July 24, 2019 • 48 mins
What does the science say about climate change? Why do some people seem dead-set against the idea that human beings are driving rises in temperature, pollution rates and so on? Join the guys as they sit down with award-winning journalist Amy Westervelt, creator and host of the podcast Drilled, to explore the rise of climate change denialism -- and the identities of the people and industries funding it.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, Welcome
(00:25):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is Knowl. They called me ben le or joined as
always with our super producer Paul Mischig controlled decade. Most importantly,
you argue, you are here and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. We're tripping through time
a bit today because we are recording the intro to
an interview that we conducted a little bit earlier. That's true,
(00:49):
it's an interview with Amy Westerveldt, and we'll be introducing
her here in a little bit. She makes a podcast
called Drilled, and the whole first season of that show
covers basically the story of how climate change denial became
a thing like the birth of it. Yes. Amy is
an award winning host, journalist, and producer of several podcasts
(01:14):
several different projects, and Drilled is a true crime style
podcast about the forces that worked to create what we
call climate change denial in the modern day. And Amy
was kind enough to have us on a soon to
be released episode of Drilled where we talk about how
(01:36):
how to talk about hot button issues without being too
particularly divisive about it, something that I think we excel
that here on stuff that you want to know. Tell
us we're wrong, or let us know we're right, or
just leave a review on iTunes. We'll accept it. That
was more saying, come at me, bro, I think we
do a good job with this. I would agree. For now,
let's get into it with Amy westervilt Amy, welcome to
the show. Thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah,
(01:57):
thanks for having me. We we couldn't be more excited
to have you on. You also founded an entire podcast network,
Is that correct? I did? Yeah? I um, I don't
know what I was thinking. Yeah. I sort of like
I was helping so many different um people make their
shows that it seemed like a good idea to bring
(02:19):
it all together. And then somehow, I like that sort
of led me to say yes to way too many shows.
And now we're sort of, you know, we're kind of
finding our our path and sticking with a sort of
core group of about half a dozen shows that we're
working on. At various points during the year, including the
one that I report in. Yeah. Well yeah, And to
(02:42):
that end, Drilled is one of the bigger shows on
your network, and it is UM. It is fascinating and
and at some times infuriating to listen to UM, not
because of your hosting or anything like that, just because
of the content that you're tackling within it. So before
we get into you know, climate change denial overall, let's
(03:04):
talk a little bit about just climate change in general
and how it's evolved over the course of you know,
first studying CEO two levels within ice right, right, right,
real quickly, let's differentiate we're talking about this off air. Uh.
This is something I had heard years and years ago
(03:24):
from someone that I hope was attempting to be funny. Uh.
They said, yes, I believe in climate change because if
you drive from Miami to Manitoba, the climate changes. And
I had to stop, full disclosure, this was at a
Thanksgiving dinner and I had to stop and say, that's
not the kind of climate change we're talking about. That's
not what people mean. Instead, we're talking about a a
(03:47):
global or regional change in climate patterns. Uh. Parents, especially
from the mid late twentieth century, to the present day
attributed largely to a specific cause, the increased levels of
atmospheric carbon dioxide CEO two produced by fossil fuels. Is
that correct? Correct? I mean, there's it's you know, it's
(04:08):
also a few other greenhouse gases, but that's the primary
thing that we're talking about, is the human contributions to
atmospheric change. So first things first, Then what is the
number one if if you had to choose one, what
is the number one fact, statistic, or piece of information
about climate change that everyone listening to this episode needs
(04:31):
to know right now? The thing that always kind of
blows my mind and tends to do the same for
other people is that, you know, we kind of think
about this as something that's started with the Industrial Revolution
and has like continued at a sort of steady pace
since then. But there's a thing that scientists called the
Great Acceleration, and really in just the last twenty to
(04:52):
thirty years, which are also you know, the years during
which scientists increasingly knew more about the impacts of emission,
there's been a like a really rapid increase. It's something
like of all emissions ever ever have been released, just
in the last three decades UM and so there is
this real I don't know, this this need I think
(05:15):
for people to understand that. You know, it's people alive
today that have been pretty key contributors to the problem.
But equally, you know, we could act just sort of
just as radically in the opposite direction in the same
amount of time. I wanted to ask you about one
of the earlier there were the earliest good measurements of
(05:37):
c O two UM that are found within both Let's
early on it was ice where CEO two was measured.
So let's let's talk about something that's called the Keeling
curve and some of that research that was done in
the nineteen fifties. What is that. Yeah, So Charles Keeling
was an atmospheric scientist. He took measurements in UM a
(05:58):
few different places, mostly the polls, but also Hawaii. He's
been a lot of time in Hawaii. He took measurements
of atmospheric c O two and he took them over
long periods of time, and he was able to sort
of strip out what was human and what was you know,
what would have sort of naturally been there from things
like fires and um volcanoes. For example, in Hawaii, and
(06:22):
so he plotted this graph to show, Okay, look there's
this curve upwards where we're seeing an increase in human
c O two emissions and if we start to if
we continue to see this, there are things that we
know it will likely trigger. And honestly, like I mean,
it goes back to like the late eighteen hundreds in
(06:44):
terms of when scientists started to figure out what excess
c O two would do to the atmosphere. So it's
not like it's not new science. You know. Um Keeling
was just able to better sort of differentiate natural CO
two from human c O two and then actually carrying
on from him, it was Exxon that did the next
(07:07):
kind of batch of research, and they measured CO two
in the oceans because there was a thought during the
sixties and kind of into the seventies that it was
it's kind of like, oh, it's okay if there's more
atmospheric carbon, because the oceans act as a carbon sink,
so there was an interest in understanding, you know, how
exactly oceans absorb carbon and um where and how they
(07:32):
release carbon. So that was work that Exxon was undertaking
in the seventies, mostly around South America. Let's talk a
little bit about Exxon in the seventies, because this this
show often on stuff they don't want you to know.
We apply investigative attempts or critical thinking, two things that
(07:58):
are portrayed as conspiracy theories or or fringe theories. And
I think one thing that will startle a lot of
people is that x On Mobile participated in something that
could very fairly be called conspiracy for some time, because,
as you said, they figured out some of this stuff already. Uh,
(08:19):
some CEO two related science back in the seventies kind
of spearheaded by a guy named James black Right, the
ex On Mobile climate scientists. What did they find and
how did they handle this? Uh? Did they did they
go transparent with it? Did they secrete it away? What
did they do with the knowledge they gleaned? So they
(08:42):
it was it's really interesting, Like there's been there's been
a few different sort of narratives around this, but from
I've now spoken with place six different scientists who were
there at the time, including a guy who was on
the boat that was taking these ocean measurements and was
very involved in in that work, And as near as
I can tell, they you know, they did have quite
(09:04):
a bit of information about CEO two emissions and how
they impacted the atmosphere, and they, you know, they made
predictions in the seventies that we're seeing come true today.
There you know, when we just we just had a
moment maybe last month where we hit a particular concentration
of c O two in the atmosphere, and it was
like bang on what ex on scientists predicted in the seventies,
(09:28):
so um, and and even like within the exact timeframe
that they predicted, so um. They were doing a ton
of climate modeling and they there were several internal reports
where they're scientists were saying, like, there's going to be
a point in the next ten years where we have
to you know, James Black says this in a in
a memo. He says, in the next five to ten years,
(09:51):
we are going to have to make some hard decisions
about energy sources to avoid catastrophic climate change. You know.
In in like seventy seven, there's letters to President Carter
about it. Um, you know, and then you just sort
of start to see a little bit less of the
research being done, definitely less of it being shared, and
(10:14):
more research being done into all the other possible drivers
of climate change. So this is a very This is
a thing that lots of um companies that don't necessarily
want their product to be, you know, the focal point
of a of research. Do the tobacco companies did it?
Lots of other companies have done it too. They look
for what are all the other causes and they fund
(10:36):
science into things like what impact to volcanoes have on
climate change? What impact do sunspots have on climate change?
Kinds of things or livestock? Right, yeah, so they continue
to fund climate science, right, it's very clever, but it's
all in the service of kind of moving attention away
(10:58):
from fossil fuels as like the soul or the biggest culprit.
And they also start to fund a lot of um
more sort of pie in the sky long range solutions
technology too. So this is another thing that you'll see
and you still see it today. Is like a ton
of funding on things that sound great but are extremely
(11:21):
theoretical and we'll take at least twenty years to work
because it just buys that much more time at you know,
the status quo. The story on Exxon has been kind
of one of like, oh, they were doing all this
great stuff and then they turned and it's all greed
and dada and and personally, I think that it's more
a question of strategy, Like there was someone in charge
(11:44):
who initially thought that being part of the research would
get them a seat at the table and help them,
you know, have a voice in the sort of crafting
of a regulatory framework. And then at a certain point
there was a realization that like, oh, this is really
going to affect how we do business, and the better
(12:07):
strategy is just to sort of put that off for
a while. And you definitely you sort of start to
see that shift in the late eighties and early nineties.
