 you know, Mark, the words that just keep going through my head right now are it's go time, right? And it seems as if everything I've prepared for over the last decade or everything I've been doing over the last decade has really prepared me for this moment. You know, in the US, we sort of have this confluence of events, right? This reemergence and awareness about our racial pandemic. And we have an actual pandemic, right? COVID-19 that has been particularly difficult for communities of color, Black and Latinx communities. And that's in part because of the economy and the way that structure, but also because of environmental injustice and their exposure to air pollution, things like that that have caused those comorbidities and made them more vulnerable to the virus. And we have an energy system that is undergoing transformation. And so all of these things, I think, make it even more urgent to engage in an energy transition that is just and brings more clean energy resources to those particularly hard to pick communities and those communities where structural violence and structural racism are a fact of daily life. Solanda H. Baker is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas, brought to you by Innovators Magazine and 1.5 Media. Solanda is a professor of law, public policy and urban affairs at Northeastern University. She has spent more than a decade conducting research on the equity dimensions of the global transition away from fossil fuel energy to cleaner energy resources. She teaches courses on renewable energy development, energy justice, and environmental law. In 2015, she was awarded the Fulbright Garcia Robles grant to explore Mexico's energy reform, climate change, and indigenous rights. Before joining Northeastern faculty, Solanda spent three years as an associate professor of law at William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii, where she was the founding director of the Energy Justice Program. Prior to that, she served on the faculty at the University of San Francisco School of Law. She holds a bachelor's of science degree in political science from the United States Air Force Academy, a Juris Doctorate from Northeastern University School of Law, and an LLM from the University of Wisconsin School of Law, where she also served as a William H. H. D. Fellow. Immediately after law school, before working as a corporate and project finance attorney in both the Boston and Tokyo offices of the law firm of Bingham McCutcheon, Solanda Clerk for Associate Justice Roderick Ireland of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Solanda, also a veteran of an former Air Force officer, fought to end the militaries, don't ask, don't tell policy. She is the author of over a dozen articles, books, chapters, and essays on renewable energy law, policy, and development. She is the co-founder co-director of the Initiative for Energy Justice, an organization committed to providing technical law and policy support to communities on the front lines of climate change. She also serves on the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Sitting Board, the Massachusetts Global Warming Solutions Act Implementation Advisory Committee, Climate Justice Working Group, the Board of Solutions Project, the Board of Clean Energy Group, and the Board of Solstice for Book Revolutionary Power. An activist guide to the energy transition will be out publicly January 14th. I was lucky enough to get that digital pre-copy and I hot off the press copy here, Revolutionary Power. I read it end to end digitally and physically and I'm so glad to welcome Solanda on the show. Welcome. Thank you for being here. Oh, thank you so much, Mark. That was a lovely and long introduction, so I have to live up to all of that, but it's delightful to be here with you. You will absolutely live up to it and actually, that was a shortened version because you have been doing this for a long time. You deserve the accolades and you've not only done the hard work and put in the time and spent the effort, but this book is so fabulous. I love it. It's amazing because it's not a dry academic read. It's a story. It's a story of your life. It's a story of your journeys. A lot of it based in Hawaii and the injustice is there and it just tells such a nice journey and how and why even your, how do I put it, your hesitance to sometimes say, should I get into this topic? Should I broach social injustice with energy rights and changes and renewable energy and these inequalities? Should I combine the two and say how they're linked together? We'll get into that more before I go too deep down some rabbit holes. I really want to say, now in the hell of you, whether this absolutely crazy time, more than 2020, of course, now also going into 2021, not only social injustices, a lot of racial problems going on, as well as climate and pandemic issues, has all of this passed your history, giving you resilience to whether the storm, have you been prepared? Mark, the words that just keep going through my head right now are it's go time, right? And it seems as if everything I've prepared for over the last decade or everything I've been doing over the last decade has really prepared me for this moment. You know, in the US, we sort of have this confluence of events, right? This reemergence and awareness about our racial pandemic. And we have an actual pandemic, right COVID-19 that has been particularly difficult for communities of color, Black and Latinx communities. And that's in part, it's in part because of the economy and the way that way that structure, but also because of environmental injustice and their exposure to air pollution, things like that, that have caused those comorbidities and made them more vulnerable to the virus. And we have an energy system that is undergoing transformation. And so all of these things, I think, make it even more urgent to engage in an energy transition that is just and brings more clean energy resources to those particularly hard communities and those communities where structural violence and structural racism are a fact of daily life. Yes, that's absolutely true. And I mean, dude, did all this past, not only Hawaii, but even before that and now in Boston and your work with Energy and also Mexico, did any of that, you personally give you some resilience or some foreshadowing, so to say, boy, this is coming. The infrastructure is not stable. The way things are set up is very unequal. There are some issues and eventually it's going to bubble to the surface. And we'll get into this a little bit later, but there was a section in the book about Hurricane Xavier and Hawaii and the devastations that that included. And as climate speaker, we can kind of go in how and why and some of those things. But did you have any resilience or were you also caught off guard or does this knowledge, all this past knowledge and the things you've been working on and trying to fight the inequalities and the social justice in this energy sector, has that given you resilience to say, OK, we're going to be OK. We can weather this. There are some better operating systems, some models. I kind of want to update and see how you've been, how you've dealt with that. In many ways, I think this moment actually, it's horrible. It's terrible, but it provides this window. It provides this opportunity and to create this transformative change. And I think as I've been doing this work, I wasn't ever sort of thinking something bad is going to happen. I mean, other than climate change, I mean, climate is devastating and even more disruptive than what