Drilled

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-litigationClimate Social Science Network: https://cssn.org/Pre-order The Big Myth: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Myth-American-Business-Government/dp/1635573572Jennifer Jacquet's The Playbook: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/534048/the-playbook-by-jennifer-jacquet/Dr. David Michaels' books: https://www.drdavidmichaels.com/books

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.

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/

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.

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

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-papersAttend the U.S. launch: https://climatemuseum.org/2022-events/2022/11/15/book-launch-with-geoff-dembickiRead Geoff in Vice News: https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/geoff-dembicki

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.

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.

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

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/

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.

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: Wondery.fm/FH_D

A new peer-reviewed study in the journal Science shows that not only did Exxon scientists suspect climate change driven by the burning of fossil fuels was a growing problem that would lead to crisis if nothing changed, but they were terrifyingly accurate in their modeling and predictions. Alongside this special re-broadcast of Season 1 of Drilled, all about the origins of climate denial and Exxon's role in it, we speak with the study's lead author Geoffrey Supran about its importance. In this episode, the industry's role in creating and then weaponizing false equivalence on climate—the idea that the opinions of a handful of contrarians are equally valid to those of the majority of peer-reviewed studies on the topic.

A new peer-reviewed study in the journal Science shows that not only did Exxon scientists suspect climate change driven by the burning of fossil fuels was a growing problem that would lead to crisis if nothing changed, but they were terrifyingly accurate in their modeling and predictions. Alongside this special re-broadcast of Season 1 of Drilled, all about the origins of climate denial and Exxon's role in it, we speak with the study's lead author Geoffrey Supran about its importance. In this episode, a look at how 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.  Support us: https://www.drilledpodcast.com

A new peer-reviewed study in the journal Science shows that not only did Exxon scientists suspect climate change driven by the burning of fossil fuels was a growing problem that would lead to crisis if nothing changed, but they were terrifyingly accurate in their modeling and predictions. Alongside this special re-broadcast of Season 1 of Drilled, all about the origins of climate denial, we speak with the study's lead author Geoffrey Supran about its importance. In this episode, we look at how oil companies and their public relations firms shifted culture, influencing everything from civil discourse to how religious groups viewed the issue of climate change. Support us: https://www.drilledpodcast.com

A new peer-reviewed study in the journal Science shows that not only did Exxon scientists suspect climate change driven by the burning of fossil fuels was a growing problem that would lead to crisis if nothing changed, but they were terrifyingly accurate in their modeling and predictions. Alongside this special re-broadcast of Season 1 of Drilled, all about the origins of climate denial, we speak with the study's lead author Geoffrey Supran about its importance. In this episode, we look at how fossil fuel companies have shaped the research agenda on climate, from the preferred technical solutions to policy frameworks, via strategic investments in research centers at elite universities. Support us: https://www.drilledpodcast.com

A new peer-reviewed study in the journal Science shows exactly how accurate oil company scientists' climate models were back in the 1970s and 80s. Alongside this special re-broadcast of Season 1 of Drilled, all about the origins of climate denial, we speak with the study's lead author Geoffrey Supran about its importance. In this episode, a look at how successful the fossil fuel industry's decades-long information war was at convincing the public there was nothing to worry about, and how that success led to dozens of lawsuits filed over the past five years. Sign up for our newsletter! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new peer-reviewed study in the journal Science shows exactly how accurate oil company scientists' climate models were back in the 1970s and 80s. Alongside this special re-broadcast of Season 1 of Drilled, all about the origins of climate denial, we speak with the study's lead author Geoffrey Supran about its importance. In this final episode, a look at what it might take to finally act on climate. Sign up for our newsletter! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On paper, the small South American country of Guyana is the fastest-growing economy in the world, thanks to its oil boom. The country started shipping barrels of oil in 2019. Hotels are popping up all over its capital city. Historic homes are being turned into condos for visiting oil execs. But average citizens say they aren't benefiting from the boom like they thought they would. And one lawyer is trying everything she can to stop her homeland from being changed from a carbon sink into a carbon bomb. In this special crossover season of Drilled and Damages, a look at 21st century oil colonialism, amid the climate crisis.