So one thing we do know for a fact contributes
to this climate change is industry and the energy infrastructure.
And there's a new study that just came out, i think,
on July one, from Nature and the International Journal of
(12:28):
Science that says, yeah, so committed emissions from existing energy
projects planned energy projects on the book could bring us
to one point five celsius climate target by I can't
I can't quite tell what the target date would be,
but it is including all of these things that are
already planned, that are in progress. So I assume I
(12:48):
think probably by like twenty us. What they say exactly
is actually what it has here. Yeah, so even soon.
So what does that mean? What would a one point
five degrees celsius change in atmospheric conditions actually functionally mean
for us as human beings living on this planet? You know,
it's a little bit um. It's scary to me that
(13:12):
like one point five is quickly you know, it was
sort of the goal for a long time, and it's
quickly starting to feel like the floor, Like that's the
minimum when to see and we'll be lucky if we
can keep it at too. But um, we will see
a lot more of these these big storms and big
fires that we've been seeing, and um, we may see
(13:33):
that the jury is still out on this a little
bit um around the melting of the Arctic ice sheet,
if that happens. This is the thing that I think
a lot of people don't understand about climate change is
that it's not just like this thing happens, then that
thing happens. A lot of these things are sort of
like catastrophe multipliers, you know, So like if the ice
(13:54):
sheet goes, that's a whole cascade of other things that
will go. You lose perma frost, which has a lot
of like ancient viruses trapped in it. For example, So
like hello anthrax. Um, you you have massive sea level rise,
which then not only makes certain places uninhabitable, but also
(14:16):
makes storm surge that much more of a problem. When
we do get big storms, then you have like you know,
a massive storm that um drives people out of their homes.
They're sort of having to find places to live. We're
already they're already predicting tens of millions of just domestic
climate migrants within particular countries. The US is one. UM.
(14:40):
That's another thing I don't think we really hear that
much about. It's like you think of, Okay, sure there
will be people that um have to leave like island
countries and go somewhere else. Well, we're seeing people have
to leave places within the U S and migrates somewhere else.
And I think we've seen in recent years how well
the world is equipped to deal with large scale migration. UM.
(15:02):
You know, it's not not great. So UM yeah, I
mean all of all of those things. And and it's
really this sort of like cascade of of things of
like multiple catastrophic events happening either at the same time
or shortly like shortly after each other, so you just
don't have that kind of recovery time in between. And
(15:24):
then the other thing too is um you know, high
levels of CO two in the atmosphere are not great
for our brains, UM, so you do start there's some
research that's coming out around loss of i Q level
over time and developmental issues over time and things like
that too. So it's really it's hitting on a lot
(15:46):
of fronts. And I think that's why, you know, people
keep talking about the need to um talk about climate
change as it intersects with all these other kind of
policies and um kind of governmental concerns, because it is
it's not sort of this separate thing over here that
just affects the environment. It's like it's going to impact
(16:09):
how people live day to day. Yeah, that's an excellent
point and it's one that should be frightening to a
lot of our audience members. I do have to say,
I love how you went through very quickly, very very efficiently,
some of the concerns that that we had found that aren't,
as you said, widely discussed in this conversation. You know,
(16:31):
the named island nations like the Maldives, Vanuatu, and others
like the Solomon Islands that that have had public statements
from their governments saying we are literally in danger of
going under the waves. And with this cascade or this
aggregate domino effect that we're talking about, from one problem
(16:53):
leading to a next, I've seen some I've seen some
pretty pretty shocking scenarios, you know, like just planned out
or their estimates based on experts guesses of how this
mass migration, both domestic and internationally could actually drive governments
(17:16):
away from addressing the problems of climate change as they
you know, as they foment nationalism or whatever to to
fight what they see is the other invading How much
of the substance of those do you think is accurate?
I understand there's got to be some gu estimating there.
But are we as a species in a situation where
(17:37):
this is possible, where this is plausible, or where this
is at this point in twenty nineteen unavoidable. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately,
this is a thing that I think it's it's scary
for people, but I think good for people to understand
is that, um, what I just described is kind of
a best case scenario. Uh, like that's if we don't
(18:02):
develop any further fossil fuels. You know, this study that
just came out today is is like calculating the stuff
that's already been drilled or is being drilled, or is
under development. There's a bunch more that's planned. The US
is increasing production right now. Global emissions are going up,
so you know, at this time when scientists have said
(18:25):
we need to have been on a path to zero
emissions like yesterday, emissions are going up. So we're going
in the opposite direction. So the idea that there's there's
much chance that we won't at least hit one point
five is pretty slim. And the other thing that I
think is important for people to understand is that it
can get worse. Like we've talked a lot about one
(18:45):
point five and then oh, two degrees that's like really bad.
It could be three or four. So it's not like
just because we've already kind of committed ourselves to a
certain amount of warming in the effects of that, that
we should just say, well it I think it's let's
burn it all because it can become much worse than that,
(19:06):
Like that new sort of scenario could last a lot longer.
What we're looking at now is Okay, if we can
keep it to one point five, then, yes, we'll have
more catastrophic events. Yes we'll have migration to deal with,
but we can start to bring the atmosphere back and
balance and we can start to um see improvement of
(19:30):
those things over time too. You know, there are technologies
that are looking at harvesting CEO two out of the
atmosphere um and I think there's a lot of like
optimism around those. I'm not sure how how well that's
been earned. Right now, the only thing that absorbs you
to is trees, and we're cutting them down. So there
is some hope that, like, you know, on top of
(19:52):
just reducing emissions, we could turn back the clock and
remove emissions from the atmosphere if we if we can
get you know, enough money into geo engineering and carbon
capture and these kinds of things. But um, but we
have pretty much. You know, there's a generation of folks
that have committed the world to a certain amount of
(20:14):
this no matter what. And we'll continue our conversation with
Amy Westerveld after a brief word from our sponsors, and
we're back with more from Amy Westerveld. Okay, so let's
get into the whole, Like, what what is the point,
like to what end are people denying this stuff when
(20:36):
you can literally see the effects of it firsthand. I mean,
I joke all the time about how it's so much
hotter in Georgia this summer than it was last year,
as like, but by climate change is obviously a hoax,
and like I mean, I'm you know, like a little
flipping about it because it's so galling and depressing that
people can't wrap their heads around this or choose not to,
Like is it blissful ignorance? Is it like completely agenda driven?
(20:59):
Like what what is the impetus behind this continued denial
of something that is supported by so much science and
just by common sense opening your damn eyes. Yeah, so
I think, you know, the good news is that the
real like hardcore kind of old school it's not happening
denial has definitely dropped off. I think it's like maybe
(21:19):
ten to fiftcent of people, which still a lot of people,
you know, a surprising number, but it's it's fairly low. Um,
but there is there's sort of like gradations of it
now where it's like now you have a lot of
people saying, well, it's happening, but I don't know how
much humans are contributing to it, and therefore there's not
(21:41):
anything we can do. Um. So there's that kind of
flavor of it. There is the you know, well, it's
happening anyway, so we might as well squeeze profit out
of it in the meantime kind of you know, take
on it, and you know, it just depends like some people.
For some people, I think it's it's kind of part
(22:01):
of the whole ideology and like tribal identity thing. You know.
I met a woman recently who has actually signed onto
a lawsuit against oil companies but still doesn't quote unquote
believe in human caused climate change. She's kind of like,
(22:21):
you know, ice ages and you know, volcanoes and whatever.
But for her, UM, the way that she was sort
of able to kind of maintain her tribal identity but
still in effect do something about climate change is that
she just felt like it was really unfair that the
oil companies had a bunch of information that they weren't
(22:42):
sharing with the public, and mostly the thing that got
her was um that they were doing various things to
protect their own assets against climate change at the same
time that they were telling everyone else not to worry
about it. So she's like, that's just not fair, you know,
whether it's humans causing it or it's just a natural thing.
(23:04):
Like they knew that it was happening, and they told
everyone else not to worry about it, and that's not fair. Um.
There's other folks, actually, quite a few libertarian think tanks
are coming around to the idea of climate as a
public nuisance, or climate change as a public nuisance, or
like a liability issue with respect to private property rights.
So this idea that you know, again like some companies
(23:28):
had information that would impact property value and didn't share it.
