper Midwest and in, you know, Eastern Midwest, Western Pennsylvania, doing you know, whitewater rafting, you know, in the West Virginia, Ohio River Basin area, on cheat river, the New River, aka Haney river, canoeing across Michigan, you know, and that, that early background motivated me to become a member of the Sierra Club. You know, my membership, I'm a now life member and the member of zero club for really decades since the early 80s. I was, you know, sent in a membership to the Sierra Club, probably in the early 1980s. And, and so early that my first Sierra Club outing wasn't a local outing, it was I saved up my coins and nickels, and got a couple Auntie's and my late grandmother to chip in some, some money to get me to go to the high Sierras so managed to take a youth trip in the Sierras. When I was not old enough to drive, I was 15. So flew out to LA, having raised the money to pay for the trip and get the flight. And as met by my aunt, who drove me to trailhead in the Sequoia National Park and spent almost two weeks more than a week in the back country in high country. And it's that foundational sort of interest, you know, I would say a lot, a lot of it, perhaps self motivated and in a unique fashion that some believe I operate in. I said that way, because I was always trying to convince my father, the other Michael Dorsey, to join me on these trips. And his refrain was, boy for me, camping, is holiday in with black and white TV.

So, but he was, you know, always a constant supporter. So it is that, that that background from whence I come and seeing both the splendor of our amazing national park system and federal lands as a very young person in this country, and also seeing imminent threats to it in the form of visible air pollution, you know, very much miracle, you know, as much as I detect that Sierra Club trip, flew in Los Angeles and drove from there up to Sequoia. And that was, you know, in the mid 80s, when, you know, la was still, you know, fighting a very, very serious battle with pollution in Los Angeles Basin. Much worse than it is today. But so seeing these things visibly, seeing threats to the Great Lakes. watershed, as it were ecosystems from pollution and the lakes themselves and pollution in tributary rivers. The rouge river in particular, which is, you know, cuts through a big swath of Detroit. It was those it was those early encounters with both splendor and natural beauty and obvious, despolation and obvious, you know, threats that, you know, motivated me to want to think about, well, what can we do to tackle these problems? What can we do to get ahead of them and also understand who is beind them? You know, why are we seeing this, you know, pollution? Who's driving it? And that's those are the sort of the early motivators.

Steve Taylor  
Well, that's very interesting. It sounds like you had a very personal connection early, early in life. So, I've heard you say that you're a political economist in other interviews, and that's very important to you. And and I heard you also say in your answer the previous question that you you were interested in who was behind some of the problems and threats to the natural world. How is being a political economist important to you when it comes to addressing environmental issues?

Dr. Michael Dorsey  
Well, you know, Political Economy really is an attempt to understand the way in which, you know, certain economic forces are interwoven and interconnected to decisions that governments make or government agencies make, or how, you know, how public policy is shaped under the influence of certain, you know, economic actors. An nd really, you know, political economists, you know, I think it's fair to say that we were committed to trying to understand the way in which, you know, different modalities of capitalism have implications on the world writ large. And for me, you know, I turn to, you know, political economy, to theoretical disposition of political economy, to try to make sense of the way in which, you know, capitalism creates threats to not just ecosystems as it certainly does, but also to human systems and ecosystems intertwine. And I think it's a, a way of making sense of phenomena in the world, making sense of the way in which certain institutions, whether they be not just government institutions, but also corporations, as well as individuals, certain kinds of individuals, those that are somewhat powerful in society, whether they be, you know, the, the owners of the means of production, as it were. We also call those folks capitalists, whether they be folks that are working for those capitalists. I think that the political economy approach provides a keen, nuanced way to understand and appreciate and ultimately perhaps change certain kinds of phenomena that shaped the world as we experience it. And as we navigate it.

Steve Taylor  
Well, when you talk about phenomenon, we have the phenomenon of global warming. And just months before the Conference of Parties or the COP and Glasgow later on this year, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issued its most dire report to date. Basically, it said the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold that was agreed upon, is likely likely to be reached in a matter of decades. What do you think of this report?

