Drilled is a true-crime climate change podcast exposing how corporate corruption and political operatives built decades of climate denial and delay. Hosted and reported by award-winning investigative climate journalists and led by Amy Westervelt, each season unravels new evidence of deception, disinformation, and the power structures keeping real climate solutions out of reach.
In September 2025, a group of Brazilian ministers trekked all the way to chilly North Dakota to see a presentation on a new type of clean energy project, one that promised to help them deliver Brazilian President Lula’s dream of turning Brazil into “the Saudi Arabia of sustainable aviation fuels.” It was the latest in a string of projects from Midwest Republican kingmaker and corn ethanol magnate Bruce Rastetter, whose investments in Brazil might just transform him into a global carbon czar, even as his Summit pipeline carbon project faces fierce opposition from Iowa to North Dakota. The problem? It all requires loads of land and none of it does a thing about climate change.
In the 2015 case Juliana v. United States , 21 young adults sued the United States for knowingly driving and exacerbating climate change. In 2021, the 9th Circuit declared that the young people did not have a standing to bring the case—but the Juliana 21 weren't done. It's been mandated back to district court where the plaintiffs are preparing for another round. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Guardian journalist Chris McGreal breaks down ExxonMobil's attempt to claim lawsuits that hold the company accountable for climate disinformation amounts to a conspiracy against its free speech rights. Reach Chris's story here . See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
For decades, the fossil fuel industry has successfully framed environmentalists as silly, radical, elitist, or out of touch. And for too long, the climate movement has bought into this framing, self-flagellating for caring about nature and buying into the false divide between humans and nature. It's time to rethink what it means to be an environmentalist. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
What happens when the climate crisis collides with the unraveling of American democracy? Max Berger, a longtime progressive organizer who helped incubate the Sunrise Movement and worked with both Cori Bush and Elizabeth Warren, discusses movement building and the climate crisis. (Check out Scene on Radio's climate season here: http://www.sceneonradio.org/the-repair/) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
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 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/lis...
Groundbreaking new research from Brown University's Dr. Robert Brulle shows just how much oil companies have spent on PR in recent decades, and tracks how PR firms helped to architect climate obstruction. PR whistleblower Christine Arena joins with Dr. Brulle to discuss his research and the many tentacles of the influence industry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
In a new study, sociologist Robert Brulle examined which PR firms work for the various industries obstructing climate action. Only one firm was in the top 3 for every single segment. Listen to find out which one, and learn about some of their other contributions to the world of spin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
As the rest of the world is beginning to realize that fracking comes with more downsides than upsides, Australia is readying itself for a fracking boom, eyeing basins on Indigenous land. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Melissa Aronczyk, media studies scholar at Rutgers University, is one of my go-to sources on all things disinformation. In this episode, she walks us through the history of environmental PR and how it's shaped the broader disinformation system we're all grappling with today. This history is also the subject of Aronczyk's new book, with co-author Maria Espinoza, A Strategic Nature ( https://global.oup.com/academic/product/a-strategic-nature-9780190055356?cc=us&lang=en& ) Learn more about ...
Reporter Katie Worth has been researching climate education in the United States for years, forming the basis of her new book Miseducation. Here's what she's uncovered. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Over the last five episodes, we've tracked how long the fossil fuel industry has been investing in schools, why, and what impact it's had. Now it's time for the most important question: What can we do about it? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Here's our full interview with Stanford researcher Ben Franta to discuss fossil fuel influence at universities. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
By the time students reach college, Big Oil's education strategy reaches it's largest phase: direct influence on curricula and research at the university level. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
We head to high school, where the fossil fuel industry's efforts to shape Americans' thinking on economics and policy ramps up. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Steven Donziger, the attorney who's been on house arrest for more than two years on a contempt charge that arose as a result of his work on the Chevron-Ecuador case, was sentenced Friday October 1st. Judge Loretta Preska handed down the maximum sentence, six months in jail. She also denied bail. Donziger's legal team is appealing both the conviction and the denial of bail, and he remains at home on house arrest pending those appeals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Since the 1920s, oil companies have been creating music, activities, books, movies, and more to shape how American elementary-school aged kids think about our society, economy, and environment. Read more: www.earther.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Long before climate change appeared on the scene, fossil fuel companies were in America's classrooms, shaping young minds. Dharna Noor and Amy Westervelt explore how Big Oil got into the education game, why it worked so well for them, and how the industry limits how Americans are allowed to think about the environment and the economy. Additional resources: The ABCs of Big Oil: Why the Fossil Fuel Industry Infiltrated Schools Pre-order Kate Worth's book, Miseducation. Check out the Frontline repo...
Alongside Earther reporter Dharna Noor, this multi-part series will explore the fossil fuel industry's influence in schools—shaping our understanding of environmental problems and narrowing the scope of solutions to consider. Find complementary posts and bonus content on Earther. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Frontline communities are facing a whack-a-mole problem: as one facility gets shut down, another pops up. In many ways, the plastic problem itself is a whack-a-mole issue catalyzed by progress in shifting away from fossil fuels in the transport and building sectors. How can policy makers and activists predict and prevent these sorts of problems? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Investigative journalism project UnEarthed, funded by Greenpeace in the United Kingdom, captured ExxonMobil execs talking through the company's climate playbook. We share an unpublished part of the report, in which a former Exxon lobbyist details the company's, and wider industry's, plans on plastics. Additional resources: Watch the ExxonMobil video Read the story See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
Just as the fossil fuel industry was starting to worry about demand for single use plastics, along comes a global pandemic that they could leverage to push more of it. And they did! But was it enough to save them entirely? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Diane Wilson couldn't keep Formosa Plastics out of her Texas town, but down the coast in St. James Parish, Louisiana, Sharon Lavigne is fighting like hell to keep the petrochemical giant out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
How did the fracking boom lead to a plastics boom? We examine how the gas and plastics industries have embedded themselves in society through the story of one petrochemical company operating on the Gulf Coast and two women, one in Louisiana, one in Texas, taking them on. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Season 6 explores the natural gas industry in three parts, following he story of Formosa Plastics to explain the direct connection between the fracking boom and plastics surge. Formosa Plastics is a company so notorious for environmental violations that it moved operations abroad, to the American South, to capitlize on weaker regulations. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Steven Donziger went to trial for the criminal contempt charge that's kept him on house arrest for 600 days and counting. Paul Paz Y Mino of Amazon Watch brings us an update. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Harvard science historian Naomi Oreskes reveals how the fossil fuel companies use language targeted specifically to downplay the reality of climate change and shift responsibility entirely onto consumers. Geoffrey Supran , the lead author on the study , joins to discuss. Additional Resources: Rolling Stone See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....
A new study out from Harvard University sheds light on the health impacts of transitioning from coal to other combustible fuels. These 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. The study also finds that natural gas still contributes significantly to air pollution and its associated health impacts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoi...
The first Congressional hearing on Earth Day 2021 is focused on fossil fuel subsidies. The elimination of such subsidies was written into Biden's infrastructure bill, and House Democrats want to make sure it stays there. 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnyst...
Steven Donziger is set for trial May 10, but his lawyers have already filed a motion to dismiss, claiming vindictive prosecution. Reporter Karen Savage provides an update. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Can ecosystems have legal rights similar to corporations? 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. United States 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 T...
