Drilled: Recent Episodes
Critical Frequency
A true-crime podcast about climate change, hosted and reported by award-winning investigative journalist Amy Westervelt.
10 years ago, rural North Dakota became the hub of one of the largest Indigenous-led protests in decades, and one of the largest climate protests ever in U.S. history: Standing Rock. What started as a protest against a pipeline turned into a political flashpoint thanks to social media. The pipeline company's private security contractors exploited the moment, using propaganda to fan the flames of long-simmering divisions in the community and amplify the voices of groups that were pro-pipeline or anti-protestor.
A decade later, the community is still divided and the tactics used at Standing Rock have been used to sew division all over the country. Never-before-published documents give us a unique insight into the strategy deployed back then, and into how things got the way they are today.
Drilled: The Propagandist begins on August 18. Pushkin+ subscribers can hear all three episodes early and ad-free. Find Pushkin+ on the Drilled show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus.
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The climate crisis is escalating. We have to decarbonize our economy, but we’re moving too slowly. So, what’s the backup plan?
This season of “How We Survive” is about engineering nature: large-scale interventions that could be our last hope. We’ll explore technology that could alter our weather patterns, transform our planet, and possibly save us all from the worst outcomes of the climate crisis. Or lead to catastrophic, unintended consequences. In this episode, Amy explores one of the wildest climate interventions to date: de-extinction. She takes a tour of Colossal Labs, the $10 billion Dallas startup betting it can reverse-engineer extinction itself, to see how they plan to turn pigeons into dodos and Asian elephants into woolly mammoths. But whether it’s bringing back the woolly mammoth from extinction or shooting sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, just because we can mess with nature, does that mean we should?
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Treating climate solutions like an infinite money cheat might not be a great way to actually solve the problem, though it's sure to make plenty of "green" entrepreneurs rich. It makes sense that businessmen would stay focused on profits, but why do climate advocates keep supporting these ideas?
This season is a collaboration with the Intercept Brasil. You can get the show in Portuguese on their feed as well, and companion stories at: https://www.intercept.com.br/
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With the sustainable aviation fuel industry set to explode, carbon capture has thrown the corn ethanol industry a lifeline...but what does another corn ethanol boom mean for everyone else?
This season is a collaboration with the Intercept Brasil. You can get the show in Portuguese on their feed as well, and companion stories at: https://www.intercept.com.br/
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Industrial agriculture has wrapped itself in a green cloak in Mato Grosso, promising jobs, money and endless opportunities, all in the name of "sustainability." But the good times are only happening for a select few. Local residents are dealing with extreme weather, lack of access to fresh food, and a pesticide overload that has increased the risk of birth defects and lowered lifespans. Meanwhile, Bruce and the guys have now ventured into new territory: the Amazon.
This season is a collaboration with the Intercept Brasil. You can get the show in Portuguese on their feed as well, and companion stories at: https://www.intercept.com.br/
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Bruce's Brazilian business partners run the state of Mato Grosso and the town the company is headquartered in. So while he fights endless pushback to his pipeline project in Iowa, business in Brazil is booming. This season is a collaboration with the Intercept Brasil.
You can get the show in Portuguese on their feed as well, and companion stories at: https://www.intercept.com.br/
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Bruce's venture in Brazil isn't the first time he tried to go global. What an earlier attempt tells us about him, his business, and what's ahead for both Iowa and "the Brazilian Midwest."
This season is a collaboration with the Intercept Brasil. You can get the show in Portuguese on their feed as well, and companion stories at: https://www.intercept.com.br/
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As his American company Summit Carbon Solutions struggles with backlash to a carbon capture pipeline linking corn ethanol plants across the Midwest, Bruce Rastetter is not slowing down. Instead, he’s celebrating some big wins for his Brazilian company, FS Fueling Sustainability, from new ethanol-friendly climate policy to government funding for their carbon capture project.
Pushkin+ subscribers can hear episodes early and ad-free. Find Pushkin+ on the Drilled show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus.
Additional resources:
The link between corn ethanol and deforestation
Peer-reviewed research on the climate problems associated with corn ethanol
An explainer on BECCS (bioenergy with carbon capture and sequestration)
Reading list on enhanced oil recovery (EOR)
Read more about the Summit Pipeline project
Carbon Herald on the push to connect Midwest ethanol plants to carbon capture
Brazilian government document on technical mission to US midwest
Travel schedule of Brazilian government officials while in the Midwest
Read more about the explosion of corn ethanol in Brazil: https://drilled.media/news/ethanol-story1
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For decades we’ve heard that “the markets” will solve the climate crisis. On Drilled: Carbon Cowboys, we put that theory to the test, following Bruce Rastetter, a corn ethanol kingpin-turned-carbon entrepreneur from Iowa to Brazil, and asking the big questions: Are these “climate solutions” actually reducing emissions? Is CO2 increasing or decreasing as carbon becomes a commodity? Or is green colonialism just as extractive as the regular sort?
Drilled: Carbon Cowboys begins on May 12th. Pushkin+ subscribers can hear episodes early and ad-free. Find Pushkin+ on the Drilled show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus.
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The U.S. invasions of Venezuela and Iran are more of the same imperialism in service of oil majors. As the climate crisis makes its presence more urgently felt, fossil fascism dictates a doubling-down on extraction and colonialism, and the vilification of those who oppose or stand in the way of that plan.
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Repression of protest has ramped up in the U.S., but everything that's happening now began with the backlash to the Standing Rock protest back in 2016. In today's episode we look at the connections between fossil fascism, petromasculinity, and protest.
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Lots of people are talking about the similarities between Iraq and Iran, but in this episode we place the two in the context of another war—World War I—and the historical arc of fossil fascism.
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What is “artificial intelligence”? Is it a fancy technology? A management consulting buzzword? A PR effort to inflate corporate share prices? A political project designed to shape the world more to the liking of the billionaire class? A way to replace needy human workers with machines?
Perhaps it’s all of that—and more. In her groundbreaking book Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, award-winning journalist Karen Hao argues that AI—and the profit-driven infrastructure that surrounds it—is a colonial project. What OpenAI boss Altman and his fellow ideologues in Silicon Valley are pursuing, Hao says, is not just corporate power but imperial power. They are building empires. And as history shows, empires are built on resource extraction, particularly the old-fashioned kind: of labor, energy, minerals, land, water.
Seemingly overnight, tech elites’ feel-good climate promises have evaporated, having been seamlessly swapped for slippery promises that so-called “artificial general intelligence” will save the planet for us. Never mind that AGI is a fantastical concept that has no agreed-upon definition, or that, more fundamentally, it appears nowhere close to existing. In Big Tech’s frenzied pursuit of the “hyperscale” AI dominance that evangelists claim will unlock AGI, as well as its expanding alliances with fossil fuel-backed petrostates and authoritarian political movements, the industry has become an increasingly central contributor to the climate crisis.
In an October conversation with Drilled, Hao discussed how Silicon Valley giants appear to be following the oil and gas industry’s playbook of disinformation and deceit; how Altman and OpenAI’s secrecy and disingenuous rhetoric transformed the field of AI research into corporate PR; and why the destructive trajectory of AI scale and commercialization is not inevitable—no matter what its power-hungry proponents would have you believe.
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This week marks the 10-year anniversary of the hired hit that took Berta Cáceres’s life and robbed both the Honduran and global environmental movements of a uniquely effective leader. Cáceres was targeted by a dam company, with an assist from the police, military, government officials and international banks because of her effective organizing on behalf of her people, the Lenca. Nina Lakhani literally wrote the book on Cáceres’s killing, and in this episode she walks us through what happened then, what’s happening now, the role the U.S. played in all of it, and what Americans can learn from the way Honduran activists continue to show up in the face of violent repression.
Read Nina’s story
Read Nina’s book
Check out Berta’s organization, Copinh
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Fernanda Hopenhaym, member of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights walks Drilled senior global climate justice reporter Nina Lakhani through the many legal pitfalls companies getting involved in the United States seizure of the Venezuelan oil industry might be facing.
Check out the longer story on our website.
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It's easy to feel like climate "doesn't matter" as the United States descends into fascism, as if climate and democracy are somehow separate issues. Researcher Oscar Berglund and Amy Westervelt connect the dots between the global backlash to climate protest and the broader repression we're seeing in supposedly democratic countries around the world.
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In More and More and More, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz shows that the human history of energy is one of accumulation, not substitution. Here, he talks to reporter Adam Lowenstein about how the "energy transition" frame got so entrenched, why clean-energy innovation is not the same thing as decarbonization, how the fossil fuel industry helped launder pipe dreams of dysfunctional technologies into mainstream climate “solutions”, and much more (and more and more).
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When activists Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya take drastic measures to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, they have no idea that a shadowy private security contractor called TigerSwan has them in its sights.
Special thanks to:
Alleen Brown and The Intercept (https://theintercept.com/2018/12/30/tigerswan-infiltrator-dakota-access-pipeline-standing-rock/)
You Strike A Match by Julia Shipley (https://grist.org/protest/dakota-access-pipeline-activists-property-destruction/)
Democracy Now (https://www.democracynow.org/)
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Wildfires are becoming more intense, frequent, and destructive as the climate heats up. Drilled reporter Royce Kurmelovs and Canadian author John Vallaint, author of Fire Weather, discuss the climate-fire nexus.