Dr. Michael Dorsey  
Well, look, you know, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, most recent report is certainly nothing new to those that have been paying attention. It perhaps may be new to some, you know, call them political troglodytes that are in various countries, you know, denying the existence of climate change. But to all serious operators, political operators, scientists, certainly even civilians. What we heard in the most recent offering from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is really nothing new. It really underscores, you know, going on, not even just a couple of decades, but coming into almost four or five decades of research and work. We're coming up on the 50th anniversary of the Stockholm conference on world environment, or at the Stockholm conference on the UN Conference on human environment, the Stockholm conference on the environment as it were, that took place in 1972. Their 50th anniversary will be next year in 2022. And it was coming out of the Stockholm conference on human environment that the United Nations looking at data that they were getting, you know, from scientists around the world, decided to charge the World Meteorological Organization WMO to basically put together what what we now call the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to bring the world's governments together to look at the unfolding climate crisis, as it was understood then in the early 70s. And really, that that early 70s work was really building almost on a century's work at the time, you know, started by, you know, folks like Svante Arrhenius, the great Swedish physicist, thermodynamicist and many others even going before are Arrhenius. So, there's really, if you're aware of that relatively small arc of time, you know, they're just over a century, then the most current offering from the governmental panel and countries is simply putting another block as it were, in our understanding of the unfolding climate crisis, as it is now. But also just the unfolding nature of climate change, as it is impacting quite adversely, many regions of this world, both in the global north and the richest countries in the world, but especially acute in the global south, in Africa, in Asia, and Latin America. And, oddly enough, impacting those regions in the proverbial third world as some like to call it quite disproportionately, because we know that the data that says those in Africa, Asia, Latin America, they contribute the least to the problem. They have some of the lowest emissions in terms of carbon pollution, as it were, or the pollution that's driving climate change. Yet, the impacts the negative impacts on those communities. in those regions in Africa, Latin America, Asia, are disproportionately large. People there suffer the most. And also to add pain to that misery that they're experiencing. As the crisis unfolds, those individuals also pay a disproportionate amount of their income to obtain energy and whether that's for heating oil to keep, you know, food on the table, whether it's for light when and if they get it and when they have it. So they're paying more and getting less, being harmed more and polluting less. So they're damned if they do damned if they don't and doubly damned in both cases.

Steve Taylor  
Well, Dr. Dorsey, I was going to ask you about this idea of a climate debt owed to the global south to those who are not really responsible for climate change, but are facing some of the greatest impacts now, and possibly in the future.

Dr. Michael Dorsey  
I mean, the United Nations, at least theoretically recognizes this concept of climate debt, they don't explicitly refer to it as such. But they've created something called the loss and damage mechanism, which is an effort, a relatively paltry one when you do the math over it, but an effort to extend resources to those that have experienced tremendous losses and damages from climate change. And those individuals, those communities, those countries are disproportionately in the global south, in in Africa, Latin America, Asia. So there's some recognition of this. Lots of other folks have begun to work out the math in terms of how much the those in the wealthy countries, whether they be in the United States or Europe, Australia, and so forth, how much do they actually owe people in the poor countries of the world. So some folks are looking at the problem from a variety of angles. But those I think it's fair to say that those of us in the global north in the wealthier countries, we've actually extracted a tremendous amount from those in the global south, initially, in terms of simply taking resources from resource rich countries, you know, in Africa, across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and then in terms of our overall emissions. Wealthy countries here in the United States, Europe, Australia, we've emitted considerably more resources than those folks in poor countries. Indeed, the very definition of being poor is that you emit less, because you just simply don't have the resources. On top the fact that here in the wealthier countries, we waste so much. So when you add up a simple use of energy combined with what we waste and the inefficiencies here. Indeed, we are contributing more to the global problem of unfolding climate change than otherwise. 

Steve Taylor  
I wanted to ask you a follow up on that. You know, the idea of nature based solutions and things like REDD or REDD Plus, there is concern these programs may may weigh heavily on on indigenous cultures, and they really don't have a voice about how their land may be used with these so called nature based solutions. You know, to to sequester forests, you know, you may have to remove people who have indigenous cultures or rural communities. And it impacts people part of the the peasant food web. Do you have thoughts on that?

