Hi everybody, I think we're going to get started. So good evening and welcome to GBH. I'm John Bredar. I'm the vice president for national programming here. And we're so pleased to host you this evening, along with our partners, the conversation, the Associated Press, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy. I'd also like to take a moment to acknowledge one very important person who's joining us for the very first time tonight at GBH, our new president and CEO, Susan Goldberg. My new boss, no pressure or anything like that. Welcome, Susan. First of many, I'm sure. The health and well-being of everyone across the globe depends on mitigating the deadly effects of climate change. But so many challenges remain, which is why GBH is committed to engaging Americans on this issue. As a leader in public media, we're working to generate awareness and discourse to inspire us all to be caretakers of our planet. For nearly 40 years, we've reported on climate change through the lens of science, investigative journalism, history, children's programming, and local and international news. In 1983, NOVA was the first series to air a national documentary on global warming. I actually went back and checked this out earlier today. And that film featured some guy named Al, who apparently had some concerns about the issue. Since then, maybe taking his lead, NOVA has produced 30 more films addressing climate change, more than half of those in the last five years. Today, our local and international news and radio teams publish in this space routinely, whether it's GBH News, Capon Islands Radio, or The World, our global program with PRX. We're exploring how individuals, communities, and institutions are tackling climate change. And our national programs can look at the issue from multiple angles. Frontline's The Power of Big Oil investigates the unprecedented legal effort by states and cities across America to hold the oil industry to account for climate change. This series reveals the 50-year story of how fossil fuel companies learned from their own scientific research in the 1970s and 1980s that CO2 emissions would change the climate with potentially catastrophic consequences. And yet, they set out on a decades-long campaign to hide or distort the science. Fittingly, Frontline will next look at how climate change is driving migration. In April, American Experience, our history series, will premiere The Sun Queen, which tells the story of Maria Telkis, a pioneering scientist at MIT who, in the 1940s and 1950s, developed the first technologies using solar power, laying groundwork for today's booming solar industry. But Telkis wasn't taken seriously by the male establishment, and early gains were ignored, costing precious time in our ongoing climate challenge. Also this April, NOVA will launch Climate Across America, a multi-platform project for PBS that will showcase inspiring climate solutions being implemented in local communities across the country, from clever ways of cooling cities to using Native American knowledge to control wildfires out west, to no-till farming to make our cropland more resilient in the face of extreme weather. This initiative will also help train local media makers and students in effective climate storytelling. We're also working on Sea Change, a new three-part documentary series from GBH that tells the story of the Gulf of Maine, which is warming faster than 99% of global oceans. The series equates ocean health with human health, and not just along the coasts. As one of our directors put it, the air that folks breathe in Nebraska is made in the Gulf of Maine. To support GBH's efforts around climate reporting and storytelling, we have established the Planet Future Fund, which will help to support and advance the climate-focused work of many of our programs. The need for trusted, fact-based reporting is essential to the future of the Earth. And is that enough? I guess that's what we're here to discuss. It's now my pleasure to bring to the stage Beth Daly, Executive Editor and General Manager of the Conversation US. Welcome, Beth. Thank you so much, John. I thought I'd take a quick second to explain about the conversation, because who doesn't know about us? A quite a number of people. But the conversation is a nonprofit, national, independent news outlet. Part of our team is based here at GBH in the world, and GBH News. And our mission is to, in the loftiest term, democratize knowledge for the public good. And the way we do that is we want to get trusted advice, trusted advice, trusted expert evidence-based research out to the public and have experts comment on timely news events with truth. And we do that with an amazing collaboration with our 22 editors who work with academics. And every day we publish 10 stories. We're publishing about 1,000 news outlets a month now. And 20 million people read us a month, which is really a great testament to our eight-year-old model. But I wanted to tell you who we were first, because the next part is really something more magnificent. About three years ago, Bruce Wilson, if you want to wave a hand, Bruce Wilson, of the conversation, who's been here since the start, convened a group of news outlets. The Associated Press, represented today by Ron Nixon. Ron, if you want to give a quick hi. And the conversation, of course, and the Chronicle Philanthropy, which we have Stacey Palmer here today, if you want to raise your hand or stand up real quick, the editor. And we pursued a vision about something no one had tried to do collaboratively with news outlets. And that is to inform America about something that's such an important part of American culture that we don't really talk a lot about around the edges. It's about giving. It's about donating. It's about philanthropy. It's about volunteerism. It's about running nonprofits. And how do nonprofits make an impact? How does anyone make an impact? American have such a culture of giving. And we came together and had a vision that we would each take a part in this. Luckily, we have a foundation, the Lillian Downwind, who saw value in what we proposed to do. And we've been at this for three years now and hope to be at it for many more. This is actually our first live event. COVID crashed all the others that we had planned, although we did some virtually. And tonight, we're talking about one most important issues on the planet, climate.  And back then, climate philanthropy was, wow, it was minuscule. It still is minuscule compared to all philanthropy. But back then, it was very, very tiny. And what the money came from, it was largely from big foundations. Today, the landscape has dramatically changed. There is still large foundations really pouring a lot of money in, thank goodness, to solve what we all know now as the climate crisis. But what we also have are our wealthy individual, millionaires, and sometimes billionaires, contributing to this really important cause. Lauren Powell, Jeff Bezos, and many others are really trying to help the planet and save the planet. But what is the impact of these wealthy individuals? How are they working with people on the ground? How are they dealing with environmental justice issues? What is their impact? How do they measure success? Those are some of the questions you're gonna be delving into tonight, which I'm totally excited for because they're really important questions. I can't think of a better person to moderate this other than Caitlyn Sacks from NOVA, producer at NOVA. You may not know Caitlyn, but you've certainly seen some of her amazing work. Decoding climate polar extremes and she plays a significant role in the upcoming series that John had mentioned, climate across America, looking at solutions from communities that are often unheard from. So without further ado, oh, I do have one more thing to say before Caitlyn walks across the stage. We really wanna engage with the audience tonight, and the way we're doing that is hopefully you grabbed an index card when you walked in a pencil. If you have a question, comes to you, write it down, raise your hand, and our archers will come and grab it, and we'll be doing questions and answers of the panelists at the end. If you did not grab index card, still raise your hand, and usher will bring you a card and repeat. So without further ado, Caitlyn, welcome. Thank you so much, Beth. Thank you for having me. I am absolutely flattered to be here tonight, moderating this panel. As Beth mentioned, I work for NOVA. I've been working for NOVA for about eight years now. I've changed over the last eight years, just in the last eight years, about what we can do about it. And now, NOVA's a science technology series, and certainly science and technology can play a role, but in a lot of ways it does come down. How much money are we talking about here? How much will it take to fix this? There have been analyses on this. A recent analysis by Climate Works says it will take between four and nine trillion dollars per year to solve climate change. This is an estimate. So that has 12 zeros on it. How are we possibly going to play a role? How can individuals campaign for nature, which is leading the effort to support, this organization is leading the effort to support the 30 by 30 campaign to protect 30% of the lands, of the world's land and ocean by 2030. Nick Tilson is the president and CEO of the NDN Collective, an indigenous-led activist and advocacy organization. And Andrew Steer is the president and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund, which has committed to contributing $10 billion to the cause over 10 years. So thank you all for joining us. Again, I am totally flattered to be moderating a panel with you all. And I'm gonna ask you to tell me a little bit more about your work, your organization, and your organization's philosophy on climate philanthropy. How can philanthropy get us to 12 zeros? So Ash, why don't we start with you? Okay, sounds good. So I'll be speaking more from my perspective and the perspective of my research team and the research we do then my organization per se. But I've been working as part of a research team for the last five years. We have one more year to go researching how big donors, specifically private foundations, how they can affect conservation and climate. And the way we've done this is we've talked to both donors themselves in working in different contexts and local people, local communities, local organizations, indigenous peoples that are working on the issues as well. So we've gotten both perspectives. We've done hundreds of interviews with I think about 100 folks over the last five years. And it's been very interesting. And I think these donors are in a very unique position. They're highly autonomous. They can be nimble. They can be responsive. They can be innovative. They can do things that other huge donors like government aid cannot do because of their independence. But it really depends on how they work. And so that's something that my work seeks to speak to. So to understand and answer questions like how can these big donors work in a way that's more just, that's more effective, that's more equitable and enduring and provide solutions that we really hope that they can. So for example, one of the things we've really, I think the thing that stood out the most to me is how important it is for these efforts to be aligned with the local context. And so it's important for donors to really get to know the people, the geographies and the issues that they're funding. For example, one thing they could do is including indigenous and local communities and organizations and the funding decisions they make, for example. And I could speak more about that, but I'll stop there. We'll get to it. Brian, tell us a little bit more about Campaign for Nature. Sure. So Campaign for Nature is a global effort. And as the name implies, we work on the nature part of the equation. Most often when people are thinking about climate change in the United States, they often think about solar panels or electric vehicles or coal fire power plants. But globally, we need to make sure that we are protecting and conserving nature if we are going to solve this crisis. It is up to a third of the solution