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In this bonus episode of The Black Thread, we examine a single legal case that distilles the Norwegian paradox perfectly: the planned electrification of the Melkøya gas processing plant. It's a key conflict site where Norway's net zero transformation clashes with its fossil fuel industry, Indigenous rights, youth climate activism, worker safety, and even criticism from the United Nation.
Additional resources:
Communicating Climate Change
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Despite growing repression worldwide, climate activists continue to stick it to obstructionists and drive change. In this season's finale, Jennie Stephens (University of Ireland Maynooth) and Sharon Yadin (University of Haifa) share the effective strategies that activists can use to push back against the forces that block climate action.
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It's bleak out there and while climate obstruction can feel overwhelming, there are efforts being made to fight back against it. One of them is litigation and holding corporations legally accountable. Joana Setzer (London School of Economics) speaks to how climate litigation is being used to challenge companies, enforce climate commitments, and push for climate action globally.
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More than a decade ago—when wind and solar power were far more expensive than they are today—Uruguay, long plagued by droughts and energy shortages, transitioned its entire economy such that 98% of its electricity now comes from renewable sources. They did it in just two years, and used the savings to slash the country's poverty rate from 40% into the single digits.
Natasha Hakimi Zapata covers Uruguay's transformation in her book, Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America from Around the Globe. Hakimi Zapata shares how activists and policymakers can learn from Uruguay's transformation and why progressive movements should confidently articulate the economic benefits of renewable energy.
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We're bringing you episode 5 of Dana R. Fisher's COP Out podcast, from the Center for Environment, Equity and Community at American University, featuring our own Amy Westervelt and legendary climate scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe talking about what happened at this year's COP, whether the process is fixable, and how to get the benefits of global convening without all the headaches. Check out the rest of Dana's series here.
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Working against regulations on emissions might protect the economic interests of those with money to lose, but why would anyone fight against adapting to survive climate disaster? In the negotiating rooms at COP 30, adaptation was one of the biggest debate areas. Laura Kuhl (Northeastern University) and Stacy-Ann Robinson (Emory University) explain why adaptation policies face scrutiny and opposition.
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Daniel Penny and Amy Westervelt return for the Carbon Bros mailbag episode, answering listener questions from around the world about masculinity, traditional male spaces, vocational therapy, solidarity, and the role of gender in engaging in climate action.
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After four decades of the United Nations climate conference COP, progress on global climate action remains slow. So what isn't working? How is it possible that so much fanfare, so many words, and so much work—much of it genuine and good-faith—has amounted to such little progress?
University of Toronto political science professor Jessica F. Green has some ideas. In Existential Politics: Why Global Climate Institutions Are Failing and How to Fix Them, the longtime observer of global climate negotiations and expert on carbon accounting argues that the COP embodies a “win-win” approach to a problem for which someone has to lose. The challenge is to make sure the right people (and planet) do the winning, while the “fossil asset owners,” as Green describes them, do the losing.
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The United Nations' climate processes were created to drive global climate action, but from the beginning they've faced organized efforts to delay progress. As COP 30 begins, Kari de Pryck (University of Geneva) and Eduardo Viola (Institute of International Relations, Brazil) join Amy to analyze how COP and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change get hijacked by those opposed to climate action, what it means for global climate policy, and what to expect at this year's COP in Brazil.
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We look ahead to Norway's future, exploring how the country might begin to loosen oil's grip on its politics and identity. Hear how different voices envision aligning the country's actions with its values, its reputation, and the realities of climate change.
Additional resources:
Communicating Climate Change
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Local governments are a double-edged sword when it comes to climate policy, with the power to either do far more or far less than national governments. They can be an agent of change or an agent of obstruction. Rebecca Bromley-Trujillo (Christopher Newport University) and Joshua A. Basseches (Tulane University) walk us through how subnational governments, like states and municipalities, work and how they engage in climate obstruction.
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The United States is a global leader of climate obstruction, but it's not the only guilty country. M. Omar Faruque (Queen’s University, Canada) and Ruth E. McKie (De Montfort University) look at how and why climate obstruction occurs in the Global South, exploring the political, economic, and institutional factors that lead the countries most vulnerable to climate change, and least responsible for emissions, to participate in climate obstruction.
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Do the facts behind the narratives being told by Norway's fossil fuel industry, and government, add up? We hear experts critique some of the stories that keep Norwegian oil and gas pumping, while industry representatives explain the logic behind the rhetoric.
Additional resources:
Communicating Climate Change
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Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former Wall Street Journal publisher Karen Elliott House, author of The Man Who Would Be King: Mohammed bin Salman and the Transformation of Saudi Arabia, joins Adam Lowenstein to discuss how the crown prince has reshaped Saudi Arabia. They explore if MBS's gamble on economic and social freedoms alongside ciivil and political repression is politically, or environmentally, sustainable and examine how Saudi Arabia's oil and petrochemical industries serve its geopolitical interests. Karen and Adam also discuss the kingdom’s promises about transitioning away from fossil fuels and why it might be a bit less green than climate advocates would hope.
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In this extended conversation, climate policy expert Abdul El-Sayed explores the complexities of the climate crisis and the role of masculinity in shaping how men engage, or fail to engage, with climate solutions.
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A growing number of experts and commentators suggest "petroganda"—the pervasive phenomenon of oil industry manipulation—is at work in Norway, influencing the country's politics, culture, and support for the oli industry. We discuss how "petroganda" guides the information that the public receives, or doesn’t receive, about the relationship between oil and climate change and learn how the story of oil in Norway is told.
Additional resources:
Communicating Climate Change
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For decades, the meat and dairy industries avoided scrutiny for the planet-heating emissions they pump into the atmosphere. As governments began considering methane regulation, the animal agriculture sector starting working on efforts to resist such regulations. Siliva Secchi (University of Iowa) and Kathrin Lauber (University of Edinburgh) expound the concept of "agricultural exceptionalism" and the strategies the agriculture industry uses to keep climate policy at bay.
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The coal, utilities, and transportation industries have all played a major role in stopping governments from regulating emissions or transitioning to cleaner energy. Examining how those effort have taken shape around the world, Jen Schneider (Boise State University) and Gregory Trencher (Kyoto University) break down the strategies these industries use to influence policymakers, resist decarbonization, and slow climate action.
Additional resources:
Climate Obstruction: A Global Assessment
You can now download a FREE copy of the book Climate Obstruction: A Global Survey here!
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Over the next few weeks, we're sharing a new mini-series, The Black Thread, about Norway's complicated relationship with its identity as both a progressive leader and oil state.
Social norms and cultural values shape Norwegian's identity as a good, caring, nature-loving people. What happens when those values come into conflict with the reality of Norway's outsized influence on climate change?
Additional resources:
Communicating Climate Change
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The climate crisis can feel overwhelming—to witness venture-capital-fueled AI domination, democracy’s steady drift toward authoritarianism, state-sanctioned genocide, and the collapse of one climate boundary after another is to encounter a profound sense of despair. But what if the path forward lies in accepting, rather than resisting, this despair?
In his new book, Learning to Live in the Dark: Essays in a Time of Catastrophe, climate activist and journalist Wen Stephenson argues that the only way to confront the crises of our time is to meet this despair head-on. He shares how he's faced his own climate despairs and offers insights for living in an era of climate, political, and social crisis while holding onto humanity.