Dr. Michael Dorsey  
Yeah, I mean, the program that you're talking about, as you dubbed it RED or RED plus, which is an acronym in the infinite acronym E's of the United Nations for reducing emissions from deforestation, and degradation, and really, actually, its forest degradation. So it's basically an effort concocted by those in the United Nations. Initially, you know, to attempt to get a hold, and just what the name says, you know. You're trying to eliminate the emissions from forests, deforestation, and degradation. But what we've seen is that program get caught up and tied up with corporations that make promises to put money into the program. But don't. Corporations that make claims that they're going to do reforestation or forestation, and do less of it than they claim. Companies that also, you know, trafficking in what could probably best be dubbed a kind of forestry arbitrage shell game, where companies value forests in certain way to local peoples, perhaps inflate the value in tertiary markets, where they sell, you know, proxy access to the form to those forests in the form of credits, or other types of market commodities. And then take the deltas in the differences in the in the price differences between what they are promising communities sometimes gives us communities and what they might be promising others in tertiary markets. So unfortunately, you know, in essence, United Nations is has created a, essentially a kind of a vulgar Ponzi scheme to, on its face, protect forests, but an increasing amount of data now coming into about a decade, plus actually almost two decades of data really says that really, that program of reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation hasn't been all that is chalked up to. And indeed, it's actually done a quite amount of harm to those in forest communities that are had already long before bureaucrats from United Nations and apparatchiks from from their orbital agencies and affiliates came along long before those communities have been struggling and fighting simple logging companies. Now they have to fight other sorts of let's call them carpetbagging interest, that ultimately are undermining their livelihoods and well being of those in the forests. So it's it's it's, it's quite unfortunate that the United Nations would, you know, be at the sharp end of the knife as it were, and cutting and harming and undermining the the the honorable work of forest  communities. But unfortunately, that's the case.

Steve Taylor  
This is your host, Steve Taylor, and we will be back right after this.

Theresa Church  
Global Justice ecology project partners with small nonprofits when a group or organization whose non for profit work closely aligns with our mission by becoming a fiscal sponsor. This helps them minimize bureaucracy so they can focus on their crucial work for ecological and social justice, force protection and human rights. GJEP is proud to sponsor New Hampshire Panther, New Hampshire Panthers mission is to help end racism and systemic bias through community engagement, direct mutual aid, education and curriculum reform and youth empowerment. Particularly they are here for the youth. They are here for all the youth whose lives deserve better than to witness or be subjected to police brutality, whose lives deserve better than to feel fear from within their community, whose lives deserve to be seen equally, whose lives deserve to be valued and seen sacred and whose lives deserve dignity. To learn more, go to nh dash panther.squarespace.com.

Steve Taylor  
Welcome back to breaking green. Well, there's a lot of hope, I think in the general public, those who are cognizant and aware of global warming, that there's going to be something done by the United Nations to address this. I mean, the IPCC report was quite dire. I mean, it says we're going to reach you know, the agreed upon limit most likely within a matter of decades, and we may even blow through more tipping points. And it's going to have devastating consequences. And they actually said that it's we probably waited too long to avoid a hotter future. So we're, we're, you know, we need to spend more in mitigation and taking care of people. And and, you know, preparing against some of the consequences. My question to you, you, you, you mentioned, those with the means of production. How much access do they have? I mean, how much influence do they have within the UN we see REDD, we see all this talk about carbon offsets. Two questions, one, how much access do the people who have the means of production have to these talks and this and these negotiations, and, and two, is there actually anything going to be done when it comes to actual emissions? I mean, we people hear net zero or net zero emissions. It actually sounds like we're going to be addressing the greenhouse gases. But it seems to be a lot of it's on paper with these offsets

Dr. Michael Dorsey  
Well, a couple of things, giving you your two questions. So that on the first one, you know, corporations in particular, have a tremendous amount of access to United Nations process as it were. And that's not only the case with United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change negotiations, and the negotiations around climate change, broadly. But that's true of negotiations in other domains as well, whether they be on arms control, whether they be on biodiversity, whether they be on laws of the sea, we see corporations not only gaining access to the negotiation sessions, not only working with different countries and different agencies, both government agencies as well as multilateral agencies, like the World Bank, and other multilateral and governmental agencies, we see in the case, specifically, of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Secretariat for the climate change negotiations at the UN, actively courts, corporate sponsors. So oftentimes, we will see at a yearly negotiations and, you know, the sort of multi multiple times a year the UN is having sessions to negotiate around climate change. The big event is usually always towards the end of the year, late November, early December, but they have intersessional, and so forth. But But oftentimes, those meetings are sponsored by the likes of some of the largest polluting industries on Earth. Whether it be in terms of automobile manufacturers like BMW, whether it be in terms of steel manufacturers, large mining interests, the United Nations actively seeks out corporations to basically obtain money in sponsorship dollars, and also other kinds of technical resources and so forth. So corporations have a huge amount of access directly into negotiations. And that access, that is sought out by the United Nations is, is happening in parallel to the activities that corporations themselves are conducting to gain access to negotiators, and parliamentarians and bureaucrats, from other countries from different agencies. So there's a tremendous amount of access that corporations have, or those that control the means of production to use a political, economic term to describe corporations. So they absolutely do. And that falls into your second question, which just remind me again, what that one was,