They're like that's not right, you know. Um, So it
just it kind of depends, and I think, actually, I
don't know. I think that the environmentalists have done themselves
something of a disservice and in sort of for a
long time being really insistent that people have to like
(23:50):
buy into every single thing in order to like you know,
be on the same side or like do something about
it or whatever. And it's like, hey, if like your
thing is private property rights and that's what like pisces
you off about emissions going out of control. Great, Like
that's cool whatever, you know, and like I don't need
(24:11):
you to believe in all the science or understand it
or whatever. It's complicated, you know, and like, um, I think,
I don't know, sort of forcing people to um be
able to like argue their case on parts per million
is just silly. So yeah, I mean that's That's kind
of the one good thing I've seen in the denial
space is this sort of evolution of of people figuring
(24:34):
out a way to like remain the same ideologically but
like still act on climate in some way. I mean,
that's a positive way to look at it, Amy, So
thank you for providing that. Um. You know, one of
the first episodes we ever made of this show, in fact,
I think it was the first episode was about a
man named Edward Burnetes, who is a lot of times
(24:56):
thought to be the father of or at lease he's
uh he he stayed in a lot of places as
being the father of public relations. And in Drilled, we
almost immediately or very early on at least, get introduced
to someone named E. Bruce Harrison, And can can you
tell us a little bit about this because I think
(25:16):
it speaks to how this he at least lended he
lended a heavy hand into the way that this became
such a complicated issue rather than just science that's being reported. Yeah. Yeah, Actually,
the whole pr complex has had a very integral role
in all of this. Bruce Harrison was the sort of
(25:38):
godfather of greenwashing. Um. He was working for American Cyanimide
when Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring came out and it
was a sort of condemnation of the chemical industry and
mostly just this idea that like companies should be able
to pollute you know, the commons and not take into
account the impact that that would have on the general public.
(25:59):
And his boss, the sort of like story goes that
his boss came in and holding that book, like saying,
this is pearl harbor for the chemical industry, and he
got together with some of the folks at du Pont
and they came up with this whole strategy of and
it's you know, it's brilliant of like, let's get companies
(26:23):
to sign on to, you know, some number of environmental
initiatives that they feel comfortable with so that they can
at least appear to be like good corporate citizens. And
let's bring them, you know, let's bring the environmental organizations
to the table, and you know, we can all work
together towards something. And he's still alive today, and he
very much feels like he um that this was a
(26:46):
very positive thing, that like, hey, he got companies to
talk to environmentalists and agree to do certain things and
you know, um, but you know, really it was in
the service of being able to continue to pollute without
paying for it. There's another guy to that I just
(27:06):
I've been like digging into for a future season. Who
was the head of pr at Mobile And he's fascinating
because he was like the guy that got them to
fund Masterpiece Theater and all these like documentary shows. At
one point, he was um funding so much public television
(27:26):
that he was known as like the guy you had
to know in the UK if you wanted like your
British film or TV show to get on American TV. UM.
And he's sort of like, I don't know, he did
it for so long that he started to sort of
fancy himself like an actual member of the creative team.
You know. Like at one point he decides to leave
(27:49):
Mobile and start his own film production company, and then
it's like, you know, he has no film credits after
it's like, oh sorry, buddy, it really was the money.
But yeah, even that, you know, it was it's very subtle.
You know. It's like they never did any sort of
(28:09):
hardcore ads for Mobile in those shows or anything. It
was just about like affiliating themselves with like, you know,
high class culture and like being intelligent and you know,
being a thinking man's company and all these kinds of
things that just kind of lead the groundwork for like, hey,
they're not so bad. He was also the guy that
worked with the New York Times to um invent the
(28:32):
the op ad, which is like for op ed the
advertorial that reminds me of the Keep America Beautiful campaign
with the Native American gentleman with a single tier who
actually was Italian Italian and the whole thing was funded
by the can lobby to shift the responsibility from corporations
(28:53):
onto humans and saying, see, this is an admonishment because
this is all your fault. You made the Native American
man cry in his canoe. Um, And it's literally just
shifting the blame and shifting the focus. Yeah, exactly, totally.
It's all. Yeah, a lot of the anti littering campaigns
were funded by basically packaging companies. And this, this is
(29:14):
another this is another conspiratorial thing that occurs more often
than people think, right, because an ad is hidden almost
everywhere you look. Nowadays, we have, though, when we talk
about the threat of climate change in these cascading effects,
we do have a couple of examples of, if not corporations,
(29:37):
at least state institutions that are making some moves to
mitigate the effects of climate change so much as they can. Right,
Like we hear we hear a lot about Norway for instance,
or Germany some other Scandinavian countries as well. Could you
tell us a little bit about the kind of moves
those UH governments are making and whether and how successful,
(30:00):
if successful, they are going to be. So there are
heavy um investments in renewable energy in several Scandinavian countries um,
and I think you know Sweden is on track for
zero emissions, I think by But there's also I hate
(30:20):
to be like the person who's just such a downer
about all of this stuff, but like there is this
like weird boondoggle thing happening with European emissions commitments where
they're heavily relying on something called biomass, which I don't
know if you guys know what this is, but it's
essentially like burning wooden pellets for energy. And right now,
(30:43):
what's happening is that you have in many cases, like
Denmark is a good example, the Netherlands, UM countries basically
importing these wood pellets from like America and other places
in the U in the world and um and then
burning them for energy. And it's like it's considered zero
(31:06):
emission because the tree eventually regenerates, but it's really it's
some interesting math um, you know. It's like, well, trees
don't like immediately grow back. There's a certain amount of
you know, tree waste from making paper and various other things,
but it's really not that much. It's certainly not enough
to fuel these biomass plants. There's no real like accounting
(31:30):
for the emissions coming out of the burning. And then
there's also like a sort of um ash that's made
that they actually haven't figured out what to do with yet.
A lot of places are just collecting it and like
putting it in warehouses, and I just I think like
we need all sorts of solutions all at once, and honestly,
(31:51):
I'm kind of in favor of like throwing as much
crap against the wall and seeing what sticks. But like this,
there are there's like a real opportunity for you know,
continued kind of problematic human thinking here too. You know,
like we we are. We have done a fairly bad
job in many cases of sort of like innovating our
(32:13):
way out of these um these problems, and there is
this sort of tendency to be like, oh, we'll just
come up with a cool technology that deals with it,
and often UM an issue with really predicting what the
potential impacts of that solution will be. That said, there
are things that are happening. There are things like you know,
painting all the roofs white for example, that UM kind
(32:36):
of reflects on away. Carbon capture is actually a thing
that exists, Like the technology exists, it's just very expensive.
So figuring out how to do that at scale and
also I mean at scale in terms of the amount
of carbon, but sort of at a smaller scale in
terms of the actual physical footprint of carbon capture factories
(32:59):
in essence is a big thing in a lot of countries,
and companies are trying to do that UM that is
like a big potential fix. There's this thing I've heard
a lot about recently, which is um feeding seaweed two cows,
which apparently like dramatically reduces their methane emission. Yeah, I
saw that. It's like, how can we maguiver our way
(33:21):
out of this without change? I know? And then they're
good with that one. Like I'm so suspicious of these
things because I just I've seen it go you know, badly,
so many times, and I'm like, okay, cool, But I'm like,
I can just almost guarantee you that in two years
we're going to be reading articles about like toxic seaweed poop.
(33:41):
You know that is my favorite thrash metal band. Actually. Yeah,
So not to sound like too much of a hippie,
but when it comes to a lot of these discussions,
I mean, we kind of do need to look at
ourselves as like citizens of the world, and why can't
we just all hold hands together and figure this problem
out together? And there's obviously an effort to do that
with the Paris Climate Agreements, and you know, with Trump
(34:04):
kind of wanting to pull the United States out of that,
how big a deal is that? Is? It just kind
of like a bad optics kind of thing, or is
that really a big deal? Like how much difference are
these accords going to make even if everyone agrees to them? So,
first of all, none of these accords so like basically
the fossil fuel lobby completely torpedoed the whole global process
(34:25):
when they killed Kyoto. That was like the first and
still so far only one that was supposed to have
any kind of like actual teeth to it. All of
the ones since then have really been sort of like
non binding. Is the term that exactly? It's like, well,
it's a non binding resolution, so you know, I mean,
currently none of the signatories of the Paris Accord or
(34:46):
on track to meet their goals. So I think that
tells you how effective it is UM. You know, not
to like cast. I know a lot of people who
worked really hard to negotiate that UM document, and it
is very very hard to get multiple countries to agree
to anything, let alone something that will you know, at
least at first reduce their g d P. So you know,
(35:10):
I applaud the people who spend that amount of time
and energy doing it, but I do feel like any
kind of a global agreement needs to be so much
more harsh than anything that's been written in the last
twenty years with actionable consequences. Maybe actionable consequences, Yeah, exactly.
And I do feel like, you know, the US pulling
(35:32):
out sort of shows the weakness of these agreements to
that like, um, one country can kind of like torpedo
the whole effort. So what do you do in that case?
Let's pause here for a quick word from our sponsor.
