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Speaker 1: Hi, it's Greg Dalton. I'd like to hear your comments

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Speaker 1: on the show, topics we should cover and guess suggestions.

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Speaker 1: You can reach me at Greg at climatewe dot org.

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Speaker 1: This is Climate One. I'm Greg Dalton. Spreading climate misinformation

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Speaker 1: is a favorite tool of fossil fuel companies looking to

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Speaker 1: protect their bottom line.

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Speaker 2: Whether they're arguing climate change isn't real, therefore we should mact,

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Speaker 2: or climate change isn't caused by humans, therefore we should mact.

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Speaker 2: Well solutions weren't work, therefore we should mact.

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Speaker 1: Companies use advertising and mass media to spread these messages,

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Speaker 1: and in some cases want to defend their actions as

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Speaker 1: protected free speech.

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Speaker 3: This idea that you know, if it's something that connects

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Speaker 3: to policy I want to see, then it doesn't have

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Speaker 3: to play by the same rules.

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Speaker 1: But we can counter these false arguments through critical thinking

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Speaker 1: and education.

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Speaker 2: If we want a public who are resilient against misinformation,

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Speaker 2: we need to build up their ability to spot these

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Speaker 2: types of fallacies.

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Speaker 1: Fossil fuel corporations have spent decades casting doubt and public

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Speaker 1: about climate facts that their own scientists validated in company research.

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Speaker 1: These tactics have included a concerted effort to recast political

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Speaker 1: speech banned and regulated in some contexts as protected free speech,

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Speaker 1: giving corporations more leeway and broadcasting their messages. This week's

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Speaker 1: episode is a special collaboration with Amy Westervelt, an award

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Speaker 1: winning journalist and creator of the podcast Drilled. She brings

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Speaker 1: us the backstory of the free speech argument fossil fuel

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Speaker 1: companies are now using to support their efforts to spread

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Speaker 1: climate misinformation.

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Speaker 3: Most people think the debate over corporate free speech in

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Speaker 3: America started with the Citizens United case in twenty ten.

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Speaker 4: Mister Olson, are you taking the position that there is

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Speaker 4: no difference in the First Amendment rights of an individual?

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Speaker 4: A corporation, after all, is not endowed by its creator

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Speaker 4: with inalienable rights. So is there any distinction that Congress

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Speaker 4: could draw between corporations and natural human beings for purposes

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Speaker 4: of campaign finance?

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Speaker 5: What the Court has said in the First Amendment context

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Speaker 5: New York Times versus Sullivan, Gross Chain versus Associated Press,

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Speaker 5: and over and over again, is that corporations are persons

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Speaker 5: entitled to protection under the First Amendment.

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Speaker 3: That was the lead Justice Ruth Peter Ginsberg questioning Attorney

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Speaker 3: Ted Olsen with the firm Gibson Dunn who argued and

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Speaker 3: won that case. Just a quick recap here. The case

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Speaker 3: was about a film that had been made criticizing Hillary

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Speaker 3: Clinton the first time she tried to run for president.

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Speaker 3: It was funded by a cohort of right wing organizations

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Speaker 3: and corporations, including coke industries, so the Federal Election Commission

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Speaker 3: had said that the movie couldn't screen without identifying itself

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Speaker 3: as campaign material and noting its funders. The filmmakers and

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Speaker 3: their attorneys argue that this violated their free speech rights,

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Speaker 3: and they won, opening the door to unlimited corporate funding

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Speaker 3: of political propaganda what's generally referred to as simply dark money.

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Speaker 3: But Citizens United was not the first battle in the

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Speaker 3: war over corporate free speech, nor was it the last.

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Speaker 3: The story actually begins back in the late nineteen sixties

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Speaker 3: with Mobile Oil and its issue advertising program. It was

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Speaker 3: a multifaceted strategy that included to finding a personality for Mobile,

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Speaker 3: aligning the company with cultural institutions and advertising ideas rather

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Speaker 3: than just gas. The strategy came from Mobile's VP of

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Speaker 3: Public Affairs, Herb Schmertz, as a way to counter widespread

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Speaker 3: criticism of oil companies in the press, and it was

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Speaker 3: championed by the company's CEO, Rawley Warner. Here's Schmertz later

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Speaker 3: in life describing Mobil's personality, Well.

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Speaker 6: It was multifast. It was a personality where we believe

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Speaker 6: very strongly about the importance of public policies. Secondly, we

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Speaker 6: believe fervently that as a sort of a custodian of

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Speaker 6: a large corporation and the custodians of vast resources and

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Speaker 6: employment and everything else, that we were not doing our

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Speaker 6: job if we did not participate in the marketplace of ideas.

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Speaker 6: Third part of our personality was we believed in that

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Speaker 6: a democracy is to host of a group of free institutions.

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Speaker 6: We believe in free markets, freedom of speech, freedom of

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Speaker 6: the press, academic freedom, freedom to organize and participate in

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Speaker 6: union activities.

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Speaker 3: In addition to sponsoring Masterpiece Theater, starting in nineteen seventy,

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Speaker 3: Mobile worked with The New York Times to create the advertorial.

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Speaker 3: Every week, Mobile ran a piece in the Times op

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Speaker 3: ed section espousing some idea or another. Here's Schmertz describing

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Speaker 3: them on the show Open Mind.

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Speaker 7: Heb, thanks for joining me today.

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Speaker 6: Great pleasure to be here, Dick.

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Speaker 7: I want to turn as quickly as possible to a

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Speaker 7: new fairy tale, the mobile ad or op ed piece

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Speaker 7: or editorial call, or what you will that. We call

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Speaker 7: them pamphlets pamphlets, but they appear in newspapers.

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Speaker 3: Yes, pamphlets, but they appear in newspapers. In the early

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Speaker 3: nineteen seventies, Schmertz and Warner figured they were having such

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Speaker 3: great luck with the newspap for advertorials and their various

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Speaker 3: PBS specials that it was time to get mobile content

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Speaker 3: onto commercial TV. They reached out to CBS, ABC and

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Speaker 3: NBC to buy time, but got a surprise. This time,

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Speaker 3: CBS and ABC gave them an emphatic no. They described

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Speaker 3: what mobil was trying to do with their ads as

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Speaker 3: propaganda and claimed it violated various ethics policies and maybe

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Speaker 3: even some FCC laws. Schmertz went one by one to

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Speaker 3: independence stations to place his TV advertorials instead. Here's a

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Speaker 3: taste of one of them from a mobile information center.

