”Governing power is the goal and the point.” Daniel Squadron is the co-founder and Executive Director of The States Project and also a former New York State senator. We discuss what it takes to win legislative majorities in state houses and why this is the essential ingredient to making change. State legislatures are the most important force in this country. When parties win legislative majorities, they can govern effectively. The good news is that tiny levels of new engagement make a seismic di...
Jun 02, 2023•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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. KWe caught up with Janki shortly after the verdict was released for this conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 09, 2023•30 min•Ep 9•Transcript available on Metacast 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
May 02, 2023•38 min•Ep 8•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 25, 2023•37 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Apr 18, 2023•39 min•Ep 6•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Download our discussion guide on debunking the "moral case" fo...
Apr 11, 2023•41 min•Ep 5•Transcript available on Metacast 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 environm...
Apr 04, 2023•41 min•Ep 4•Transcript available on Metacast 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 req...
Mar 28, 2023•44 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Mar 21, 2023•40 min•Ep 2•Transcript available on Metacast 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 cu...
Mar 14, 2023•31 min•Ep 1•Transcript available on Metacast 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
Mar 09, 2023•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 su...
Mar 06, 2023•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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...
Feb 28, 2023•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 f...
Feb 27, 2023•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 o...
Feb 24, 2023•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ep...
Feb 14, 2023•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 ep...
Feb 07, 2023•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 Exx...
Feb 01, 2023•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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 left unchecked, but they were terrifyingly accurate in their modeling and predictions. That scientific evidence adds another layer of certainty to the evidence base in various cases attempting to hold Exxon accountable for misleading the public, and policymakers, on climate change. This month we...
Jan 27, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 10, 2023•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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://the...
Dec 20, 2022•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast 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. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 06, 2022•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast West Virginia v EPA isn't the only big climate case before the Supreme Court this year, from questioning the SEC's disclosure rules to major Clean Water challenges there's a lot more to come. EarthJustice's Sam Sankar and Kirti Datla join to give us a preview of what to watch for in the court's Fall session. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 12, 2022•49 min•Ep 7•Transcript available on Metacast I have been wondering for months what possible sense it makes for every right-wing think tank to have an amicus program. I mean...is any judge really surprised to learn that the Cato Institute is against regulation? But these are not folks who spend money on things for no reason, and the presence and size of amicus programs at conservative "public interest" law firms and think tanks have been growing exponentially over the years, so I reached out to the only person I've ever seen mention this in...
Jun 07, 2022•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast In many of the countries where some of the world's largest climate cases are unfolding, the legal system looks very different than it does in the former English colonies. In much of Europe and Latin America, for example, the Roman system dominates and it works very differently, with judges gathering their own evidence in cases. Another key difference? Reliance on precedent in common law countries like the U.S. ... a topic that's becoming more important to understand every week. Learn more about ...
May 19, 2022•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Compensation for climate change has been a hot topic at the UN since the early 90s. For countries already experiencing what the UN calls loss and damage the main goal has always been to prevent more damage. But fossil fuel lobbyists had different ideas. Now a new IPCC report gives evidence that could influence what happens at the UN and in court cases around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 12, 2022•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Juliana v United States was one of the first big youth climate cases, and it has inspired several others. In 2021, it looked like the case was dead in the water, but it's back now with one more shot... and a new Netflix documentary on the case too! (Check out Youth v Gov here: https://www.netflix.com/title/81586492) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 05, 2022•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast A clause in most free trade agreements and investment treaties obligates countries to engage in a process known as international arbitration if there's a dispute with a foreign company. It was meant to assure companies that their investments in especially less developed countries were safe, but in recent years it's become a way to punish governments for passing environmental regulations. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 29, 2022•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast With an internationally accepted definition of this crime, advocates are pushing for international courts to recognize it as well, and they're making progress. In this episode we explore what that means, what an ecocide trial might look like, who's most likely to be hauled into court for it, and the overarching goal of the effort. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 21, 2022•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast In 2019, after a decade-long campaign, voters in Toledo Ohio voted to approve the Lake Erie Bill of Rights, effectively giving the lake personhood. It drew an incredible amount of attention. This wasn’t San Francisco hippies or Brooklyn hipsters talking about rights of nature, this was middle-aged moms in the Rust Belt, and that absolutely terrified any extractive industry. Agrichemical companies turned out in force against the bill, BP spent a fortune to try to stop it, and almost as soon as it...
Apr 07, 2022•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