(35:53):
I sure hope that last sponsor was an exon. We're
back with more from Amy Westervelt. The other thing too,
that I wanted to just mentioned is I keep seeing,
like I spent a bunch of time last week with
a lot of climate adaptation people who work on things
like sea walls and you know, like redesigning buildings to
be more resilient to large storms or fires and things
(36:17):
like that. And you know, they were talking about all
of these adaptation measures and also about some of the
like te like technological advances and things like that, and
it just totally got me thinking that I almost never
hear anyone talking about adaptation in the sense of adapting
to just not developing fossil fuels anymore. You know, like,
(36:40):
where's the adaptation plan for that. People will talk about
it in the sense of, oh, we can't just turn
off the spicket tomorrow, and I'm like, okay, But just
as a thought exercise, what if we did, like, like,
what if we did what would that look like? Can
we like just at least think about that, you know, um,
because we'd have to get a new kind of uh
(37:00):
energy that we could burn and we would just call
it car mass and it would be all of the
gasoline automobiles that exist and we just burn all those rights,
just a big giant bonfire. Yeah, you're already heading towards
mad Max territory anyway, we might as well just like
complete the look for it. Yeah. Yeah. So you know,
I'm talking and referencing a lot of things that occurred
(37:21):
in season one of Drilled. You've you've already had a
second season or you in the second season right now,
we've had a second season. We um the first season
is sort of a little bit of like the origin
story of climate change denial and you know, what what
different companies were doing, but also sort of what was
happening in the country at that time politically, economically, all
(37:44):
of that stuff, like what you know all the factors
that sort of came into play, and the second season,
we um followed a group of crab fisherman who became
the first industry to sue the fossil fuel industry over
climate change. I kind of wanted to just tell like
a a much smaller story in the second season of like, Okay,
here's an industry that's been impacted, and um, most of
(38:07):
them are quite conservative politically, so it's pretty interesting that
they have been kind of pushed to this point where
they're they're just sort of like, this was just really unfair.
You know, we have one of the world's most sustainable
fisheries and because of warming waters and the various things
(38:29):
that that has done to the marine food web and
algae and all these things, like they're being put out
of business and I want to get that. And you
made a really great point there about these these fishermen,
scrab fisherman, who you know, tended to be conservative politically,
And it gets back to season one where you really
make it a point that this was not at all
(38:51):
a uh. You know, we live in a two party system.
We exist in the two party system. This was not
one side or the other. As the science was being
developed early on. UH, nobody, nobody controlled the messaging about
it in that way. It was you know, if you
voted Democratic, it didn't mean you were for or against
climate change and or Republican. And you play a clip
(39:11):
from when George H. W. Bush was on the campaign trail,
and he has a quote, and I wonder would it
be all right if we played the quote you used
on our episode Right now, We're just gonna play a
clip really fast of that. Some say these problems are
too big, that it seemed possible for an individual or
even a nation as great as ours to solve the
(39:33):
problem of global warming or the loss of forests or
the deterioration of our oceans. My response is simple, it
can be done, and we must do it. Let's not
forget all that we've accomplished, all that we've accomplished since
America first concentrated its attention on preserving the environment under
(39:57):
a Republican administration back in nineteen seventy. I think it's
important for everyone listening to this. UH, if you are
still listening to this, and you perhaps still believe or
do not believe that climate change is something that is
scientifically proven, in something that we do need to think
about at least in some way or tackle uh, you
(40:19):
know however we possibly can. Uh. It's really it's interesting
to me to hear George H. W. Bush on the
campaign trail speaking about it in that way as a
Republican that we can fix this thing and as a
completely non controversial issue. Yeah, and he got elected. And
you know, it's just I in some way it's inspiring
(40:41):
to to think that perhaps it doesn't have to be
at all such a diametrically opposed thing. But when did
it go off the rails so hard? Like that's what
I want to know. When the money got too good? Yeah,
there was a there was a concerted strategic effort in
the nineties, you know, late nineties to early too thousands
to take. You know, there was this number that that
(41:03):
um like because these industry groups were looking at this
number that was like, you know, I think it was
sixty or seventy of Americans felt like we needed to
do something about global warming, and they got that. They
targeted that number, and within ten years, I mean, it
was less than fifty, even thought global warming was happening.
(41:24):
So it's not this is like, this is where I
get annoyed when people are sort of like, oh, we
almost did something, but you know, humans and it's hard
to change blah bah blah. I'm like, uh no, there
was a concerted effort to manipulate the American public into
thinking something other than what the science was telling them,
(41:45):
Like we have documentation of that. It was paid for heavily,
like it was. You know, we have the the plan
that they that they made, which was very like, Okay, first,
we're gonna do this. We're gonna like place all these
ads in like Schlimbaughs show and this show and that
show and start to get people thinking about it as
like a conservative versus liberal thing. And you know, it's
(42:07):
very it was very intentional in the same way that
I feel like, you know, this is why I think
I make this comparison in season one about um, you know,
people kind of talk today as though this like Russian
bought thing is like a totally new animal, and I'm like, like,
people who with an agenda have been using our existing
(42:31):
divides to like you know, get their way forever, like
you know, for for a long time. Absolutely, And in
the odd thing is that with the with the ease
at which the average person can access information now, Uh,
you know, it's it's sort of like when uh, Philip
Farnsworth first invented television, people thought, what an amazing tool
(42:55):
for learning, right, And here we are in twenty ninths
and we see we see a similar thing because when
we're inundated with information, it becomes much more difficult to
parse that information. And that this this all leads us to, uh,
when one of the biggest questions and perhaps the one
(43:15):
we close the episode with today, which is hate to
put you on the spot about this, amy, but what
happens now? What happens next? Dear God, what do we do?
I don't know, I think I do. I do see
some optimism in the fact that UM politicians are having
to answer questions about climate change a lot, and and
(43:38):
the recent kind of UM survey numbers are showing that
the vast majority of Americans don't see this as a
part of an issue anymore. That people do see it
as something that we need to do something about, and
that UM like to my earlier point that it doesn't
(43:58):
that it's not necessary really required that people believe that
it's humans who are causing the problem to want to
do something about it. So that's all pretty positive. But honestly,
I mean, um, I think and I think this was
pretty clear in the Nature study to there needs to
(44:20):
be um a draw down of of fossil fuels, and
I think that that's unlikely to happen voluntarily. So in
my opinion, I think that any government that takes seriously
this sort of threat to humans has got to have
a plan for how you do that. I'm gonna go
(44:41):
ahead and predict here that world War three begins when
when some government somewhere tries to take away all our cars,
and then World War three begins and climate change. We're
saved from climate change, but that all the nuclear holocaust
thing it happens, Matt, We're going to hold you to that. Yeah,
that's we're gonna We're gonna better around of beers on that. Also,
(45:05):
maybe the world's influential politicians and executives who give lip
service to these sorts of problems should stop flying internationally
to protest the problems of initials. Man. I've just say
there's there's a difference between you know, the individual action
and the collective action. And sometimes sometimes we are taught
(45:29):
depending on where we live in our neck of the
global woods. We're taught that our individual actions don't matter
or are mathematically very similar to zero. But that's not
the case, uh, Amy, Thank you so much for coming
on the show today. The podcast is Drilled, and we've
taken a high level look at UH, the the active UH.
(45:54):
If we want to be cavalier about it, the Active
Shenanigan's pulled by x on Mobile and others UH to
continue kicking the can down the road for future generations.
If you like this show, the first two or three
episodes of Drilled will be right up your alley because
it really does take you through essentially a conspiracy that
(46:15):
occurred to convince the American people that climate change is
not real or manmade. Not to mention. They're like the
perfect little kind of digestible nuggets of episodes. They're like
fifteen minutes apiece. You can binge this whole thing really quickly.
The sound designs great, the music is great. The whole
thing just me. It's really evocative and it really doesn't
You guys do such a great job of telling the story.
If you want to hear more amazing stories, you can
(46:37):
check out the critical Frequency network that we talked about
at the top of the show where this podcast lives.
And most importantly, we would like to hear your thoughts
on climate change. How have you encountered this in your
personal life, both both climate change science and efforts to
argue for climate change denial. You can tell us about
(46:57):
this on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You can find us
on our group page Here's where it gets crazy, where
you can talk to our favorite part of the show,
your fellow listeners. If you would like to call us,
we are one eight three three st d w y
t K. That's just stuff they don't want you to
know over now as letters, but it's numbers. You'll get it.
If you'd like to find us individually on Instagram, um,
(47:20):
you can find me at how Now Noel Brown, Ben
I think you're on there as well. The rumors are true.
You can find me at ben Bowling. And if you say, guys,
this is a wonderful, terrifying topic and I have I
have some have some opinions, I have some science I
would like to bring to bear, but I hate social media.