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Speaker 8: Good evening, I'm Dick Calliman.

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Speaker 9: Most Americans have an exaggerated idea about oil company profits.

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Speaker 3: Warner and Schmertz went on the offensive in general too.

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Speaker 3: They wrote letters to the network heads. They placed multiple

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Speaker 3: New York Times advertorials about how the big TV networks

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Speaker 3: were trying to silence them, and they gave speeches at

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Speaker 3: various business groups about how this was a huge threat

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Speaker 3: to corporate rights. It was the first time any company

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Speaker 3: had talked about such a thing as corporate free speech

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Speaker 3: the seventies.

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Speaker 10: There was a lot of public opinion that they would

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Speaker 10: have been concerned about.

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Speaker 3: This is Robert Kerr, a media law professor and researcher

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Speaker 3: at Oklahoma State University. He's written two books about the

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Speaker 3: evolution of corporate free speech and mobile's role in it.

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Speaker 3: He's talking here about the situation that oil companies found

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Speaker 3: themselves in during the early seventies. There had been the big,

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Speaker 3: high profile oils bill in California in nineteen sixty nine,

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Speaker 3: and then in nineteen seventy three, the oil embargo hit

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Speaker 3: in response to the US support of Israel during the

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Speaker 3: Arab Israeli War. Arab members of OPEK put a ban

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Speaker 3: on exporting oil to the US. The effect was immediate.

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Speaker 10: You know, I lived through that, and I remember it

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Speaker 10: was people were scared all of a sudden. You know,

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Speaker 10: this something that there were used to going to the

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Speaker 10: pump and gas pump and getting for almost nothing was

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Speaker 10: not only going way up in price, but you know,

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Speaker 10: you might not even be able to buy again, And

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Speaker 10: often you couldn't In the same the gas stations would

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Speaker 10: run out of or you'd have a really long line,

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Speaker 10: you'd wait for hours or and then then maybe you

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Speaker 10: still couldn't buy any So, yeah, the public was really alarmed.

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Speaker 10: And uh, particularly the Carter administration in the late seventies

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Speaker 10: seemed to be a lot less favorable toward the old

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Speaker 10: companies in general. You know, Jimmy Carter and his administrations

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Speaker 10: seemed willing to hold their feet to the fire.

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Speaker 11: Anger and bewilderment are growing. Is more and more Americans

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Speaker 11: cope with gasoline lines and empty pumps. Good evening for

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Speaker 11: millions of Americans, this may be the worst weekend they've

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Speaker 11: ever faced for finding gasoline to give them the autumnabile

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Speaker 11: freedom they take as they're due. Gasoline shortages are spreading

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Speaker 11: across the country. Odd even service gasoline lines and closed

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Speaker 11: gas stations are becoming increasingly common, and the news from

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Speaker 11: overseas tonight gives no promise of quick relief.

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Speaker 3: People were scared and angry, and a lot of those

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Speaker 3: emotions were being directed at oil companies. For mobile access

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Speaker 3: to the press and the ability to get out its

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Speaker 3: version of the story was critical to the company's ability

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Speaker 3: to weather this storm, and that refusal from the commercial

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Speaker 3: stations to run its ads that was a huge potential

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Speaker 3: threat to that strategy. Mobile toyed with the idea of

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Speaker 3: filing a case themselves that would formally establish the corporate

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Speaker 3: right to free speech, but it worried that that could backfire. Instead,

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Speaker 3: the company started filing a meekis in other cases, and Mobile.

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Speaker 12: Was one of the leading corporations to fight for that

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Speaker 12: legal right.

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Speaker 3: This is doctor Robert Brule, an environmental sociologist at Brown University.

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Speaker 12: There was a pretty big effort to get a Supreme

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Speaker 12: Court ruling that basically supported corporate speech and the right

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Speaker 12: of corporations to do advertising of their not just product advertising,

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Speaker 12: but of their positions.

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Speaker 3: That Supreme Court case he's talking about was First National

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Speaker 3: Bank of Boston versus Ballati. First National, along with two

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Speaker 3: other banks and three corporations, had wanted to spend money

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Speaker 3: to publicize their opposition to a ballot initiative that would

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Speaker 3: permit Massachusetts to implement a graduated income tax. The Attorney

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Speaker 3: General of Massachusetts said that violated a state law against

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Speaker 3: funding campaigns that would influence the outcome of a vote.

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Speaker 3: The bank sued, and the case went to the Supreme

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Speaker 3: Court in nineteen seventy seven. The ruling came out in

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Speaker 3: nineteen seventy eight. Here's Supreme Court Justice Lewis A. Powell

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Speaker 3: giving that ruling.

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Speaker 9: The First Amendment's primary concern, and therefore the courts concern

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Speaker 9: always has been the preservation of free and uninhibited dissemination

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Speaker 9: of information and ideas. If the restrictive view of corporate

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Speaker 9: speech taken by the Massachusetts Court were accepted, government would

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Speaker 9: have the power to deprive society of the views of corporations.

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Speaker 3: Paula is also credited with crafting the Powell Memorandum, which

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Speaker 3: outlined the pro corporate strategy that would guide the Republican

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Speaker 3: Party from the early nineteen eighties to today. BLODI is

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Speaker 3: generally considered the precursor to Citizens United and Mobile was

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Speaker 3: hugely influential in securing that ruling. Here's Robert kerr Agan.

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Speaker 10: You know, it actually was very close when it first

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Speaker 10: got to the Supreme Court. The justices could have gone

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Speaker 10: the other way. Justice Pale kind of really finessed it

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Speaker 10: and got that first President setting case Blodi into the

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Speaker 10: case law, and then later when it got to Citizens United,

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Speaker 10: Justice Kennedy kind of ignores the overall body of case

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Speaker 10: law and he goes back to Ballotti twenty four times.