Five years ago, Kiana Wilburg was a new reporter when ExxonMobil executives and Guyanese government officials announced they had found oil 40 miles offshore. Wilburg and her newsroom had to quickly learn about the industry and this company that was suddenly so influential in their country and were left with just one question: exactly what kind of a deal had the country signed onto? Visit https://brilliant.org/Drilled for 30 days free and 20% off a subscription. Subscribe to our newsletter for curated weekly climate news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After a year's worth of pressure from local press and civil society groups, the Guyanese government released its contract with ExxonMobil to the public in December 2017. The IMF calls it an unfair deal for Guyana. Some local leaders start calling on government officials to try to renegotiate the contract, but others say that's a fool's errand and the only place to fight the contract is in court. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One person in Guyana knows both the inner workings of oil companies and the intricacies of Guyanese environmental law better than most. Melinda Janki grew up in Guyana, but went to school at Oxford and then worked as in-house counsel for oil giant BP before returning home. Decades ago she started to help strengthen the country's environmental laws. In 2020 she started filing suits against the government to block offshore drilling. Her latest suit alleges that the government of Guyana has not required large enough of an insurance policy to cover the level of damage an offshore catastrophe could cause Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Melinda Janki has filed seven separate cases aimed at blocking oil drilling in Guyana, but only one of them explicitly names climate change as a problem the project is guaranteed to exacerbate. It's a constitutional case that invokes Guyana's constitutional right to a healthy environment—an amendment Janki herself helped to write. Plaintiffs Dr. Troy Thomas and Quedad DeFreitas argue that the government's choice to fast-track permits and oil production threatens their right to a healthy environment, and the rights of future generations too. The government of Guyana argues that, ironically, it needs oil money to adapt to climate change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The tension between addressing global poverty and acting on the climate crisis is one the fossil fuel industry, and those who carry water for it, have been increasingly leaning on in recent years. We asked Dr. Narasimha Rao to join us this week to get into the details of that conversation, where there are and aren't tradeoffs, and what his Decent Living Energy Project at Yale can tell us about how to solve both global crises at once. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When we first started reporting this story, people unfamiliar with it would suggest talking to local environmental groups. Surely they would have something to say about a massive new polluting industry springing up in the country! But every group we could find operating in Guyana had taken money from Exxon or one of its partners. Several have made promotional videos praising the project. They argue that oil money is no dirtier than any other source of funding, and if it's there, they may as well take it to do good conservation projects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's happening in Guyana isn't just happening there. All over the globe, oil companies are racing to tap as many of the remaining fossil fuel reserves as they can. This week, we're joined by Rolling Stone reporter Jeff Goodell for a story about what the global oil rush looks like in another part of the world: Namibia. Read Jeff's story: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/oil-drilling-africa-destroy-wild-land-namibia-recon-investors-1234697088/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the last episode of our "Light, Sweet Crude" season we look at what's next for Guyana, and for other Global South countries grappling with poverty and climate change at the same time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The day after our season finale last week, we got some incredible news from Guyana: the High Court ruled against the oil company and the government in the big insurance case Melinda Janki filed. We caught up with Janki shortly after the verdict was released for this conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Congo Basin contains the world's second-largest rainforest at a staggering 178 million hectares (just under 440 million acres). It is also one of the biggest carbon sinks on the planet, containing 29 billion metric tons of carbon in its vast peatlands under the rich forest. One of the basin's key countries, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), aims to open up protected areas and forested peatlands to oil and gas development, with many experts warning of dire consequences to the rainforest and the world's climate, should these peatlands be disturbed. Sound familiar? On the heels of our Guyana season, we wanted to bring you this deep dive from the great folks over at MongaBay on what's happening in the Congo right now. You can find the MongaBay Explores podcast here and MongaBay's regular Newscast here. Check them out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're sharing an episode from a podcast we love called The Carbon Copy. In January 2023, a new study showing that over 12 percent of childhood asthma cases can be linked to gas stoves took over the discourse. Suddenly, gas stoves were a hot topic on nightly news programs across America. The study ignited backlash from conservative pundits, especially after a commissioner from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said stricter regulation of gas stoves was on the table. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Electrification offers an opportunity to rethink how we use energy and how we get around. Researcher Thea Riofrancos wants to see the U.S. seize that opportunity and set the country on a path to a better, more equitable future. Promotions: Earth Breeze: earthbreeze.com/drilled for 40% off Athletic Greens: athleticgreens.com/DRILLED for a free 1-year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs Express VPN: expressvpn.com/drilled for an extra three months free on a one-year package Subscribe to our newsletter! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jake Bittle's book The Great Displacement looks at how extreme weather events are likely to drive Americans to move from one part of the country (or their state) to another. In this episode, he joins to talk through the complex web of factors that drive migration, and how policies might be changed to ease the burden on people and communities. Find out more about The Great Displacement and where to buy it: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Great-Displacement/Jake-Bittle/9781982178253 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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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"Ep could make it all the way to the Supreme Court. 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 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