We're right there with you. You can send us an
(47:40):
email directly. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com
and usually we'd leave you right there. But Amy, if
anybody wants to reach out to you, is there? What
what's your social How can people get in contact with you? Yeah,
I'm on Twitter at Amy Westervelt and you can email
me at um Amy at Critical Frequency dot org. Awesome,
it's Am, y M y H. Stuff they don't want
(48:20):
you to know is a production of I Heart Radio's
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, Welcome
(00:25):
back to the show. My name is Matt, my name
is Knowl. They called me ben le or joined as
always with our super producer Paul Mischig controlled decade. Most importantly,
you argue, you are here and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. We're tripping through time
a bit today because we are recording the intro to
an interview that we conducted a little bit earlier. That's true,
(00:49):
it's an interview with Amy Westerveldt, and we'll be introducing
her here in a little bit. She makes a podcast
called Drilled, and the whole first season of that show
covers basically the story of how climate change denial became
a thing like the birth of it. Yes. Amy is
an award winning host, journalist, and producer of several podcasts
(01:14):
several different projects, and Drilled is a true crime style
podcast about the forces that worked to create what we
call climate change denial in the modern day. And Amy
was kind enough to have us on a soon to
be released episode of Drilled where we talk about how
(01:36):
how to talk about hot button issues without being too
particularly divisive about it, something that I think we excel
that here on stuff that you want to know. Tell
us we're wrong, or let us know we're right, or
just leave a review on iTunes. We'll accept it. That
was more saying, come at me, bro, I think we
do a good job with this. I would agree. For now,
let's get into it with Amy westervilt Amy, welcome to
the show. Thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah,
(01:57):
thanks for having me. We we couldn't be more excited
to have you on. You also founded an entire podcast network,
Is that correct? I did? Yeah? I um, I don't
know what I was thinking. Yeah. I sort of like
I was helping so many different um people make their
shows that it seemed like a good idea to bring
(02:19):
it all together. And then somehow, I like that sort
of led me to say yes to way too many shows.
And now we're sort of, you know, we're kind of
finding our our path and sticking with a sort of
core group of about half a dozen shows that we're
working on. At various points during the year, including the
one that I report in. Yeah. Well yeah, And to
(02:42):
that end, Drilled is one of the bigger shows on
your network, and it is UM. It is fascinating and
and at some times infuriating to listen to UM, not
because of your hosting or anything like that, just because
of the content that you're tackling within it. So before
we get into you know, climate change denial overall, let's
(03:04):
talk a little bit about just climate change in general
and how it's evolved over the course of you know,
first studying CEO two levels within ice right, right, right,
real quickly, let's differentiate we're talking about this off air. Uh.
This is something I had heard years and years ago
(03:24):
from someone that I hope was attempting to be funny. Uh.
They said, yes, I believe in climate change because if
you drive from Miami to Manitoba, the climate changes. And
I had to stop, full disclosure, this was at a
Thanksgiving dinner and I had to stop and say, that's
not the kind of climate change we're talking about. That's
not what people mean. Instead, we're talking about a a
(03:47):
global or regional change in climate patterns. Uh. Parents, especially
from the mid late twentieth century, to the present day
attributed largely to a specific cause, the increased levels of
atmospheric carbon dioxide CEO two produced by fossil fuels. Is
that correct? Correct? I mean, there's it's you know, it's
(04:08):
also a few other greenhouse gases, but that's the primary
thing that we're talking about, is the human contributions to
atmospheric change. So first things first, Then what is the
number one if if you had to choose one, what
is the number one fact, statistic, or piece of information
about climate change that everyone listening to this episode needs
(04:31):
to know right now? The thing that always kind of
blows my mind and tends to do the same for
other people is that, you know, we kind of think
about this as something that's started with the Industrial Revolution
and has like continued at a sort of steady pace
since then. But there's a thing that scientists called the
Great Acceleration, and really in just the last twenty to
(04:52):
thirty years, which are also you know, the years during
which scientists increasingly knew more about the impacts of emission,
there's been a like a really rapid increase. It's something
like of all emissions ever ever have been released, just
in the last three decades UM and so there is
this real I don't know, this this need I think
(05:15):
for people to understand that. You know, it's people alive
today that have been pretty key contributors to the problem.
But equally, you know, we could act just sort of
just as radically in the opposite direction in the same
amount of time. I wanted to ask you about one
of the earlier there were the earliest good measurements of
(05:37):
c O two UM that are found within both Let's
early on it was ice where CEO two was measured.
So let's let's talk about something that's called the Keeling
curve and some of that research that was done in
the nineteen fifties. What is that. Yeah, So Charles Keeling
was an atmospheric scientist. He took measurements in UM a
(05:58):
few different places, mostly the polls, but also Hawaii. He's
been a lot of time in Hawaii. He took measurements
of atmospheric c O two and he took them over
long periods of time, and he was able to sort
of strip out what was human and what was you know,
what would have sort of naturally been there from things
like fires and um volcanoes. For example, in Hawaii, and
(06:22):
so he plotted this graph to show, Okay, look there's
this curve upwards where we're seeing an increase in human
c O two emissions and if we start to if
we continue to see this, there are things that we
know it will likely trigger. And honestly, like I mean,
it goes back to like the late eighteen hundreds in
(06:44):
terms of when scientists started to figure out what excess
c O two would do to the atmosphere. So it's
not like it's not new science. You know. Um Keeling
was just able to better sort of differentiate natural CO
two from human c O two and then actually carrying
on from him, it was Exxon that did the next
(07:07):
kind of batch of research, and they measured CO two
in the oceans because there was a thought during the
sixties and kind of into the seventies that it was
it's kind of like, oh, it's okay if there's more
atmospheric carbon, because the oceans act as a carbon sink,
so there was an interest in understanding, you know, how
exactly oceans absorb carbon and um where and how they
(07:32):
release carbon. So that was work that Exxon was undertaking
in the seventies, mostly around South America. Let's talk a
little bit about Exxon in the seventies, because this this
show often on stuff they don't want you to know.
We apply investigative attempts or critical thinking, two things that
(07:58):
are portrayed as conspiracy theories or or fringe theories. And
I think one thing that will startle a lot of
people is that x On Mobile participated in something that
could very fairly be called conspiracy for some time, because,
as you said, they figured out some of this stuff already. Uh,
(08:19):
some CEO two related science back in the seventies kind
of spearheaded by a guy named James black Right, the
ex On Mobile climate scientists. What did they find and
how did they handle this? Uh? Did they did they
go transparent with it? Did they secrete it away? What
did they do with the knowledge they gleaned? So they
(08:42):
it was it's really interesting, Like there's been there's been
a few different sort of narratives around this, but from
I've now spoken with place six different scientists who were
there at the time, including a guy who was on
the boat that was taking these ocean measurements and was
very involved in in that work, And as near as
I can tell, they you know, they did have quite
(09:04):
a bit of information about CEO two emissions and how
they impacted the atmosphere, and they, you know, they made
predictions in the seventies that we're seeing come true today.
There you know, when we just we just had a
moment maybe last month where we hit a particular concentration
of c O two in the atmosphere, and it was
like bang on what ex on scientists predicted in the seventies,
(09:28):
so um, and and even like within the exact timeframe
that they predicted, so um. They were doing a ton
of climate modeling and they there were several internal reports
where they're scientists were saying, like, there's going to be
a point in the next ten years where we have
to you know, James Black says this in a in
a memo. He says, in the next five to ten years,
(09:51):
we are going to have to make some hard decisions
about energy sources to avoid catastrophic climate change. You know.
In in like seventy seven, there's letters to President Carter
about it. Um, you know, and then you just sort
of start to see a little bit less of the
research being done, definitely less of it being shared, and
(10:14):
more research being done into all the other possible drivers
of climate change. So this is a very This is
a thing that lots of um companies that don't necessarily
want their product to be, you know, the focal point
of a of research. Do the tobacco companies did it?
Lots of other companies have done it too. They look
for what are all the other causes and they fund
(10:36):
science into things like what impact to volcanoes have on
climate change? What impact do sunspots have on climate change?
Kinds of things or livestock? Right, yeah, so they continue
to fund climate science, right, it's very clever, but it's
all in the service of kind of moving attention away
(10:58):
from fossil fuels as like the soul or the biggest culprit.
And they also start to fund a lot of um
more sort of pie in the sky long range solutions
technology too. So this is another thing that you'll see
and you still see it today. Is like a ton
of funding on things that sound great but are extremely
(11:21):
theoretical and we'll take at least twenty years to work
because it just buys that much more time at you know,
the status quo. The story on Exxon has been kind
of one of like, oh, they were doing all this
great stuff and then they turned and it's all greed
and dada and and personally, I think that it's more
a question of strategy, Like there was someone in charge
(11:44):
who initially thought that being part of the research would
get them a seat at the table and help them,
you know, have a voice in the sort of crafting
of a regulatory framework. And then at a certain point
there was a realization that like, oh, this is really
going to affect how we do business, and the better
(12:07):
strategy is just to sort of put that off for
a while. And you definitely you sort of start to
see that shift in the late eighties and early nineties.