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Speaker 10: It's really unusual to cite one case twenty four times.

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Speaker 3: So why does this matter today? Well, in addition to

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Speaker 3: changing public discourse forever, these cases also lead the groundwork

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Speaker 3: for the argument that oil companies are using today to

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Speaker 3: defend climate disinformation. In some two dozen climate liability cases

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Speaker 3: and some additional fraud cases, the oil companies are being

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Speaker 3: accused with misleading the public on climate The lawyer appointed

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Speaker 3: to speak for all of the companies in these cases

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Speaker 3: is Ted Boutros, who's not only a well known First

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Speaker 3: Amendment attorney, but also a partner at Gibson Dunn, the

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Speaker 3: firm that's cured that when in Citizens United back in

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Speaker 3: twenty ten. Here's Boutro speaking on the Climate One podcast

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Speaker 3: in twenty twenty.

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Speaker 13: I do want to take head on the notion that

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Speaker 13: the plaintiff's lawyers in a lot of the climate change

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Speaker 13: cases have been advocating is that the oil and gas

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Speaker 13: companies were they had secret knowledge and they were then

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Speaker 13: putting out misinformation, and they tried to analogize it to

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Speaker 13: tobacco and other areas. It just it doesn't make any

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Speaker 13: sense because it was well known. The federal government knew

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Speaker 13: the problems of climate change, the potential causes, and knew

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Speaker 13: that there was an issue here.

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Speaker 3: Other attorneys are making this argument on behalf of the

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Speaker 3: oil majors as well. When it exhausted all options to

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Speaker 3: dismiss the fraud case against it in Massachusetts, Exon Mobile

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Speaker 3: filed an anti slapsuit against the Attorney General's office there,

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Speaker 3: claiming that the fraud case against it amounted to an

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Speaker 3: effort to quash the company's First Amendment rights. SLAP stands

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Speaker 3: for strategic litigation against public participation. Anti SLAP statutes like

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Speaker 3: the one in Massachusetts, we're meant to protect the press

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Speaker 3: and civil society groups from corporations that wanted to silence critics.

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Speaker 3: But these days it's become equally common for corporations to

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Speaker 3: use these statutes to swat away legal complaints. Here's attorney

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Speaker 3: Justin Anderson, a partner with Paul Weiss, that's Exon Mobil's

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Speaker 3: law firm, at a March twenty twenty two hearing.

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Speaker 14: The alleged misrepresentations are the statements that Exon Mobile has

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Speaker 14: made about its views on climate policy on energy policy.

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Speaker 14: The anti slap Statute provides a mechanism to have a

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Speaker 14: case that is brought against someone for petitioning activity dismissed

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Speaker 14: at the outset, before burdensome discovery is imposed on the party,

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Speaker 14: before we have our executives come in to give testimony

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Speaker 14: and depositions, before we're dragged into a courtroom where we

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Speaker 14: have to defend ourselves.

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Speaker 3: That phrase petitioning activity is really key here because what

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Speaker 3: it means in Plean English is political speech. And the

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Speaker 3: argument ex On Mobile is making here and that Boutros

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Speaker 3: has been making as well, is that because the oil

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Speaker 3: company's campaigns on climate are political speech, not commercial speech,

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Speaker 3: they are protected by the First Amendment. It's the sort

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Speaker 3: of argument Herbschmertz would have been proud of. Here. He

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Speaker 3: is defending corporate pr In the eighties.

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Speaker 8: Government intrusion into the marketplace of ideas would limit our

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Speaker 8: freedom of speech and distort the selection of our leaders.

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Speaker 8: People feel frustrated when the press doesn't deliver a complete

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Speaker 8: story or an accurate story, so they bring in people

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Speaker 8: who have the ability to add to the spectrum of facts, opinions, views,

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Speaker 8: philosophies so that the public can get a more balanced

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Speaker 8: view today.

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Speaker 3: The groundwork that Schmirtz and Warner laid with Bloody, various

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Speaker 3: other cases, with issue advertising, and with their general advocacy

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Speaker 3: for corporate free speech over the decades is the foundation

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Speaker 3: for Big Oil's argument about climate denial. It couldn't be fraud.

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Speaker 3: It was political speech protected by the free speech rights

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Speaker 3: they've spent the past fifty years securing.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to a Climate one conversation about tactics for

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Speaker 1: spreading climate misinformation coming up. One way to break down

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Speaker 1: misleading reasoning.

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Speaker 2: You can just take a flawed argument and transplant that

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Speaker 2: logic into a parallel situation, usually the most absurd and

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Speaker 2: extreme situation you can think of, and then use the

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Speaker 2: same logic, and that makes it very clear and engaging

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Speaker 2: in concrete when you're trying to explain the flawed logic

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Speaker 2: to people.

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Speaker 1: That's up next, when Climate one continues. This is Climate one.

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Speaker 1: I'm Greg Dalton, and today we're talking about climate misinformation

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Speaker 1: and how to challenge it. John Cook is a postdoctoral

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Speaker 1: research fellow at the Climate Change Communication Research Hub at

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Speaker 1: Nash University in Australia. He focuses on using critical thinking

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Speaker 1: to build resilience against misinformation. He says the most common

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Speaker 1: climate misinformation in the US centers on climate policy being harmful, expensive,

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Speaker 1: or ineffective.

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Speaker 2: Ultimately, its goal is to delay climate action and maintain

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Speaker 2: the status quo. And you will find that no matter

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Speaker 2: what the argument is, the conclusion is always the same,

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Speaker 2: whether they're arguing climate change isn't real, therefore we shouldn act,

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Speaker 2: or climate change isn't caused by humans, therefore we should act,

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Speaker 2: or solutions won't work, therefore we should act. It's always

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Speaker 2: that end thing. And so it's about delaying action by

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Speaker 2: reducing public support for climate action, and there are various

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Speaker 2: pathways to do that. Wine is confusing people about the science.

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Speaker 2: A famous two thousand and two memo written by a

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Speaker 2: political strategist, Frank Lumps, where he basically argued for politicians

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Speaker 2: who were trying to win the public debate about climate policy.