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President Biden made his first trip to Vietnam as President this week, with the intention of "upgrading" diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Vietnam. Not on the agenda? The country's move to use trumped-up tax evasion charges to suppress civil society groups, including five climate activists that have been imprisoned using this tactic since 2021. Read The 88 Project's report on this practice: https://the88project.org/weaponizing-the-law-to-prosecute-the-vietnam-four/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When she was just 22, Disha Ravi, co-founder of Fridays for Future in India, had police show up at her home, borrow a pen and paper to write an arrest warrant on the spot, and bundle her onto a plane to fly across the country to a city she'd never been to. Here she explains what happened, how it's still impacting her two years later, and why she'll never let it stop her activism or force her out of India. An extended version of this interview will run in partnership with the Heated newsletter next week, as the G20 Summit gets underway in Delhi. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There's a lot of discourse happening about free speech in the context of "cancel culture" these days, but precious little coverage of the push all over the world to criminalize protest...particularly environmental and climate protest. We'll be digging into this trend in detail over the next several months, but first a look at what prompted extractive industries to start agitating for governments to crack down on protest, what tactics they use, and why they've been so effective. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Media Matters senior researcher Evlondo Cooper put out a fascinating study earlier this month looking at how the media has covered climate activism. In today's episode we look at the role that flawed coverage has helped the fossil fuel industry in its quest to criminalize climate protest. Check out the study here: https://www.mediamatters.org/broadcast-networks/national-news-scant-coverage-climate-protests-largely-overlooked-scientific Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In the lead-up to our season on the criminalization of protest we're bringing you part 1 of this excellent two-part Outside/In episode looking at this issue in the U.S. When members of the Oceti Sakowin gathered near the Standing Rock Reservation to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline, they decided on a strategy of nonviolent direct action. No violence… against people. But sabotage of property – well, that’s another question entirely. Since the gathering at Standing Rock, anti-protest legislation backed by the fossil fuel industry has swept across the country. What happened? When is environmental protest considered acceptable… and when is it seen as a threat? This is the first of two episodes exploring the changing landscape of environmental protest in the United States, from Standing Rock to Cop City and beyond. Part II is available on Outside/In wherever you get your podcasts Featuring Chase Iron Eyes, Tokata Iron Eyes, Lesley Wood, Elly Page, and Connor Gibson. Special thanks to Phyllis Young and everyone at the Lakota People’s Law Project, especially Daniel Nelson and Jesse Phelps. Thanks also to Soundings Mindful Media. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Around the world, climate and other environmental protestors are being harassed, attacked, and arrested at an alarming rate. Laws are being passed that levy life-altering prison sentences and fines on protestors arrested near anything deemed “critical infrastructure,” which is defined so broadly it’s hard to find a public space that wouldn’t be near it anymore. Corporations are suing protestors and NGOs, comparing protest to organized crime. Governments are growing increasingly comfortable branding environmental protestors as “domestic terrorists.” And so far the media is largely participating in the rhetorical “othering” of protestors, opting in most cases to focus on the disruption that protest causes rather than the change it seeks, and to marginalize activists. In this print and audio series we’ll take an in-depth look at how climate protest has evolved in recent years, where this backlash is coming from, how it’s grown so quickly, and what it feels like to be someone who’s concerned enough about the future of humanity to join a protest, only to find themselves facing police violence and several years in jail. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Some mining companies claim that we can't "electrify everything" without deep-sea mining—a claim that has been debunked by various scientists. Environmentalists, car companies, and governments are pushing back, citing not only the obvious potential damage to marine ecosystems but also the climate impact of releasing carbon from the ocean floor. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In more than 30 climate cases making their way through U.S. courts today, oil companies are using an argument they've been laying the legal groundwork for since the 1970s: that since everything they've ever said about climate change was in the interest of shaping policy or blocking regulation, it's protected speech, even if it was misleading. In this episode we take a look at how those cases are playing out and the likelihood that this new take on "corporate free speech" could make it all the way to the Supreme Court. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Worried that all their work creating Mobil's personality and a multi-pronged issue advertising campaign to go with it would go to waste if the TV networks deemed it all "propaganda" Herb and his boss looked to the courts for protection. In this episode we follow the "corporate free speech" movement through the courts, where it got a big assist from tobacco lobbyist-turned-Supreme Court justice Lewis F. Powell. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In the Season 3 premiere of Inherited, host Shaylyn Martos introduces us to storyteller Camara Aaron, who shares a personal story of family loss, structural resilience, and survival in an era of climate change. Camara, now 25, was only a child when she visited her grandmother’s unique house on the island of Dominica, in the West Indies. But when Hurricane Maria devastated the Caribbean in 2017, her grandmother died in the storm, leaving Camara to sift through her own hazy memories and reconcile a way forward. Inherited is a critically acclaimed climate storytelling show made by, for, and about young people. We’re a production of YR Media and distributed by Critical Frequency. For more information about our podcast, head to our website at yr.media/inherited, and follow us on the socials @inheritedpod. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In the 1970s, Mobil Oil had invented the advertorial and was aggressively pursuing an entirely new type of marketing, branding the company as a person with a unique personality and opinions that deserved to be heard. When public backlash threatened to undermine their approach, they launched a campaign that would change the course of U.S. history. Transcript Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
ExxonMobil, Chevron and other petrochemical giants are increasingly organizing against grassroots environmental justice activism in Louisiana that are part of the Beyond Petrochemicals campaign. The companies have joined with pro-industry politicians and local Chambers of Commerce to form a “sustainability council,” focused not on environmental sustainability but on the longevity of the petrochemical industry on Louisiana's Gulf Coast. Jo Banner of The Descendants Project and Shamyra Lavigne of RISE St. James, two key organizers in the area, join us to talk about why the industry is suddenly organizing against them. Read more in The Guardian and Floodlight News exposé here: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/04/cancer-alley-louisiana-environment-oil-industry-opposition Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Ever since the Securities and Exchange Commission announced its intention to make Environmental Social and Governance metrics actually mean something to investors, polluting industries have suddenly turned on ESG. Now that fight has a legal strategy, being carried out by the Republican Attorneys General Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week Amy's on the other side of the mic in an interview with Samantha Hodder, who writes the excellent Bingeworthy newsletter, all about narrative podcasts. The newsletter version of this interview, along with Samantha's take on Drilled will be in tomorrow's Bingeworthy, so make sure to subscribe here: https://bingeworthy.substack.com/
Ad links in this ep: First Leaf: tryfirstleaf.com/drilled for 50% off your first shipment of six bottles AG1 : athleticgreens.com/drilled for a year's supply of vitamin D plus 5 free travel packs of AG1 with your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Living Planet is a podcast and radio program from Germany’s international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle (DW). Hosted by Charli Shield and Sam Baker, each week Living Planet reports on environment stories from around the world. In this episode of Living Planet, host Sam Baker speaks with three experts on climate disinformation about how factually inaccurate and misleading information travels around the web. Climate journalist Stella Levantesi, communication researcher John Cook and Wikimedia strategist Alex Stinson participated in this engaging round-table, which originally was broadcast as a live discussion. More Living Planet episodes are available at: pod.link/livingplanet Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Hosted by Ash Kelley and Alaina Urquhart from the hit show Morbid. When 90-year-old Laurence Pilgeram drops dead on the sidewalk outside his condo, you might think that’s the end of his story. But, really, it’s just the beginning. Because Laurence and others like him have signed up to be frozen and brought back to life in the future. And that belief will pull multiple generations of the Pilgeram family into a cryonics soap opera filled with dead pets, gold coins, grenades, fist fights, mysterious packages, family feuds, Hall of Fame baseball legends, and frozen heads — lots of frozen heads. From Wondery, comes a story about life, death, and what comes next.
Follow Frozen Head on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Binge early and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery+ in Apple Podcasts or the Wondery App.
Listen to Frozen Head: https://wondery.com/links/frozen-head/
In this special sneak preview of our next season, we hear from Melinda Janki, a lawyer who's fighting to keep her home country of Guyana from becoming one of the world's largest carbon bombs.
The House Oversight Committee wrapped up its investigation into climate disinformation earlier this month and published a second tranche of revealing internal documents that spell out exactly how the world's largest oil companies have misled the public on their commitments to energy transition. One of the people who spearheaded that investigation, Representative Ro Khanna, joins us to discuss.
Read more:
https://www.drilledpodcast.com/highlights-from-the-climate-disinfo-document-dump/
https://theintercept.com/staff/amy-westervelt/
A new report from Influence Map shows that despite all their talk of "clean trucks," truck manufacturers are lobbying heavily against emissions reductions at both the state and federal level.
Read the report: https://influencemap.org/report/US-Heavy-Duty-Transport-Climate-Change-20434
November was a big month for climate litigation! The first-ever climate RICO was filed on behalf of 16 Puerto Rican municipalities, plus a cohort of scientists and researchers, including NASA scientist James Hansen, sued the EPA to compel them to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Loss and damage was a big focus of #COP27 and, ultimately, one of the few things global negotiators could agree on. But media coverage of loss and damage has left out a lot of important history, including how flawed the fossil fuel industry's "fossil fuels = development" myth is.
Investigative journalist Geoff Dembicki's new book The Petroleum Papers looks at the fascinating history of climate denial in Canada, and how denial built a bridge between the U.S. and Canadian fossil fuel industries.
Buy the book: https://greystonebooks.com/products/the-petroleum-papers
Attend the U.S. launch: https://climatemuseum.org/2022-events/2022/11/15/book-launch-with-geoff-dembicki
Read Geoff in Vice News: https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/geoff-dembicki
At a time when climate protests are increasing, and are increasingly pushing the envelope, BBC Podcasts brings us the story of 1970s "environmental radicals" the Earth Liberation Front, and its two most wanted activists. Reported and hosted by Leah Sottile (of Bundyville) and produced by Georgia Catt (of The Missing Cryptoqueen), it's a gripping tale that asks an important question: how far is too far to go to protect the planet?
The series is out in its entirety now, listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/introducing-burn-wild/id1642525879?i=1000577804126
COP27 is underway in Egypt. Everyone agrees that the stakes have never been higher so why is longtime fossil fuel industry greenwasher Hill + Knowlton handling media for the conference? Today a look back at the firm's longstanding history crafting science denial and delay strategies for both tobacco and fossil fuel companies.
The annual Conference of the Parties —a global meeting of negotiators and heads of state to discuss a path forward on climate action—is coming up in a little over a week. Historically these meetings gin up all sorts of climate disinformation. Today, a new report walks journalists and other communicators through the many ways they can counter disinfo without amplifying it.
Report: https://caad.info/report/journalist-field-guide-navigating-climate-misinformation/
Beginning with Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon) in the late 1940s, oil companies have invested heavily in universities, not just to fund engineering programs and, eventually, climate science, but also to fund the public policy centers and economics programs that shape policy solutions. Fossil Free Research, a new group formed by many of the same students who pushed their campuses to divest from fossil fuels, is demanding that the world's top universities break their addiction to fossil fuel money and in late September they logged their first big win: Princeton University. In this episode we take a look at the roots of fossil fuel funding in universities and the evolution of the movement to root it out.
Taped live at the Harvard Faculty Club, an interview with Naomi Oreskes about her forthcoming book "The Big Myth," focused on the origin story behind free-market ideology, followed by a panel discussion on how to widen climate accountability to include not only oil companies but also the other industries and enablers that have obstructed climate action.