of the climate crisis. And that really comes down to making sure that the lungs of the earth, the Amazon, the Congo Basin are functioning that the oceans and the kelp beds that are so critical for the carbon cycle are healthy. That we're protecting mangroves and we're protecting peatlands, which are also really critically important for absorbing carbon. And we don't turn our best allies in the fight against climate change, our natural systems, into part of the problem. The more we degrade lands, the more that becomes part of the carbon emitters rather than carbon sinks. So Campaign for Nature is working on a global effort to try to get a target of protecting at least 30% of the world's lands and oceans by 2030. And that would be a global goal that would be adopted in the convention on biological diversity. So many of you have heard of the climate convention. They had a big cop in Egypt just a couple of weeks ago. There's a sister convention on biodiversity, the sort of the nature convention that'll be meeting up in Montreal starting on the 7th of December, so just in another week. And they'll be setting targets for what is the world's nature goals for the next decade. The way we work is we wanna make sure that that target is agreed to by countries in the world. We've got a high ambition coalition of more than 112 nations that have endorsed it. We're also trying to make sure that it's done in a rights-based way that indigenous peoples in local communities, rights and respect is built in. Historically, conservation hasn't done a good job on that. We've seen in the past evictions and displacements of indigenous peoples and not respect for their approaches and leadership. And so we're trying to make that change in the policy. And the final effort we do is funding. We wanna make sure that countries commit that they don't just set bold policy targets, that they're also putting money towards this so that these policies can be implemented. So we're trying to hold the wealthy nations accountable to get some money to developing nations, to frontline communities to develop this. Very quickly on your question about philosophy for philanthropy, I am a really big supporter of grassroots organizations and advocacy. I think that we've done a lot of studying, we've done a lot of analysis, we've got a lot of white papers. Time right now is for people who are making change, grassroots leaders who are holding governments, corporations and others accountable to drive this change. Thank you, Brian. Nick. I'm a doctor, Nick Tilson. I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor. I'm a doctor. I teach in my Lakota language. And what we do here at Indian Collective is if you look at where the biodiversity in the world is, 85% of the biodiversity that exists in the world, one of the reasons why it exists there is because the role of indigenous people protecting those places. But then you look at philanthropy, historically is under invested. So like in America, like less than a half of 1% of American philanthropy goes to Native American people. And so Indian Collective is a movement infrastructure organization that both has a grant making arm, a lending arm, an activism arm, and a social enterprise arm that focuses on moving resources and closing that gap and making sure that we're investing into indigenous self-determination. And we're doing it at a scale that nobody ever has in the history of philanthropy because of the moment that we're in. And so Indian Collective does that because if you invest into the indigenous self-determination of indigenous people that are defending, developing, and decolonizing its contributions to addressing climate and addressing racial inequality, we work in those cross intersection of those areas. And so Indian Collective does that both through grant making, but also does it through social enterprising. And our whole philosophy is defend, develop, and decolonize. Defend, develop, and decolonize because we got to keep going after the corporations that are polluting while we're also creating new solutions from the ground up. Thank you, Nick. Andrew. Well, thank you, Caitlin. I'm Andrew Stier, Basos Earth Fund. Thanks to WGBH. Thanks to the conversation. Thanks to Chronicle of Philanthropy, AP. These are great and important conversations. So we're really grateful to be here. Look, we're in the battle of our lives, quite frankly. So it's wonderful that affluent people like Jack Basos would put $10 billion. And he says, I don't want you to start a foundation that will last for 100 years. Let's spend it down in this decisive decade. And the question is, how do you do that? Because whilst it sounds like a lot, as you've already explained, it's actually not very much. So every single grant we make needs to do two things. It needs to deliver what the grantee is very good at delivering. And it needs to be part of a movement to change an entire system. Because it's no longer good enough to have projects that deliver nice things, good results, dollar in, very good dollar out. Dollar in, we need many multiples. And that can come from lots of different ways, including policy change, new inventions, more private investment, radical changes in the way we think about justice. Those are the kinds of leverages. So the way we sort of analyze before we spend, we look at the 50 transitions that need to happen urgently this decade. And whether there's 40 or 70, you can cut and slice it in many ways. But if you saw the 50 we look at, they would sound sensible to you. It sounds like a lot of transitions, but they're actually all of them pretty big. One of them is getting rid of the internal combustion engine, for example. That's just one. And there are 50 about as big as that. So then the question is, how do you allocate your money? Well, each of those is on a path that will, in time, cross a positive tipping point. The problem is, will that tipping point come soon enough? And so what our job is to ask the question, where is it along that path so that we can nudge it towards that tipping point? Where are the barriers? Where are the intervention points that we can make a difference, so to speak? So that's what we try to do. We try to make change irresistible and unstoppable. And as I think we're all totally aligned on this panel, absolutely central part of this needs to be environmental and social justice. Thanks so much, Nick. So I'm going to ask my first question to, I'm sorry. Thanks so much, Andrew. I'm going to ask my first question to Nick. Nick, imagine you had $10 billion. Where would you be investing it to make the most impact? Well, I mean, I would be invested into the leadership of indigenous communities. Because if you look at the front lines of the climate movement or environmental justice movement, indigenous people are risking their lives and their freedoms, protesting these when there's no resources, that when philanthropy hasn't showed up to those spaces. And you look at the movement in Standing Rock or any of these movements led by indigenous people, there's direct market impacts. They make it expensive for the polluters to keep polluting, because we're going to war against them. So that's one area. At the same time, you look like in the US, much of the public lands in the US is currently mismanaged. But some of the best managed land in the United States, about 56 million acres of it, is managed by tribal nations. And those are the places that have the best grasses that are contributing to the biodiversity of the planet. So there's these places and making investments into indigenous people who both who are fighting and developing solutions is a part of the equation. It's an important part of the equation. It also happens to be part of the original place of injustice in this country, too. So mixed into this issue of climate is this embedded issue of white supremacy, systematic racism, colonization, and the impact that has had. And climate change is a byproduct of that unsustainable model, unsustainable system. And so by making investments into indigenous communities, you're bringing indigenous knowledge and philosophy and unlocking that. And so it's not the only part of the equation, but it's a very, very important one. So because that's my job and it's what I'm all about, that's where I would make the investments. Brian, your focus is on land conservation. And I'm hearing from you, Nick, that indigenous communities can play a large role in that. From your perspective on, you just need, you're looking to basically conserve as much land as possible. How are you working with or enabling indigenous communities to do that? What is that relationship there? Yeah, it's one of the most important things that needs to happen if we're to meet the 30 by 30 goal or any large conservation goals internationally. I work mostly internationally, I used to work domestically, but if you look at it internationally, as Nick properly said, about 80% of the world's biodiversity is concentrated on lands that are stewarded by indigenous peoples. Many of those indigenous communities don't have official land title, they're not recognized by the states. And so, but when we look at studies, it has shown that their management practices have far surpassed any other management system to maintain biodiversity, to keep these natural systems intact. So one of the most important investments we can make to meet the 30 by 30 goal is to secure land tenure rights for indigenous peoples in local communities. So there's a few entities, a thing called the tenure facility that's set up. We've worked with the rights resources initiative, the setup initiative called Clarify that is working to get grants to make those system changes. Some of it's like legal changes in countries to be able to get these tenure rights recognized, money to the communities themselves to map and advocate for their territories. But I think that is fundamental to make this work. We work closely with an entity called the Global Alliance for Territorial Communities. I think we've seen a really significant global organization of indigenous peoples in the last few years, recognizing that they need to band together globally to be at these climate conventions, to be at the biodiversity conventions to make their voices heard. And they're just starting to be heard not enough by countries, but it is essential if we're going to solve the climate crisis or the biodiversity crisis. And I just wanna make sure I heard that stack correctly. You said 80% of the world's biodiversity is concentrated on lands that are stewarded by indigenous peoples. Wow. Yeah. Wow. So Ash, I'm hearing a theme here around the extreme importance of land conservation as an individual when I often think of how climate change, I think, oh, well we need more solar panels and wind turbines and maybe some sea walls. Can you help put us and put into perspective a little bit from your research, what you're finding are the key areas of investment for most impact. Where does conservation fit into that and where do some of these other solutions? You know, I would say that instead of answering your question directly, I'm gonna kind of take a roundabout way of answering that. I think going back to what I said before, it's a matter of being a donor, being in touch with the issues, being in touch with the communities, being in touch with the geographies, where they wanna work or where they plan to work. I think that it's also a matter of how they work. So not just what are you giving funding to, who are you giving funding to, but also how is that funding decision made? I mentioned earlier, including people on the ground in the conversations that inform funding decisions. Additionally, how else are you funding? So is there flexibility? The environment doesn't work in a linear fashion. And so to give a very inflexible grant or an inflexible way of funding, that's not necessarily the way that we're gonna be able to affect environmental change. Things happen with the environment on a very long-term scale. So you can't make change happen in a one-year grant cycle or even a three-year grant cycle, right? So long-term funding can really make a difference. Keeping administrative burden low so that people