we're experiencing right now. But I had this sense that nothing will really change unless there is a disruptive moment. And so it's sort of like, you know, along the journey, I've been collecting my tools, collecting my tools, kind of waiting for the perfect opportunity to really advance some of these ideas. Yes, I'm tired. So I mean, I think the root of your question is sort of, you know, how do we think about resilience? And I'm tired, but also so uplifted in a way by the opportunity. And, you know, I take breaks here and there. And my students also, you know, they get discouraged because they're sort of watching all of this negativity and, you know, the world fall apart. And, you know, I tell them, okay, take your break, but this is your moment as well to kind of create the world that you believe in, the future that you want. So I couldn't have predicted this moment. I don't think any of us really could have. But I knew that nothing would change without disruption. And, you know, when I was in Hawaii, and I know we're going to talk about that, you know, one of the things I would always tell my students was to dream about a world and dream of a world without constraints. Because we were, you know, they were law students. And so they were very familiar with the rules and sort of the boxes that we had to fit in. And I said, let's, let's dissolve those. And let's just imagine what the world might look like if we didn't have these sort of constraints that are already baked into the system. So now here we are. And I'd like to hear from you, but I imagine, as I read your book, and I hear about your journey, that a lot of your transition in the ways of thinking, your ways of teaching, things that you write in the book, are not truly conventional that you were received at law school. I've been to law school myself and, and not conventional wisdom and learnings that you receive to kind of broach the subjects of social injustice. And I imagine you're also enabling your students with some empowering tools to help them through situations like this, which then provides them with resilience, not only for themselves, but for those who they work for and the projects they work on to, to have resilience and see the brighter day. How do we, how do we make it through this pandemic? How do we make it through these unrestful situations that we're experiencing now? Is that the case? Are you, are you seeing that you're busier than ever now? Because you're like, wow, this microscope is shining, things are bubbling to the surface and I'm, I'm prepared, I'm ready. Now I can help my students and people with the solutions on the way we should be thinking differently to solve these problems. I mean, I'm getting chills as you're speaking because this has been the most incredible, the busiest, you know, the most productive time, I think of my career. You know, I think starting in May post, well, just as the pandemic was kind of really becoming devastating here in the United States, but also after the death and the murder, the public lynching of George Floyd, that sort of sparked, you know, all of the sort of connections. I mean, it's sort of like people, the light bulbs went off and people sort of realized, oh my gosh, there are all these connections. And, you know, between racial violence, this pandemic, structural inequality, and the energy system. And so, yes, I've been quite busy of late. And, you know, it's so interesting because I have been against the grain for the bulk of my career, really saying that, you know, issues of justice should be a part of this technical conversation concerning energy and climate. But those were sort of always thought of as things we will deal with later, right? Well, we'll sort of build the whole, the plane and then figure out, you know, where to seat the, you know, people of color and Indigenous folks. But that's always been central to my work. And, you know, one of the things I come out with in the book is who I am, right? I'm a woman. I'm a queer woman. I've had an interesting journey. And it's sort of like the New York saying, you know, if you see something, say something, I can't, I only see injustice because of the path that I've walked. And so that's kind of been the way that I've approached this work, highlighting injustice, highlighting structural inequality, because it's my unique superpower on the planet, I think. Yeah, many superpowers in your book. Yeah, you talk about COVID. So it's a very timely book as well. The timing of all of this is extraordinary. I mean, this is a moment when also our national leaders are realizing that we need to move in a direction of centering issues of equity. And so I'm excited to support that team in whatever way makes sense. And, you know, I've been working on the ground through my organization, the Initiative for Energy Justice to help develop equitable energy policy frameworks as well. Yeah, I really appreciate you getting us up to speed on kind of this transition and what you've experienced. And it leads me to my first question is probably that I see you take a big focus on the US, obviously, because that's where you're from. You've done a lot in Hawaii, Mexico, as well as North America and Boston and that. But you've worked with cities like Texas or in states like Texas and many others that are discussed in the book. But how would you feel about being a global citizen? And how do you view or think about a world in the future, one without nations, borders, divisions of humanity, one from another, one that has a revolutionary renewable power grid that is global? Wow, that is a fascinating concept. I mean, I absolutely, you know, see myself as a global citizen. I'm not as aligned with the tribal kind of affiliations and alliances that have come even more stark in the United States of late. You know, I think we have to work together, no matter what, to resolve this climate crisis. And if that means a grid that is, you know, stretched across continents, then so be it. I tend to be more of the mind that we need decentralized grids. And of course, you know, I think there's a place for, there is a place with a larger grid, but in terms of resilience and making sure that people can bounce back from the climate emergencies that, you know, are absolutely in our future, we do need more local and just distributed energy, particularly in the homes that are, you know, not equipped to sort of go back, go out and buy, you know, groceries once they're spoiled or get new medicines once there's go bad, or be off of ventilators and other types of, you know, medical devices when the power goes down. So we absolutely need a distributed grid. But I'm intrigued by the idea of, you know, this more global grid. And of course, the legal brain in me is working and like, so how would you govern that? You know, what are the governance mechanisms? I'd love to learn more about what you have in mind. Yeah, I think that's interesting, because in your book, you really talk about what's on the ground realities politically and also making, putting some of these things in the practice, because there's a lot of issues that arise even on a state level that are from state to state, very, very different. And your energy and your meaningful energy justice work. So President elect Biden made a promise to commit and devote 40% of climate investments to frontline communities. Yes. Well, those investments really need to be in infrastructure and the basic needs and you talk about basic needs a lot in your, your book, you might not say basic needs, but it's the basics, clean water, energy, you know, we