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Speaker 2: He said, if you want to win the debate about

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Speaker 2: climate policy and basically stop climate action, cast out on

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Speaker 2: the scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming. If

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Speaker 2: the public get confused about the consensus, the attitudes about

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Speaker 2: the policy change accordingly, right.

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Speaker 1: Which hearkens that confusion and doubt. Good course goes back

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Speaker 1: to the tobacco company saying doubt is our product. There's

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Speaker 1: been a decade's long effort by old companies and others

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Speaker 1: to cast doubt on climate science to allow them to

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Speaker 1: continue to profit. The strategy has taken many forms and

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Speaker 1: evolved over time. Can you walk us through that evolution

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Speaker 1: from deny, dismiss, delay, deflect.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there has been a gradual shift. We've done analysis

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Speaker 2: over the last twenty years of climate misinformation, and the

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Speaker 2: biggest shift we're seeing is a gradual transition from science

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Speaker 2: misinformation to solutions misinformation. As the scientific evidence has gotten

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Speaker 2: stronger and stronger and harder to deny, it becomes untenable

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Speaker 2: to keep using these same zombie arguments that we've been

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Speaker 2: reading on blogs and on social media for many years.

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Speaker 2: And so now they're arguing against climate solutions, arguing that

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Speaker 2: climate policy might be harmful, arguing that renewables won't work,

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Speaker 2: and just more subtle arguments than the usual. Climate change

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Speaker 2: is a hoax type misinformation.

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Speaker 1: Right, that's no longer tenable in a world where there's

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Speaker 1: floods and fires that are rampant.

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Speaker 2: I think what's most potent right now is cultural war

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Speaker 2: type misinformation arguments that other people who care about climate change,

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Speaker 2: who are trying to get climate action, painting them as

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Speaker 2: different to us, and they're trying to take away our

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Speaker 2: lifestyle or impinge on our freedom, and generally just trying

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Speaker 2: to make the climate issue more tribal. The more tribal

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Speaker 2: and polarizer becomes, the harder it is to get progress.

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Speaker 1: And some of the techniques employed by misinformation you cite

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Speaker 1: are magnified minority, cherry picking, false dichotomy. How are those employed?

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Speaker 1: And give some examples of each one.

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Speaker 2: If you could so. Attacking the scientific consensus on climate

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Speaker 2: change has been a common strategy over the last few decades,

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Speaker 2: and one way to do that is the use of

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Speaker 2: magnified minority. In other words, take a small group and

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Speaker 2: make them look much bigger than they actually are and

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Speaker 2: much more significant than they really are. And the most

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Speaker 2: popular version of this technique is the Global Warming Petition Project.

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Speaker 2: This is a website that features thirty one thousand science

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Speaker 2: graduates in the US who've signed a statement saying that

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Speaker 2: humans aren't disrupting climate and the point of this website

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Speaker 2: is to say, hey, look, thirty one thousand people dissent

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Speaker 2: against the consensus. That proves that there isn't a scientific consensus.

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Speaker 2: But when you look at the total number of science

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Speaker 2: graduates in the US, it's millions and millions, and thirty

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Speaker 2: one thousand, while seeming like a big number, is actually

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Speaker 2: a tiny fraction of a percent. It's magnifying a minority

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Speaker 2: to make them look bigger than they really are.

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Speaker 1: So policy is harmful? What's that attack?

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Speaker 2: Usually arguing that climate policy is harmful takes a form

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Speaker 2: of arguing that it's either going to ruin the economy

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Speaker 2: or raise prices for people, and it really depends on

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Speaker 2: the specific policy. But tiply what this does is cherry

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Speaker 2: pigs or oversimplifies the policy. For example, this is a

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Speaker 2: very Australian centric one, but it's the one that immediately

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Speaker 2: comes to mind. We brought in a carbon price in

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Speaker 2: order to send a signal to the market to transition

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Speaker 2: from fossil fuels to renewables, and this carbon price generated

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Speaker 2: revenue for the government. But all that money was then

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Speaker 2: given back and it was mainly given back to lower

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Speaker 2: income families, and so it was a revenue neutral carbon price,

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Speaker 2: the public shouldn't have any change in their household budget.

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Speaker 2: But what the misinformation targeting the policy did was say

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Speaker 2: this is putting a price on carbon that's going to

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Speaker 2: raise prices for families, while ignoring that money was going

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Speaker 2: back to families. So usually at tax on climate policy

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Speaker 2: will focus on one part of it, but ignore the

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Speaker 2: the entire policy and the aspects of it that make

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Speaker 2: it work better.

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Speaker 1: And what are some other non policy attacks on solutions?

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Speaker 2: The most basic arguments attacking renewables are the sun doesn't

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Speaker 2: shine at night or the wind doesn't always blow, and

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Speaker 2: therefore renewables aren't a reliable source of energy, which ignores

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Speaker 2: again its cherry picking the information because it ignores the

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Speaker 2: fact that we have battery storage. And also when you

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Speaker 2: have combinations of wind and solar, particularly across a region,

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Speaker 2: wind might not be blowing in one place, but it

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Speaker 2: is at a different place, and when you have a

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Speaker 2: network of renewables, then you get a more reliable source

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Speaker 2: of energy.

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Speaker 1: And then false dichotomy.

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Speaker 2: What's an example of that false dichotomy is when you're

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Speaker 2: given two choices and you have to choose one of

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Speaker 2: them when both might be true, or maybe there's a

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Speaker 2: third choice. And the most common example of this in

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Speaker 2: climate change. And this is a little bit technical and complicated,

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Speaker 2: but it's looking at the ice core record. When we

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Speaker 2: look at ice cores going back hundreds of thousands of

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Speaker 2: years in Antarctic ice cores, we see that when temperature

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Speaker 2: goes up, CO two goes up afterwards by several hundred

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Speaker 2: years roughly. And what that tells us is temperature went

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Speaker 2: up before the CO two and climate denies look at

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Speaker 2: this and say, wow, either temperature drives CO two or

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Speaker 2: CO two drives temperature. You have to choose one or

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Speaker 2: the other. But that's actually a false dichotomy because it's

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Speaker 2: not a choice between one or the other. Both are

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Speaker 2: actually true. Temperature does drive CO two. When it gets warmer,

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Speaker 2: the ocean gives up CO two in the atmosphere, and

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Speaker 2: then when you have more CO two in the atmosphere,

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Speaker 2: that causes warming because it's a greenhouse gas. Put those

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Speaker 2: two together and you get a reinforcing feedback. And it's

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Speaker 2: actually that reinforcing feedback that pulled the Earth out of

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Speaker 2: ice ages in our past over the last eight hundred

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Speaker 2: thousand years.