are able to focus on the issues that work, that matter instead of spending a lot of time writing grants and reporting and things like that, thinking about how you're gonna exit from an issue or from a geography. So I think there's a lot of different ways that donors can work regardless of what exactly they're, because there's certainly a lot of, as Andrew mentioned, the 50 different pathways that we need to be looking at. There's certainly a lot of different things to be focused on here. And can you just clarify a little bit what you mean by a flexible versus an inflexible grant? Yeah, absolutely. So you can imagine what things might be like if somebody says, okay, we're gonna be working on establishing a marine protected area in a country that's already facing the effects of climate change and then a category five hurricane hits. And they need to be focusing, instead of focusing on establishing a marine protected area, first they need to make sure that people are safe and fed and have clean water and those things so that they're not having as, so they're okay, but also so they're not having as much impact on the environment around them. So things change very quickly. There's, in places where there's a lot of stress on the environment from climate change, we see things come in like diseases in that are affecting coral, that are affecting animals and trees and things like that. And so that might be something that happens very quickly that somebody who's a practitioner of conservation or climate needs to respond to. And for a donor to be open to that kind of innovation and that kind of responsiveness is incredibly important. And so Andrew, you probably have the largest pot of money being distributed among the people on this panel. And you identified that. Maybe, maybe. I don't know, you're doing well. So, how does the Bezos Earth Fund decide where those points, where you help make the change irresistible? How do you identify where those are? And also just to build on what Ash is saying, how do you make sure that you're maintaining flexibility as the situation changes? Well, what Ash says is absolutely right, that it's terribly important to be flexible. We actually don't know the path ahead. Anybody who knows exactly how you're gonna decarbonize for this decade or the next is not really serious. We are on an adventure, so we need to be able to adjust quickly. And that's why we complement government spending so well, because government spending is not flexible. It's actually, especially in the United States, it's actually very, very specific. And even international aid on the part of, say, USAID, very good quality, but it certainly isn't flexible for the most part. So what we can do is we can come in much quicker, and we can be bolder. We can take risks that others can't. So for example, the Department of Energy has had a truly brilliant program, but there's just one bad result in Cylindra, the whole thing blew up. In other words, they can't take the risks that we can. And so we need to make sure that we bring in a very humble way the sort of the complementarity that we have. And we can't be so demanding of so many metrics that we just tie people up in knots. On the contrary, it is a partnership. So for example, last year the climate cop in Glasgow, together with Brian and others, we, the Basel's Earth Fund, committed $120 million to support Congo Basin conservation. All 120 was dispersed by February, three months later. But that didn't mean we knew exactly what was gonna happen to the money, quite frankly. We are a partner with them. So what we did is we said, look, this is incredibly difficult. The Congo Basin is very, very difficult place. We obviously talked to all the governments. We talked to all the local groups and so on. But then we said, look, I tell you what, rather than you competing against each other, because most NGOs compete against each other, would you be interested in all being grantees and becoming part of a team whereby together we can have engagement with the head of state and so on? And so this summer we went to Gabon, actually, Jeff Bezos and his partner, Lauren, came as well. We convened those NGOs. And so we're massaging as we go. We are precisely having to be flexible. And so I think that's really important. Now, as Nick and I were talking earlier, we also need to empower local groups. So as Nick says, there's something going on now in a really wonderful way. And he's playing a very important role. And we were privileged to put $300 million into United States environmental justice groups over the last 24 months. And the whole point of that is to try and build a capacity, which is exactly what Nick is doing. And we need to sort of change that. How do we choose what to do? We're in the business not of focusing on targets or issues or themes. We're in the business of supporting ideas. So I'll give you one, for example. So there are 480,000 school buses in this country, as you may know.  So why do we finance replacing school buses that are diesel with electric buses? Well, it's partly mainly because of health, but actually it also prevents carbon emissions. By the way, you also create a generation of children who actually learn about this. You link it to the curriculum development. They talk to their parents. And then, by the way, at the moment, 96% of all the electric buses in the world are made in China. Wouldn't it be great to have an industry here? That's another benefit. And finally, what about those long summers where a school bus does nothing? That's when it really earns its income because 480 giant batteries taking electricity off the grid when it's cheap and not needed, putting it back on the grid, you can save maybe 100 power plants as a result. That's the sort of idea that has that, aha, that would be interesting. We can't finance 480,000, but what we can do is finance those who are lobbying Congress, helping to write the legislation which is now in the infrastructure bill. It's in the Inflation Reduction Act. There's money going in, and then we work with New York and several other states to demonstrate we work with the manufacturers, we work with the financiers, and we demonstrate that actually the utilities are willing to pay $20,000 a year for a bus because of its battery storage capability in the summer. It's putting the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together. And suddenly, wow, that's an idea worth fighting for. Thank you. And that really makes tangible that sort of impact multiplying effect. Now you touched on something, the Inflation Reduction Act, and I wanna talk a little bit about that because I think a lot of people don't really know what's in that and how that money will be accessed. And you mentioned something else about how philanthropy can help make federal money more accessible.  Can you explain a little bit about the Inflation Reduction Act and the Justice 40 Initiative? It's obviously trying to get, so the Inflation Reduction Act is going to get more money into the hands of disadvantaged communities, but philanthropy needs to help with that. Why does philanthropy need to help with that? And how, what does that look like? I could think of the first stab at it. There was a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act which people have been fighting for a long time, but it's around solar and it's about the, it's the tax credit that exists. How solar historically has been financed is through tax, investors that have tax equity appetite that need an appetite for investing into tax equity to get a 30% right off that attracts the capital to be able to invest into solar. But historically non-taxable entities like they couldn't utilize it because they were non-taxable entities. Tribal governments, there's 573 federally recognized tribes and those are non-taxable entities, but they're still investors into trying to combat climate change by investing the solar into native communities. Under the Inflation Reduction Act, Inflation Act, they're now eligible. And so are nonprofits. And what this means is that nonprofits and tribes are gonna be in a position to be investors into solar projects. The difference is this. Instead of receiving a tax benefit, they're actually gonna be able to do a cash grant. But in order for it to work, the tribes and the nonprofits gotta have money upfront. Just like a lot, many federal grants are, many federal grants are reimbursement basis. So what's gonna happen is this product or this particular provision in the act will actually work where other investments haven't as long as tribes and nonprofits in those communities can get the cash upfront in order to make the project happen and then get that 30% reimbursement. So that's one really, really tangible. That was a, I'm passionate about that when I was in D.C. just a couple of weeks ago talking with the Congress Department and Treasurer about specifically about that specific provision in the act. And maybe just to sort of add to that. The U.S. federal spend has a very interesting characteristic that not all countries have, which is the government, the federal government, the Congress can pass a law which is absolutely wonderful, motivated perfectly. Actually, there aren't, the lever is sitting in Washington to get the money to go exactly where you want.  In a good way, it's basically it's democracy that is sent down to the state and the city and the county level, so to speak. And the problem is, of course, that there is, the funds are put in, but then what you really have to do is pull the money in to your local community. You have to apply for the money in many instances. And remember when we talk about Justice 40, Justice 40 is a wonderful initiative with the Biden administration, 40% of everything, all these hundreds of billions that we spent on green has to have to go to communities that are disadvantaged, especially the BIPOC, black, indigenous, brown communities, so to speak. So you don't only want the money to go to those places to benefit them, you actually want black, brown, and indigenous contractors to win those contracts as well. So in a way, what the role we can play is empowering that pull factor, if you like, empowering those on the cold face, the bad words, but that can actually build the capacity themselves to do the applications that can support the local contractors. In addition to the point that Nick's making, which is often the need cash upfront as well. But for not to be constrained to positionality though, right? So, you know, like it's not actually just, it's actually not about the cash, right? Cash changes the positionality to be able to move projects forward, because in the past, I think that what happens to a lot of native communities in the green energy industry is the same thing that's happened to the extractive energy industry. This is a certain point where there's, when there's an injection of capital, Indian people or indigenous people have no power. And so it's important for that injection of capital to happen early on, so that indigenous communities are not held economic hostage and not having to make decisions being held economic hostage. It changes the positionality and the power structure too. As well as the end result, so. We'll take the cash too, so. Can I add one? To take a, when you look at the Inflation Reduction Act, there are a lot of brilliant things in there. Heat pumps, a lot of investments to get the markets to really change and make renewable energy and efficiency really speed up and ramp up with the markets. What's not in there though is accountability for the polluters. It's all carrot and no stick, right? Because that's what could get through Congress. And that can get through Congress because that's where we are politically. But ultimately, if we are truly to solve this problem, we can't just be building heat pumps and solar panels why the oil industry continues to expand. They had their biggest quarter ever recently. We're still seeing massive expansion. They have a huge proposal in the Arctic, in the Willow Project they want to do in the Arctic, which will have massive implications. So this is where philanthropy, why they did an incredible job of helping grassroots organizations lobby and