Resources:
UCS Science Hub for Climate Litigation: https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/science-hub-climate-litigation
Climate Social Science Network: https://cssn.org/
Pre-order The Big Myth: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Myth-American-Business-Government/dp/1635573572
Jennifer Jacquet's The Playbook: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/534048/the-playbook-by-jennifer-jacquet/
Dr. David Michaels' books: https://www.drdavidmichaels.com/books
Introducing Hazard NJ! A new series examining prominent Superfund sites around New Jersey, and ways they're impacted by climate change. In this episode: Ringwood and Ford's toxic legacy. In July 2005, Roger De Groat stepped outside his home in the secluded, forested community of Upper Ringwood to find a hole the size of a swimming pool where his backyard used to be. Roger's home, like the rest in the neighborhood, sits atop an extensive system of abandoned iron mines, and sinkholes like these have opened every so often for decades. But what's in the mines is a different kind of lingering threat. Ford Motor Company turned the mines into a toxic waste dump in the '60s and '70s, with little regard for the people, overwhelmingly Ramapough Lenape Nation tribal members, that were dumped on. Today the community is gripped by cancer and other diseases that residents believe is tied to the chemicals Ford left behind. When the EPA put the Ringwood Mines on the Superfund list, a shoddy cleanup left so much pollution behind that the site had to be relisted. A second try at cleaning up the mess is now underway. As climate change brings increasingly heavy rains to the area, toxic chemicals known to be in the groundwater are threatening to migrate towards a critical water supply reservoir nearby.
Three Congressional hearings shone a light on climate disinformation this week, with one looking at oil companies' role, another looking at the role of PR firms, and a third looking at corporate attempts to limit the free speech of environmental activists.
From its state treasurer to its attorney general to its Senator, West Virginia is leading the charge on climate obstruction and dismantling environmental regulation.
West Virginia v EPA isn't the only big climate case before the Supreme Court this year, from questioning the SEC's disclosure rules to major Clean Water challenges there's a lot more to come. EarthJustice's Sam Sankar and Kirti Datla join to give us a preview of what's coming in the court's Fall session.
Jesse Coleman, senior investigator for Documented, joins to walk us through an eye-opening investigation into the State Financial Officers Federation, an obscure group organizing Republican state treasurers in the fight against "woke capital."
When Emily Gellis hears rumors of people suffering horrible side effects from a trendy diet she springs into action. Armed with over a hundred thousand Instagram followers, Emily launches a social media crusade to expose F-Factor and its founder, Tanya Zuckerbrot. It’s the start of a feud that will attract trolls, lawyers, and, eventually, national media all because of fiber. From Wondery, this is a story about wealth, wellness, and influence hosted by Casey Wilson.
Listen to Fed Up: http://wondery.fm/Drilled_FEDUP
Everyone else might have moved on but we're still plodding through the latest IPCC report over here. Carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, came up all over this report, and because the summary is vastly more positive about the potential of this tech than the rest of the report (thanks in no small part to influence from Saudi Arabia and the U.S.), I wanted to bring together a more complete picture of what the report actually says about it. Nikki Reisch and Carroll Muffett from the Center for International Environmental Law join to help.
When a car bomb kills Daphne Caruana Galizia on the beautiful Mediterranean island of Malta, the hunt for her killers exposes secrets with consequences that go far beyond its shores. In the aftermath of her death an international team of journalists comes together to continue her work. Along the way they start to uncover clues that might lead to her killers. From Wondery, comes a new story about power, corruption and one woman’s fight for the truth. Hosted by investigative reporter Stephen Grey.
Listen to Who Killed Daphne? wondery.fm/Drilled_DAPHNE
The Supreme Court is dragging its feet releasing a ruling in the controversial West Virginia v EPA case. Today we look at the roots of that case, its position in the rightwing judicial strategy, and what avenues for climate action would remain in the wake of a worst-case scenario ruling
Jennie King, lead author of a new report on climate disinformation from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, joins to discuss the report's findings, including the way various "culture war"riors have embraced climate denial, and how her team pinpointed 16 superspreaders of climate disinformation.
As we wait to hear whether the Supreme Court will toss WV v EPA altogether or apply the major questions doctrine to broadly rule against the EPA regulating greenhouse gases, period, a group of climate scientists and advocates are filing a petition this morning demanding that the EPA regulate greenhouse gas emissions—not under the Clean Air Act, the legislation in question in West Virginia v EPA, but under a law no one has yet applied to climate change, the Toxic Substances Control Act.
Floodlight's Miranda Green is back with a new story about the push for natural gas in southern California. This time an air board tasked with cleaning up pollution is giving millions of dollars in grant money to gas projects.
Read the story: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/07/california-air-pollution-natural-gas?CMP=share_btn_tw
How residential drilling sparked a public health and environmental justice problem in California.
Across California, oil wells pepper residential neighborhoods – often directly next to homes, schools, and businesses.
These residential wells have been linked to a host of health problems, from asthma to cancer. And these problems disproportionately affect California's communities of color.
This week, producer Alexandria Herr goes on a crusade to prove that California is not the green state that everybody thinks it is.
We'll explore hidden oil wells, the history of redlining, and the oil boom during World War II, to understand why residential drilling in California looks the way it does today.
Guests: Dr. David Gonzalez is a President's Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley.
Dr. Sarah Elkind is the president of the American Society for Environmental History.
The Carbon Copy is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
I have been wondering for months what possible sense it makes for every right-wing think tank to have an amicus program. I mean...is any judge really surprised to learn that the Cato Institute is against regulation? But these are not folks who spend money on things for no reason, and the presence and size of amicus programs at conservative "public interest" law firms and think tanks have been growing exponentially over the years, so I reached out to the only person I've ever seen mention this in public: Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. He had all the answers I was looking for and then some.
In the response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the gas industry is now fully embracing it's new role. Right alongside the API, Chevron, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the industry moved quickly to capture the narrative in the early days of the invasion, going from disinformation blitz to policy wins within a matter of weeks.
This weekend Australians will vote in the first national election since catastrophic bushfires burned tens of millions of acres and blanketed the country in smoke for weeks. In the lead-up to that election, a look at some of the current government's climate policies, and a risky new move to store carbon deep in the ocean.
Even before the gas industry got into the front group business it was using some questionable tactics to stave off electrification. In this episode, LA Times energy reporter Sammy Roth and Floodlight's deputy editor and investigative climate reporter Miranda Green join to walk us through a wild story from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Check out more from them here: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-08-16/clean-air-gas-trucks-la-long-beach-ports
This week we're bringing you a great episode from A Matter of Degrees: "The Devious Plan to Keep Us Hooked on Gas." Co-hosted by Leah Stokes and Katharine Wilkinson, A Matter of Degrees is a podcast for climate-curious people who know climate change is a problem, but are trying to figure out how to tackle it.
Check them out wherever you get your pods: https://www.degreespod.com/
A year after San Luis Obispo took the lead in Southern California on a gas ban, the coastal town of Santa Barbara was evaluating a similar proposal, and residents were being spammed with texts encouraging opposition to the ban and offering information through a new "grassroots" group: Citizens for Balanced Energy Solutions. Except it wasn't a citizens group at all, it was a front group started by the country's largest gas utility.
For more than a decade, even environmental advocates promoted the idea of fossil gas as part of the solution on climate change. But while it did help to reduce dependency on coal and thereby reduce CO2 emissions and air pollution, it came with a whole host of its own problems. Today, how the industry is dealing with its new role as part of the problem, rather than the solution.
In April 2020 when San Luis Obispo announced a plan to become the first city in Southern California to ban gas in new buildings, the region's utility SoCal Gas--the largest gas utility in the country--sprung into action, threatening among other things to bus in large numbers of protestors to crowd the town and city hall, refusing to mask or social distance just as the pandemic was taking hold in the U.S.
Check out the Los Angeles Times for more reporting on this: https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-05-06/socalgas-union-leader-protest-threat-no-social-distancing
Fossil fuel companies and others have spent decades casting doubt on climate science to allow them to continue to profit. As documented by climate communication expert John Cook and others, these strategies have taken many forms: deny, dismiss, delay, deflect; and they have evolved over time. They’ve also included a concerted effort to recast political speech, banned and regulated in some contexts, as protected free speech, giving corporations more leeway in broadcasting their messages. In a special collaboration with Climate One, we trace the origins of this free speech argument and break down the tactics used to spread misinformation.
The IPCC mitigation report dropped this week and it is a doozy. We'll be digging into it throughout the month of April to help you make sense of it all.
Read more: www.drilledpodcast.com
Five to Four is a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. Every week, Five to Four takes on the Supreme Court's worst decisions, about the most important issues - like police abuse, the Second Amendment, voting rights, and climate change. We're sharing an episode called "Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl," which is a case about the Indian Child Welfare Act. In this 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court winds up completely inverting the meaning of a law meant to protect Native American communities.
Check out 5-4: fivefourpod.com
When Tūhoe negotiated legal personhood for their homeland Te Urewera, the global rights of nature community cheered. But in this conversation about how the case connects to rights of nature overall and to the global push for climate action, Tamati Kruger, Tūhoe negotiator and chairman of the board that now oversees Te Urewera, explains that for Tūhoe it's about responsibilities—of people to protect the land and each other—not rights.
