The old tricks of climate denialism will still continue to hijack fake news feeds, trying to divide us through disagreement, make us cynical, and anesthetize our political will. Claiming your gods-eye view gives you a premium on the truth will only entrench those on the ground to mobilize resistance. The flood of capital coming from billionaires and governments is only going to increase the #ALLCAPSVIBE as founders and non-profits vie for time, attention, and cash. 

The Inflation Reduction Act will increase billions of investment in clean tech, electric vehicles, and charging stations, but also community-based non-profits, universities, and training organizations. It’s a significant policy shift for the US: from laissez-faire market involvement to proactive industrial development. The US did not pick winners, the story was so often told. Indeed, we’re good at starting new technology waves that emerge in the lab and then arrive within a welcome niche of early-adopter society in order to creatively destroy incumbents.

The US is also productive in war-time and moonshot missions that inadvertently create commercializable technology as a happy accident side-effect. We’re not so great at changing legacy sectors in established communities in a way that benefits all of society and not just the high-income end of the bell curve. 

The Inflation Reduction Act attempts to resolve this inequality with minimum wage requirements and an emphasis on apprenticeship roles as we attempt to turn the US into a clean tech industrial powerhouse. But we can also expect an increase in the ire and antagonism as neighbors of infrastructure projects resist the noise and disrupted vistas of power line upgrades and massive solar and wind investments. We also need to honor the voices of frontline communities when they fear that these changes will disturb their lives and livelihoods. 

We can already see increasing polarization for every investment in environmental and social progress, as one person’s vision for human betterment is another person’s hell.  

So how do we make sense of what makes for a good investment? 

We start by exploring the multiple perspectives of people involved in our human endeavors, now, in the past, and in the future. Recognize that it’s not just your narrative to know. Create ways of making numerical scenario models legible through narrative scenarios. Invest time to understand local community interests and observations to address their concerns through numerical scenarios and scientific models. You’ll find that they will reference your models and scenarios when local community members can see where they stand, and their interests are being heard. 

Acknowledge that it’s not just your investment decision. Elevate the knowledge and wisdom of people who have stewarded the land, worked the mines, maintained the power plants, scrubbed the hospital floors, and who have been already hit with the first and the worst of climate change effects. 

The following series is an exercise on what the artifacts and practice of investment might look like: moving away from the remote abstract analysis of the god’s eye view to evaluate contribution through multiple perspectives.

To map out a practice and method for contribution value design, I will explore current and past investments in energy, health, and any project or human organizing activity that promises to make our world better. 

In the spirit of community-engaged design, I’ll start with projects in my own backyard. I will then expand beyond to project finance, community-owned energy, and other ways of organizing our human capabilities to thrive, adapt, or collapse. If you have a story to tell about these cases that I should highlight or add, please let me know.