advocate for the IRA. We also need philanthropy to support those organizations that are holding industry accountable, that are holding elected officials accountable. So we need a little bit of stick in here as well. We need those industries that are driving our whole globe into a crisis mode to not just be off the hook while we go the long way around it by getting electric cars. We've got to bring that part into it too. And that's an area where philanthropy sometimes gets a little weary of because it's a lot easier. And Democrats as well, right? When Joe Biden says, when I think of climate change, I think of jobs, that's the easy part, right? It's a very positive pro-market part. But we need to think about some of the more parts that are gonna hold these industries that are caused the problem accountable. And that's where I think philanthropy and NGOs have to put equal effort into that side as well. So I'm hearing a very big theme of funding grassroots campaigns. And also philanthropy with environmental justice as a primary or a forefront objective. I'm wondering maybe Ash, as someone who's been researching this community, is that move to support environmental justice recent in the last few years? Have we seen evidence born out that that works? Is this a recent shift or? Well, I think actually there is a history of philanthropy supporting environmental justice, but over the last decades, I think there was a different maybe type of philanthropy happening than what we're seeing movements towards now. So a lot of what was happening was what we might call strategic philanthropy. And so a lot of donors were coming at things from how can we treat this like a business? Where's the bottom line? How are we gonna get measurable results and outcomes? And approaching things from a very, okay, we've got some ideas, this is what we wanna see happen. And then approaching it from that strategic or business-like standpoint. And I think, as everyone has mentioned, we are seeing a huge increase in the amount of giving and the amount of attention to this urgently needed issue. But there's also been attention to these donors. So scrutiny calls for more just philanthropy for these donors to work in different ways. And so I do think that donors in general are responding to those calls and are being incredibly reflective. And I think and I hope that they'll continue to be reflexive in the way they work in the future. So seeing what works, seeing, listening to what they're hearing from people on the ground and then integrating that and incorporating that into the way that they're working. So I think we are at a moment of change now. Nick and Brian, are you seeing more funding flowing to your organizations? First? Yeah, I mean, I think we're beginning to see that. I mean, I think we were dealing, indigenous communities are dealing from a place where there was like pretty much almost no investment. I mean, like the statistic I was talking about before was a half of 1% of philanthropy was going to indigenous people. We might be like barely above a half of 1% right now, but like indigenous people in the US are 2% of the population. So let's get philanthropy to at least parody in population and you'll talk about a substantial increase of investment to native communities. So I think you're beginning to see it. The question is though, you're seeing it across the board increases across the board and one of my worries is that philanthropy wants to just use their existing old infrastructure, meaning that, okay, instead of funding indigenous communities directly and believing in the capacity that indigenous communities have, let's fund all of the big green organizations and have them do trickle down philanthropy down to indigenous communities. We're seeing that happening. So all these big green organizations are creating indigenous programs, but it's trickle down philanthropy and that's not working. It's not working for indigenous communities. So there is an increase of investment and we're seeing that, but we're also an organization that's built out infrastructure to do that too. So we're seeing kind of both things happening. I would say that I think there has been a huge influx on the nature side of the equation. A few years ago, Hans-Jorge Wies, who's a Swiss American billionaire, made a $1 billion pledge for nature, which at the time was the largest ever contribution for nature. And then recently joined by Jeff Bezos, the Moore Foundation, a few others into a new thing called the Protecting Our Planet Challenge, which made a $5 billion commitment for nature, which was the largest ever philanthropic gift for nature and that isn't just a one organization, that's going to community organizations, indigenous groups, some big groups, some small groups, all different parts of the world, but it's fantastic to see this level. It's this type of philanthropy we need to see. And what's also great about it is that these philanthropists are not just, a lot of the money that was generated in this country for billionaires came from the tech sector. And I think there was a feeling from some of those new rich people that technology's gonna save us. So if that's how I made my money in technology, I'm gonna save the world by inventing some new thing for that's gonna solve everything. And I think some of these people, Hans-Jerg Wies, Jeff Bezos are saying, I don't know all the intricacies of climate change or biodiversity conservation. I'm gonna go listen to grassroots activists. I'm gonna go to Gabon. I'm gonna go to Columbia and meet the people and hear what they say and invite some of those proposals. And also an openness to funding, as I've said a few times tonight, to funding that activism and that grassroots engagement that a lot of philanthropists shy away from. I think that's a critical component to the change that we're seeing. And to one of your earlier points, we are funding the carrot, but not the stick. A lot of philanthropy seems to be going towards grassroots at this point and environmental justice. But there is this other aspect which is how do we really move markets, change the economy, finance. And Andrew, I know one of the program areas for the Bezos Earth Fund is the economy, finance, and markets. So as someone who I'm not particularly familiar with economics, don't really understand it. Explain that. How can philanthropy change the economy? Well, that would be a long conversation. But let me just say this, that economic models today still don't really get it yet. For example, if the United States announced that by 2032, there would be no internal combustion engines sold in the United States for automobiles. All of the economic models, those that are run by the treasury, those that are run by the university, they'd run the model and 99% of them would conclude, well, well done, that will have a good effect on climate change, but it will cost your economy. Because they're basically a whole set of simultaneous equations. They fail to understand the new dynamism in the economy. So for example, if you actually do that, you drive new technologies, which models actually don't capture. You lower risk, you reduce uncertainty because at the moment automobile producers don't know where to invest, so to speak. And very importantly, you fundamentally shift expectations. And so for example, when Prime Minister Modi became Prime Minister, he inherited a target for solar energy that was 20 gigawatts. And everybody said, well, he's not gonna do that because he doesn't really care that much about the environment. He came in and he said, let's not do 20, let's do 100 gigawatts. And we'll do it in the same length of time. He understood disruptive change because what he understood is if you say 100 gigawatts, entrepreneurs will know, my goodness me, something's going on here. There are new industries, there are gonna be new technology centers, there's gonna be all kinds of opportunities. That's when they invest. You know, and since my boss used to work at Amazon, he wrote each year a letter to his shareholders at the time of the annual. And most of them ended with one sentence, which was, it's still day one. What did he mean by that? He meant, even if we are huge, let's not lose that day one feeling that we're here to change things. What's that got to do with it? What can philanthropy do? Philanthropy can help reform economics, which is what we're trying to do. And there's a whole new school of economics that understands this. But much more than that, philanthropy can help us do what economics has known they ought to be doing since 1925 when Professor Pigu wrote his Economics at Welfare, which basically said, when you have pollution, you should tax it. And you should not tax good things like work and profits, although I'm in favor of taxing both of those, but you should certainly tax bad things like pollution and congestion. So what we can do, we can both do analytical work, but then we can do what's called the C4 work, which is the political advocacy work we're working at the moment. For example, on what's called CBAN, which is border adjustment measures so that if you want to import into this country highly carbon intensive, you ought to pay a tax on it. We should be doing a deal with Europe on that. That's an example of the kinds of things that we can be doing. We need to shift the way our economy prices things. And my last question before we move on to some Q&A here is we've been talking this whole time really about big philanthropy, but I think a lot of us are wondering for those of us who maybe have a little bit of disposable income, but not nearly the amount that we're talking about, how can we make our dollars or efforts most impactful? And I'm interested in hearing from each of you on this. How can we say the ordinary citizen make the biggest impact with their contributions? Who wants to go first? I'll let whoever. Sure. I think that's a very tough question. I struggle with this myself as somebody with two young children who, as someone who's very conscious about the environment, every decision I make feels like it's weighted, the purchases I make. And so I think that it goes down to, for me, am I making choices that I can sleep well at night knowing that I put my money in places that are going to support the things that are important to me? And am I voting and am I engaged in local politics? Am I making a change where I can do so in addition to the research I do and the teaching I do, which I think are very important? So I think it's a really tough question and I sometimes get frustrated when we put the onus on individuals, especially when we see so much systemic and structural stuff going on. Who's been mentioned here? This isn't just a matter of one person who's very wealthy making a difference or one organization or one issue. There are systemic issues here that need to change. So I think it's very complicated. Well, Ash made a much better answer than I was gonna say so. I tend to, when I think of, and I don't have a lot of money for it, but what I do give to organizations, and I guess what I try to do is, rather than I used to try to spread around and send $100 here and $40 here. And now I've tried to say, let me see if I can get the majority of what I give to one organization or my wife and I each decide one each and we try to make a really meaningful gift to those organizations. And it's usually very small organizations, local organizations that we know the people. And the reason we do that is having worked in a nonprofit, there's a lot of care and feeding that goes into donors.  