So one thing we do know for a fact contributes
to this climate change is industry and the energy infrastructure.
And there's a new study that just came out, i think,
on July one, from Nature and the International Journal of
(12:28):
Science that says, yeah, so committed emissions from existing energy
projects planned energy projects on the book could bring us
to one point five celsius climate target by I can't
I can't quite tell what the target date would be,
but it is including all of these things that are
already planned, that are in progress. So I assume I
(12:48):
think probably by like twenty us. What they say exactly
is actually what it has here. Yeah, so even soon.
So what does that mean? What would a one point
five degrees celsius change in atmospheric conditions actually functionally mean
for us as human beings living on this planet? You know,
it's a little bit um. It's scary to me that
(13:12):
like one point five is quickly you know, it was
sort of the goal for a long time, and it's
quickly starting to feel like the floor, Like that's the
minimum when to see and we'll be lucky if we
can keep it at too. But um, we will see
a lot more of these these big storms and big
fires that we've been seeing, and um, we may see
(13:33):
that the jury is still out on this a little
bit um around the melting of the Arctic ice sheet,
if that happens. This is the thing that I think
a lot of people don't understand about climate change is
that it's not just like this thing happens, then that
thing happens. A lot of these things are sort of
like catastrophe multipliers, you know, So like if the ice
(13:54):
sheet goes, that's a whole cascade of other things that
will go. You lose perma frost, which has a lot
of like ancient viruses trapped in it. For example, So
like hello anthrax. Um, you you have massive sea level rise,
which then not only makes certain places uninhabitable, but also
(14:16):
makes storm surge that much more of a problem. When
we do get big storms, then you have like you know,
a massive storm that um drives people out of their homes.
They're sort of having to find places to live. We're
already they're already predicting tens of millions of just domestic
climate migrants within particular countries. The US is one. UM.
(14:40):
That's another thing I don't think we really hear that
much about. It's like you think of, Okay, sure there
will be people that um have to leave like island
countries and go somewhere else. Well, we're seeing people have
to leave places within the U S and migrates somewhere else.
And I think we've seen in recent years how well
the world is equipped to deal with large scale migration. UM.
(15:02):
You know, it's not not great. So UM yeah, I
mean all of all of those things. And and it's
really this sort of like cascade of of things of
like multiple catastrophic events happening either at the same time
or shortly like shortly after each other, so you just
don't have that kind of recovery time in between. And
(15:24):
then the other thing too is um you know, high
levels of CO two in the atmosphere are not great
for our brains, UM, so you do start there's some
research that's coming out around loss of i Q level
over time and developmental issues over time and things like
that too. So it's really it's hitting on a lot
(15:46):
of fronts. And I think that's why, you know, people
keep talking about the need to um talk about climate
change as it intersects with all these other kind of
policies and um kind of governmental concerns, because it is
it's not sort of this separate thing over here that
just affects the environment. It's like it's going to impact
(16:09):
how people live day to day. Yeah, that's an excellent
point and it's one that should be frightening to a
lot of our audience members. I do have to say,
I love how you went through very quickly, very very efficiently,
some of the concerns that that we had found that aren't,
as you said, widely discussed in this conversation. You know,
(16:31):
the named island nations like the Maldives, Vanuatu, and others
like the Solomon Islands that that have had public statements
from their governments saying we are literally in danger of
going under the waves. And with this cascade or this
aggregate domino effect that we're talking about, from one problem
(16:53):
leading to a next, I've seen some I've seen some
pretty pretty shocking scenarios, you know, like just planned out
or their estimates based on experts guesses of how this
mass migration, both domestic and internationally could actually drive governments
(17:16):
away from addressing the problems of climate change as they
you know, as they foment nationalism or whatever to to
fight what they see is the other invading How much
of the substance of those do you think is accurate?
I understand there's got to be some gu estimating there.
But are we as a species in a situation where
(17:37):
this is possible, where this is plausible, or where this
is at this point in twenty nineteen unavoidable. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately,
this is a thing that I think it's it's scary
for people, but I think good for people to understand
is that, um, what I just described is kind of
a best case scenario. Uh, like that's if we don't
(18:02):
develop any further fossil fuels. You know, this study that
just came out today is is like calculating the stuff
that's already been drilled or is being drilled, or is
under development. There's a bunch more that's planned. The US
is increasing production right now. Global emissions are going up,
so you know, at this time when scientists have said
(18:25):
we need to have been on a path to zero
emissions like yesterday, emissions are going up. So we're going
in the opposite direction. So the idea that there's there's
much chance that we won't at least hit one point
five is pretty slim. And the other thing that I
think is important for people to understand is that it
can get worse. Like we've talked a lot about one
(18:45):
point five and then oh, two degrees that's like really bad.
It could be three or four. So it's not like
just because we've already kind of committed ourselves to a
certain amount of warming in the effects of that, that
we should just say, well it I think it's let's
burn it all because it can become much worse than that,
(19:06):
Like that new sort of scenario could last a lot longer.
What we're looking at now is Okay, if we can
keep it to one point five, then, yes, we'll have
more catastrophic events. Yes we'll have migration to deal with,
but we can start to bring the atmosphere back and
balance and we can start to um see improvement of
(19:30):
those things over time too. You know, there are technologies
that are looking at harvesting CEO two out of the
atmosphere um and I think there's a lot of like
optimism around those. I'm not sure how how well that's
been earned. Right now, the only thing that absorbs you
to is trees, and we're cutting them down. So there
is some hope that, like, you know, on top of
(19:52):
just reducing emissions, we could turn back the clock and
remove emissions from the atmosphere if we if we can
get you know, enough money into geo engineering and carbon
capture and these kinds of things. But um, but we
have pretty much. You know, there's a generation of folks
that have committed the world to a certain amount of
(20:14):
this no matter what. And we'll continue our conversation with
Amy Westerveld after a brief word from our sponsors, and
we're back with more from Amy Westerveld. Okay, so let's
get into the whole, Like, what what is the point,
like to what end are people denying this stuff when
(20:36):
you can literally see the effects of it firsthand. I mean,
I joke all the time about how it's so much
hotter in Georgia this summer than it was last year,
as like, but by climate change is obviously a hoax,
and like I mean, I'm you know, like a little
flipping about it because it's so galling and depressing that
people can't wrap their heads around this or choose not to,
Like is it blissful ignorance? Is it like completely agenda driven?
(20:59):
Like what what is the impetus behind this continued denial
of something that is supported by so much science and
just by common sense opening your damn eyes. Yeah, so
I think, you know, the good news is that the
real like hardcore kind of old school it's not happening
denial has definitely dropped off. I think it's like maybe
(21:19):
ten to fiftcent of people, which still a lot of people,
you know, a surprising number, but it's it's fairly low. Um,
but there is there's sort of like gradations of it
now where it's like now you have a lot of
people saying, well, it's happening, but I don't know how
much humans are contributing to it, and therefore there's not
(21:41):
anything we can do. Um. So there's that kind of
flavor of it. There is the you know, well, it's
happening anyway, so we might as well squeeze profit out
of it in the meantime kind of you know, take
on it, and you know, it just depends like some people.
For some people, I think it's it's kind of part
(22:01):
of the whole ideology and like tribal identity thing. You know.
I met a woman recently who has actually signed onto
a lawsuit against oil companies but still doesn't quote unquote
believe in human caused climate change. She's kind of like,
(22:21):
you know, ice ages and you know, volcanoes and whatever.
But for her, UM, the way that she was sort
of able to kind of maintain her tribal identity but
still in effect do something about climate change is that
she just felt like it was really unfair that the
oil companies had a bunch of information that they weren't
(22:42):
sharing with the public, and mostly the thing that got
her was um that they were doing various things to
protect their own assets against climate change at the same
time that they were telling everyone else not to worry
about it. So she's like, that's just not fair, you know,
whether it's humans causing it or it's just a natural thing.
(23:04):
Like they knew that it was happening, and they told
everyone else not to worry about it, and that's not fair. Um.
There's other folks, actually, quite a few libertarian think tanks
are coming around to the idea of climate as a
public nuisance, or climate change as a public nuisance, or
like a liability issue with respect to private property rights.
So this idea that you know, again like some companies
(23:28):
had information that would impact property value and didn't share it.