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

A new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) looks at the details of Guyana's planned "Gas to Energy" project and finds mostly benefits for ExxonMobil and more debt for Guyana. Read the full report here: https://ieefa.org/articles/guyana-gas-energy-project-unnecessary-and-financially-unsustainable 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

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

Since the 2019 passage of the "Dangerous Attachment Devices" bill in response to anti-coal protests in Queensland, Australia's states have moved quickly to follow suit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

It's no coincidence that the backlash against climate protest looks the same from country to country. Not only is industry sharing tactics across borders, but also the Atlas Network—a global network of nearly 600 libertarian think tanks—has been swapping strategies and rhetoric for decades. This episode features reporting from Amy Westervelt, Lyndal Rowlands, and Julianna Merullo from Drilled, and Geoff Dembicki from DeSmog. You can see a print version of the story at The New Republic or an even longer print version on our site here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From our pals over at Inherited, in today's episode, Mo Isu looks at one of the reasons climate activists all over the world are protesting: they're already facing the impacts of climate change. Here, Isu traces the cycle of loss and rebuilding in the rural Niger Delta region of Nigeria as the country weathers extreme seasonal flooding. After meeting a flood survivor in his hometown of Lagos, Mo travels twelve hours to Lokoja – the town where Nigeria's largest rivers converge – to explore how directly impacted flood survivors endure the region's relentless cycle of damage and repair. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joanna Oltman Smith was new to direct action when she agreed to walk into the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. with fellow activist Tim Martin, smear water-soluble kids' finger paint on the glass display case containing a Degas statue called "Little Dancer", and read off a statement about the importance of protecting actual, living children as well as we do sculptures of them. Smith and Martin figured they would be charged with trespassing, and maybe even vandalism, but each is now facing two felony charges, including one of "conspiring against the United States government." As we covered last month, one thing that makes it easy to criminalize protest is the steady hum of content that paints climate activists as fringe weirdos or out-of-touch elitists. We think it's important to meet these people and bring their stories and voices to you directly. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Australia's Voice referendum once enjoyed bi-partisan support of more than 60%. But since an aggressive No campaign began in April 2023, that support has plummeted. The folks behind that campaign will be familiar to listeners of this Drilled season: they're primarily Atlas Network think tanks. Jeremy Walker, senior lecturer at the University of Technology Sydney, joins to discuss his new paper on the subject, "Silencing the Voice." You can read that paper here: https://cssn.org/no-campaign-referendum-to-recognise-indigenous-australia-led-by-fossil-fuel-corporations/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From Ecuador to North Dakota, British Columbia to New Zealand, the backlash against Indigenous-led environmental protest is always particularly harsh, infused with colonialist entitlement to land, water, and other resources. Historian Nick Estes walks us through what that looks like in the U.S., and the great team behind the documentary The Territory brings us a recent example from Brazil. Check out the film here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Outrage + Optimism, where they examine issues at the forefront of the climate crisis, interview change-makers, and transform anger into productive dialogue for building a sustainable future. In this episode, the hosts discuss the slow progress made at the negotiations in Bonn and how the perceived lack of direction has led many in the climate community to feel anxious about how successful talks will be in Dubai later in the year.  Christiana also touches on the New World Bank report, Detox Development: Repurposing Environmentally Harmful Subsidies, highlighting the trillions of dollars wasted on subsidies for agriculture, fishing and fossil fuels that could be used to help address climate change instead of harming people and the planet. With Tom off to the Global Citizen Power Our Planet Live event on Thursday, the hosts discuss their hopes for a more positive outcome from The Summit for a New Global Financing Pact also happening in Paris this week. Look out for the anticipated momentum to gather pace on Mia Mottley's Bridgetown Agenda for the much needed reform of international finance. Their special interview this episode is with the brilliant communications expert John Marshall, CEO of Potential Energy Coalition, to discuss climate change's marketing problem and how we can solve it. Essential listening and the team here all agree we could learn a lot from John's insights! For anyone wanting to learn more about the important work of Potential Energy, click here. Music this week comes from Hazel Mei and her song Golden Chains, another finalist from this year's Environmental Music Prize. Check out her links below. Thanks to Airaphon who mixed and sound edited the podcast this week. Please don't forget to let us know what you think here, and / or by contacting us on our social media channels or via the website. NOTES AND RESOURCES SUBSCRIBE TO OUTRAGE + OPTIMISM HERE John Marshall, Chairman and CEO of Potential Energy Coalition LinkedIn | TED Bio Potential Energy Coalition Website | LinkedIn | Instagram Hazel Mei, Environmental Music Prize Finalist  Instagram | Facebook | YouTube  For anyone wanting to watch the absurd Fox news interview with Power the Future founder, Daniel Turner, here is the link.  