Last episode we told the story of Ecuador's rights-of-nature journey, today Melissa Troutman and Joshua Pribanic, directors of Invisible Hand and co-founders of the journalism organization Public Herald, join to talk about what the landmark Los Cedros ruling means, not just for Ecuador but the world.
Subscribe to Damages so you won't miss future episodes! https://podlink.to/damages
Ecuador was the first country to adopt rights of nature into its constitution, but its Constitutional Court (Ecuador’s equivalent to the U.S. Supreme Court) has not heard many cases in the decade or so since the law was added. The new Constitutional justices made a point of picking several cases to test rights of nature, and in 2021 handed down a major judgement about the future of one of the world's most biodiverse cloud forests.
Subscribe to Damages: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/damages/id1606039896
A case argued at the Supreme Court this week—West Virginia v EPA—has potentially huge implications for regulating greenhouse gas emissions. NYU law professor Richard Revesz and Center for Biological Diversity attorney Jason Rylander join us to explain.
Rights of nature first started making its way into U.S. courtrooms via an unlikely source: Disney. Today it's a huge threat to the fossil fuel industry. So much so that the industry is pushing preemptive bans on rights of nature laws in states across the country.
Damages is following the hundreds of climate lawsuits currently happening all over the country. First up, in Season 1, a look at rights of nature cases all over the world. In this episode, we start with a case that's making its way through the courts right now, on behalf of wild rice, or manoomin in the Ojibwe language. The rights of manoomin case was originally filed in an effort to stop construction of the Line 3 pipeline. That pipeline has been built, but the case is still active, and it could have major implications for other pipeline fights.
Right-wing funders don't just work on climate change, or voter suppression, or attacks on public schools, they tackle all of it together. In this episode, expert Lisa Graves talks us through the tangled web of funding and ideology fighting against climate action.
Back in 2015, twenty-one young people sued the United States for its actions to drive and exacerbate climate change. The case, Juliana v. United States, looked like it was done for back in 2021 when the 9th Circuit declared the young people did not have standing to bring the case and declined to grant a rehearing, but it's been mandated back to district court where the Juliana 21 have amended their complaint and are gearing up for round 2.
Guardian journalist Chris McGreary joins to discuss ExxonMobil's attempts in Texas to cast litigation against it as a conspiracy to muzzle its free speech rights.
Read Chris's story: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/18/exxon-texas-courts-critics-climate-crimes
For decades, the fossil fuel industry has successfully framed environmentalists as silly, elitist, radical, and out of touch. And for a long time the climate movement has gone along with it, self-flagellating for caring about nature, buying into the idea that humans and nature are separate. It's well past time to rethink what it means to be an environmentalist.
A conversation with Max Berger, a longtime progressive organizer who helped incubate the Sunrise Movement and has also worked in the past for Cori Bush and Elizabeth Warren, about movement building, the climate crisis, and the current unraveling of American democracy.
(Check out Scene on Radio's climate season here: http://www.sceneonradio.org/the-repair/)
In several countries around the world, including Ecuador, New Zealand, and the U.S., some people are trying to protect the planet using a legal concept called “rights of nature”—infusing the law with Indigenous understandings of Mother Earth.
Listen to the complete Scene on Radio season: http://www.sceneonradio.org/the-repair/
Check out Degrees podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/degrees/id1536627537
Groundbreaking new research from Brown University's Dr. Robert Brulle shows just how much oil companies have spent on PR in recent decades, and tracks how PR firms helped to architect climate obstruction. PR whistleblower Christine Arena joins with Dr. Brulle to discuss his research and the many tentacles of the influence industry.
In a new study, sociologist Robert Brulle examined which PR firms work for the various industries obstructing climate action. Only one firm was in the top 3 for every single segment. Listen to find out which one, and learn about some of their other contributions to the world of spin
As the rest of the world is beginning to realize that fracking comes with more downsides than upsides, Australia is readying itself for a fracking boom, eyeing basins on Indigenous land.
Melissa Aronczyk, media studies scholar at Rutgers University, is one of my go-to sources on all things disinformation. In this episode, she walks us through the history of environmental PR and how it's shaped the broader disinformation system we're all grappling with today. This history is also the subject of Aronczyk's new book, with co-author Maria Espinoza, A Strategic Nature (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-strategic-nature-9780190055356?cc=us⟨=en&)
Reporter Katie Worth has been researching climate education in the U.S. for years and that research forms the basis of her new book Miseducation. In this interview we delve into what she found.
Over the last five episodes we've tracked how long the fossil fuel industry has been investing in schools, why, and what impact it's had. In this episode, we look at what can be done, and who's trying to do it.
Bringing you our entire interview with Stanford researcher Ben Franta on fossil fuel influence at universities because it was just too good not to share.
Check out Degrees pod: https://link.chtbl.com/degrees?sid=podcast.SHOWNAME
We're wrapping up our series with Earther this week, with a look at how fossil fuel companies influence curricula and research at the university level. (Also working on a bonus episode on solutions to this problem, stay tuned for that!)
In the third episode of our mini-series with Earther, we head to high school, where the fossil fuel industry's efforts to shape Americans' thinking on economics and policy really ramps up.
Steven Donziger, the attorney who's been on house arrest for more than two years on a contempt charge that arose as a result of his work on the Chevron-Ecuador case, was sentenced Friday October 1st. Judge Loretta Preska handed down the maximum sentence, six months in jail. She also denied bail. Donziger's legal team is appealing both the conviction and the denial of bail, and he remains at home on house arrest pending those appeals.
Since the 1920s, oil companies have been creating music, activities, coloring books, comic books, movies and more to shape how American kids think about society, the economy, and the environment. Today, we look at their efforts in elementary school.
Read more: www.earther.com
Drilled host Amy Westervelt is co-hosting this season of the documentary podcast Scene on Radio, all about the climate crisis—what drove it and what could propel the world out of it. If you like what you hear in episode 1, you can keep listening here: http://www.sceneonradio.org/the-repair/
Fossil fuel companies didn't start infiltrating schools when climate change appeared on the scene, they were there shaping the minds of future citizens for decades before then. The industry has been laying the groundwork for inaction on climate since long before this crisis reared its ugly head, limiting how Americans are allowed to think about the environment and the economy. In this first episode of our new miniseries with Earther, Dharna Noor and Amy Westervelt look at how Big Oil first got into the education game, and why it worked so well.
Read more: https://gizmodo.com/the-abcs-of-big-oil-why-big-oil-infiltrated-schools-1847734544
Pre-order Katie Worth's book Miseducation: https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/miseducation/
Check out the Frontline report on the Marshall Islands: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/the-last-generation/
In this collaboration with Earther, we look at the fossil fuel industry's influence in school—not just in shaping our understanding of environmental problems, but also in narrowing the spectrum of solutions we're allowed to consider. Earther reporter Dharna Noor co-hosts, and we'll be bringing you a four-part series over the next several weeks. Subscribe so you won't miss it! And make sure to check out the Earther site for complementary posts and web bonuses.
In the final episode of part 1 in our Bridge to Nowhere season, we look at the chronic whack-a-mole problem in frontline communities. Just as one facility gets shut down or cleaned up, another is waiting to take its place. In a lot of ways, the plastic problem itself is a whack-a-mole issue catalyzed by progress in shifting away from fossil fuels in the transport and building sectors. How can policy makers and activists predict and prevent these sorts of problems?
The team at UnEarthed, an investigative journalism project funded by Greenpeace in the UK, went undercover and got ExxonMobil execs on tape talking through the company's climate playbook in detail. Today, an unpublished part of that report, in which a former Exxon lobbyist details the company's and the industry's plans on plastics.
More from UnEarthed:
Watch the ExxonMobil video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNFBjcrU5Pc&ab_channel=GreenpeaceUnearthed
Read the story: https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2021/06/30/exxon-climate-change-undercover/
Just as the fossil fuel industry was starting to worry about demand for single use plastics, along comes a global pandemic that they could leverage to push more of the stuff. And they did! But was it enough to save them entirely?
Diane Wilson couldn't keep Formosa out of her town, but down the coast in Louisiana the community in St. James Parish, led by Sharon Lavigne, is fighting like hell to keep them out.
This time we're doing something a little different: a season in three parts, all about the gas industry and how it's managed to embed itself into society. First up, Part 1 Plastic Pipelines: A look at how the fracking boom led to a plastics boom, through the story of one petrochemical company operating on the Gulf Coast, and the two women—one in Texas, the other in Louisiana—taking them on.
A new season about the natural gas industry, presented in three parts. Coming soon, Part 1: Pipelines to Plastic about the direct connection between the fracking boom and the plastics boom, told through the story of Formosa Plastics, a company with an environmental record so bad it couldn't get permits in its own country so it searched the globe for a new home, with weaker environmental regulations, and found it in the American South.
Steven Donziger went to trial for the criminal contempt charge that's kept him on house arrest for 600 days and counting. Paul Paz Y Mino of Amazon Watch brings us an update on the trial
A new study from Harvard science historians Naomi Oreskes and Geoffrey Supran points to the use of language targeted specifically to downplay the reality of climate change and shift responsibility entirely onto consumers. Geoffrey Supran, the lead author on the study, joins to discuss.