They're like that's not right, you know. Um, So it
just it kind of depends, and I think, actually, I
don't know. I think that the environmentalists have done themselves
something of a disservice and in sort of for a
long time being really insistent that people have to like
(23:50):
buy into every single thing in order to like you know,
be on the same side or like do something about
it or whatever. And it's like, hey, if like your
thing is private property rights and that's what like pisces
you off about emissions going out of control. Great, Like
that's cool whatever, you know, and like I don't need
(24:11):
you to believe in all the science or understand it
or whatever. It's complicated, you know, and like, um, I think,
I don't know, sort of forcing people to um be
able to like argue their case on parts per million
is just silly. So yeah, I mean that's That's kind
of the one good thing I've seen in the denial
space is this sort of evolution of of people figuring
(24:34):
out a way to like remain the same ideologically but
like still act on climate in some way. I mean,
that's a positive way to look at it, Amy, So
thank you for providing that. Um. You know, one of
the first episodes we ever made of this show, in fact,
I think it was the first episode was about a
man named Edward Burnetes, who is a lot of times
(24:56):
thought to be the father of or at lease he's
uh he he stayed in a lot of places as
being the father of public relations. And in Drilled, we
almost immediately or very early on at least, get introduced
to someone named E. Bruce Harrison, And can can you
tell us a little bit about this because I think
(25:16):
it speaks to how this he at least lended he
lended a heavy hand into the way that this became
such a complicated issue rather than just science that's being reported. Yeah. Yeah, Actually,
the whole pr complex has had a very integral role
in all of this. Bruce Harrison was the sort of
(25:38):
godfather of greenwashing. Um. He was working for American Cyanimide
when Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring came out and it
was a sort of condemnation of the chemical industry and
mostly just this idea that like companies should be able
to pollute you know, the commons and not take into
account the impact that that would have on the general public.
(25:59):
And his boss, the sort of like story goes that
his boss came in and holding that book, like saying,
this is pearl harbor for the chemical industry, and he
got together with some of the folks at du Pont
and they came up with this whole strategy of and
it's you know, it's brilliant of like, let's get companies
(26:23):
to sign on to, you know, some number of environmental
initiatives that they feel comfortable with so that they can
at least appear to be like good corporate citizens. And
let's bring them, you know, let's bring the environmental organizations
to the table, and you know, we can all work
together towards something. And he's still alive today, and he
very much feels like he um that this was a
(26:46):
very positive thing, that like, hey, he got companies to
talk to environmentalists and agree to do certain things and
you know, um, but you know, really it was in
the service of being able to continue to pollute without
paying for it. There's another guy to that I just
(27:06):
I've been like digging into for a future season. Who
was the head of pr at Mobile And he's fascinating
because he was like the guy that got them to
fund Masterpiece Theater and all these like documentary shows. At
one point, he was um funding so much public television
(27:26):
that he was known as like the guy you had
to know in the UK if you wanted like your
British film or TV show to get on American TV. UM.
And he's sort of like, I don't know, he did
it for so long that he started to sort of
fancy himself like an actual member of the creative team.
You know. Like at one point he decides to leave
(27:49):
Mobile and start his own film production company, and then
it's like, you know, he has no film credits after
it's like, oh sorry, buddy, it really was the money.
But yeah, even that, you know, it was it's very subtle.
You know. It's like they never did any sort of
(28:09):
hardcore ads for Mobile in those shows or anything. It
was just about like affiliating themselves with like, you know,
high class culture and like being intelligent and you know,
being a thinking man's company and all these kinds of
things that just kind of lead the groundwork for like, hey,
they're not so bad. He was also the guy that
worked with the New York Times to um invent the
(28:32):
the op ad, which is like for op ed the
advertorial that reminds me of the Keep America Beautiful campaign
with the Native American gentleman with a single tier who
actually was Italian Italian and the whole thing was funded
by the can lobby to shift the responsibility from corporations
(28:53):
onto humans and saying, see, this is an admonishment because
this is all your fault. You made the Native American
man cry in his canoe. Um, And it's literally just
shifting the blame and shifting the focus. Yeah, exactly, totally.
It's all. Yeah, a lot of the anti littering campaigns
were funded by basically packaging companies. And this, this is
(29:14):
another this is another conspiratorial thing that occurs more often
than people think, right, because an ad is hidden almost
everywhere you look. Nowadays, we have, though, when we talk
about the threat of climate change in these cascading effects,
we do have a couple of examples of, if not corporations,
(29:37):
at least state institutions that are making some moves to
mitigate the effects of climate change so much as they can. Right,
Like we hear we hear a lot about Norway for instance,
or Germany some other Scandinavian countries as well. Could you
tell us a little bit about the kind of moves
those UH governments are making and whether and how successful,
(30:00):
if successful, they are going to be. So there are
heavy um investments in renewable energy in several Scandinavian countries um,
and I think you know Sweden is on track for
zero emissions, I think by But there's also I hate
(30:20):
to be like the person who's just such a downer
about all of this stuff, but like there is this
like weird boondoggle thing happening with European emissions commitments where
they're heavily relying on something called biomass, which I don't
know if you guys know what this is, but it's
essentially like burning wooden pellets for energy. And right now,
(30:43):
what's happening is that you have in many cases, like
Denmark is a good example, the Netherlands, UM countries basically
importing these wood pellets from like America and other places
in the U in the world and um and then
burning them for energy. And it's like it's considered zero
(31:06):
emission because the tree eventually regenerates, but it's really it's
some interesting math um, you know. It's like, well, trees
don't like immediately grow back. There's a certain amount of
you know, tree waste from making paper and various other things,
but it's really not that much. It's certainly not enough
to fuel these biomass plants. There's no real like accounting
(31:30):
for the emissions coming out of the burning. And then
there's also like a sort of um ash that's made
that they actually haven't figured out what to do with yet.
A lot of places are just collecting it and like
putting it in warehouses, and I just I think like
we need all sorts of solutions all at once, and honestly,
(31:51):
I'm kind of in favor of like throwing as much
crap against the wall and seeing what sticks. But like this,
there are there's like a real opportunity for you know,
continued kind of problematic human thinking here too. You know,
like we we are. We have done a fairly bad
job in many cases of sort of like innovating our
(32:13):
way out of these um these problems, and there is
this sort of tendency to be like, oh, we'll just
come up with a cool technology that deals with it,
and often UM an issue with really predicting what the
potential impacts of that solution will be. That said, there
are things that are happening. There are things like you know,
painting all the roofs white for example, that UM kind
(32:36):
of reflects on away. Carbon capture is actually a thing
that exists, Like the technology exists, it's just very expensive.
So figuring out how to do that at scale and
also I mean at scale in terms of the amount
of carbon, but sort of at a smaller scale in
terms of the actual physical footprint of carbon capture factories
(32:59):
in essence is a big thing in a lot of countries,
and companies are trying to do that UM that is
like a big potential fix. There's this thing I've heard
a lot about recently, which is um feeding seaweed two cows,
which apparently like dramatically reduces their methane emission. Yeah, I
saw that. It's like, how can we maguiver our way
(33:21):
out of this without change? I know? And then they're
good with that one. Like I'm so suspicious of these
things because I just I've seen it go you know, badly,
so many times, and I'm like, okay, cool, But I'm like,
I can just almost guarantee you that in two years
we're going to be reading articles about like toxic seaweed poop.
(33:41):
You know that is my favorite thrash metal band. Actually. Yeah,
So not to sound like too much of a hippie,
but when it comes to a lot of these discussions,
I mean, we kind of do need to look at
ourselves as like citizens of the world, and why can't
we just all hold hands together and figure this problem
out together? And there's obviously an effort to do that
with the Paris Climate Agreements, and you know, with Trump
(34:04):
kind of wanting to pull the United States out of that,
how big a deal is that? Is? It just kind
of like a bad optics kind of thing, or is
that really a big deal? Like how much difference are
these accords going to make even if everyone agrees to them? So,
first of all, none of these accords so like basically
the fossil fuel lobby completely torpedoed the whole global process
(34:25):
when they killed Kyoto. That was like the first and
still so far only one that was supposed to have
any kind of like actual teeth to it. All of
the ones since then have really been sort of like
non binding. Is the term that exactly? It's like, well,
it's a non binding resolution, so you know, I mean,
currently none of the signatories of the Paris Accord or
(34:46):
on track to meet their goals. So I think that
tells you how effective it is UM. You know, not
to like cast. I know a lot of people who
worked really hard to negotiate that UM document, and it
is very very hard to get multiple countries to agree
to anything, let alone something that will you know, at
least at first reduce their g d P. So you know,
(35:10):
I applaud the people who spend that amount of time
and energy doing it, but I do feel like any
kind of a global agreement needs to be so much
more harsh than anything that's been written in the last
twenty years with actionable consequences. Maybe actionable consequences, Yeah, exactly.
And I do feel like, you know, the US pulling
(35:32):
out sort of shows the weakness of these agreements to
that like, um, one country can kind of like torpedo
the whole effort. So what do you do in that case?
Let's pause here for a quick word from our sponsor.