Learn more about the Paris Agreement. It's official, we're a TED Audio Collective Podcast - Proof! Check out more podcasts from The TED Audio Collective Please follow us on social media! Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Globally, climate activism has shifted over the past few years. It's more constant now and includes more direct action than ever before. Some of that action has critics, including climate scientists and climate advocates, clutching their pearls and worrying that protest will turn the public away from the urgent need to act on the climate crisis. But social science researchers who study structural change and protest say there's no historical evidence to back that up; that in fact the only time social movements have ever affected change is when they've been wildly disruptive, and a whole lot of the people who love to quote MLK are missing a significant part of his approach to social change. In this week's ep we hear from social scientists on how radical or not climate protests really are, and what factors make direct action work or fail. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We'll be back with the rest of our anti-protest season soon, but in the meantime, welcome to a new Drilled miniseries we're calling "Messy Conversations," getting into all the complicated nuance that unfortunately gets cut out of a lot of climate conversations. This week, Magatte Wade, who runs the Center for African Prosperity at the Atlas Network. She wasn't too happy with our recent coverage of Atlas, so we talked about that, the idea that solving poverty and addressing the climate crisis are mutually exclusive, where free speech ends and property rights begin for libertarians, and a whole lot more. Links: Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC): https://www.arcforum.com/ DeSmog profile of ARC: https://www.desmog.com/alliance-for-responsible-citizenship-arc/ DeSmog coverage of ARC 2023 forum: https://www.desmog.com/2023/10/26/gop-climate-denier-vivek-ramaswamy-headlining-jordan-peterson-arc-conference/ Narasimha Rao's Decent Living Energy Project: https://www.decentlivingenergy.org/ Our Guyana season: https://drilled.media/podcasts/drilled#season-8 Center for African Prosperity: https://www.atlasnetwork.org/partners/center-for-african-prosperity Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're bringing you an episode of the CBC's Podcast Playlist today, featuring Drilled! In this episode, host Leah-Simone Brown talks to hosts of three shows (including this one) about why folks should listen to their show. Podcast Playlist is the longest-running podcast curation show, a great place to find your next favorite podcast. Check it out wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Abeer Butmeh, coordinator of the Palestinian NGOs Network, one of the most important Palestinian environmental organizations, spoke to senior editor Alleen Brown about battling for short-term and long-term survival when your identity itself is criminalized. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bloomberg's Akshat Rathi joins us to make the case that capitalism can be harnessed in service of addressing the climate crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As we resume our season focused on the global criminalization of climate protest, reporter Martha Troian brings us to Canada, where the Wet'suwet'en people have been fighting for years against a gas pipeline they never authorized on their territory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With everyone arguing—again—about what science tells us the COP28 negotiations should be aiming for if we want to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, it's a great time to bring you this episode of Vox's Unexplainable, on which Drilled host, reporter Amy Westervelt, walks through how the fossil fuel industry weaponized the most fundamental aspect of scientific research: uncertainty. For show transcripts, go to bit.ly/unx-transcripts For more, go to http://vox.com/unexplainable Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers closes the comment period on its draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,172-mile pipeline that's been pumping 500,000 barrels of oil per day since May 2017. The pipeline runs from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Over the past six years, every court in the country has ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers did not study the pipeline's environmental impact closely enough before approving the pipeline's route. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe has maintained all along that the project poses a serious threat to its drinking water. From April 2016 to February 2017 thousands of water protectors from all over the country (and beyond) joined them in protests and direct actions. The resistance at Standing Rock is often cited by the fossil fuel industry, police and politicians as the reason states need new anti-protest laws, while the backlash to that resistance is often cited by water protectors as the reason for PTSD, asthma, and in some cases lost eyes and limbs. Now, the Army Corps of Engineers says that removing the pipeline would be too damaging to the Missouri River and its surrounding ecosystems. The removal actions it describes in its EIS are the same actions taken to install the pipeline in the first place. The Army Corps suggests that removing the pipeline would be more environmentally harmful than allowing the oil to continue pumping under one of Standing Rock's primary drinking water sources. Nonetheless, this report—seven years late—represents one of the few pathways left to stop the pipeline. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe is advocating to seal the pipeline off, while some water protectors are advocating for the pipeline to be removed entirely. The public comment period closes Dec 13, 2023. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

While protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation garnered international news coverage, at the southern end of the pipeline, cops moonlighting as pipeline security were suppressing free speech with impunity. In this episode, reporter Karen Savage tells us what happened at Bayou Bridge, and what lessons the story holds for the climate movement and for anyone who believes in the importance of democracy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

About a decade after UK courts made history with the first "climate necessity" ruling in history, the UK government has passed new laws that not only restrict what protesters can do, but also how protesters are allowed to defend themselves in court. Some judges don't apply the new laws so strictly, but others have held people in contempt for just trying to explain themselves. In some courtrooms, the climate necessity defense has been effectively outlawed. How did that happen? And how did it happen so quickly? That's our story today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In June 2022, Michel Forst became the first UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders. In that role he has spent the past year visiting various countries and speaking out about the increasingly onerous laws and aggressive tactics being used against climate protestors. Today he released a statement on the UK, saying he is "extremely worried" about "the increasingly severe crackdowns on environmental defenders in the United Kingdom, including in relation to the exercise of the right to peaceful protest." In this episode, our France reporter Anna Pujol-Mazzini talks to Forst about his new position, what it means, and what power he has to do something about the creeping crackdown on climate protest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The U.S. government's definition of what constitutes an "ecoterrorist" has long driven backlash against environmental activists and in recent years that definition has only broadened. Investigative reporter and Drilled senior editor Alleen Brown dug into this recently and found that the Department of Homeland Security had been warning officials in Atlanta about the threat posed by "Defend the Atlanta Forest" for months before police raided the forest, ultimately killing one protestor, and charging dozens more with domestic terrorism and racketeering. It was such an overreaction that even mainstream media covered it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rhiana Gunn-Wright was one of the architects of the Green New Deal, and today works as the climate policy director for the Roosevelt Institute. In this episode we get into the nuances of the IRA, how to handle climate being a "culture war" issue, what's going on with anti-renewables, and what the climate movement loses when it turns its back on justice issues and particularly when it turns its back on the Black community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her new book Saving Ourselves, Dana R. Fisher compiles years worth of research on protest in general and climate protest in particular for a comprehensive look at tactics, what "works," what a protest "working" even means, where the movement is likely to go next and where it needs to go to achieve real climate action. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last year, headlines all over the world proclaimed victory for the environment: finally, after more than a decade of promises, there would be no more drilling in Yasuní National Park, a large swath of the Ecuadorian Amazon. But as Macy Lipkin reports, all wasn't what it seemed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mary Annaïse Heglar's first book is out today, and it's a children's book about climate change. It's the first of *three* climate books Mary has coming out in the near future (the other two are a novel, called Troubled Waters, and an essay collection of Black writers on climate). She has been busy writing up a storm since we wrapped up Hot Take (and we've roped her into editing stories for Drilled, too). In this episode we talk about her books, what's happening in climate media in general, and the question Amy gets asked all the time and can't answer very well: How do you talk to kids about climate change. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shell announced in late 2023 that it would be shutting down all of its onshore activities in Nigeria and concentrating its efforts offshore. It leaves behind poisoned water, multiple political and economic crises, and a country that is measurably worse off today than when its oil industry began. Meanwhile the government continues to target environmental activists. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Céline Semaan began calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, she was surprised at the backlash she and her team at Slow Factory got, including multiple funders pulling their support. Today, Semaan is more determined than ever to push for climate justice and collective liberation. Pre-order A Woman Is a School: https://shop.slowfactory.earth/products/a-woman-is-a-school Check out course(s) on Open Edu: https://slowfactory.earth/open-edu Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Late last year, Brown University's Climate and Development Lab put out a comprehensive report looking at the opposition to wind energy on the east coast of the U.S., called "Against the Wind." Today, the lead author of that report, Isaac Slevin, walks us through what's real and what's manufactured in this opposition, which has not only continued to grow in the U.S. but now influenced a similar movement in Australia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In France, the unthinkable has happened for polluting industries: the working-class Yellow Vest movement, racial equity movements, and progressive climate activists have joined forces in a multi-racial, cross-class coalition called Earth Uprising. The response has been shockingly violent and extreme. Reporter Anna Pujol-Mazzini takes us there. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lots of news lately on stories we've been following, so in today's episode: an update! The landmark Carbon Majors report has been updated with some surprising new data, and the European Court of Human Rights has sent down an historic ruling that will shape how EU legislators look at energy and climate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lots of news lately on stories we've been following, so in today's episode: an update! The landmark Carbon Majors report has been updated with some surprising new data, and the European Court of Human Rights has sent down an historic ruling that will shape how EU legislators look at energy and climate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The backlash against ESG is continuing, with a string of lawsuits aimed at shutting down shareholder activism. We don't often talk about shareholder activism in the vein of protecting protest, but it's absolutely part of the story. Andrew Behar, CEO of shareholder advocacy group As You Sow, joins us to explain what's going on, and why anyone who cares about basic rights needs to be tuning into the ESG fight. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2017, El Salvador became the first country in the world to pass an outright ban on mining. It was an effort to protect the country's water, and its people. Now, self-proclaimed "coolest dictator in the world" Nayib Bukele wants to bring mining back to boost the economy, which took a major hit thanks to his embrace of Bitcoin as the national currency in 2021. The activists who helped pass the ban are standing in his way. The solution? Accuse them of a decades-old unsolved murder. The activists go on trial this week. Reporter Sebastian Escalon brings us this story, narrated by Yessenia Funes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the finale of our Real Free Speech Threat season, we look at how the U.S. military and its national security agencies have helped stoke a global crackdown on environmental protest, and bring you the inspiring story of one Filipino land defender who's been targeted by the state for years and is still fighting. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fossil fuel companies can't push ideas like "low carbon gas" or overstate the emissions-reduction potential of technologies like carbon capture without the help of a whole system of folks who help them sell the idea. The role management consultancies play in that process has been largely under-covered, but today we dig into just how helpful they've been through the story of one consultancy in particular. Reporter Maddie Stone walks us through how multinational consultancy ICF, which is well known for its government climate work, also works to produce reports the fossil fuel industry uses to promote oil and gas. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As part of our ongoing series looking into new climate problems the fossil fuel industry is peddling as solutions, we did a deep dive into the push to position liquefied natural gas—a fossil fuel—as "green" and discovered one particularly active lobbying group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we bring you an episode from our climate litigation podcast, Damages, because we've been getting SO MANY emails about what sorts of legal strategies might still be available for climate accountability given everything happening at the Supreme Court. Public Citizen has been working with various prosecutors to explore the idea of using criminal law to hold oil companies accountable for climate change, but is it really viable? The group's senior climate policy counsel, Aaron Regunburg, joins us to discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carbon capture has always seemed a little scammy, but in a blockbuster investigation co-published with Vox this week, we discovered just *how* scammy. Carolyn Raffensperger, executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, joins to walk us through the many issues with the technology, from the fact that it delivers little to no climate benefit to the fact that it creates a massive new public health threat. Read more here: https://drilled.media/news/ccs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts vs. EPA that when the U.S. Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970, climate science was “in its infancy,” implying that government officials could never have intended for the legislation to cover the regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. In 2022, SCOTUS doubled down on that idea, ruling in West Virginia v EPA that since the Clean Air Act didn't explicitly talk about climate change, the EPA cannot regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Now, new historical evidence unearthed by a team of Harvard University researchers led by Naomi Oreskes calls the court's understanding of the history of climate science into question, which could have major implications for the government's ability to regulate climate-changing emissions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we bring you an episode of our climate talk show, Spill, for a deep dive from Mary Annaïse Heglar and Amy Westervelt on what Project 2025 lays out for climate, what we might hear (and not hear) about climate in this week's presidential debate, rethinking the climate movement and politics, and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Drilled reporter Molly Taft joins us to talk about newly released research on fossil fuel funding of university research, and share interviews with climate disinformation researcher Geoffrey Supran, who authored one of the recent studies, and with philosopher of science Craig Callender at UCSD, which just passed a precedent-setting policy to require disclosure of funding on research. Secure your privacy with Surfshark! Enter coupon code DRILLED for 4 months EXTRA at https://surfshark.com/DRILLED" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We first released our "Mad Men of Big Oil" season on all the pro-fossil fuel propaganda that came before climate denial, and the role the PR industry has played in helping various polluting industries shape our ideas around the economy, the environment, and the relationship between the two back in January 2020. It inspired various campaigns to clean up the industry and in 2024, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres specifically referenced the need to hold these "Mad Men fueling climate disaster" to account. At this year's Climate Week we did a special live version of this season, and figured it was a good time to re-up it. It's evergreen, and people are talking about it more and more these days. Check your feeds for Season 3 to listen to the rest! Ad Note: The first 150 of you will receive the first month of a Planet Wild membership from me for free. Click on this link https://planetwild.com/drilled, or use the code DRILLED9 later. Not satisfied anymore? You can cancel at any time. If you want to see how Planet Wild works first, check out their latest YouTube video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPbCjH45uwI&t=2s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In her new book, The Language of Climate Politics, Guenther digs into six key rhetorical devices that are being used to slow or block climate action. For an academic book, it's made some folks on the Internet awfully mad. In this episode we talk about why, what went into her research, and what it tells us about the coming months. Ad Note: The first 150 of you will receive the first month of a Planet Wild membership from me for free. Click on this link https://planetwild.com/drilled, or use the code DRILLED9 later. Not satisfied anymore? You can cancel at any time. If you want to see how Planet Wild works first, check out their latest YouTube video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPbCjH45uwI&t=2s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we're sharing an episode of the podcast Reclaimed. It centers on a group of Americans who've been denied a basic human right: water. I'm talking about the Navajo people. More than one-third of households in the Navajo Nation do not have access to clean water. Right now, there's a landmark bill in front of Congress that could change this — but it took more than 150 years to get here. “Reclaimed” takes you back to the very beginning when the Navajo reservation was first created. And it reveals the history of oppression and exclusion that led the Navajo to this point — and why their future is still uncertain. You can listen to more episodes of Reclaimed at https://abcaudio.com/podcasts/reclaimed-navajo-nation/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