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Speaker 1: John, you've also written about how people often substitute judgment

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Speaker 1: about complex topics such as climate science, with more simple judgments,

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Speaker 1: for example, the character or tribal identity of a person

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Speaker 1: talking about climate science. How does that reliance on shortcuts

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Speaker 1: fuel climate and misinformation.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's important to recognize that all of us are

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Speaker 2: hardwired to make decisions based on snap mental shortcuts or heuristics,

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Speaker 2: and generally it serves us well, that's how we're able

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Speaker 2: to escape a saber toothed tiger jumping out of the

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Speaker 2: bushes or just immediate threats. The problem is, in this

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Speaker 2: modern world, sometimes those mental shortcuts can lead us astray,

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Speaker 2: and it can also make us vulnerable to that arguments

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Speaker 2: or misinformation. And it's an unfortunate reality that the solution

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Speaker 2: to this problem is critical thinking. We need to be

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Speaker 2: able to get better at spotting misinformation and the spotting

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Speaker 2: attempts to mislead us. What are those different fallacies? Is

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Speaker 2: this argument a false dichotomy or does it use magnified

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Speaker 2: minority or cherry picking or other misleading techniques. If we

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Speaker 2: want a public who are resilient against misinformation, we need

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Speaker 2: to build up their ability to spot these types of fallacies.

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Speaker 1: Right and sort of complexity can Yeah, we want things,

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Speaker 1: especially these days, we want things that are fast, simple, understandable,

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Speaker 1: and social media often distorts and doing that and distilling things.

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Speaker 1: And I was watching some of your videos online of

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Speaker 1: you kind of dissecting the premise and does the conclusion

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Speaker 1: logically follow the premise, and it all seems very reasonable.

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Speaker 1: I thought, Yeah, but this is like bringing a knife

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Speaker 1: to a gunfight with and so I'm just curious about

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Speaker 1: your sort of very reasoned approach logic based in an

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Speaker 1: information age where things are viral and fake and spreading

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Speaker 1: so quickly regardless of their veracity.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really hard. I've struggled with those thoughts and

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Speaker 2: for many years. When we develop this critical thinking approach

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Speaker 2: where you deconstruct arguments into premises and conclusion. I did

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Speaker 2: that work with two critical thinking philosophers. They introduced me

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Speaker 2: to the idea of parallel argumentation. You can explain logical

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Speaker 2: flaws by not You don't have to go into the

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Speaker 2: whole premise, premise, conclusion, logical like is it logically about?

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Speaker 2: All that kind of analysis. You can just take a

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Speaker 2: flawed argument and transplant that logic into a parallel situation.

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Speaker 2: Usually the most absurd and extreme situation you can think

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Speaker 2: of and then use the same logic, and that makes

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Speaker 2: it very clear and engaging in concrete when you're trying

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Speaker 2: to explain the flawed logic to people. And when they

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Speaker 2: introduced this technique to me, I realized that this was

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Speaker 2: what late night comedians used every night. They'll say this

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Speaker 2: person said this statement, and well, that's just like being

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Speaker 2: in this situation and then using the same logic. Everyone laughs.

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Speaker 2: They can immediately see that it's wrong and they're entertained.

439
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 2: But most importantly, like is the comedian has actually introduced

440
00:28:35,840 --> 00:28:39,200
Speaker 2: a bit of critical thinking because it's shown a logical

441
00:28:39,240 --> 00:28:42,560
Speaker 2: fallacy in a very concrete, engaging way. The beauty of

442
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 2: this approach is you can use non polarizing examples to

443
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 2: explain how misinformation is misleading or to explain a fallacy.

444
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:56,720
Speaker 1: So let's practice this. If I see the climate's change before,

445
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:59,480
Speaker 1: it's changing now it's always been changing. Yeah, climate changes,

446
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: that's what it does. How would you respond.

447
00:29:02,560 --> 00:29:06,160
Speaker 2: That argument is the same logic as saying, well, people

448
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:11,920
Speaker 2: have died of natural causes before cigarettes were invented, therefore

449
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 2: cigarettes can't cause harmful effects, or people have died of

450
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:20,800
Speaker 2: cancer long before cigarettes were invented. Therefore, smoking doesn't cause cancer.

451
00:29:21,280 --> 00:29:24,960
Speaker 2: It's the same logic, and it commits single cause fallacy,

452
00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 2: in other words, saying that whatever's whatever caused something in

453
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:32,600
Speaker 2: the past must also be causing it now when you

454
00:29:32,640 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 2: can have multiple causes.

455
00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:39,000
Speaker 1: Let's try another one. If I say that models are unreliable, oh,

456
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: climate models, no, they're not accurate.

457
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 2: So actually we're doing an experiment on that now. And

458
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:49,400
Speaker 2: so our approach has been to say models are a

459
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:53,720
Speaker 2: simplification of reality. They don't capture all of reality, and

460
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:58,960
Speaker 2: we use models to get astronauts to the moon. They're

461
00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 2: simplified versions are reality. Mutant's laws of motion and Newton's

462
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:09,960
Speaker 2: laws of gravity simplifications. Models don't need to be perfect

463
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:14,560
Speaker 2: in order to give us useful results, and climate models

464
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:18,560
Speaker 2: they're not perfect. They don't capture absolutely everything, but they

465
00:30:18,640 --> 00:30:22,800
Speaker 2: capture enough to tell us that humans are causing climate

466
00:30:22,880 --> 00:30:26,480
Speaker 2: change and that climate change has serious impacts.