Study: https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(21)00233-5
Read more: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/climate-change-exxonmobil-harvard-study-1169682/
A new study out from Harvard University explores the health impacts of transitioning from coal to other combustible fuels. The findings are important for climate policy, particularly the fact that biomass is a huge contributor to air pollution despite representing only a small percentage of energy generation and that natural gas still contributes significantly to air pollution and its associated health impacts.
It's Earth Day 2021 and the first Congressional hearing of the day is focused on fossil fuel subsidies. Their elimination was written into Biden's infrastructure bill, and House Democrats want to make sure that provision stays in the bill. Today's hearing will detail what those subsidies are, why getting rid of them is critical to climate action, and how the government can pull it off without raising the cost of living for average Americans.
Watch the hearing at 10am ET: https://oversight.house.gov/legislation/hearings/on-the-role-of-fossil-fuel-subsidies-in-preventing-action-on-the-climate-crisis
Steven Donziger, the American attorney we profiled in S5 is scheduled for trial May 10th, but his lawyers have filed another motion to dismiss, alleging vindictive prosecution. Karen Savage joins for an update on this story.
We talked about rights of nature a bit in the Ecuador-Chevron season, the Latin American country was the first in the world to integrate the concept of rights of nature in its Constitution. Now the Constitutional Court is reviewing its first rights of nature case. U.S. communities are pursuing the idea as well, and the fossil fuel industry is trying to block rights of nature laws from ever passing. Josh Boaz Pribanic and Melissa Troutman, co-founders of Public Herald join to talk about their new documentary on the rights of nature, Invisible Hand.
Check out Invisible Hand: https://www.invisiblehandfilm.com/premiere/
The Biden Administration has rolled out its Build Back Better plan and it includes a lot of progressive wishlist items, but the left is still pushing for more scale. The THRIVE Act, reintroduced by Sen Markey and Rep Dingell last month is what they're pushing towards and Peoples Action Climate Justice director Kaniela Ing joins to walk us through the asks, and what he's hearing from folks on the ground.
Learn more:
https://www.thriveagenda.com/
https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/senator-markey-rep-dingell-reintroduce-thrive-resolution-to-build-back-economy-following-coronavirus-pandemic
https://peoplesaction.org/
Local activists and legislators have been fighting the Enbridge natural gas compressor in Weymouth for years. It's too close to residents and businesses, and poses too many health risks to a community that's already borne the burden of too much pollution, they say. The project was approved by FERC in 2019, built and became operational in 2020. Then it had an emergency shutdown. And another. Now FERC is considering the unprecedented move of re-thinking its permit, a decision that could have broad ramifications.
Check out Miriam Wasser's ongoing reporting on this at WBUR: https://www.wbur.org/earthwhile/2021/03/19/weymouth-compressor-ferc-precedent-enbridge-natural-gas
Fossil fuel-backed anti-protest laws have been passed in 14 states and are making their way through statehouses in several more states, including six different bills in Minnesota, the only state with a big pipeline fight this year: Line 3. Researcher Connor Gibson joins to talk us through how this all started and where it's at.
Read more:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/pipeline-protest-laws-coronavirus_n_5e7e7570c5b6256a7a2aab41
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fossil-fuel-protest_n_602c1ff6c5b6c95056f3f6af
https://montanafreepress.org/2021/02/24/increasing-penalties-for-damaging-energy-infrastructure/
https://grassrootbeer.substack.com/p/a-refinery-lobbyist-told-kansas-legislators
https://grassrootbeer.substack.com/p/a-refinery-lobbyist-told-kansas-legislators
When a report makes oil and gas companies—and the politicians they help elect—this mad, you know the author is on to something. Researcher Sean O'Leary, with the Ohio River Valley Institute, joins us to talk about his new report, which found that the local economic benefit of fracking to communities in the Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia gas corridor was slim to none.
A special presentation of the podcast Hot Take, featuring investigative journalist Antonia Juhasz on all the many ways oil, war, and climate change intersect.
Read more:
https://antoniajuhasz.net/article/light-sweet-crude-a-former-us-ambassador-peddles-influence-in-afghanistan/
https://antoniajuhasz.net/article/the-new-war-for-afghanistans-untapped-oil/
https://antoniajuhasz.net/article/why-rex-tillerson-could-be-americas-most-dangerous-secretary-of-state/
Subscribe to the Hot Take newsletter: http://realhottake.substack.com/subscribe
Stanford researcher Ben Franta joins to talk about a bombshell new discovery: the American Petroleum Institute not only knew about climate change back in the 70s, it started pushing climate denial as early as 1980.
Read Ben's article: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09644016.2020.1863703
Donziger is still on house arrest and disbarred, the settlement seems impossible to collect, now what? In this episode we look at what this case says about accountability and the power of oil companies, and what options remain for the Ecuadorians seeking justice.
Support our work:
Chevron makes good on its promise to fight the Ecuadorian judgement until hell freezes over ... and then fight it out on the ice. Donziger loses his appeal of the RICO judgement, then finds himself facing contempt charges and disbarment.
Corruption charges against both the Ecuadorian judge and the American judge fly as the RICO gets underway.
Support our work: patreon.com/Drilled
Chevron's legal team shocks the Ecuadorian plaintiffs with a massive racketeering claim in the U.S. alleging fraud, witness tampering, and even bribery.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled
Chevron's attorneys go after Joe Berlinger, the filmmaker behind the documentary about the case, Crude. They subpoena his outtakes, kicking off a years-long First Amendment battle.
Support our work: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled
A new report from Carbon Tracker finds that the fossil fuel industry is pinning its hopes on a plastic boom—and try as it might to spur that demand, it's just not materializing. Report author Kingsmill Bond joins us to discuss.
Read the full report here: https://carbontracker.org/reports/the-futures-not-in-plastics/
New York District Court Judge Loretta Preska has denied repeated requests to delay Donziger's criminal contempt trial until at least one of his lawyers can be present. Barring any last-minute changes, he'll stand trial Monday, November 9th, after which he could be sent to jail for six months. In this ep, reporter Karen Savage brings us the latest and we hear from attorneys Lauren Regan and Ronald Kuby about what sort of precedent this sets.
The case takes a bizarre turn with a sting operation, U.S. subpoenas, accusations of fraud and bribery, and finally a verdict in Ecuador.
With the Ecuadorian plaintiffs racking up good press and an endorsement from the country's president, Chevron kicks things up a notch, bringing on new lawyers and PR firms to tell a very different story.
Support our work: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled
In this episode of Generation Green New Deal, Drilled host Amy Westervelt co-hosts with Sam Eilertsen to look at what happened to block climate action in the 90s and and 2000s, why various fossil fuel industry strategies worked at the time, and what makes the youth climate movement's approach different and more effective.
Check out Generation Green New Deal wherever you get your pods! https://www.podlink.to/generationgnd
In September 2009, Chevron filed an international arbitration claim against the government of Ecuador over the Lago Agrio case. In the years since the company has pointed to the decisions of that arbitral panel as something akin to court decisions, but they're not—arbitral tribunals exist to help companies protect their profits, and are largely conducted in secret. This system has been quietly shaping environmental and climate policy for years. In this episode, expert Marcos Orellana walks us through this shadowy system, this case in particular, and what it all means for global climate action.
Support our work: patreon.com/drilled
The trial gets underway in Ecuador, an election changes the calculus, and a global PR war kicks into high gear.
Support our work: patreon.com/drilled
How did this case come about in the first place? We go back to the early days of oil colonialism in Ecuador, in the 1960s, the partnership between oil men and missionaries, and the impact on indigenous communities in the Amazon.
Support our work: patreon.com/drilled
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In August 2019, an American lawyer was put on house arrest as he awaited trial on criminal contempt charges. The charges stem from a decades-long case that began with pollution in the Amazon and has since spanned continents and courtrooms while the victims—indigenous tribes in the Ecuadorian Amazon—continue to seek justice. Welcome to Season 5: La Lucha En La Jungla.
In addition to S5 of Drilled (coming soon!), Critical Frequency is putting out a terrific slate of great climate and environment podcasts this fall. Check out this sampling, then go subscribe so you won't miss them!
Inherited: http://podlink.to/inherited
Hot Take: http://podlink.to/realhottake
Generation Green New Deal: http://podlink.to/generationgnd
Hazard: http://podlink.to/hazard
No Place Like Home: http://fanlink.to/noplacelikehome
A few weeks ago the Trump administration quietly proposed a rule that would make it harder for financial managers to investment retirement funds in environmentally or socially responsible ways. The fossil fuel industry had been calling for the rule and praised it, noting that the divestment movement has become a serious problem and reduced its access to capital. Journalist David Sirota broke that story and joins us to explain. PLUS: a sneak peek of S5.
Check out David's newsletter: https://sirota.substack.com/
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The FBI arrested Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Larry Householder, this month for racketeering, or as the state attorney general put it "bribery, that's what it was." Private utility First Energy bribed Householder and a handful of other state politicians to pass a corporate bailout that kept coal and nuclear plants open and crushed renewables. UC Santa Barbara political science professor Leah Stokes, author of the book Short Circuiting Policy, joins to tell us all about it.
Leah's book: https://www.leahstokes.com/book
What if you were told buying a piece of land in the Mojave Desert could help you be rich one day? That was the dream developers of California City sold to thousands of people. But the reality is much different. California City – the new podcast from LA-ist Studios – chronicles the dark side of the American Dream, where those thousands of people were left with land that is nearly worthless.