Steve Taylor  
Is there going to be something actually done? There seems to be a lot of reliance on net zero emissions and the idea of offsets? 

Dr. Michael Dorsey  
Yeah, I mean, you know, there's lots of problems with this whole idea of, you know, what some dub is, you know, net zero, you know, this idea that we will get to some zero emissions target. There have been interesting, you know, revelations about why the concept is troubling, and why, you know, some have put it, you know, why net zero has nothing to do with zero at all. So, and those criticisms, I think, you know, come from, you know, a variety of positions. You know, one is simply the ability to measure corporate emissions. Many corporations are not forthcoming about their overall emissions. And indeed, you know, in some fairness to those corporations, some lack the ability or haven't spent the resources to track emissions. So the idea that, you know, a company might be claiming to achieve net zero you know, and have no notion of what it's admitting, you know, sort of shines a bright light on just the laughability of the concept in the first place, you know. But it is certainly a catch all, you know, sort of term that lots of companies have turned to. The other part of the problem is that, you know, many companies in particular, many large emitters, they often set different baselines, you know, they, they want to take their emissions to zero, based on a certain year of emissions. Sometimes the years that they pick, have, you know, quite low emissions, you know, they, so they play a kind of a, let's call it a funny math with in terms of what they will measure as the baseline against and, and target and set the targets against. So there, you have to have, there's a lot of incoherence between companies in terms of what they're doing to achieve, quote, unquote, net zero. So I think at the end of the day, you know, really, the biggest solutions that we see, to tackle the unfolding climate crisis aren't being led so much by corporations, but they're being driven by citizens and social movements. Its its citizens and social movements that have been pressuring governments to regulate corporations, and not simply turn to them, and, you know, with fingers crossed to hope they do what they say, when they say they're going to do it. It's individuals and citizens that have also been challenging corporations, whether it's through outright civil disobedience in protest, whether it's through shareholder activism, whether it's through, you know, sort of sunshine campaigns as it were or shining a light on, you know, corporate malfeasance and corporate criminal recidivist behavior, which many corporations do they do. You know, most corporations most of the Fortune 500 is, is basically kind of a gang, a sociopathic gang of sociopathic institutions. And by that, you know, I don't offer that up, you sort of lightly, but it's probably fair to say that most companies that repeatedly break the law, repeatedly harm civilians, repeatedly despoil the environment, over and over again, you know, week on week, que en que year on year, you know. Anybody that was doing that as, as an individual would be called sociopath, right? If you went out there, Steve, and decided that you are going to throw a rock in your neighbor's house weekly, and try to defy police capture, and blame it on neighbors and try to, you know, create, you know, straw man as to why the rock was going to the neighbor's house weekly. Certainly, authorities would be after you. But if you did that yourself, it'd be fair to call you a sociopath. You know, if you were threatening someone regularly, you know, and menacing people regularly, that those are the sort of the signs of  sociopathic behavior. So we see corporations, we don't oftentimes think of them as such, but it's fair to think of them as such. It's fair to identify them as sociopathic because they repeatedly break the law and not just break the law in a minor way. They repeatedly you know, poison whole communities, repeatedly, despoil ecosystems and repeatedly do things as basic as you know, FedEx and UPS, double park on tight and busy city streets to disrupt traffic across the whole city. Most people sort of take that for granted. That's just what the UPS truck does. And that's really a form of sociopathy, when we openly knowingly undermine civic and social well being for our own interests. That's basically textbook sociopathic behavior. And that's really unfortunately, what a lot of corporations do, from Federal Express to United Postal Service UPS over to McDonald's, back on to a whole long list of the top polluters of greenhouse gas emissions, whether that be Exxon Mobil, whether it be some of the state oil companies like Saudi Aramco, and so forth Basically, the again the fortune 500 really fortune 1000 the whole panoply of these institutions mitting out sociopathic activity, you know, too much this chagrin, and sadness for much of humanity, unfortunately, a very sort of parasitic kind of cancerous formation. But thankfully, a relatively new one, you know, the current configuration of these firms has only been around about 200 years. And big efforts are underway to make the pathway so that they probably won't be around for another 100 years perhaps because of these this legacy of bad behavior.