467
00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: Many fossil fuel companies now are engaging in what some

468
00:30:30,120 --> 00:30:33,320
Speaker 1: call greenwashing or climate washing, where they're making net zero

469
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: commitments and stating that they're working toward climate solutions you

470
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:40,160
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. They are attacking solutions there's other approach, which

471
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 1: is there kind of co opting solutions, saying we share

472
00:30:42,440 --> 00:30:43,959
Speaker 1: the solutions, we're part of the solution.

473
00:30:44,440 --> 00:30:49,880
Speaker 2: Yes. Greenwashing is another form of climate misinformation, particularly from industry,

474
00:30:50,520 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 2: and it's a hard one. Often you need a lot

475
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:58,800
Speaker 2: of background information in order to fact check whether what

476
00:30:58,840 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 2: they're doing is actually helping the environment or whether it's

477
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 2: just token behavior in order to portray themselves as being

478
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 2: environmental when actually they're actually being quite distractive. But they're

479
00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 2: generally speaking. The strategy to counter green washing is the

480
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 2: same as the strategy to count other forms of climate misinformation.

481
00:31:22,160 --> 00:31:25,520
Speaker 2: Learn the techniques and become familiar with them so that

482
00:31:25,520 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 2: when you see them in some corporate advertising, that's a

483
00:31:29,320 --> 00:31:32,880
Speaker 2: red flag. The techniques of green washing, just a few

484
00:31:32,920 --> 00:31:37,040
Speaker 2: of them that come immediately to mind is vague terms

485
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:41,200
Speaker 2: or kind of meaningless terms, so they would say it's

486
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 2: environmentally friendly, or they'll they'll just use either colors or

487
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:53,360
Speaker 2: imagery or environmental sounding words, but it's all very loosey goosey.

488
00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 2: The other red flag is when they're a company that

489
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:03,080
Speaker 2: their main bread and of their business is environmentally destructive,

490
00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 2: and then they talk about something that they're doing that's

491
00:32:06,120 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 2: environmentally positive. Usually in those cases, what they're spending on

492
00:32:12,280 --> 00:32:16,440
Speaker 2: this environmental activity is a tiny, tiny fraction of their

493
00:32:16,480 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 2: overall budget.

494
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the magnified minority. We're spending millions on renewables,

495
00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:25,960
Speaker 1: but they're spending tens of billions on fossil fuels. Amy

496
00:32:26,000 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 1: Westervelt reported elsewhere in the show that freedom of speech

497
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 1: is often viewed as sakra sanct We all know that,

498
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,840
Speaker 1: and has been used by fossil fuel companies as cover

499
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 1: further misinformation campaigns. What are the bigger implications of that

500
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:40,160
Speaker 1: in terms of free speech.

501
00:32:40,960 --> 00:32:45,680
Speaker 2: It really depends on the specific situation. But generally speaking,

502
00:32:45,800 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 2: my policy or my approach is the antidote to bad

503
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 2: speech is more speech or good speech, and that is

504
00:32:55,800 --> 00:33:00,960
Speaker 2: kind of the principle that informs building public resilience misinformation,

505
00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:05,800
Speaker 2: so helping people to see through these false arguments from

506
00:33:06,640 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 2: fussil fuel companies or other sources of misinformation.

507
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:12,640
Speaker 1: Right, and we've seen lots of attacks on science, and

508
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 1: there seems to be you know, it's related to the

509
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:19,640
Speaker 1: distrust of institutions, and that's certainly been rampant during COVID

510
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:22,680
Speaker 1: nineteen pandemic and has led to real harm and even

511
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 1: the death of some vocal anti vaxxers. If you did

512
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 1: research on whether personal experience does that affect people's receptivity

513
00:33:32,560 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: to these myths if they know someone who's been affected

514
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:39,959
Speaker 1: by climate or know someone who's been affected by COVID.

515
00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:43,080
Speaker 2: There's some interesting research done by my colleagues at George

516
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:48,800
Speaker 2: Mason University threes of myas at MAYBAC. They looked at

517
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:53,720
Speaker 2: how personal experience can influence people's perceptions about climate change

518
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 2: and the way to think about these imagine there's three

519
00:33:57,920 --> 00:34:02,240
Speaker 2: segments of society. Is the alarmed and concern people who

520
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 2: are who are on board about climate change. There's the

521
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:09,880
Speaker 2: dismissives at the other end, and then there's the mushy middle.

522
00:34:09,960 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 2: There's the undecideds in the middle. What they found was

523
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:17,000
Speaker 2: personal experience about climate change doesn't affect the two groups

524
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 2: at the ends. The people who are alarmed stay alarmed.

525
00:34:20,320 --> 00:34:23,479
Speaker 2: The people who are dismissive stay dismissive. It's the people

526
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 2: who are undercided in the middle. When they have personal

527
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 2: experience with climate related events like increasing extreme weather, those

528
00:34:31,719 --> 00:34:34,440
Speaker 2: are the ones whose perceptions about climate change shift.

529
00:34:35,719 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: You work with Facebook to help them combat misinformation, what

530
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:42,160
Speaker 1: does that work look like, particularly in the climate realm.

531
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 2: So Facebook launched the Climate Science Center, and initially the

532
00:34:48,600 --> 00:34:53,240
Speaker 2: Climate Science Center was just about providing authoritative, reliable, accurate

533
00:34:53,280 --> 00:34:56,120
Speaker 2: facts about climate change, and this was done in response

534
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 2: to a lot of criticism they received about letting this

535
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:03,440
Speaker 2: information spread on their platform, and a lot of people

536
00:35:03,480 --> 00:35:07,200
Speaker 2: were critical that this was not enough, including myself. I

537
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:09,440
Speaker 2: didn't have any association with them at the time, so

538
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:13,120
Speaker 2: I was quite blunt in saying producing facts while letting

539
00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 2: misinformation spread was like poisoning someone and then giving them

540
00:35:17,239 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 2: a pamphlet about vegetables. But to their credit, they always

541
00:35:24,160 --> 00:35:27,480
Speaker 2: recognized that just producing the Climate Science Center was a

542
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 2: first step, and their intent was to gradually ratchet up

543
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:36,319
Speaker 2: their ambition and proactiveness in taking on climate misinformation. So

544
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:41,160
Speaker 2: their next step was to work with myself and two