An advocacy group in The Netherlands began campaigning for a ban on fossil fuel ads, including event sponsorships, earlier this year. Campaigner Femke Sleegers joins us to explain the roots of the campaign, its goal, and the initial response to it.
More information: https://verbiedfossielereclame.nl/dutch-citizens-initiative-ban-fossil-fuel-advertising/
Despite tax breaks, royalty cuts, and other COVID-related incentives, Chesapeake Energy—a pioneer in the American shale gas (fracking) industry—declared bankruptcy this week. It's the first example of what we expect to be many of the government throwing good money after bad in attempts to use COVID relief funds to shore up companies that were failing long before the pandemic hit.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled
Two big new suits, in Minnesota and D.C., were filed within 24 hours of each other and allege the same thing: that fossil fuel companies misled consumers about climate change.
A new report from Carbon Tracker finds that not only have oil and gas companies not been budgeting for plugging and abandoning wells, they've been grossly underestimating the cost of that work, especially for fracking wells. The COVID-19 pandemic has only highlighted the problem. Report co-authors Rob Schuwerk and Greg Rogers join to talk about the size of the problem, the cost, and who will ultimately pay.
Report: https://carbontracker.org/reports/its-closing-time/
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Amid nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, some climate activists have been saying "now's not the time to talk about climate." In this episode we bring you an encore presentation of the latest Hot Take episode, in which Amy and Mary Annaise Heglar talk about how justice is justice; the idea that climate and racial justice are all the same thing, and can't be separated. To access the full-length episode, and weekly roundups of climate justice and accountability writing, reporting and analysis, please consider becoming a Hot Take premium subscriber: https://realhottake.substack.com/subscribe
Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine focused on what she calls "disaster capitalism," the sort of corporate feeding frenzy that happens in the wake of major crises. It was on a research trip for that book, to post-Katrina New Orleans, that she connected her work on human rights and labor to climate. Klein shares that journey here, explains the Green New Deal, and talks about what needs to happen to spur a justice-focused transformation in the U.S.
You can find Naomi's many great books here: https://naomiklein.org/books-and-films/
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Reporters Alexander Beunder and Jilles Mast have been combing through 150+ boxes of documents from the personal archive of one of the Netherlands' top climate skeptics during the 1990s, a guy named Fritz Böttcher, and made a shocking discovery: throughout his career Böttcher received direct funding from Royal Dutch Shell. It's part of a large project called the Shell Papers at the Platform for Authentic Journalism, in the Netherlands.
Read more:
Shell Papers: https://www.ftm.nl/dutch-multinationals-funded-climate-sceptic
Shorter summary of Böttcher report: https://desmog.co.uk/2020/05/14/bottcher-shell-funding-european-climate-science-denial
Last week, The New York Times ran a story on the GOP's favorite new climate narrative: If you think quarantine is bad, just wait til the Dems impose climate action on you. In this special ep from Hot Take, with Mary Annaise Heglar and Amy Westervelt, we look at how that narrative came about, why it's striking a nerve, and how to wrestle the climate story back.
Subscribe to Hot Take: https://realhottake.substack.com/subscribe
Listen to Hot Take: https://podlink.to/realhottake
In April 2020, Fred Singer, longtime king of the climate deniers, died at the age of 95. In this episode, investigative reporter Dan Zegart, author of the book Civil Warriors, about the 1990s tobacco litigation, joins to talk about Singer's place in the history of science denial. Connor Gibson, an investigator with Greenpeace also joins to talk about the climate denial machine Singer built, the legacy he leaves behind, and whether the COVID-19 pandemic may topple science denial and fake free marketeering forever.
Singer obituary: https://www.drillednews.com/post/fred-singer-obituary-climate-denier
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A lawsuit filed against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) over a small project in Massachusetts could have big implications. It aims to force FERC to comply with an order the courts gave it back in 2017, and that it's been ignoring ever since: to evaluate the overall emissions and climate change impact of any new energy project. The case has particular relevance right now as FERC has been rapidly approving every project that crosses its desk. Adam Carlesco, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, joins to walk us through the case.
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Political scientist and environmental policy expert Leah Stokes joins us to discuss the many things the new film Planet of the Humans gets wrong about renewable energy, environmentalists and the fight for climate action.
Related stories:
https://www.vox.com/2020/4/28/21238597/michael-moore-planet-of-the-humans-climate-change
https://www.drillednews.com/post/planet-of-the-ecofascists
https://www.drillednews.com/post/is-your-power-company-a-climate-denier
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On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and the week of the 10-year anniversary of the BP Deepwater oil spill, we head to Louisiana to talk petrochemicals, petroleum, plastic, fossil fueled philanthropy, and how the pandemic is affecting it all.
Fossil-Free Fest: https://www.fossilfreefest.org/fff2020/
Bucket Brigade: https://labucketbrigade.org/
Healthy Gulf: https://www.healthygulf.org/
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French artist Joanie Lemercier has been a thorn in Autodesk's side for more than a year now, since he first pointed out that the California software company's computer-aided drafting (CAD) software keeps Europe's largest coal mine operating. Tech reporter Maddie Stone started looking into it, and found that Autodesk software is used by not only coal mines but also to design oil and gas pipelines, and for all sorts of other extractive purposes. It's a window into a broader discussion around climate accountability and tech these days that asks the question: how do we hold tech companies responsible for the damage their products might do?
Read the feature here: https://www.drillednews.com/post/computer-aided-destruction
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In a new report, the Center for International Environmental Law looks at the way oil, gas and petrochemical companies are leveraging the pandemic to push policy and increase profits, and whether these efforts will ultimately be successful. Carroll Muffet, one of our S3 experts, joins to walk us through some of the key points of the report, including how the industry is using the pandemic to push more single-use plastics.
Read the report: Pandemic Crisis, Systemic Decline: Why Exploiting the COVID-19 Crisis Will Not Save the Oil, Gas, and Plastics Industries
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Because of their proximity to oil and gas operations, residents of Broomfield, Colorado were at risk of exposure to flowback-driven air pollution during shelter-in-place orders, so the city issued an emergency decree for local operations to cease fracking flowback during the pandemic. Extraction Oil filed for a temporary restraining order to block the city's decree. It's the first test of Colorado's 2019 law prioritizing public health and safety over oil and gas production, which allows local governments to set safeguards that are more stringent than state regulations.
Climate-COVID-19 policy tracker: https://www.drillednews.com/post/the-climate-covid-19-policy-tracker
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Dr. Julia Steinberger, professor of social ecology and ecological economics at the University of Leeds, has published some really interesting research recently debunking some classic fossil fuel narratives around the industry's importance to society and human wellbeing. Here we dig into her latest study, which found that while fossil fuel use has certainly grown GDP, it has had no effect on life expectancy ... in other words the industry's "benefit" has accrued to relatively few humans.
Study: "Your Money or Your Life?" Environmental Research Letters https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab7461/meta
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Transcript: https://www.drillednews.com/post/new-research-questions-societal-benefit-of-fossil-fuels
Field investigator Sharon Wilson has spotted a troubling increase in methane emissions from refineries in the Permian Basin, in Texas. Things went from bad to worse in January 2020, and really blew up in early March ... almost as though they knew regulators wouldn't be watching.
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The American Petroleum Institute, ExxonMobil and Chevron have been amongst the biggest opponents to bailouts for shale gas companies as part of the coronavirus relief package. DeSmog's Justin Mikulka joins us to explain why.
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Follow Justin's reporting: https://www.desmogblog.com/2020/03/27/shale-bailout-trump-oil-exxon-strategic-petroleum-reserve
The oil and gas industry was headed for broke long before COVID-19. Now the Trump administration wants to use the pandemic to put it on life support, while the American Petroleum Institute uses it to get the industry's deregulation wishlist.
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Read more: https://www.drillednews.com/post/will-pandemic-relief-become-a-petroleum-industry-slush-fund
More from the ARO Working Group: https://www.arowatch.org/about-arowatch/
Drilled will be back with bonus episodes soon. In the meantime, check out one of our other climate podcasts, Hot Take. In this episode, hosts Mary Annaise Heglar and Amy Westervelt talk to David Wallace Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth and deputy editor of New York magazine, about the intersection of climate change and the coronavirus pandemic.
Get ad-free eps and support Drilled's reporting: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled
More reporting: https://www.drillednews.com/
This season we've traced the creation of Big Oil's big propaganda machine. In this episode, the season finale, we look at what can be done about it now that it has delivered us into an era of disinformation. NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen and former FCC commissioner Nicholas Johnson join us to talk about everything from the Fairness Doctrine to cable access to today's "post-fact" world, and where we can really go from here. Special thanks to Mary Catherine O'Conner for additional reporting.
Have ideas? Drop us a line! amy@drillednews.com
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E. Bruce and Patricia Harrison launched the E. Bruce Harrison Company in 1973 and ran it until 1996, working for a mix of chemical companies, oil & gas companies, and tobacco companies. E. Bruce is considered the father of environmental public relations ... or by his critics, "the godfather of greenwashing." Together the Harrisons ran multiple cross-industry coalitions and front groups, aimed primarily at stopping regulation on everything from smoking to carbon emissions. Today, Ms. Harrison is the president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a position she's held since 2005.