From October-December 2024, Fuel to Fork is taking over the Feed podcast with a 7-episode series exposing the hidden role fossil fuels play in the food we eat. Today, Fuel to Fork co-hosts Anna Lappé and Matthew Kessler join us to talk through that history and why it's remained hidden for so long. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How did our democracy get replaced by a kleptocracy?  Discover the truth on Master Plan, a new podcast from The Lever. Hosted by David Sirota, former speechwriter for Bernie Sanders and Oscar-nominated co-writer of Don't Look Up, Master Plan exposes the deliberate scheme to legalize corruption in the U.S., allowing the wealthy to buy policies that benefit themselves and screw everyone else.  The Lever has unearthed never-before-reported documents proving this 50-year plot was a coordinated effort by wealthy individuals and political ideologues. Over the course of 10 episodes, the series follows the historic thread from Watergate in the '70s through the Citizens United decision and the current Supreme Court scandals. It's a tale of famous villains you already know like President Richard Nixon, Senator Mitch McConnell, and Fox News boss Roger Ailes, plus operatives and oligarchs you've never heard of. Listen to more episodes of Master Plan at https://link.chtbl.com/sIXXlFys?sid=Drilled Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In November, a Dutch court ruled in Shell's favor on an appeal in a big international climate case. It got loads of headlines around the world, but it wasn't quite the win for Shell that a lot of media coverage has made it out to be. Although it walked back some things, the court reaffirmed a key component of the original ruling: that Shell is legally required to reduce its global emissions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new season of Hazard-NJ is out now, this time diving into PFAS, or "forever chemicals." Find it everywhere you get your pods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We have covered before how the fossil fuel industry created the advertorial and how it continues work with media on the modern incarnation: sponsored content, created by the media outlets themselves. To be clear, it's outlets' internal brand studios that write op-eds, craft slide shows and videos, and produce podcasts for fossil fuel companies, not their editorial staff. But these services are explicitly marketed as a way to make corporate content mirror the editorial content in style and approach, and when it comes to fossil fuel advertisers it often directly contradicts what the editorial staff is reporting. In late 2023, we published a report detailing the many examples of this and delving into the peer-reviewed research that shows how misleading this practice is to readers. This week, one of the researchers who has contributed the most to that body of evidence, Dr. Michelle Amazeen, at Boston University, published a new study looking at why this practice is particularly misleading on social media, and what media outlets might be able to do to make it less so. She joins us to speak about that research. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Introducing…our first podcast crossover season! Later this year we'll be bringing you a season in collaboration with the podcast Non-Toxic, hosted by journalist and culture critic Daniel Penny, about the intersection between masculinity and climate. In this episode we introduce Daniel and his work, and talk a bit about what you can expect from this season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists compiles in one place all the documentary evidence on the role of fossil fuel companies in obstructing climate policy. We walk through the latest, and get an update on climate cases in the U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices