Secret documents, psychological warfare, whistleblowers, media manipulation, this is a story that has it all. Join us as we uncover the mechanics of the longest-running and most elaborate propaganda campaign of the century—the creation and spread of climate change denial—and why it's been so effective.
Origins of Climate Denial: The Turn
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.
2015 Exxon Knew Reporting:
Inside Climate News
Los Angeles Times
Columbia Journalism School
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2/1/2023 • 25 minutes, 10 seconds
Drilled Presents | Scene on Radio, The Repair | Episode 9: Pachamama
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
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12/17/2021 • 46 minutes, 34 seconds
Presenting Scene on Radio, Season 5: The Repair
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/
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10/1/2021 • 46 minutes, 16 seconds
New Study: The Health Impacts of the Coal-to-Gas Transition
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.
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5/11/2021 • 20 minutes, 11 seconds
Rep Ro Khanna on Fossil Fuel Subsidies
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
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4/22/2021 • 12 minutes, 50 seconds
Corporate Personhood? What About Ecosystem Personhood
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/
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4/10/2021 • 40 minutes, 22 seconds
Infrastructure Week! Build Back Better, THRIVE, and More with Kaniela Ing
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-pandemichttps://peoplesaction.org/
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3/31/2021 • 30 minutes, 46 seconds
All Eyes on Weymouth as FERC Signals Interest in Environmental Justice
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
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3/27/2021 • 24 minutes, 32 seconds
How the Fossil Fuel Industry Is Undermining Free Speech
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_5e7e7570c5b6256a7a2aab41https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fossil-fuel-protest_n_602c1ff6c5b6c95056f3f6afhttps://montanafreepress.org/2021/02/24/increasing-penalties-for-damaging-energy-infrastructure/https://grassrootbeer.substack.com/p/a-refinery-lobbyist-told-kansas-legislatorshttps://grassrootbeer.substack.com/p/a-refinery-lobbyist-told-kansas-legislators
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3/20/2021 • 37 minutes, 53 seconds
Frackalachia and the Great Fracking Jobs Myth
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.
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3/12/2021 • 39 minutes, 45 seconds
Presenting: Hot Take — Blood for Oil, with Antonia Juhasz
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
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3/10/2021 • 1 hour, 17 minutes, 45 seconds
Special Episode: Generation Green New Deal
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
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10/18/2020 • 39 minutes, 47 seconds
Climate Podcast Bonanza!
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/inheritedHot Take: http://podlink.to/realhottakeGeneration Green New Deal: http://podlink.to/generationgndHazard: http://podlink.to/hazardNo Place Like Home: http://fanlink.to/noplacelikehome
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8/29/2020 • 29 minutes, 59 seconds
Big Oil Fighting Divestment + Sneak Preview of S5!
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/Subscribe to Drilled now to get early access to episodes! https://www.patreon.com/Drilled
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8/22/2020 • 16 minutes, 28 seconds
California City
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.
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7/29/2020 • 52 minutes, 44 seconds
A Proposed Fossil Fuel Ad Ban in The Netherlands
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/
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7/14/2020 • 22 minutes, 33 seconds
Minnesota and D.C. File Climate Fraud Suits
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.
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6/26/2020 • 14 minutes, 34 seconds
What Shell Knew: A Surprising Report from The Netherlands Finds that Shell Was Directly Funding Climate Denial in the 1990s
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-scepticShorter summary of Böttcher report: https://desmog.co.uk/2020/05/14/bottcher-shell-funding-european-climate-science-denial
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5/29/2020 • 25 minutes, 58 seconds
The Climate Deniers Have Lost Their King, and Still They Soldier On
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-denierSupport our work: https://www.drillednews.com/support-us
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5/19/2020 • 43 minutes, 26 seconds
Old and Wrong: Leah Stokes on the Many Flaws of Michael Moore's Planet of The Humans
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-changehttps://www.drillednews.com/post/planet-of-the-ecofascistshttps://www.drillednews.com/post/is-your-power-company-a-climate-denierSupport our work: https://www.drillednews.com/support-us
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4/29/2020 • 29 minutes, 3 seconds
New Research Shows Fossil Fuels Are Not As Essential As The Industry Would Like You to Believe
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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https://www.patreon.com/Drilled
Transcript: https://www.drillednews.com/post/new-research-questions-societal-benefit-of-fossil-fuels
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4/7/2020 • 24 minutes, 42 seconds
Special Episode—Hot Take: Seeing Climate Through Coronavirus Glasses with David Wallace-Wells
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/DrilledMore reporting: https://www.drillednews.com/
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3/25/2020 • 1 hour, 36 minutes, 48 seconds
Youth Climate Suits and Inter-generational Injustice
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.Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled
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