(35:53):
I sure hope that last sponsor was an exon. We're
back with more from Amy Westervelt. The other thing too,
that I wanted to just mentioned is I keep seeing,
like I spent a bunch of time last week with
a lot of climate adaptation people who work on things
like sea walls and you know, like redesigning buildings to
be more resilient to large storms or fires and things
(36:17):
like that. And you know, they were talking about all
of these adaptation measures and also about some of the
like te like technological advances and things like that, and
it just totally got me thinking that I almost never
hear anyone talking about adaptation in the sense of adapting
to just not developing fossil fuels anymore. You know, like,
(36:40):
where's the adaptation plan for that. People will talk about
it in the sense of, oh, we can't just turn
off the spicket tomorrow, and I'm like, okay, But just
as a thought exercise, what if we did, like, like,
what if we did what would that look like? Can
we like just at least think about that, you know, um,
because we'd have to get a new kind of uh
(37:00):
energy that we could burn and we would just call
it car mass and it would be all of the
gasoline automobiles that exist and we just burn all those rights,
just a big giant bonfire. Yeah, you're already heading towards
mad Max territory anyway, we might as well just like
complete the look for it. Yeah. Yeah. So you know,
I'm talking and referencing a lot of things that occurred
(37:21):
in season one of Drilled. You've you've already had a
second season or you in the second season right now,
we've had a second season. We um the first season
is sort of a little bit of like the origin
story of climate change denial and you know, what what
different companies were doing, but also sort of what was
happening in the country at that time politically, economically, all
(37:44):
of that stuff, like what you know all the factors
that sort of came into play, and the second season,
we um followed a group of crab fisherman who became
the first industry to sue the fossil fuel industry over
climate change. I kind of wanted to just tell like
a a much smaller story in the second season of like, Okay,
here's an industry that's been impacted, and um, most of
(38:07):
them are quite conservative politically, so it's pretty interesting that
they have been kind of pushed to this point where
they're they're just sort of like, this was just really unfair.
You know, we have one of the world's most sustainable
fisheries and because of warming waters and the various things
(38:29):
that that has done to the marine food web and
algae and all these things, like they're being put out
of business and I want to get that. And you
made a really great point there about these these fishermen,
scrab fisherman, who you know, tended to be conservative politically,
And it gets back to season one where you really
make it a point that this was not at all
(38:51):
a uh. You know, we live in a two party system.
We exist in the two party system. This was not
one side or the other. As the science was being
developed early on. UH, nobody, nobody controlled the messaging about
it in that way. It was you know, if you
voted Democratic, it didn't mean you were for or against
climate change and or Republican. And you play a clip
(39:11):
from when George H. W. Bush was on the campaign trail,
and he has a quote, and I wonder would it
be all right if we played the quote you used
on our episode Right now, We're just gonna play a
clip really fast of that. Some say these problems are
too big, that it seemed possible for an individual or
even a nation as great as ours to solve the
(39:33):
problem of global warming or the loss of forests or
the deterioration of our oceans. My response is simple, it
can be done, and we must do it. Let's not
forget all that we've accomplished, all that we've accomplished since
America first concentrated its attention on preserving the environment under
(39:57):
a Republican administration back in nineteen seventy. I think it's
important for everyone listening to this. UH, if you are
still listening to this, and you perhaps still believe or
do not believe that climate change is something that is
scientifically proven, in something that we do need to think
about at least in some way or tackle uh, you
(40:19):
know however we possibly can. Uh. It's really it's interesting
to me to hear George H. W. Bush on the
campaign trail speaking about it in that way as a
Republican that we can fix this thing and as a
completely non controversial issue. Yeah, and he got elected. And
you know, it's just I in some way it's inspiring
(40:41):
to to think that perhaps it doesn't have to be
at all such a diametrically opposed thing. But when did
it go off the rails so hard? Like that's what
I want to know. When the money got too good? Yeah,
there was a there was a concerted strategic effort in
the nineties, you know, late nineties to early too thousands
to take. You know, there was this number that that
(41:03):
um like because these industry groups were looking at this
number that was like, you know, I think it was
sixty or seventy of Americans felt like we needed to
do something about global warming, and they got that. They
targeted that number, and within ten years, I mean, it
was less than fifty, even thought global warming was happening.
(41:24):
So it's not this is like, this is where I
get annoyed when people are sort of like, oh, we
almost did something, but you know, humans and it's hard
to change blah bah blah. I'm like, uh no, there
was a concerted effort to manipulate the American public into
thinking something other than what the science was telling them,
(41:45):
Like we have documentation of that. It was paid for heavily,
like it was. You know, we have the the plan
that they that they made, which was very like, Okay, first,
we're gonna do this. We're gonna like place all these
ads in like Schlimbaughs show and this show and that
show and start to get people thinking about it as
like a conservative versus liberal thing. And you know, it's
(42:07):
very it was very intentional in the same way that
I feel like, you know, this is why I think
I make this comparison in season one about um, you know,
people kind of talk today as though this like Russian
bought thing is like a totally new animal, and I'm like, like,
people who with an agenda have been using our existing
(42:31):
divides to like you know, get their way forever, like
you know, for for a long time. Absolutely, And in
the odd thing is that with the with the ease
at which the average person can access information now, Uh,
you know, it's it's sort of like when uh, Philip
Farnsworth first invented television, people thought, what an amazing tool
(42:55):
for learning, right, And here we are in twenty ninths
and we see we see a similar thing because when
we're inundated with information, it becomes much more difficult to
parse that information. And that this this all leads us to, uh,
when one of the biggest questions and perhaps the one
(43:15):
we close the episode with today, which is hate to
put you on the spot about this, amy, but what
happens now? What happens next? Dear God, what do we do?
I don't know, I think I do. I do see
some optimism in the fact that UM politicians are having
to answer questions about climate change a lot, and and
(43:38):
the recent kind of UM survey numbers are showing that
the vast majority of Americans don't see this as a
part of an issue anymore. That people do see it
as something that we need to do something about, and
that UM like to my earlier point that it doesn't
(43:58):
that it's not necessary really required that people believe that
it's humans who are causing the problem to want to
do something about it. So that's all pretty positive. But honestly,
I mean, um, I think and I think this was
pretty clear in the Nature study to there needs to
(44:20):
be um a draw down of of fossil fuels, and
I think that that's unlikely to happen voluntarily. So in
my opinion, I think that any government that takes seriously
this sort of threat to humans has got to have
a plan for how you do that. I'm gonna go
(44:41):
ahead and predict here that world War three begins when
when some government somewhere tries to take away all our cars,
and then World War three begins and climate change. We're
saved from climate change, but that all the nuclear holocaust
thing it happens, Matt, We're going to hold you to that. Yeah,
that's we're gonna We're gonna better around of beers on that. Also,
(45:05):
maybe the world's influential politicians and executives who give lip
service to these sorts of problems should stop flying internationally
to protest the problems of initials. Man. I've just say
there's there's a difference between you know, the individual action
and the collective action. And sometimes sometimes we are taught
(45:29):
depending on where we live in our neck of the
global woods. We're taught that our individual actions don't matter
or are mathematically very similar to zero. But that's not
the case, uh, Amy, Thank you so much for coming
on the show today. The podcast is Drilled, and we've
taken a high level look at UH, the the active UH.
(45:54):
If we want to be cavalier about it, the Active
Shenanigan's pulled by x on Mobile and others UH to
continue kicking the can down the road for future generations.
If you like this show, the first two or three
episodes of Drilled will be right up your alley because
it really does take you through essentially a conspiracy that
(46:15):
occurred to convince the American people that climate change is
not real or manmade. Not to mention. They're like the
perfect little kind of digestible nuggets of episodes. They're like
fifteen minutes apiece. You can binge this whole thing really quickly.
The sound designs great, the music is great. The whole
thing just me. It's really evocative and it really doesn't
You guys do such a great job of telling the story.
If you want to hear more amazing stories, you can
(46:37):
check out the critical Frequency network that we talked about
at the top of the show where this podcast lives.
And most importantly, we would like to hear your thoughts
on climate change. How have you encountered this in your
personal life, both both climate change science and efforts to
argue for climate change denial. You can tell us about
(46:57):
this on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You can find us
on our group page Here's where it gets crazy, where
you can talk to our favorite part of the show,
your fellow listeners. If you would like to call us,
we are one eight three three st d w y
t K. That's just stuff they don't want you to
know over now as letters, but it's numbers. You'll get it.
If you'd like to find us individually on Instagram, um,
(47:20):
you can find me at how Now Noel Brown, Ben
I think you're on there as well. The rumors are true.
You can find me at ben Bowling. And if you say, guys,
this is a wonderful, terrifying topic and I have I
have some have some opinions, I have some science I
would like to bring to bear, but I hate social media.
We're right there with you. You can send us an
(47:40):
email directly. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com
and usually we'd leave you right there. But Amy, if
anybody wants to reach out to you, is there? What
what's your social How can people get in contact with you? Yeah,
I'm on Twitter at Amy Westervelt and you can email
me at um Amy at Critical Frequency dot org. Awesome,
it's Am, y M y H. Stuff they don't want
(48:20):
you to know is a production of I Heart Radio's
How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.