And I thought, let's try to consolidate that and not dabble and recognize that my small gifts aren't gonna save the world, but they may make a real difference to that one organization on one particular program that I'm comfortable with. So that's what I tend to do and encourage on the smaller level donors to do. Yeah, and I would say, investing in the structural change. Prioritize investing in the structural change. It doesn't matter if it's $10 a month or $5 a month or whatever your ability is because a lot of times there's a difference between charity and change. A lot of times the charity has to do with the person giving and how it makes them feel. And change has to do with addressing root causes. And so I think that we have to recognize that giving at this moment in history, given what is before humanity, it needs to be less about how we individually feel about how we're giving. And it needs to be addressing societal structural problems and recognizing that's one of the ways that we can actually do it. And then I think giving consistently too. I think that like being somebody who's run grassroots organizations $25 a month for a year, that's a big deal. You start collecting those all of a sudden. And you start to stabilize our grassroots community efforts where you can actually seal it and feel the impact of that too. So you said it doesn't matter how we feel. I was actually gonna say follow your heart, which I guess sounds like it's the opposite. But I think especially if you've got kids, it's very important to pick something that really warms your heart and will help them to understand. If you're, I mean, a small example perhaps we were privileged to take our kids to Africa and we did what you can do. You spend a day on a farm and you talk about actually how wonderful it is to bring these molecules of carbon dioxide up there down to earth in the form of trees and bushes and crops and soils where they bring life and vitality. And now financing restoration in Africa is a very exciting thing for us. Why? Because it not only solves climate change. That's actually not why you do it, even though it's fantastic. It only costs like $3 a ton of carbon. So it's a fantastic deal of a climate. You actually do it because it makes local communities more resilient. It gives them better food security. It increases the income of the farmers and so on. So if you can bring it to life like that, and I agree with what you're all saying, I mean, be consistent. Don't spread it all over. I would personally say don't be so, we tend to be so analytical, don't we? And I shouldn't be saying this in my current job. But actually, go where your heart is here and go and look at it. And maybe you'll invite us out of the Dakotas where we can come and see what you, the fantastic what you're doing, but go and see what's happening. Thank you all. I'm gonna take some questions from the audience now. And Andrew, this actually is a good question falling on what you said. That seems like fantastic advice for individuals giving small donations. But how do philanthropic organizations shield themselves from the broader priorities and whims of individual wealthy donors? Well, I mean, you build a world-class team that has a lot of experience and you have really great conversations. And quite honestly, if somebody very wealthy chooses to put their money apart, their heart's probably in the right place. And generally, they are very up for the right conversations. And I mean, I can speak truthfully about just the fantastic conversations that we're having with the Basel's Earth Fund. So I haven't had a problem in that regard whatsoever. I got something just to piggyback on that a little bit too. Something, you know, with institutional, I mean, I think institutional philanthropy can take some notes to be honest from some of the bigger funders who've decided we're not starting an endowment. The problems are now. The things that need to be solved are now. So we're not gonna start some endowment to hoard wealth and keep perpetual philanthropy. And so like, I mean, I think that institutional philanthropy should push them. I wasn't thinking about like, do what are we investing into? And if it's not good and it historically hasn't been good, should there be conversations about institutional philanthropy sunsetting their foundations? And thinking about not just getting out that money out onto the street in the short term, but radically investing into change right here and right now. Instead of investing into the institution of philanthropy to perpetuate it to oneself. And so, you know, and so I think that's, I think that's, there's an opportunity to engage in those conversations.  That's crazy. But I mean, we have big problems, really, really big problems. And so I think there's some notes that institutional philanthropy can take from, you know, to take from this moment in history. Nick, this question is specifically for you, but then I do wanna hear from any of others if you have thoughts on this. How do you actually measure the success of philanthropic dollars? I think for, how does philanthropy do that? Or how do we? Well, how do you, we'll start with you. How do you do it? So we like, we have a pretty, I was, we were actually talking about this before this panel. Indian Collective has like a pretty extensive 141 metric system that we created that actually supersedes most foundations that are trying to invest into us because we're interested in investing into the changing of the landscape. Right, so if you can change the conditions in which indigenous people are organizing and building power, then you can, then it can be sustained over time. And so creating these metrics that are based on real life things. And I think that because we're, you know, we're talking about the most under-invested poorest communities in the western hemisphere that we're investing into, there's all these indicators that have the ability to change. But make sure those indicators are coming from the community.  And if you meet these indicators, we'll invest into you. We've sort of taken the charge on that, we've grabbed the bull by the horns and saying, we wanna see biodiversity increased, we wanna see jobs increased, we wanna see the life expectancy of indigenous people go from the lowest in the western hemisphere to on the upward ends. Like we wanna create these things that have direct impacts on lives.  And then translating that to philanthropy to get them to understand why we chose those metrics and have some healthy dialogue about that. Other thoughts on that? How we measure success of the philanthropic dollars? Yeah, I think that a couple of things, I think it's really important what Nick said about the number of metrics, I think is critical that organizations need to be accountable to their missions and to really have those metrics. I think there's a, we're forgiving a lot in the environmental community because people care passionately about forests or animals or other things. And so we forgive people who are really passionate who maybe aren't always effective at their efforts and in a way in a business where people would just say, you're not meeting your quarterly quota, you're out. And so we tolerate sometimes perpetual just, you know, passion without results. And so given the scale of the climate crisis, we need to have some results. We just don't have a time to just kind of care without moving the needle on policy. So we try to have very specific, tangible metrics on, are we gonna achieve this policy in the Convention on Biological Diversity? How many hectares of indigenous land has been tenured and secured? How many dollars are we getting the German government to put into climate change that they didn't put in last year? So we have metrics in each of those areas. But having said that and needing these metrics, there also needs to be some patience with philanthropy that it takes a little time to build up grassroots capacity. So you need to have those metrics, but you need to give a little bit of time to do that. So for instance, if I wanted to create a million acre marine protected area, it may take 10 years to work with the community to get that organized. It doesn't mean I get 100,000 acres in year one and some philanthropists wanna have 100, where's my 100,000 acres? You said you get a million acres in 10 years. Should I have 100,000 acres by now? And it could be zero acres for nine years and a million in year 10. So that kind of, yes, accountability, but also recognize what the organizations need to meet that goal. I just wanna add to both what Nick and Brian just said. And I think it's really important to balance that interest and accountability with not placing too much administrative burden on organizations that are doing the really hard work on the ground. I know from my research that long-term post-project evaluation independently done by foundations is very rare. So it's something that I sort of wonder if maybe foundations or large donors could take on themselves and finding a way to do that so that there's not a huge burden placed on the organizations themselves because we have to find a tension between that kind of accountability that you're talking about with also making sure that people are able to focus on the work that really needs to be done. And so this is a really good point is that too many philanthropists are very demanding in terms of not only annual reports, quarterly reports and all kinds of results frameworks and so on. We're really trying very, very hard to have the best of both worlds whereby you do wanna be precise but maybe we could help do some of the accountability. So for example, some of the things you could be quite precise. So we put $50 million into a system which using satellites and then ground truth with drones and so on. We'll be able to see land use change everywhere on the earth's surface every week. And increasingly now we're able to see on our restoration projects what kinds of trees you can see that from space. You can actually now very soon be able to know how much carbon is embedded in that. So actually our new project that we just launched in Chamo Shake will have a thousand different shapefiles which we put into this system. The farmer or whoever's doing it doesn't need to do a thing. We can actually measure like that. So that's one way but what you do not want to do is just burden the grantee excessively. Here's an interesting question. In October, the Chronicle of Philanthropy published an op-ed entitled conservatives care about climate too. Philanthropy should stop ignoring them. Given what's required for decarbonization it seems bipartisan commitment will be required. So do you work on climate action with people coming at it from right of center? How can philanthropy build the eco right field? And what questions would you need to answer to support right of center work? So. So the answer is absolutely yes, we must do that. And maybe it's not something that the environmental movement has traditionally understood. Although some have. Important to remember I'm sure you've seen surveys of the most environmental presidents in US history. I mean actually number one Teddy Roosevelt. Number two, although he didn't deserve it, Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon oversaw the creation of the EPA and so on. But it's really the Teddy Roosevelt school that is the school that now is very, very interested in nature. Last week we spent the day on Capitol Hill with Republican senators and Congress people and some Democrats as well talking about to the possibility of a new US program for international conservation. So absolutely we need to do it. And indeed we need to be just a lot more thoughtful. So for example, you think about rural areas generally the view is they're less interested in climate change. But actually it's the farmers that are the managers of carbon. We need more, people say we need to decarbonize, we don't. We need to recarbonize rural areas. And we need to have a narrative that is just much more attractive for those in different contexts. I think one thing about it is it's also like we do need to define what we're fighting for though. Because if we stay on this whole left and right conservative, liberal thing, it's not gonna work. Like we need to participate in a just transition. In a just transition away from a fossil fuel based economy. But there's things that we can be changing in that. And so there's a little bit of like honestly responsibility that like the conservative folks that are fighting for these things they're still thinking about the environment as a silo thing. They're still thinking about climate as a silo thing as opposed that it's not integrated into a just society. It's not integrated into economics. And I think that like in the climate justice movement what we're often talking about is a just transition