need to tackle these and those that we're seeing all around the world who are facing not only social injustice, but are who are affected by climate change first, are those who have the worst infrastructures or the poorest communities, the ones of indigenous populations of color who even in the Bronx, in New York, in the Bronx, you know, poorest communities of poor schools, the ones that are hardest hit because they don't have that infrastructure, they don't have the basic needs. That's right. And you really address that, how do we flip the switch and do it differently. And so that's kind of why I touched upon that because I want to bring out more your thoughts, your feelings on what that you talk about in the book on what direction we should take, how can we make it a more unified plan that works for everybody, a system that's really well thought out and covers the basic needs for everyone. Yeah. I love that you mentioned this and I like this, the framing that you've offered. So I first want to say that the type of circumstances that people in places like the South Bronx are living within on a day-to-day basis are not accidental, right? These are structural and these are problems that were created and constructed by law and policy choices. And so we are almost, I mean, I would argue we have sort of this blank slate where we can construct a new reality and construct and make different choices that elevate the needs of those particular communities. And so I think my vision is to put them at the front of the line in terms of receiving any of the economic benefits. And so the 40% commitment that President-elect Biden has made is a great start, but that means reducing their energy burden. So these are the same communities that pay upwards of 10, 20, 25, 30% of overall income just to meet energy needs, which is mind-blowing. And it's to subsidize an energy system that is in effect killing them because it is a fossil fuel-based one. So they're subsidizing it not only with their pocketbooks but with their bodies. And so these are policy choices. So I think we need to reduce energy burden. And we can do that through policy levers. We can also do that by investing solar resources in those communities. So there's no reason why a family can't have solar that is powering a clean grid and it's also reducing their own energy burden. Now, we haven't been able to figure that out. The low-hanging fruit for solar, particularly rooftop solar, was the sort of middle class, more affluent folks. And now we need to go to those who have been left behind just as we're hitting the grid limits around rooftop solar. So we need to innovate. We need to figure that out. And I think we can. I think we also need to find pathways for people to participate in solar through things like community solar. So I know you're in Germany and community energy is sort of a no-brainer. I mean, community ownership of things like large wind is a no-brainer. Community ownership of solar, yeah, sure. Let's figure it out. We have the mechanisms. So in the US, we need to sort of get free of all these constraints that we've constructed for ourselves where we assume that communities should not be participants in this transition. And I mean, economic participants, not just, oh, yes, okay, whatever the community benefit is, if it's a donation to our local soccer team or whatever. I'm talking about real benefits. And we need to, I don't fight the bad. So there are two types of sort of advocates in this space. One is kind of the environmental justice advocate. They're fighting the bad. They have been doing that for 30 years and I'm aligned with them and my work overlaps with them. But I'm about sort of making sure that the good is not replicating the inequalities that we see in the bad system. And so I'm encouraged. The last thing I'll say is, well, two things. One, we need to make sure that people have access to credit and finance in order to actually get some of this clean energy infrastructure in their communities. And we can innovate. There are different banking models that can allow for that. And then the second thing is some of this equity discussion has to start at the top. So we have states in the United States that are sort of experimenting with 100% clean energy laws and policies. And we need to make sure that equity, like President-elect Biden's plan, equity is central to that transition. So that's my soapbox on all my vision. You get on so many soapboxes. That's fine. That's what our platform is for. I really want that all to come out. And it's really great because you touched on credit. And that was really where I wanted to go a little bit deeper. I want you to explain it a little bit more for us because I think it is absolutely asinine that we need to get credit for a basic need. We should be getting credit if we want to buy a car or something extravagant or something extra to improve our livelihoods. But for basic needs, water, utilities, power, we shouldn't be needing a credit to get those. That's my personal opinion. And I don't mind bringing it in. But to hear you talk about it, I want you to tell me some of the struggles, what your thoughts are and what you mean by that exactly. Sure. So the solar assets are not cheap. And for folks to participate, they either need to have the money in the bank. So that means they have wealth, right? And they can just kind of dip into that and purchase it. Or they go and get a loan from the bank and finance it through that. Or they work with a third-party solar developer who finances it themselves and charges the customer kind of a monthly rate for the assets. And so because of the model, we already know who's going to be excluded, right? Historical patterns of racism, redlining, all those things make access to credit a problem in communities of color. It makes, you know, the wealth creation a problem, right? People of color have less wealth than white people in this country. And we, I mean, there was a study here in Boston that showed that I think the average white family has something like $100,000 worth of wealth. And here, the Black family has $18 or something ridiculous. Like, it's wild disparity. It's ridiculous. So wealth is not something that communities of color have. And, you know, with respect to the third-party model, where the developer comes around and knocks on doors, they're going to where they perceive there to be low-hanging fruit. And so the solar industry, you know, studies have come out showing that the solar industry is just not diverse. And so their majority white workers going into majority white communities to say, hey, we want to sell our product. And, you know, the pressure of sales and all of that, the model means that they're going to go to the communities where there's just an easier entry. So that's why communities of color have been left behind. And so we either need to fix that solar access problem through the utility bill. And I think that's sort of one thing that you're alluding to, right? This is a basic human right. You know, one of the other studies out there shows that community people pay their electricity bills. Like, that's one of the first things they pay. And so if the utility company could kind of sit with that debt, and that maybe could be guaranteed by another government entity, right? And they're financing this debt for solar over time, then that would help communities of color get more access. If we could create a new banking model where the traditional markers of sort of credit worthiness are, you know, put aside. And, you know, it's more of have you been paying your electricity bill instead of do you have an 800s credit score? You know, those are the types of innovations we need desperately right now. And we are going to need government intervention to support those types of innovations. Yeah, I remember it was probably more than six years ago now when when there used to be door to door salesmen going around selling solar panels for your home and things like this. And then Tesla Solar City, Elon's cousins, I guess, relatives got into the market as well. And they kind of flipped the switch on the model where they were kind of giving loans and kind of giving credit to certain people. But they also continued to own the product and they would get monies back. And there was kind of a win win situation on that utility. But I also believe that there are some big disparities of what neighborhoods or what places they were going to sell those. But there are innovative models out there. And there's more and more emerging all the time that how can we make this something for everyone? How can we make this something that gives us more micro grids and more availability of this these type of services in the worst areas in the South Bronx and in the rougher communities where where the there's big poverty level or, you know, well, in Germany, they call it a social level and I'm trying to think of the word in English now. So the projects basically in places where they really need this the most, you know, where they're really struggling day to day. Right, right. I mean, the question the central question that I ask in my work is how can this transition be used to transform society? How can it be used to, you know, create economic empowerment to be a gateway for civil rights? And I think one one way I've started to talk about this whole issue is if we are simply putting our clean energy transition on top of an infected system, one that is infected with structural racism and inequality, then that new system will itself be unequal, right, and infected in the same way. And so we have to create a new model, an underlying model, and put that and put the clean energy transition on top of that so that we can be more just. So so yeah, I agree. I mean, we should be prioritizing communities and under resource neighborhoods, which again, I'll just say our neighborhoods that were designed by choice, right, and designed by deliberate policy and law choices. And I see that around the world, a lot of our neighborhoods, a lot of our communities, they're really outdated. They're infrastructures that need to be overhauled, updated to this renewable transition that we need to make this new some more passive homes, more homes and buildings run on renewable energy with green roofs and on and on, to keep up with, yeah, the future of our infrastructure. And we're paying more, and we're running into more problems, but we're not getting a better service. And we're still, like you said, a lot of these poorer communities are really paying with their their own lives, they're on doing fossil fuels, they're living in really bad air pollution, bad areas that is only exacerbating the problem even more. And they're at more risk right now to COVID-19 because they're deemed essential workers, right. Many of them are in the very jobs that are low paying, but that put them in harm's way routinely. So not only are they kind of entering into that higher risk environment with these underlying conditions or other things that make them more vulnerable to this disease, but they're having to go out and work, you know, simply because of their economic vulnerability. And so it's just, there's a lot here to unpack and a lot of connections. Yeah, there is tons to unpack. I mean, that's also some of the ties you made. And I totally agree with you as you know, those conditions really are not good conditions to try not to get the COVID or try to get, you know, affected because not only even if you're a high risk, your environment, the air pollution, the type of energy in your area is also a factor that increases your chances of getting that. And so it's really a systemic problem that we need to fix a real root cause. I guess I want to really start out now with your definition. If you could define the phrase revolutionary power, what you mean by that, what the concept is, that would be great. You know, it's interesting. I have struggled to kind of come up with a succinct definition of it. But the one that I've been landing on, and I think people will come up with their own definitions actually, that's one of the, the hopes I have for the book. But it's, it's sintering the voices, the hopes, the dreams of those who are most impacted by the energy system in this energy transition. And so that's, that doesn't sound radical to someone like me who's been in this space for a little while, but it is absolutely radical in terms of the way that we approach energy policy today. And it's using, revolutionary power is using the energy system as a vehicle to advance civil rights and social change. So that's, I think I'll, I'll, I'll leave it there. That's perfect. And I don't want to give too big of a spoiler alert, but you also, you also alluded to it as well. At the very end of the book, you said, you know, take these stories, these messages that I've given you this empowerment of the tools, the big picture of these systems, these, these grids or energy situation where we're at, and make the stories your own, add to them, make them personal to where you're living, whether it's the Bronx, whether it's Hamburg, Germany, whether wherever, and, and, and, and connect the dots and then tell your story, but spread the word and, and, and empower yourself to, to join in this revolution. It's really a revolution for a better future. But, but I mean, you, you honestly, one of the things I was so excited about when I knew we were going to have our, our discussion is you empower women and girls, you exude diversity, you exude, you know, gender equality in your beliefs and basic rights, social rights for, for humanity that you, you want it for all, you teach about it, you empower people and so I'm so excited because I can see that throughout your book with the tools on, on through stories, and that's what the story is, is empowerment tools to, to move forward on, on how you can use that in a very positive way, you know, not, there's very, not, not, I don't see negativity or anything, you know, the type of revolutionary words that we would use in any way. So it's a very positive movement and I'm with you. So I'm totally with you. Thank you so much. I want to, maybe if you could tell us a little bit more, if there was a specific moment or time where the social disjustice specifically in the energy, but in other areas were kind of bubbled to the surface for you and you said, I can't continue. I've got to say something, I've got to change, I've got to be that voice, I've got to announce the time. Was there a moment or was it a transition or journey over time? Oh my gosh, there's so much that you've just shared that is resonating on such a deep level and I just want to acknowledge that, you know, you're moving words. So it's interesting. I mean, this journey really started in Mexico. I used to be a corporate lawyer and so way back in 2008, during President Obama's electoral season and during the financial crisis of the global financial crisis of that year, I found myself in Japan. And I was a young lawyer working in Japan, sort of head down, the world was falling apart. It was the hottest year on record. We just elected our first black president and there was