Steve Taylor  
Well, that's interesting, a hundred year timeframe. A lot could be happening in 100 years, especially if the IPCC report is correct. There's kind of be a lot of challenges. So what I get from that is, you know, the old saying, trust but verify. There's a lot of things said, but is it actually being followed through with? So I wanted to ask you, budgets, reflect priorities. We have the infrastructure bill, looks like it's going to be passing in, through Congress. Have you had an opportunity to look at that read about it? And if so, how does that look when it comes to actually following through with concerns regarding global warming?

Dr. Michael Dorsey  
Well, the infrastructure bill, certainly as you know, has passed, just recently passed the Senate. And as you know, made his way to very likely, you know, pass the full the full Congress. Unfortunately, it doesn't do nearly as much as it could or should to tackle the unfolding climate crisis. It makes some commitments to absolutely, you know, I think it's fair to call them worthless technologies, certainly futuristic technologies, that even in the best cases in the best forecast, you know, won't be developed for maybe 20 or 30, perhaps even more years. Technologies like carbon capture and storage, tremendous amount of commitments in the infrastructure legislation for nuclear power, you know, no more a foolish and expensive way to boil water than ever dreamt up by mankind. So, but at the same time, very little commitments to retooling our collapsing grid, here in theUnited States, few commitments and few resources dedicated to the most promising technologies, solar and wind technologies, even though those technologies are blooming. And, and right now, just as of the end of 2020, represent the cheapest way to generate energy, not just the United States, but around the world. So it's a c  uriously, I think, fair to say, schizophrenic piece of legislation that makes commitments to attempt to tackle the unfolding climate crisis. But in the sort of policies, schizophrenia, as it were, mixed the commitments to the wrong thing. 

Steve Taylor  
Dr. Dorsey, it seems as if you put a lot of emphasis on social movements, and, and not so much governmental or corporate solutions. So my question to you, is the UN even capable of dealing with this issue? Is there hope there?

Dr. Michael Dorsey  
I think it's fair to say that the UN is, while it's a great convener, it's perhaps a little more than that. And we need, you know, while convening is certainly important to bring, you know, a multitude of actors together to think about particular problems, whether it be climate change biodiversity, or, you know, managing the global oceans commons and so forth. certainly important, the solutions that we need, you know, won't exactly be a derivative and a byproduct of those convenings. So, really, it's not so much that the UN is, you know, absolutely problematic. It's got lots of problems, certainly, but it is it's has limits. And and the the solutions that we need to get ahead of the unfolding climate crisis are beyond the, essentially the basic norms and established mission and mandate the United Nations. We need more than convening, right? I think the UN can certainly play a role and, and, you know, basically, doing things like you mentioned earlier, doing things like helping us do trust and verification of certain processes, whether that be reduction of emissions, and so forth. But we ultimately need both corporations doing their part. But increasingly, since they are largely sociopathic institutions, unfortunately, recidivist criminal corporate criminal enterprises. And that's a point of fact, it's not offered as hyperbola. Some people get confused. It's tricky, for, you know, some people to think, oh, the corporation is a recidivist, criminal enterprise absolutely is repeat offenders. Many corporations rack up literally billions, and sometimes some approaching trillions of dollars of fines. You know, if you go across the collective of the Fortune 500, they really aggregate trillions of dollars in fines and penalties that they pay yearly for their illegal not just not just malfeseance, not bad activity, but illegal criminal conduct. Okay. So we know that we know that this particular formation, you know, aside from what it does, that's amoral Okay, just criminal activity. It is causing large problems around the world global global problems. And so we see some time That, you know, just like with other criminals and terrorists, sometimes you have to eradicate them from the face of the earth if you want change. You know, just recently, we lost a dozen US servicemen during the the evacuation of Afghanistan. And the day after that happened, the P resident of the United States neutralized he did it over their rise in attack on two suspected assume presumed orchestrators of the terrorist bombing that killed a dozen US servicemen injured many, many more and killed, what now almost 200 Afghan civilians. What do they do, they neutralized, they killed those that they thought were behind that attack. So they kill the criminals, they eradicated those criminals on the face of the Earth. So sometimes we see institutions that are up to criminal activity, harming people harming institutions, they possibly fall in that same doctrine. Let's call it the Biden doctrine, they have to be eliminated from the face of the earth. And that perhaps is the only way we can have big big breakthroughs. You know, if, if terrorist entities, you know, criminal enterprises are regularly day on day, month, on month, quarter on quarter year on year menacing, and doing you know, criminal activities, sometimes you have to kill them dead and get them off the planet to get breakthroughs. So that may sound extreme for some, particularly in that vernacular. But we have to think of that strategically, we may have to, you know, you know, defang and eliminate certain corporations that are driving a problem, we're seeing that some of these entities will perhaps collapse under their own weight. Right now. fossil fuel technology is no longer the cheapest way to generate energy. Clean green, wind and solar is. So those corporations that are still betting on financing looking for financing seeking money sunk seeks seeking money and sinking money into fossil fuel energy generation, those entities may collapse under their own weight, because what they're doing is, you know, basically putting bad money after bad practices that aren't going to produce returns and results. So we may see some of these bad actors that are driving the unfolding climate crisis, perhaps collapse under their own weight. Some of them will probably have to be removed from the face of the earth as we know. And that's just, uh, you know, I think that's in in good course, what we can call the Biden doctrine. You know, you got a criminal enterprise, you've got to drop a bomb on it and get rid of it.

