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: "...
Apr 07, 2020•25 min
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. Support our work: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled More reporting: https://www.drillednews.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 03, 2020•15 min
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 01, 2020•17 min
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 28, 2020•25 min
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/ Learn more about your...
Mar 25, 2020•2 hr 37 min
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'Connor for additional reporting. ...
Feb 29, 2020•32 min
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 ...
Feb 28, 2020•32 min
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...
Feb 27, 2020•28 min
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,...
Feb 25, 2020•30 min
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. Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled Transcript and more info here: https://www.drillednews.com/ Subscribe to Heated: https://heated.world/subscribe Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeAreDrilled Learn more about your a...
Feb 18, 2020•25 min
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. Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled More info: www.drillednews.com Transcript: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/gxt69wolj570ghu/AACi6NovOxbn5VryZmpCfhM1a?dl=0 Subscribe to our sister newsletter, Heated: https://heated.world/ Check out our sister podcast, Hot Take: https://podcasts.apple.co...
Feb 11, 2020•18 min
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 04, 2020•22 min
Daniel Edelman learned the tools of his trade combating Nazi propaganda in WWII, then came home and put his psychological warfare training to work for American industry, including tobacco and Big Oil. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 28, 2020•23 min
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 ...
Jan 21, 2020•24 min
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. Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled Read more: https://www.drillednews.com/ Extra tidbits in the Heated newsletter: https://heated.world/ Follow us: https://twitter.com/WeAr...
Jan 21, 2020•17 min
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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 05, 2019•3 min
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 Conve...
Nov 28, 2019•28 min
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. Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 08, 2019•23 min
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-memoSuppor...
Sep 03, 2019•19 min
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? Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Aug 15, 2019•14 min
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? Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaph...
May 20, 2019•13 min
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. Support us: https://www.patreon...
May 13, 2019•20 min
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. Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 06, 2019•21 min
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. Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 29, 2019•22 min
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. Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 22, 2019•18 min
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. Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 22, 2019•22 min
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 Apri...
Apr 03, 2019•2 min
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.Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 05, 2019•27 min
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. Support us: https://www.patreon.com/Drilled Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 09, 2018•23 min
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 ...
Oct 02, 2018•19 min