away from fossil fuels but into a regenerative economy that has regenerative and that means regenerative politics too. That means regenerative, that means approaches that are helping to achieve justice and equity. Not just fighting climate but improving quality of life tearing down some of these systems. So there's some, I would push back and say that there's some political education that used to happen in order for this to be done effectively. And in my observation, I think most of the, on the right, the money that goes into the spaces is in opposition to action on climate change. We see it funding kind of phony grassroots groups. We see it funding business associations that will say something positive and then lobby to kill progressive bills in Congress. And so the Koch brothers are an example of funding these kind of pop-up groups that had blocked. I've gone against them in oil and gas proposals and other progressive conservation efforts around the Western United States. So yeah, I'm sure that there are some outliers on the right that will fund climate philanthropy but I have to say currently it's the exception. The vast majority of money from the right is going to fund a continuation of the status quo more advocacy for keeping oil and gas industry going and fighting progress on climate and nature in my view. So we're almost out of time. I wanna have asked one last final question and this will kind of bring us full circle back to where we started. So if it's gonna cost four to nine trillion dollars, where is the rest of the money gonna come from? How much is realistic to think will come from philanthropy and what is the thinking behind how we could potentially get to where we need to be? I'll take a crack at this. I think that that money is gonna have to come largely from governments and the way governments are gonna get it are just from businesses.  They should be paying for a lot of the damage that they've caused on climate. We don't tax oil and gas companies for the damage they've done, for the massive windfall profits that they're making. So governments say we don't have money for climate change. Well, if you had some political will to hold those responsible for causing climate change, you would have a whole lot of money and then you could start to fund this. You could also fund innovations and incentives for businesses that are doing positive things. Solar manufacturers, electric vehicle manufacturers, efficiency, heat pumps, this sort of thing. Nature conservation itself isn't a money making scheme. It costs money. It's just like paying for roads or others. We need natural infrastructure and so governments are gonna have to pay that. So in my mind, it has to be a big role of government. What can philanthropy do? Philanthropy can fund advocacy organizations that are holding government people accountable to put more money into this. They can partner with governments. The Bezos Earth Fund and the Wies Foundation partnered with the German government to do a big thing called the Legacy Landscapes Fund where they're endowing national parks throughout the world and the private philanthropy is putting up some of that upfront money and the public donors, the government donors are putting in the endowment money for these places so they can be managed in perpetuity. So I don't, philanthropy can't close that gap for its individual dollars, but it can close the gap through its funding of advocacy and my mind is the best way to close it. At the risk of everyone disagreeing with me, there's plenty of money. The money is out. Easy for you to say. The money is out there. The economy is a hundred trillion dollar economy. We're investing what, $20 trillion a year. We shouldn't think of this when we say, oh, we need six trillion. We shouldn't think of it as a cost. It is an investment in the future. So the issue is not where's the money. The issue is we need to move the money from what it's doing now. It's now investing in bad things and it needs to investing good things and we need to demonstrate that actually investing in good things will lead to a more sustainable economy as well as a more sustainable society as well as a more just society. So in a way, we have to comes back to sort of where do you intervene to get these tipping points crossed. It's all about leverage. I mean, Archimedes said, you give me a lever long enough than a fulcrum that is firm and I'll move the world. We all need to know where our fulcrum is and where our lever is. And that's how we should be looking at it. So there's plenty of money but we are gonna have to do all kinds of tweaks. But the most important thing is to shift the way that decisions are made. And that includes the financial system where as you know a year ago, $130 trillion were committed to net zero and over the last year it's been unraveling a little bit. We need to hold that accountable so that that entire portfolio gradually sort of shifts towards the right direction. In climate science, we talk a lot about feedback loops. Usually they're negative feedback loops leading to further warming. But it sounds like what we're talking about here is that philanthropy can catalyze a positive feedback loop to help move us, move that money to where it needs to be. That's absolutely right. One tiny example we just talked about yesterday, we are working on steel and cement which is really, really polluting. Very hard to obey it. The trick is actually to know that 50% of all the cement in this country is purchased by the government and 20% of all the steel is purchased by the government. So we have a program to work with different states to have procurement rules changed. That's a way that you gradually get the steel companies to start thinking actually it makes more sense to do it differently and you gradually move it around. That's just one of a thousand examples. Thank you. I think we are out of time. I think we could continue talking for another four trillion hours. But we should take it out to the reception outside. So thank you all again so much for joining us. Thank you all for joining us today. Thank you.


and welcome back to the Donahue group. We're so glad that you have come back to join us and we have a very special guest for this episode and our next episode. But before I introduce her, I'd like to just introduce our wonderful panelist as always. We have former state senator Cal Potter, also former assistant superintendent for library services at DPI. I do remember that now, year after year. And Ken Risto who... Here we go again. Who really kind of runs the Sheboygan area school district at least as respects social studies and curriculum and assessment and a variety of other things. My name is Mary Lynn Donahue. I'm a lawyer here in town. And with that in mind, I am particularly delighted to welcome our guest, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson who is in town. And I'm so glad you could join us and for a half an hour of conversation and information. So welcome. The Chief Justice has, we were just talking before the show started. It's a decennial year in the sense that the Chief graduated from law school 50 years ago, has been on the Supreme Court for 30 years and has been Chief Justice for 10 years. So it's a nice even number as we go along. So welcome and we're delighted that you could join us. Thank you and I'm glad to be back in Sheboygan. The Supreme Court, we have three branches of government, even I know that. Our executive branch, our legislative branch and the judiciary. The judiciary is not as well known. I think we would, it's not talked about as much. And you're the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Could you just tell us a little bit about who's on the court and the kinds of cases that you get and whatever else you think might be of interest to our audience? Well, the Supreme Court is the highest state court in the state of Wisconsin. It has seven justices. All of the justices are elected as all the judges in the state are. The Supreme Court justices run statewide and of the seven we have four men and three women. And let's say we generally do everything in terms of seniority. That is who has been the longest on the bench. And so I'm the Chief Justice because I've been the longest on the Supreme Court. So my number in the court is one. And the number two who calls himself Chief Justice in Waiting is John Wilcox. A third justice in seniority is Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. Number four justice is Patrick Crooks from Green Bay. Number five justice is David Prosser. Number six justice is Patience Rogansak. And the baby justice, the newest justice. Number seven is Lewis Butler from Milwaukee whom Governor Doyle appointed about a year ago, a little over a year ago. So those are the seven.  We select our cases. We get about a thousand requests a year. And of those we select somewhere between 80 and 90 a year to give full consideration. The other cases have already had one appeal. And the last court, the Court of Appeals decision becomes final if we don't take the case. And as I understand the Court of Appeals, there's a right to appeal to the Court of Appeals and they have lots and lots of appeals. And of course the first level is the circuit court level. And here in Sheboygan County, we have five circuit court judges and five branches. And so it's... And that's where the case starts for the most part. That we also have municipal court judges in certain communities. And I gather the city of Sheboygan is going to have a municipal court. Joining with the Village of Kohler, I'm the prosecutor for the Village of Kohler and also for the city of Sheboygan Falls, which has just started a municipal court, which I have to tell you is a different system. And it certainly has a different feel to it. And it's quite interesting. And in addition to that, we have tribal courts in Wisconsin and we shouldn't forget that. The tribes, some of the tribes have trial courts, others have trial and appellate courts. So we have a number of different courts. The tribal courts are not under the state court jurisdiction. The municipal courts are. And of course, we can't forget, we also have federal courts in the state. That's correct, both Eastern and Western District of Wisconsin. So from my perspective, and I've always found this to be interesting as to just how the Supreme Court works. I think the Wisconsin Supreme Court, as opposed to the US Supreme Court, tends to work much more out in the open if that's a fair description. But could you just describe to our listeners who hopefully have not been involved in Supreme Court cases how you'd make a decision about taking a case and how the decisions get written? Well, we read all the original documents sent by the lawyers or the individuals. You don't have to be a lawyer to come to the court. And we sit around our big conference table, which is generally in a closed room in the Capitol and vote on each petition, each request. And you need three justices to agree to take the case. That's the only time a minority rules in our court. And we take the case. The Wisconsin Supreme Court is a very open court, probably the most open court in the country. All of our decisions, there are opinions. The opinions are written that explain why we reached a certain result. They are all on our website. So if you wanna read an opinion, you may do so. Free of charge through the internet. Let me give you our website address. It's WI Courts, one word, W-I-C-O-U-R-T-S dot gov. And if you go to that homepage, you can find Supreme Court opinions. You can find Court of Appeals opinions. And there's also techniques for finding out what's happening in every court in this state. So it's very open. You can also go to court. And I strongly urge all your listeners to go to the nearest county court and observe what's happening. I think they'll be pleased with the quality of the hearings that the people of this state get. In fact, that's what I did this morning. I sat in on some cases. How has your workload changed once Wisconsin went to appellates? You had been on the bench a long time and I was in a legislature when we created appellate courts. And I'm sure you had many more cases to wrestle with