such hope about what might be next. But I, as a lawyer, I was sort of helping to reconstruct an unequal system, you know, and again, financial system, our clients were sort of trying to preserve wealth. And meanwhile, my family was underemployed or unemployed in the United States. And I was, it was just this moment of great dissonance. And I would say for me, living in Tokyo during that time, so I lived there, 2008, 2009, was the wake up call. And then I bought a one way ticket to Mexico. And I bought that ticket. Not really sure where I was headed or what was going to happen. But I wanted to learn Spanish. I maybe wanted to work against fossil fuel companies in Latin America, didn't know where it was very naive. And I was old enough to know better. But during that time, I actually met indigenous people who were fighting against large scale wind development. And that was the moment where I realized that everything I had learned up until that point could be used in service of social justice. And it was sort of like that, you know, lightning bolt moment that kind of strikes you. And at that point, I knew I couldn't turn away. And so the indigenous peoples were fighting against wind in the same way that we see communities fighting against coal and oil and gas, the same companies are the same sort of types of companies were going in, dispossessing them, dividing their neighbors, people were getting killed over clean energy. And the environmental harms were devastating. I mean, it was, it was, you know, messing with the water table, you know, they couldn't farm in the same traditional ways. And it wasn't just one wind project, right? I mean, that we can count on this one wind project for a community that's, you know, it's supplying that community. These were mega projects, some of the largest wind energy projects in the world. And now that place, Oaxaca has the highest density of onshore wind of any place in the world. But I got there just as that was getting off the ground. And I think the people there realized that they were a part of this essentially neocolonial moment, right, that they were going to be subject to this devastation, if their lives have changed, there are over 2,200 megawatts of energy in this small place called the Isthmus of Tawanta Peck. And the energy does not even flow into their homes, which is the most devastating, one of the most devastating aspects of the story for them. And so I got there at the beginning, and my career, my academic career really started with telling that story through the sort of traditional academic way. I became an expert on indigenous rights and wind and finance. And during my time in Hawaii, I saw the similar something similar playing out where the most marginalized communities in Hawaii were sort of being sought after as the location, the home for this new development, without receiving any of the benefits. And these are the same communities that were paying a lot more for electricity. I mean, Hawaii is ridiculous in terms of how much people pay. But I saw a real opportunity for them to benefit from that state's transition. And so, you know, your question was, when did I, how? It sounds like it was a journey over time. It wasn't like a lightning strike, but it was more and more, you were seeing things, or you're like, oh, this is injustice. This is not right. Yeah. And there were multiple inflection points. And then it wasn't until I really left Hawaii that I thought, I have something to say here. And, you know, I know you get a lot of authors on your show and they talk about the writing process, I'm sure. And for me, I mean, I had written, so I had the opportunity to go back to Mexico 10 years after my initial time to go as a Fulbright scholar and study how energy, the energy transition, you know, was continuing to unfold. And I spent a lot of time in the Yucatan Peninsula, which is gorgeous and lovely and Mayan country and just so rich culturally and great activists and communities there. And I thought my book was, and so I wrote a book proposal when I was on my Fulbright and I said, this is the book I'm going to write. And I got back to the United States. And I don't know why, but something said, it was just sort of serendipitous. Someone introduced me to Island Press, my publisher. And they said, I think she's writing a book. And so they reached out and said, oh, are you writing a book? And I said, yeah. But the book that came out was really this domestic story. It wasn't about Mexico. And you asked me about sort of being an outlier in the Academy. The Mexico book would have been very doctrinal, very legalistic, very, you know, standard kind of legal book. This book that wanted to come out is deeply personal. And I'm sort of getting emotional about it because it is the one that sort of pushed through me and pushed through my typing. And my dad was with me because my father passed away. And he had a story to tell in this book. You know, my mom, my family, there were stories that needed to be told. And this is the one that came out very quickly. And so it turns out that it's a book for this moment. And I don't own it. I'm grateful to be the conduit for that story. I I can't take credit for what I experienced. I'm just the vessel to disseminate those lessons. And so it is with humility that I present the work to the world. Thank you so much. Do you have any specific stories about social injustice, this justice that specific towards the energy sector that maybe the most of us are in the dark about that would be good to know and hear about that you would like to touch upon? Sure. I mean, you know, I think I do want to uplift the Mexico story because it is one that is devastating. You know, we think about plunder of a place in the oil and gas and coal context. But Mexico is very much an exemplar of what happens when you do clean energy development using the same logics of fossil fuel development. So extractive, large footprint, you know, not paying attention to social and environmental rights. And we have Indigenous communities in Oaxaca who are continuing to fight for their humanity in the clean energy transition. And I think that's the point I really want to make there is that clean energy again can replicate inequality if we're not careful. I think there's an injustice going on right now in the United States regarding COVID. And so we have folks who are underemployed or unemployed due to this ongoing financial crisis that had they had nothing to do with. And there were all sorts of policies and essentially policies and orders that were adopted throughout the summer saying we can't disconnect these folks from electricity because, you know, there's this financial shock and we want to we have a state of emergency. So there was protection in general throughout the summer and early fall. And now those protections have been lifted. And so what that means is people can be shut off from electricity. So we think about the sort of human needs, the basic needs that we were talking about earlier, we think about housing, we think about water access, but electricity is often not a part of that. The fact that so many people are being disconnected or have the threat of being disconnected from electricity during a time when everyone's being asked to go inside and shelter in place, during a time when children are being asked to use computers and other electrical devices to educate themselves to me as a human rights violation. And so that's going on right now where folks are with facing those threats. And then on the back end, we don't know what the economy is going to look like in March or April or May. Are these people going to be able to go back to any sort of jobs? Or, you know, will they continue to flounder? I mean, I'm hoping that this new administration and the Congress will create real economic benefits for these folks. But they're going to be facing back payments because of all the, they're called the rear edges. They're going to be facing those due to the lapses in their financial financial flow in the last several months. So that's an emergency that I would say that is invisible because it's not being kicked out of your home. It's being, it's sitting in your home in the dark. It is. So I don't even want to talk too much or broach the oompa-loompa, but as there's pardons going on or discussions of that, I really think our president, elect Biden, when he gets in office, not only should fix the U.S. electoral system, but also that there should be some pardons made immediately of all those people affected during the pandemic, not a stimulus check. I mean, that's fine. And that's another debate, but some pardons, the bond, basic needs, rights, electricity, utilities, and those things that people aren't left. And, you know, we, Obama talked about college debt and things like that. Biden's talked about college debt. This is another form of life debt. It's a basic needs, basic rights, and dealt with it in many different ways during the beginning of the pandemic. Parents were all of a sudden becoming teachers. They were trying to get their kids enough computers and educate them at home and their domestic violence was on the rise and they were trying to, now they went from a parent to also being a school teacher and educator, finding enough computers and whatever. The infrastructure wasn't there for this type of new, yeah, this new view of our human zoos in 24-7 where every family member or person is now in the space and you get this microscopic view of what that infrastructure looks like. Is there enough space? Is there enough energy? Is there enough computers? Is there enough internet? Is on and on of what to do? Yeah. It's just mind boggling the assumptions that were built into the policy responses to COVID, right? The policy, I mean, the assumptions were, okay, we're going to shelter in place. We're going to shut everything down. But that means some people are still working. Some people can't shelter in place. Some people, you know, live in homes that have multi-generations with vulnerable people in them. You know, not everyone has a computer, as you said. So the policy responses were built for the affluent middle-class American, right? So those folks were taken care of. And then we didn't create a safety net, right? I mean, in other places around the world, there's enough of a social safety net so people weren't having to make difficult decisions. You think my grocery store checker wants to be there working, is taking pride in being a front-line worker? That person wants to be home. And what if they have kids? Who's taking care of those kids? Because those kids can't go to school. So, I mean, our policy responses were completely misguided with assumptions baked in concerning, you know, what types of resources people had at their disposal. So, yeah, I'm... I'm a multifaceted crazy thing. There's a lot more we have to do going forward. And I absolutely, we do not want to return to business as usual as the world economic form has said, you know, the great reset. And as one way to put it, we definitely need to create some new systems and fix those ones that have come bubbling to the surface that we've really seen microscope on last year and the beginning of this year as well. We need to fix those. And because it just doesn't affect us, I'm in Hamburg, Germany, but you know, my heart's in the U.S. as well. And I feel for the things you guys are going through and feel and see that as well. And so, that's another reason I really like that it's very timely book and it addresses those things in the book. And I'm going to ask you my hardest question that I have for you today. Okay, hopefully I can answer it. Let's see if you start sweating. No, it's not that bad. It's the, yeah, it's the burning question, WTF. And it's not the swear word, although many people have been asking themselves that and pulling out their hair this year. It's actually, what's the future? Oh, love it. What's the future? And I want to know for you, you know, what's your vision? What's your future? What's the future? Yeah, there is a capital F and a little F, right? There's sort of the big F future. And the little F for me is it's going to be a dark time for the next, I would say, two years at least, maybe more as we reckon with ourselves in this country and our role in creating the global climate crisis. And I think the next two years are going to be a time of dealing with who we are and looking at ourselves in the mirror and also understanding those connections, you know, the structural violence, our imperial appetite, our appetite for consumption, the systems that we have erected on top of a very infected social structure. We are going to be reckoning with that. And you could see it in the last Wednesday's insurrection where there was initially a shock. But then things sort of sort of sort of settled into their their usual places. But there were even some in the middle who didn't know whether they were going to go on the side of racial justice or go with the sort of saddest quo and say, we need to move on. So I think we'll see more and more moments. I mean, I'm sad to say that. But we are in a moment of incredible unrest and instability in this country. And I think until we reckon with who we are, that's our future. Little F. But the big F is that light will prevail and that we will end up in a place of justice. And this is sort of some of the concepts I was playing with in the last chapter, which was very much a fictional account of what I think might happen. Climate changes here, it's going to be devastating. It is already underway. The the justice that we're fighting for on climate is for future generations. We're amidst a transition in terms of climate. That's undisputable. And I think the science is there on that. But we have an opportunity to really create an energy system that allows us to be more resilient in the face of that. And so the the capital F, I think, is one where we have reckoned with ourselves in terms of the social injustice and the racial injustice that exists. And we've created a world where everyone has access to those basic rights that you talked about, Mark, including energy, including water, including internet, you know. And so I'm looking I'm working toward that future. And I am not cynical enough to believe that it's not possible. I think I think it's something that we can do. You got the answer right, my goodness. Yeah, no, I've never had the same answer twice. And yours was very beautiful. Thank you for that. It's so important that we we think about that question. What's the future? Because if we don't know what the future is, that means we don't have a plan, which means we'll never reach it. It's just like a map or a compass on a ship or a boat or or an airplane or whatever. If you don't know where you're going, you're never going to get there. And so we need to have some form of plans. And there's some global plans out there. You know, one is the Sustainable Development Goals of Paris Agreement, the Green New Deal, the New Deal. You know, there's there's many out there that we we've heard about, maybe not many, less than a handful. But unless we know about them, unless we're