545
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:47,719
Speaker 2: other climate communication researchers, Tony Lyisowitz and Sander Vandalinden, and

546
00:35:48,239 --> 00:35:51,839
Speaker 2: we went through the process of looking at the most

547
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:55,640
Speaker 2: common myths about climate change, and then we advise them

548
00:35:55,680 --> 00:35:59,759
Speaker 2: on how to write debunkings about them. It's important when

549
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:03,800
Speaker 2: you're debunking misinformation not just to explain the facts. Although

550
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 2: that's crucially important, but also to explain the technique used

551
00:36:08,280 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 2: to distort the facts, so fact myth fallacy. Fact is

552
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 2: a general structure that we recommend for debunking misinformation, and

553
00:36:18,200 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 2: they use that. So we produced those with them debunking

554
00:36:22,120 --> 00:36:25,560
Speaker 2: the most common myths about climate change. Since then, it's

555
00:36:25,600 --> 00:36:28,919
Speaker 2: been an ongoing collaboration and they're still looking at other

556
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 2: ways to use their platform to count of misinformation. It's

557
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 2: been slow, slower than I would have liked, but there

558
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:42,239
Speaker 2: has been incremental progress. Misinformation is a really complicated problem.

559
00:36:42,480 --> 00:36:49,480
Speaker 2: It involves psychology, culture, technology, science, a whole range of

560
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:51,640
Speaker 2: different factors, and we need to be throwing a lot

561
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 2: of different tools out it.

562
00:36:53,840 --> 00:36:56,040
Speaker 1: John Kirk, thanks for sharing your insights on how to

563
00:36:56,120 --> 00:36:59,560
Speaker 1: identify misinformation and how to respond to the misinformation.

564
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:01,319
Speaker 2: Thanks Greg, it was great to talk to.

565
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 1: You coming up the implications of podcasts not being regulated

566
00:37:05,600 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 1: the same way as other types of media.

567
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:12,279
Speaker 3: Every person who's putting out a podcast, it's up to

568
00:37:12,360 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 3: them entirely what their process is for fact checking or

569
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:24,080
Speaker 3: any kind of backstop there on truthfulness, and we've really

570
00:37:24,120 --> 00:37:27,360
Speaker 3: seen in the last few years what that can lead to.

571
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:37,840
Speaker 1: That's up next when climate One continues, we're talking about

572
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:42,040
Speaker 1: climate misinformation. This week's show is a special collaboration with

573
00:37:42,080 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 1: Amy Westervelt, an award winning print and audio journalist. She's

574
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 1: founder of the Critical Frequency podcast network, which includes her

575
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:54,520
Speaker 1: own show Drilled, a true crime style podcast about climate change.

576
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 1: I asked her to join me to reflect on what

577
00:37:56,760 --> 00:37:59,480
Speaker 1: we've heard so far in this show about ways fossil

578
00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 1: fuel comey spread misinformation. Amy, Welcome to Climate One. I'm

579
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:05,319
Speaker 1: excited to be talking with you.

580
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,160
Speaker 3: I'm super excited to be here. Thanks for having me.

581
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 6: Well.

582
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 1: Reflecting on your piece that opened this episode, it was

583
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:15,040
Speaker 1: real interesting, and I've been thinking about the distinction between

584
00:38:15,040 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 1: commercial speech and political speech. Fossil fuels have amazing energy

585
00:38:20,680 --> 00:38:23,479
Speaker 1: density and they enable us to live our lives every day,

586
00:38:23,640 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: and fossil fuels are killing the natural systems that we

587
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:30,480
Speaker 1: rely on every day. Both are true. Where do you

588
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 1: see the line between commercial speech and political speech that

589
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:35,480
Speaker 1: you talked about in that opening segment.

590
00:38:36,080 --> 00:38:39,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I find that really interesting too. Just

591
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:43,640
Speaker 3: from a legal strategy standpoint, this idea that you know,

592
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:48,360
Speaker 3: if it's something that connects to policy, I want to

593
00:38:48,400 --> 00:38:52,240
Speaker 3: see then it doesn't have to play by the same

594
00:38:52,360 --> 00:38:55,279
Speaker 3: rules as you know something that's about a product that

595
00:38:55,360 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 3: I'm selling. So to me, I actually it reminds me

596
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:02,360
Speaker 3: of the conversation that sprung up when The Guardian stopped

597
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:05,319
Speaker 3: taking fossil fuel ads a couple of years ago. So

598
00:39:06,200 --> 00:39:08,319
Speaker 3: a lot of people kind of questioned that and said, well,

599
00:39:08,480 --> 00:39:11,200
Speaker 3: where do you draw the line, What about airplanes and

600
00:39:11,239 --> 00:39:14,480
Speaker 3: air travel and cars and if it has to do

601
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:20,040
Speaker 3: with climate change and or a product's impact on the

602
00:39:20,160 --> 00:39:23,560
Speaker 3: environment or the world at large, you could theoretically just

603
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 3: get rid of of any kind of advertiser. And they

604
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:29,600
Speaker 3: had this very succinct response to that, which was, well,

605
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:33,040
Speaker 3: all of those other categories are selling a product, and

606
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 3: the fossil fuel industry is very much selling ideas and

607
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 3: policy positions. They don't advertise gas anymore. Nobody really chooses

608
00:39:41,719 --> 00:39:46,400
Speaker 3: their gasoline based on brand, right, It's a commodity. So

609
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:50,359
Speaker 3: to me, there's a very very clear difference between the

610
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:53,240
Speaker 3: way that the fossil fuel industry advertises for the last

611
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:58,319
Speaker 3: ten fifteen years and the way most other industries advertise.

612
00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 3: That is a pretty good illustration of the difference between

613
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:03,359
Speaker 3: commercial and political speech.

