This week we're thrilled to be re-publishing a series on our site from The Xylom about a small town in Texas that happens to be the country's top oil export hub. But it wasn't always that way. About 10 years ago, residents bought houses next to a naval base -- maybe not ideal, but they could get a house near the ocean in an affluent, sleepy community. Then the naval base shut down, the export terminals took over and this predominantly white, conservative affluent town became a fenceline communit...
May 30, 2025•22 min
This season on Drilled, investigative reporter Alleen Brown brings us the story of an Indigenous nation fighting for its water, an international environmental movement finding its voice, and an industry attempting to crush its political opposition. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 22, 2025•4 min
In his latest book, What's Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis, Malcolm Harris encourages us to see the climate crisis for the complicated and terrifying problem that it is and tackle it at the scale it deserves. Here, he speaks to reporter Adam Lowenstein about what that looks like and how surprisingly good it can feel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 20, 2025•52 min•Season 11Ep. 9
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
May 16, 2025•27 min
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
May 07, 2025•43 min•Season 10Ep. 22
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
Mar 29, 2025•26 min
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 approa...
Mar 21, 2025•19 min
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
Dec 08, 2024•29 min
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
Dec 02, 2024•21 min•Season 11Ep. 8
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 ...
Nov 13, 2024•35 min
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. Check out Fuel to Fork here: https://tabledebates.org/fueltofork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 12, 2024•49 min•Season 11Ep. 8
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 revea...
Nov 11, 2024•46 min
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 Notes: 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 ...
Oct 01, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Season 11Ep. 7
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"...
Sep 24, 2024•20 min•Season 11Ep. 7
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...
Sep 20, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Season 11Ep. 6
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
Sep 09, 2024•54 min•Season 11Ep. 5
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 hi...
Aug 15, 2024•32 min•Season 11Ep. 4
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 ...
Jul 30, 2024•38 min•Season 11Ep. 3
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...
Jul 17, 2024•42 min•Season 10Ep. 21
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, j...
Jul 09, 2024•37 min•Season 11Ep. 3
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
Jul 03, 2024•41 min•Season 11Ep. 2
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 know...
Jun 25, 2024•36 min•Season 11Ep. 1
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
May 18, 2024•53 min•Season 10Ep. 21
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
Apr 16, 2024•41 min
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 Uprisings. The response has been shockingly violent and extreme. Reporter Anna Pujol-Mazzini takes us there. Check out Fatima Ouassak's new book Pour Une Écologie Pirate Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 03, 2024•50 min•Season 10Ep. 20
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
Mar 20, 2024•47 min
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
Mar 05, 2024•44 min•Season 10Ep. 19
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
Feb 20, 2024•27 min
Check out the limited-run series Hazard NYC from The City, all about how climate change intersects with Superfund sites in New York City. Start with episode one here: https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/02/14/newtown-creek-superfund-pollution-hazardnyc-faqnyc-podcast/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 19, 2024•2 min
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
Feb 13, 2024•47 min•Season 10Ep. 18