working towards them, we're never going to achieve it. We're going to wait for someone to deliver the future to us. And I think we will be sorely disappointed if we're waiting for some of the crazy leaders we have today to deliver those futures to us or even even others will be disappointed. We need to realize we're on the spaceship Earth. We're all crew members, none of us are passengers. I mean, there's really only two points in life when you're a baby or you're extremely elderly where you become a passenger. The most of the time you are able to grab the steering wheel and be a crew member to guide your direction, the Earth's direction of where we want to go in the future. I really, like I said, I really love your book and I love the way you talk about it, the stories, the journey you take us on. And even though, you know, said at the end is a little bit your vision of the future, what your best case scenario or what you would hope and wish for. But I believe it's very achievable. It's very doable for us. I want to get some clarification on three other little points that you make in the book. And there are also some, I guess, teasers or hopefully not spoilers, but it will move people to read the book. Tell me about solar segregation and what you mean about energy segregation. Exactly what that means and maybe there's not just one definition. There's a couple instances where you've seen that. Can you tell us a little more about that? Sure. So, you know, that concept really connects back to our earlier discussion around how the solar industry has sort of targeted whether that's directly or indirectly, you know, certain communities for solar development and left others behind. And we now have several studies showing that communities of color simply have less access to solar. And so it's a provocative term because we know what segregation is, but we don't think about that in the context of solar. But we absolutely have a disparity in terms of access to rooftops, top solar, and black and brown communities in this country simply don't have the same access. So that's really what I meant by solar segregation. And it's one I actually heard, Seth Spears, who's the founder of Solstice Solar and out of Cambridge, Massachusetts, used in a talk. And I said, oh, I used that in my book. And so, you know, we're friends, but I think it's a concept that resonates in terms of its construct. Yeah, so there is some change on the horizon. There are some things that are moving. And I think specifically for certain countries, specific locations that we're at, indigenous communities, we're seeing some differences in that. I want to give you a positive story and maybe whisper to any of my listeners, I have some high level friends at IKEA who listen to the show. I've worked on projects with them before. But IKEA in India sells solar panels. And they sell them to people of color, very impoverished, very poor, shopping at IKEA. And they're taking to their shanty huts to their, to their, you know, slum areas, some bad areas, they're taking some of those things back to put on the roof and to create energy for internet, for school, for to do work, you know, things like that. So now we need to see IKEA in the US and IKEA in Europe and other places offer those same type of solutions at an affordable price, you know. And I don't know what, in Germany, the rules around renewable energy, especially solar, is you have to be connected to the grid. You have to be able to pay back to the grid and exchange back and forth. That's the way it works with solar in Europe. I don't know in the US how it always works about being connected to the grid, if you can have your own little solar panels on the house and how all that has worked and evolved over the years. But empowering at the lowest level, those people who, you know, shop at the Ikea's or shop at the local markets to even understand there's alternatives. There's other options available. Here's how you have your entry point at a price point that may eventually be affordable to you. That's a great story. I'd love to see spread around. And they do a lot of things with the UN and refugee camps and things with the UNCHR as well, Ikea does tents and other things. But I would love to see some more innovators, sustainable innovators and some really pioneers go out there and kind of push our lobbyists, our policymakers and those local communities to deliver those services that are needed for everybody. I mean, whether you live in an apartment or a home, you should be able to put a solar panel on your balcony or on your roof or have some kind of a little auction. I agree, which also provides you with some resilience in times where the grid may fail or where you can't pay your utilities and the local infrastructure decides to shut your utilities off. That's right. That's right. And in places like Arizona and Hawaii, the utility has pushed against that wider proliferation of rooftop solar, wanting to sort of maintain control over the system. So it's quite stark. I mean, this is a human rights issue, I think. It is. Yeah, it really is a human rights issue. And there's two last things I want to touch on in the book. And we've kind of already touched on some of them as well. But climate change fundamentalism, how do we end it or how is it ending? What is it? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I love it. So climate change fundamentalism is a term that sort of bubbled up for me. And in the context of advocates who were solely focused on greenhouse gas reductions, you know, reducing carbon emissions without focusing on the social justice dimensions of this transition. And so they sort of just said, we need more large scale energy or whatever, whatever their drama is that they're beating, but we can't afford to focus on issues of social justice because we don't have time. So then they become fundamentalists in their perspective concerning climate change. And so I've seen that play out in Hawaii. I've seen it play out in global conversations I'm having around, you know, let's just go big, let's go big, let's go big without thinking about the sort of social and environmental, ultimately, cost of our climate change mitigation strategy. And, you know, I think one way to disrupt that narrative is to first call it out, right, to illustrate the ways in which it is limited and that eventually you're going to butt up against issues of social unrest or social injustice. And so it's ultimately going to be ineffective and we're still going to have the most vulnerable people, you know, migrating because of climate change and not able to adapt, not able to be resilient in the face of weather events. So it's a bad solution, sort of on the merits, but it's a bad solution just in terms of our moral obligations. And so I think we call it out. And then we also create alliances. We see some of the major environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, like Environmental Defense Fund, like the Natural Resources Defense Council, finally coming around to these ideas that, oh, equity needs to be a part of what we do. And unfortunately, they have not trained themselves to understand equity. So they're kind of going into communities now and trying to connect with communities around these issues. But because of the history, because of the ways in which they've burned some of these communities in the past and gone against them on issues of justice, there's still some healing that needs to be done in repairing those relationships. So we're in this, we're in this reckoning where the reckoning is happening also within the environmental community. And we have the justice-centered folks who are now getting a bigger voice in the environmental space and they're sort of disrupting this narrative around climate change fundamentalism. I love that. So I deal with that a lot in many different aspects. There's so too many to name veganism, biofuels, bioreactors. We made a big push on that a while ago and it's come back to bite us because it was just a bad idea. We need more systemic approach that addresses all the multiple facets of environment and climate and to get rid of this extremism. It's almost fundamentalism in some respects. It's this blinder view on just one siloed approach for the solution. There is no silver bullet. I'm sorry, there is no silver bullet. You need to take a systemic approach and really address all those aspects. Yeah, there are some positives around it but to to leave out so Indigenous and social justice and it's just, it's just horrific. The last one we did touch upon on credit but it's really about the utility reform lynchpin. You want to say a little bit more about that and at all kind of explain a little bit more on what that is. Sure, so I would say there are two, I mean, I think every chapter in the book is important but it would say sort of foundational pieces of this transition are or key aspects of the transition are reforming our utility sector and access to finance. We talked a lot about the access to finance piece and the problems with people being able to get the financing they need to put rooftop solar on or participate in community energy. So that's one thing. On the utility reform side, I think we've just got to grapple with what justice looks like in the utility sector. We have created a system that is incentivized to build crap and and to charge us for it and you know whether or not that infrastructure is needed and whether or not that's the the most just path toward this clean energy transition. So they're incentivized to build things. They're incentivized to sell energy, sell electricity, whether or not it's based on a clean grid or a dirty one. And so I think we have to really take a hard look at the business model that that is the current dominant model and I'm thinking mainly about the investor-owned utility model in the United States. We have the public power model which is you know more municipally driven. You could argue that a state-owned grid is another public model or cooperatively owned model which has been problematic in some places but is another way to kind of think about you know the people owning their own electricity. So yeah that's I think until we figure out how to properly incentivize investor-owned utilities or really understand the best business model in general or the best sort of governance model. It's more of a governance model for the utility sector. I think we're still going to be budding up against some resistance in terms of a just clean energy transition because the IOUs are the ones stopping rooftop solar in this country. They are the ones kind of stopping innovation around communities owning their own energy assets and we've got to deal with them if we're going to make sure that this transition allows for the economic justice that I think it pretends. Here's my last hardest question for you. It's really similar to the WTF but it is what does a world that works for everyone look like for you? You know it's almost hard to even imagine that right because we're so far from it. It is one where we don't have benefits programs because everyone is on equal footing right. We don't need I mean I guess we have a social safety net but it's not because people are falling it's because their baseline is just so much higher and so that's a world in which every child born into the world has the opportunity to live his or her their potential right where their zip code doesn't determine life outcomes or the race doesn't determine their outcomes or ethnicity or skin color and it's one where the government has provided a substantial foundation for upon which everyone can thrive and that's that's the best future for me and that means across dimensions it means in the energy sector it means you know health and education it is it is just a place where you know we sprout like trees you know and flowers and you can just really shine in living our potential. That's beautiful thank you very much the last three questions I have for you are selfish takeaways for my listeners. I want you to kind of give them a sustainable takeaway that has the ability to empower them or to get them to look at their how they can apply it into their lives or see the world differently so if there was one message that you could depart to my listeners that had the power to change their life what would it be your method? Oh wow you know you mentioned sustainability and I think it's it's a noble goal as well as resilience these are noble goals the question the disruptive question I will ask is what are we sustaining right are we sustaining a system that is inherently unjust and unequal and what are we making more resilient as we move forward are we making our unequal and inequitable structures more resilient as we as we harden and prepare for the what's ahead so let us be disruptive in how we think about these two concepts that are such a big part of the discourse around climate what are we sustaining and how are we contributing to inequality and what are we rendering resilient as we move forward so I think that's okay that definitely answers the question um what should young lawyers innovators in the energy sector renewable transition be thinking about if they're looking for real ways to make impact? Yeah find your allies on the ground talk to people who are living it and there are so many community organizations around the world and I've connected with them where folks are fighting for breath they're fighting for life they're fighting for clean water and so align yourself with them communicate with them because you have such power as an educated person as someone who understands technology and you can translate what they are experiencing into your work or at least it can inform your the way you do your work so this is about stitching together that society that I talked about right it's stitching together that community through those relationships. What have you experienced or learned in your professional journey so far that you would have loved to know from the start? Keep trusting your instinct keep trusting your intuition and I have followed it but it's been scary at times not knowing if you know when I leapt if the ground was really going to be there but it will be and I'm continuing to be on this journey I'm halfway through my life and I'm so excited about the next half. That's all I have for you today it's been absolutely wonderful I thank you so much for being on the show and if there's anything else that you might have left out or you'd like to say now's your opportunity otherwise I'm going to wish you a wonderful day. Oh wow well it's just been such a pleasure to be on this call and in this conversation with you and thank you so much for reading the book and for the care that you with which you read it and thank you for allowing me to elevate this message of energy justice and revolutionary power. You're most welcome you're most welcome revolutionary power a activist guide to energy transitions wonderful book and thank you so much Shalanda I really appreciate you being on the show and I hope we can have a follow-up very soon please take care. Thank you so much have a great day. Take care.