before the appellate system was instituted. We would be doing 250 to 300 cases a year in deciding them. And we would have a backlog of a couple of years. It was never catch up. And as a result of the court of appeals coming in, the cases are now first heard by the court of appeals. And they get roughly 3,000 requests a year, which they take because most of them are required to be taken. They are a fairly current. You don't have a two-year backlog. And in our court, anything we take until January is heard that year. So anything we hear from September through June, you're going to get a decision by June 30. So when you have 1,000 requests, I'm sure you probably have some indecision as to whether the 90 you pick or 80 you pick are the best and the brightest of the cases. Do you resolve those over saying maybe next session we'll take one or do you just anguish over those? You anguish. Sometimes you hold them for a couple of months to study them, get more information. But once they're turned down, they are done. So we're very careful. And most of the time, I think we chose right. But every once in a while, we don't think the cases of statewide legal significance, and it doesn't take three months. And another case that raises that issue is up there, which makes you think it is. And maybe we still doubt it. And then another three months pass. And there it is again. Well, now we know that it's a recurring issue. And we'll take it. And every once in a while, we take a case that we think is really important. And it turns out, because of the fact situation and the way it's argued that it may not have been that important. And if we knew that, we wouldn't have taken it. But we're human, just like all people and all institutions are made of humans. So you find mistakes of not taking some, mistakes of taking others. But as a whole, I think we've done very well in deciding what to take.  Does it break, does there kind of a continuity in how many are civil issues and how many are criminal issues? Roughly. About half of the requests we get are criminal. And most of those, by far, most of them are from the defendant, the individual, a few are from the state where the state has lost the issue for one reason or another. So half the ones that are requested are criminal. But we take mostly civil cases because the criminal cases are a sufficiency of the evidence, which has already been decided by the Court of Appeals or an issue which to us appears open and shut and has been decided. So maybe 25%, maybe 30% of the cases we take are criminal, whereas the pool is 50%. Okay. And do all of them have oral arguments in front of you, of those 80 or 90 you hear? Yes, essentially yes. The only time there's no oral argument before the Court is if there are two cases that raise precisely the same issue. And we take them both, we argue one and keep the other on briefs. But even there, sometimes we'll have two oral arguments, one on each case because you've got different lawyers who approach the issue somewhat differently. And if it's very complex, the Court might be able to use an extra hour of discussion. So we're open. And there's Laura among local attorneys who have argued before the Supreme Court about just how nerve wracking a process that is. One of my partners talked about taking three or four showers before he got out of the door and changing his shirt. I have appeared just a couple of times on rule-making petitions, not on cases. And I was just so grateful for the podium because my knees were literally knocking together. And I had sort of a death grip on the, and. Well, it's time. You have a run lights, don't you? Why don't you start when you stop? Is it analogous to what goes on in the United States Supreme Court where I'm familiar with the process or is it somewhat different? It's very analogous. Each side gets 30 minutes and there is a set of lights, as you said. One is green, which means go. Orange means you got five minutes. It's a warning light. And then red means stop. And many lawyers, most lawyers will stop in mid-word and say, may I complete the sentence? And I say yes. Indeed, if they've been peppered with questions, I'll say, and if you'd like to summarize in a couple of sentences, please do. But if it's a complicated case, judges will ask questions beyond the red light. And because they want to know. And I don't stop them. Sometimes it got so bad that we were running way into the lunch hour and into our third case. And so I said to the court, now do you want me to stop you all? And they said, no, they didn't want me to do that, but they would each police themselves. So they sort of try hard not to go too far over. So the oral arguments really then are of assistance to the court? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. This is a time for the court to ask the lawyers questions that they don't know the answers to. This is not a test where we know the answer and are testing the lawyers. This is where we're talking about cutting edge issues in the law. And here's an opportunity for the lawyers to help. And in fact, one of my favorite questions is if you were a judge and you were writing the opinion, what would you say? And that's an opportunity for them to give a short analysis that's pithy that we can understand. And it's a wonderful opportunity for the lawyer who is very well prepared. Lawyers think that it's not important, but we all think it's very important. If people wanted to come and see the court in operation, how do you schedule these? It's in the capital in the Supreme Court. Second floor east. They are scheduled in advance so that I haven't done this schedule for next starting in September, but I will in about two or three weeks. And then it'll be on our website so they'll know on September, whatever dates ABC, there will be a oral argument, and there will even be a schedule of what cases we're going to have here. And furthermore, there'll be a short synopsis of what the case is about. So if you're interested in mortgages, they might be a case on mortgage. If you're interested in search and seizure or free press or some other topic. Uninsured motorist coverage. Right, uninsured motorist coverage. Everybody should be interested in because we all, most of us drive and have insurance. So there's, you can do that. The court is always open and you're quite welcome to attend. And I would have to say for anyone who's watching, if you have not been in the Supreme Court chambers, it's an exquisite setting and there really is, I think, a sense of history and gives you a sense of the seriousness of the business before the court and it's a lovely, formal process. I think far, the chamber itself, far more beautiful than the US Supreme Court chamber. I agree, I agree.  No, no, we're a do-it-yourself court. I drive myself, et cetera.  And I think it was. Wisconsin way. I think the federal system is a little bit different. How, once the arguments have been heard and the briefs have been reviewed, how do you decide, do you assign who writes the opinions? Does it get divided evenly? Can you explain that process to us? Yes, as you know, in the US Supreme Court, the Chief Justice assigns who will write the opinion. In our court, we have a different system and we use seven poker chips. Don't ask me where the poker chips came from. I don't know. They magically appeared several years ago. And on each poker chip is on the front end, it's a happy face and a number. And the number corresponds to the number of the justice. So my number is one, Lewis Butler is seven. And they put face down on the table. And after a full discussion by the court and a vote taken, we will then select a chip. This is done by the number two justice, the Chief Justice in waiting justice. And whoever's chip is selected will write the opinion unless that justice is in the minority. Or the justice has already been selected to write a case. That's how we even it out. So everybody on the court gets one case, you know, as we go through them. Then if we have nine or 10 cases that month, we start again with a justice. And so there'll be three new justices picked on that so that at the end of that conference, seven justices will have one case and three of those seven will have two cases. And then we even it out the following week so that by the end of the 10 month term, everybody will have an equal number of cases or a couple of justices may have one more or one less. And you have one lock. Does each justice have one lock? Justice has one lock clerk and one judicial assistant. So we don't have a heavy bureaucracy or a heavy staff. The justices are expected to do their own work, which I think is good. Does the court follow the United States Supreme Court in allowing for concurring opinions and dissenting opinions and all that sort of thing? Absolutely, absolutely. You have to have an even number of majority opinions, as I said, because of the system, but you can write as much or as little you want in terms of concurring or dissenting opinions. We try hard to get all seven on the same page because that's better for the lawyers and the litigants, but not to the point of silencing anyone. I'm a very strong believer that the justice ought to express himself or herself. By and large, Justice, you know, we've talked about the United States Supreme Court, a lot of decisions being five, four. Are a lot of your decisions four, three or they tend to have more consensus? In both the U.S. Supreme Court and in our court, many, many decisions are unanimous. It's in the U.S. Supreme Court, the divided courts generally are on hot button issues. That's why, and they further get the press, the media. In our court, we will have many that will be unanimous and we will have several that will be four, three, five, two, and six, one. And the minority could be a concurrence. We agree with the result, but you sure reached it peculiarly. That's a concurrence or you didn't talk about ABC and I'm gonna talk about ABC and that's a concurrence. The dissent says, you got the bottom line wrong and you reached it wrong and here's how I would do it. And concurrences and dissents are very important because they indicate where potential weaknesses are in the opinion. They may indicate future development of the law. They may be used by other states and other state courts or federal courts to discuss the same issue. They can be, they're a dialogue. They're a dialogue with the lawyers. They're a dialogue with the legislature saying, hey, fix this up or get involved in this. They're a dialogue with the media and they're a dialogue with the people saying, here's what's happening. So it's very important. I think it's fair to say in the 10 years that you've been Chief Justice, you've made a concerted effort to make the judicial branch as well-known or maybe not as well-known, but better known than it has been and to achieve some parity with the coverage that the executive and the legislative branches have gotten for a while. I know the court was going to various locations around the state and it had a name and I can't... Justice on Wheels. There we go. There we go. Good title. Even more interesting than Meals on Wheels and now there's another case of the week effort that the court is making. It's been, I think, an interesting process for people to get to know the court a little bit. Are you still going around the state? Absolutely. We were in Walworth County this year and I met with the county administrator and the chairman of the county board in Sheboygan and got an invitation to come to Sheboygan. Oh, very good. And I put it down on the list, but as I told them, I think our next trip may have to be to the west part of the state or the northern part of the state, but we think that's very helpful. We get a chance to meet with the bar associations, with the public. The public is invited to enter the court. Hundreds of people come to watch the court in session and the whole concept of outreach, the courts affect the daily lives of all of us, whether we're in court or not. And the courts are very important in a democratic society. In a democratic society, people should be able to go somewhere where they'll get neutral, impartial resolution of their disputes, fair and square according