Steve Taylor  
So Dr. Dorsey, I wanted to ask you a question about the former organization, you're affiliated with, the Sierra Club. Not too long ago, I don't know if you know or not, but the Sierra Club cautiously endorsed the the genetically engineered American chestnut tree, which many critics feel will open the door will be a Trojan horse for for more commercial ventures when it comes to tree plantations for bio biofuels. Do you have any thoughts on that?

Dr. Michael Dorsey  
Well, you know, I know not a lot of the details on that particular case. But yeah, I'm certainly not surprised. You know, recently, the now soon to be former executive director of the Sierra Club, the outgoing executive director Michael Brune announced his resignation, you know, you know, in a relatively bad light. You know, on the sort of the shoulders of mismanagement, discriminatory policies. shortsighted thinking, initially, he was, you know, quite aligned with the gas industry, even though. He, you know, as he exited, he gave an apology for the Sierra Club having been aligned with gas industry, though, he wrote a book before he became executive director championing gas as a way of generating power. So you're really that old outgoing leadership is, is transitioning away. And perhaps hopefully, we'll see new, innovative thinking of the Sierra Club that's not aligned with you know, bad science that not aligned with, you know, the sort of the, I'll call it genetic engineering cronyism, and so forth. And really, you know, focuses the, the energies and excellense of you know, that 100, almost 140 year old 130 plus year old organization, you know, on, you know, what it could do more robustly. In that that's, you know, champion communities champion, you know, legitimate science and on behalf of ecosystems, and communities. And I think, as we see, you know, Michael Brune and phase out that there'll be a chance to retool, rethink and reconfigure the Sierra Club in a more rigorous manner. Time will tell it.

Steve Taylor  
Dr. Dorsey, is there anything that I have not asked you that you'd like to comment on for this interview?

Dr. Michael Dorsey  
No, it's it's really been a pleasure. And I really appreciate you taking the time and thank you for doing so. It's my pleasure to be with you.

Steve Taylor  
Well, thank you Dr. Dorsey. You have been very generous with your time. You have been listening to breaking green, the global justice ecology project podcast. Find us at Global Justice ecology project that word visit to find more interviews, podcast, organizations, and ideas for addressing climate change.

Breaking Green Introduction
IPCC Report
Dr. Michael Dorsey Bio
Dorsey's Motivation
Political Economy
IPCC's Code Red- Is it unique
Climate Debt
Nature Based Solutions vs. Equity
Break-New Hampshire PANTHER
Corporate Influence on United Nations and Net Zero
Infrastructure Bill and Priorities
Can the UN really adress climate change?
Genetically Engineered American Chestnut
Breaking Green Outro