DRILLED

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. 

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 April 22nd. 

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? 

We're sharing episode 1 of the podcast Peace of Mind with Bhi Bhiman because it delves into so much of what's behind climate change denial: fear, anxiety, propaganda, tribalism, bias, and more. Featuring Glynn Washington (host of Snap Judgement), author Dave Eggers, and social psychologist Lee Ross.  Check out more episodes here: fanlink.to/PeaceOfMind

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.  Membership program: criticlfrequency.org/join

A recent report shows that, despite a lot of ads about "green" energy, U.S. oil companies have been expanding oil production at a time when scientists have warned that we need dramatic reductions in emissions and fossil fuel use to avoid catastrophe. We explore how that happened, and how it's fed into the drafting of Rep Ocasio-Cortez's Green New Deal resolution. Oil Change International Report: https://bit.ly/2FDFHoD  Critical Frequency membership: www.criticalfrequency.org/join

We'll be back with a new episode of Drilled on Friday, but in the meantime, check out this new Critical Frequency podcast, focused on the lives of working mothers who are redefining what that label means. Listen here: https://fanlink.to/tds

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-memo

News on what to expect next year from Drilled, plus a look at how and why TV news brought on climate contrarians to "balance" out coverage of the National Climate Assessment that dropped in November 2018.  Episode sponsor: Forget "Having It All" from Seal Press, www.amywestervelt.com/book

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. 

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 change. 

If you unravel climate policy back to its origins, eventually you get to academic research. Although oil companies dramatically reduced their own scientific research on climate in the 1990s, by the early 2000s they began funding research centers at prestigious universities throughout the country, subtly shaping the research that any eventual policy would be based upon. 

To make media manipulation and lobbying truly effective, oil companies and their public relations firms also had to shift the culture, influencing everything from civil discourse to how religious groups viewed the issue of climate change. 

In addition to using journalists' views on their own objectivity against them, oil companies exploited various weaknesses in science, namely scientists' tendency toward not prioritizing or valuing good communication skills, and their absolute refusal to be certain about anything. 

As climate disinformation campaigns ramped up in the 1990s, oil companies and their PR firms exploited weaknesses in the U.S. media system and propped up "contrarian" scientists to push the narrative of scientific uncertainty and shift how journalists covered the issue.