Documents & Transcript: https://www.drillednews.com/post/new-documents-link-tobacco-oil-and-public-media
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John Hill, founder of Hill & Knowlton, was an Ivy Lee devotee who worked for Standard Oil in the 1930s, strategized against labor movements and the New Deal, and wound up representing the American Petroleum Institute and the Tobacco Industry Research Committee—a fake research group formed by the CEOs of all the major tobacco companies in the 1950s—at the very same time. His manipulation skills were so good they even fooled the legendary Edward R. Murrow.
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Transcript: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/mgd5kxkoivm4059v8r0k3/S3_Ep7.docx?dl=0&rlkey=9v7b500bkpvcx577a9juco4hb
Sigmund Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays, coined the term "public relations" when propaganda started to become a negative term. His specialty was using psychological know-how to manipulate the masses and orchestrate cultural shifts in his clients' favor (clients like Standard Oil, the American Tobacco Company, and General Motors). A few decades later, W. Howard Chase built onto that foundation with the idea of issues management—predicting an industry's potential issues, and manipulating political, social, and cultural forces to neutralize them. Chase is responsible for one of the best-known examples of greenwashing, the so-called "crying Indian ad," which introduced the idea of "litter bugs" and individual responsibility for pollution.
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Transcript: https://www.dropbox.com/s/to0gvv8bco37xm0/S3_Ep6.docx?dl=0
Subscribe to Heated: http://www.heated.world
We'll be back with more Mad Men tales next week, we promise! While we're out chasing leads, listen to this great interview from Emily Atkin with The Guardian's interim CEO Anna Bateson about that publication's decision to stop taking ads from fossil fuel companies.
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Transcript and more info here: https://www.drillednews.com/
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In part two of our episode on former Mobil VP Herb Schmertz, we dig into how Schmertz's approach bred false equivalence, and why he pushed so hard for the extension of First Amendment rights to corporations.
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Transcript: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gxt69wolj570ghu/AACi6NovOxbn5VryZmpCfhM1a?dl=0
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Check out our sister podcast, Hot Take: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hot-take/id1488414960
Mobil Oil's longtime PR guy Herb Schmertz really started to aggressively manipulate the media. He introduced so many new bells and whistles to Big Oil's propaganda apparatus, we're going to stay with his story for two episodes. In Part 1: Corporate personhood. First Schmertz worked to humanize oil companies by creating the "corporate persona" then he fought for First Amendment rights to be extended to corporations.
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More reporting: https://www.drillednews.com
Transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gxt69wolj570ghu/AACi6NovOxbn5VryZmpCfhM1a?dl=0
Daniel Edelman learned the tools of his trade combatting Nazi propaganda in WWII, then came home and put his psychological warfare training to work for American industry, including tobacco and Big Oil.
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Transcript: https://www.dropbox.com/s/w1dbm5y4q1xaskl/S3Ep3_Transcript.docx?dl=0
Ivy Lee worked with Standard Oil and the Rockefellers for the rest of his life, helping to establish the American Petroleum Institute in 1919, and working for the company's various joint ventures as well, including a petrochemicals partnership with German chemical giant IG Farben. That job, later in his life, took Lee to Germany, to meet with Goebbels and Hitler and give them advice on dealing with the American press. He was under investigation by Congress for his role in Nazi propaganda at the time of his death. Lee's work creating and building the API was one of his most important contributions to fossil fuel propaganda, it's the foundation on which the next 100 years was built.
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In this season we're tackling Big Oil's big propaganda machine—its origins, the spin masters who created it, and why it's been so effective. It all began more than 100 years ago with Standard Oil, John D. Rockefeller and his son, a bloody miners' strike, and the very first P.R. guy, who swooped in to clean it all up.
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Extra tidbits in the Heated newsletter: https://heated.world/
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Big Oil gave Hitler propaganda tips decades ago and their PR machine has only grown from there. This season we dig into the history of fossil fuel propaganda and the few "Mad Men of climate denial" who shaped it. Coming January 2020.
In the Juliana vs. The United States case, a group of young people sued the government for incentivizing increased fossil fuel dependence, thereby robbing the next generation of the pursuit for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The suit has been active for years now, and a handful of other youth suits have joined it. This year a group of young people, including Greta Thunberg, filed a complaint with the United Nations that top fossil fuel-producing countries were violating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. As both move forward, they we take a look at how these suits differ from climate liability cases, what makes them so compelling, and where they might head next.
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New York's fraud trial against ExxonMobil closed November 7th. Reporter Emily Gertz and Union of Concerned Scientist's Kathy Mulvey watched it closely and bring us their takes on this trial and Exxon's next fraud trial, in Massachusetts.
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A look at how those fossil fuel-backed deception campaigns are continuing today, behind a couple layers of energy industry organizations, alliances, and "news" sites. Documentation: Western Energy Alliance 990, showing global oil execs on its board: https://pdf.guidestar.org/PDF_Images/2016/840/700/2016-840700841-0e72e02b-9O.pdf More on the formation of Energy In Depth: https://www.desmogblog.com/%E2%80%98energy-depth%E2%80%99-was-created-major-oil-and-gas-companies-according-industry-memo
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Two new reports highlight that, since the Paris Agreement in 2016, the fossil fuel industry has ramped up both oil production and greenwashing. Plus: why the heck are mainstream media outlets making Big Oil's ads for them?
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As the crabbers' 2018-2019 season comes to an abrupt close, they prepare for a year that could see the fishery close altogether. Meanwhile the oil industry is pushing to quash the crabbers' climate suit, forcing the question: Which industries do we protect, and which do we let go? As natural resources are increasingly impacted by climate change, who will pick the winners and losers and how will we survive?
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As the first industry to sue Big Oil, the West Coast crab fishery is likely to meet an even tougher fight than the states, counties, and cities trying to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable. Oil companies are arguing a First Amendment defense and pointing out that commercial fishermen are themselves consumers of fossil fuels, but it remains to be seen whether those arguments stick, especially in a world increasingly educated and worried about climate change.
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As the crabbers' lawsuit against the world's 30 largest fossil fuel producers is filed, we take a look at the evidence, and what exactly sent crabbers—particularly more conservative ones—to court.
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Now facing annual closures due to climate change, crabbers learn some new information that spurs them to become the first industry to sue Big Oil.
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As the 2015 delay wears on, and holiday markets come and go, crabbers are getting desperate. Some are forced out of business, others worry that this is the new normal.
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In 2015, West Coast crab fishermen were shut down by climate change. Atmospheric changes had warmed waters and upended everything from the food chain to ocean upwelling. They didn't realize it would be their new normal, or that scientists had been telling the oil industry this would happen since the 1960s. Welcome to season 2 of Drilled: Hot Water.
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In 2015 a warm water "blob," the result of both warming oceans and shifting wind patterns, wreaked havoc on West Coast fishing towns. Three years into a new reality in which climate change has shifted the marine food web, they're fighting back. West Coast crab fishermen just became the first industry to take on Big Oil for its role in not only contributing to climate change but creating climate denial. Get the full story of these unlikely climate activists in a new six-part series, dropping April 22nd.
In a batch of aggressive countersuits, Exxon is accusing the counties, cities, and states of conspiring to quash its First Amendment rights to political speech. It's an idea with a long and twisting history that we dig into in this episode.
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Fossil fuel industry influence campaigns ensured that we lost a critical 30 years not taking action on climate change. But all is not lost. The technology to address climate change exists, and if there's one thing history teaches us about America it's that radical social change is entirely possible here.
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The fossil fuel industry's decades-long information war was so successful that even though oil companies themselves began publicly accepting climate science years ago, the public remains skeptical. Fewer Americans believe in the need to act on climate today than did 30 years ago, despite insurmountable evidence. Industry campaigns were so successful they've now landed oil companies in court, facing multiple suits attempting to hold them accountable for the damages inflicted by unchecked climate change.
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If you unravel climate policy back to its origins, eventually you get to academic research. Although oil companies dramatically reduced their own scientific research on climate in the 1990s, by the early 2000s they began funding research centers at prestigious universities throughout the country, subtly shaping the research that any eventual policy would be based upon.
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To make media manipulation and lobbying truly effective, oil companies and their public relations firms also had to shift the culture, influencing everything from civil discourse to how religious groups viewed the issue of climate change.
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In addition to using journalists' views on their own objectivity against them, oil companies exploited various weaknesses in science, namely scientists' tendency toward not prioritizing or valuing good communication skills, and their absolute refusal to be certain about anything.
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As climate disinformation campaigns ramped up in the 1990s, oil companies and their PR firms exploited weaknesses in the U.S. media system and propped up "contrarian" scientists to push the narrative of scientific uncertainty and shift how journalists covered the issue.
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As the price of oil dipped in the early 1980s, management changed at most oil companies and the industry as a whole became more concerned with preserving its core business than expanding in new directions and being "energy companies." Then the campaigns to undermine the science began.
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In the 1970s and early 1980s, Exxon wanted to be the Bell Labs of energy. It hired brilliant scientists who conducted cutting-edge research on everything from the "greenhouse effect" to renewable energy. At the time, there was bipartisan support around the idea of tackling global warming, and a sense that American innovation was up to the task. To see the documents referenced in this episode, check out the timeline on drilledpodcast.com.
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Launching November 14th, Drilled is a limited series investigative true-crime podcast about the crime of the century: the creation of climate denial.