to the rule of law. And that's what the courts provide all of our people. And this is a precious commodity that we have to preserve. One of our biggest exports is the rule of law and the judicial system that the United States has. And it is a delicate, precious commodity. And all of us should be designed and geared to protect this free, impartial, neutral, non-partisan resolution of disputes of individuals and of the government and individuals and government agencies against each other. So that's why I feel very strongly about this. And it's the court does too. And so do all the circuit court judges and they're out there talking to the people and listening, listening to their concerns about the court system. And doing justice. And doing justice. And part of that impartiality is that before, during and after a decision, judges don't talk off the cuff, so to speak, about a case. That's right. You wanna know what the court thinks? You reared the opinion. That's very different than the other branches which don't have to give written reasons for why they do things. And we do. And then the court, individual judges don't go around trying to re-explain what they did. You read it. So it's important to re-emphasize that of those 80 or 90 cases that you decide as a group, every one of them has a written opinion as to how you got to, where you got. Exactly. Exactly. Nothing is done otherwise. Pour over that because it sets the precedent for future cases. So if I can understand what the court has written about in this case, then I can argue that it should apply to my case. And so again, the rule of law I think is pretty important. Hopefully we'll have a little bit more time to talk about challenges that the judicial system faces. But I went to, I had a chance to be present when Chief Justice Rehnquist made a presentation at a small college. And I stood up and I said, I'm from Wisconsin. He was taking questions. I'm from Wisconsin and we're studying, this was a. Five and a half as was Chief Justice Rehnquist. Right. I know. Did he say that? Yeah, he did. He did. Well, but what he also said, in response to my question, the judiciary seems to be under fire. It does not seem to be an equal, a co-equal branch, either at the state or the federal level. And he said, well, you're from Wisconsin. You have, just as Shirley Abrahamson, there is no problem in Wisconsin. So he put a lot of stock in your ability to hold the balance. But do you feel that, and I know our time is running out, but that the judiciary is not a co-equal branch? It doesn't have the power of the purse. Do you, is this an issue in Wisconsin? I think it's a co-equal branch. I believe the legislature and executive branch understand that, but there's a check and balance in this state. Legislature has the power of the purse, and rightly so. The executive has the power of enforcement, and we have the power to interpret and guarantee the rights and responsibilities of our citizens. I think in this state, people have been very careful of disagreeing with opinions, which you have every right to do without personal, vicious attacks on individual judges or on the branch. I think that it's been a very respectful disagreement with opinions or agreement with opinions, and I think that's good, unlike individual attacks. And you have an opportunity to go to the legislature from time to time to explain the state of the judiciary. Absolutely, and we have an opportunity to present a budget and argue for it. In some points I win, in some points I lose, and that's part of the democratic system of checks and balances with the legislature, and the court has taken cuts in bad fiscal years, but I think the legislature's been very understanding of the needs of the court system. We can use more money, but I'm not here to complain about that. I'm here to say everybody understands these issues. And it is interesting just how there needs to be and how in some states there is not that mutual respect and where the system seems really under fire, and it's not a good thing. Those of us who have been involved with the law for a long time have a lot of respect for it. So we thank you for joining us, and we've got lots more to talk about, and we'll invite our public back for another session. Thank you. Thank you for having me, I've enjoyed this. It's been a pleasure. We'll see you again in the next session. Thank you.


Hi everyone, Joe for jaskiescasewrakes.com doing a quick random number block randomizer video for the following teams here and For pick your team six anti collegiate football That's how the random number block works if you're not familiar you can take a look at that description Big thanks to this group here for getting in on it Using a psychic science because ram.org is down for now and there are the numbers right there We're gonna do a live dice roll And it's two and a six eight times For names and numbers now this doesn't keep track of how many times not on the screen anyway So we're gonna we're gonna count this out out loud All right, so two and a six eight times here we go one two three four five six seven and Eighth and final time. We got Philip down to Taylor. All right same dice roll once again two and a six eight times for the numbers one two three four five six seven and Eighth and final time after eight. We got nine down to five All right, so Philip with nine PJ with one so remember one Or sorry and Josh with zero so now zero Josh gets you any and all redemptions Including one of one redemptions for those teams down there PJ you'll still get live one-of-ones Josh with two been with seven Nick with six Josh with four Leo with three PJ with eight and Taylor with five. Let's order these numerically and Coming up in a separate video will be the break itself. We'll see you for that. Jasper's case breaks calm


In this segment, what we'll be doing is taking a look at free convection, free or natural convection on inclined surfaces. So thus far we've looked at the vertical flap plate and the vertical cylinder with large diameter. We're now going to be looking at inclined surfaces over variable angles. And this is for the case of a constant wall temperature. So when we have an inclined surface, we could have two different scenarios. We can have the case where we have a plate that is cooler than the ambient temperature and we can have a case where the plate is warmer. So we'll begin by looking at the case where the plate is cooler than the ambient temperature. So what we have here is a schematic of a plate that is cooler than the ambient temperature. And what will happen in this case is the fluid cools on the surface and it becomes more dense. When it becomes more dense, the difference in buoyancy or the difference in density, I should say, causes the fluid to descend and move downwards. As we saw on one of the video clips in the previous lecture, I showed you the case of a vertical flap plate where the wall is cooled and we saw the fluid moving down. Now, when you incline the surface, the top of the plate is actually okay. And what happens is our boundary layer forms as we would expect. And then outside here, we would have our ambient or a free stream temperature, but on the lower side, what happens, depending upon the angle, the fluid will start descending, but then we get three dimensionality starting to creep in and we get clumps of fluid kind of falling away as the fluid is descending. And consequently, the correlations on the lower surface are not reliable. The ones on the upper, the boundary layer looks very similar to what we've seen before and consequently, we can use our correlations from before, but for the lower surface, we cannot. So that is a schematic for the cool plate. Before jumping into the correlations, what I want to do, let's take a look at what the flow looks like for a heated or a hot plate. So in the case of a heated plate, what is happening is the density of the heated fluid is going down and consequently, it rises and so we get the buoyancy force going and then we get the current and we have the fluid moving up on the lower surface is very much like what we would see for the vertical heated plate. Now on the upper surface, however, what happens is again, just like for the cool plate on the lower surface here, we get the boundary layer forming, but then we get clumps of fluid breaking away and when that process occurs what happens is our correlation breaks down and consequently on the upper side of the heated plate, the correlation does not work, but on the lower side, the correlation will work and so depending upon what surface you're looking and if the plate is heated or cooled, you have to be a little careful in terms of the application, but there is a slight modification to the correlations and I'll introduce those in a moment and you'll notice that I have indicated the coordinate system both for the cool plate. I put the coordinate surface on the upper side of the plate because that is where the coordinate system would apply given that our correlation works on the upper side of the plate and for the heated plate, you'll notice that I put it on the bottom because that is where the correlation would work for the heated plate. So what we can say is for these two different scenarios of an inclined plate, the correlations apply for the following. So the correlations that we've seen thus far will apply and this is for the constant temperature plate. The cool plate, it will work only for the upper surface so okay and then down here not okay in terms of the correlation and for the heated plate, correlation here would be okay and then up here not okay. So just keep that in mind and then the other thing is that it will only act over restricted angles. So what we're looking at here, theta is the angle that we're looking at and it turns out that the correlation works obviously from zero degrees because that would be a vertical plate that we've looked at previously but it goes from zero degrees and theta will go up to a max of 60 degrees and when you get both beyond that, you start moving into what we would call a horizontal heated or cool plate and the fluid mechanics becomes different and their correlations break down. Another thing that we do though, when we use the correlations that we've looked at for the heated vertical plate, we make a substitution for the gravity constant or the gravitational constant and that substitution is g cos theta under the either the top surface or the lower surface. So in the Rayleigh number or the Grashof number, we have the gravitational constant. We make that substitution. So with that, which correlations will apply? Well, any of the ones that we looked at for the vertical heated plates, I'll just write those out. So I guess there was the one that we had with the Nusselt number was equal to C times that was Grashof-Prandtl and then we had it to M with the power there. So that correlation would apply but also we had the more detailed and more accurate ones and so I'll write those out now. So that's the correlation that applies if we have laminar flow and remember within the Rayleigh number we have the Grashof number where the gravitational constant as we make that substitution and then if you have the other correlation that extended to laminar and turbulent so this was the correlation that would pertain to a wider range of Rayleigh number and this is with again g equals g cos theta and theta ranging from zero up to 60 degrees. So that is how you handle an inclined surface over this angle range and if you want to determine what is happening in terms of the connective heat transfer coefficient on the surfaces that we were not able to do so essentially on the hot plate on the upper surface and on the cool plate on the lower surface if you're looking for correlations for that what you're going to have to do is you have to go into the literature and look in journal articles to see if people have done experiments investigating those types of flow fields because these correlations will break down they won't work there the flow gets three dimensional and a little bit more complex than what we can do with the equations that we have here. So anyways that that is how we handle inclined surfaces with free convection.