614
00:40:03,560 --> 00:40:06,799
Speaker 1: Right, and then that advertising often gets into its branding

615
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:09,440
Speaker 1: and you know, another part of your segment that was

616
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:14,280
Speaker 1: real interesting is Mobile VP of Public Affairs formerly Herb Schmertz,

617
00:40:14,320 --> 00:40:17,759
Speaker 1: remarking on the company's personality and its participation in the

618
00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:21,960
Speaker 1: marketplace of ideas. Of course, these days, corporations are often

619
00:40:22,000 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 1: invited into public discourse bipartisans and advocates. Disney just called

620
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:31,439
Speaker 1: for rescinding Floridas Don't Say Gay law, which I said, yay, Yeah,

621
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:34,000
Speaker 1: So oil companies are not the only ones shaping their

622
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 1: image and in the public policy sphere. So you know,

623
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:39,680
Speaker 1: why is it bad for oil companies to do what

624
00:40:39,760 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 1: Disney is and others are doing.

625
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 3: I personally believe it's not great for any of them

626
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:48,560
Speaker 3: to do it. Actually, whether we agree with them or

627
00:40:48,640 --> 00:40:53,120
Speaker 3: not is sort of irrelevant. I think the invitation to

628
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:59,919
Speaker 3: corporations into the public square has been a real problem

629
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:04,279
Speaker 3: America since the seventies. And I think that you see

630
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:08,319
Speaker 3: this right in this history of Mobile kind of involving

631
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:11,799
Speaker 3: itself with this that it was very much like we

632
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:16,320
Speaker 3: need to maintain this position in society to be able

633
00:41:16,400 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 3: to effectively lobby both the public and politicians for these

634
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 3: kinds of policies that we want to control. The narrative

635
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:31,680
Speaker 3: about what's happening, you know, with our industry. It's actually

636
00:41:31,680 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 3: a really interesting time to be talking about this because

637
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:37,520
Speaker 3: very similar things were happening then that are happening now,

638
00:41:37,840 --> 00:41:41,640
Speaker 3: where you know, the gas phrases were high, and the

639
00:41:41,680 --> 00:41:44,080
Speaker 3: oil companies were saying, it's not our fault, it's the

640
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:47,120
Speaker 3: government's fault, and there was this kind of you know,

641
00:41:47,280 --> 00:41:49,960
Speaker 3: jockeying for control of the story.

642
00:41:50,520 --> 00:41:52,960
Speaker 1: When I heard that piece that you did, I thought of,

643
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 1: you know, the status of corporations as individuals, as legal individuals,

644
00:41:57,640 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 1: which is kind of another extension of what you pointed out.

645
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:03,000
Speaker 1: They have First Amendment rights and they are an individual

646
00:42:03,040 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 1: which made me think immediately of Stephen Colbert's line a

647
00:42:07,160 --> 00:42:10,520
Speaker 1: while back where he said, I'll believe that corporations are

648
00:42:10,560 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 1: individuals when Texas executes one.

649
00:42:15,880 --> 00:42:19,480
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, exactly, And I mean Herb Schwartz whole personality

650
00:42:19,520 --> 00:42:22,919
Speaker 3: thing really played into that too, This idea of like, oh,

651
00:42:22,960 --> 00:42:28,880
Speaker 3: if we imbue corporations with a personality and an opinion

652
00:42:29,200 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 3: and a soul, like a morality too, right, then that

653
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:35,919
Speaker 3: makes it easier for us to convince the public that,

654
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:38,920
Speaker 3: you know, we're good faith actors, we care about more

655
00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 3: than just our bottom line. But the reality is that

656
00:42:42,040 --> 00:42:43,600
Speaker 3: they don't have to play by the same rules as

657
00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:46,359
Speaker 3: any other member of the community. You know, nobody else

658
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:51,040
Speaker 3: gets as many benefits as corporations do in the realm

659
00:42:51,239 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 3: where they're not humans.

660
00:42:53,160 --> 00:42:55,399
Speaker 1: And I'm curious, you know. You also, we had John

661
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:59,440
Speaker 1: Cook talking about deconstructing climate myths, how to identify and

662
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:02,720
Speaker 1: respond misinformation. What struck you about his piece?

663
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:06,200
Speaker 3: I find him so interesting every time I read anything

664
00:43:06,239 --> 00:43:08,840
Speaker 3: of his or listen to him talk about this stuff.

665
00:43:09,080 --> 00:43:12,240
Speaker 3: So the thing that struck me this time was this notion.

666
00:43:12,360 --> 00:43:14,600
Speaker 3: And I don't it wasn't necessarily new to me, but

667
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 3: just the way he phrased it. As you know, we

668
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:20,240
Speaker 3: had like twenty years of science denial and then twenty

669
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:25,160
Speaker 3: years of solutions denial. It's a very straightforward way to

670
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:28,359
Speaker 3: understand it. And you really have seen that over over

671
00:43:28,400 --> 00:43:31,400
Speaker 3: the years of you know, Okay, now we believe the science, Like,

672
00:43:31,480 --> 00:43:34,480
Speaker 3: let's focus on these other things that will help us

673
00:43:34,480 --> 00:43:39,400
Speaker 3: delay policy and regulation and you know, allow us to

674
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:41,759
Speaker 3: kind of get as much out of these assets as

675
00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:44,279
Speaker 3: we can before we have to retire the you know,

676
00:43:45,040 --> 00:43:47,160
Speaker 3: which is the name of the game. And like to

677
00:43:47,200 --> 00:43:51,640
Speaker 3: be honest, I don't necessarily blame oil companies for doing that.

678
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:57,000
Speaker 3: They're doing what corporations are encouraged and incentivized and enabled

679
00:43:57,000 --> 00:44:00,160
Speaker 3: to do. Right, So I am kind of a the

680
00:44:00,200 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 3: opinion of, well, if we wanted to change, then we

681
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:06,320
Speaker 3: have to change the rules so that you know, they

682
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:10,319
Speaker 3: can't do these things that are beneficial to them and

683
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:13,799
Speaker 3: kind of impose a lot of liabilities and risks on

684
00:44:13,840 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 3: the rest of us.

685
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 1: The idea of kind of solutions that also for me

686
00:44:18,560 --> 00:44:21,799
Speaker 1: was really clarifying and crystallizing when John said, we've moved

687
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:25,759
Speaker 1: from climate misinformation to solutions misinformation. And maybe think of

688
00:44:26,239 --> 00:44:29,880
Speaker 1: how many times I've heard people question what happens to

689
00:44:29,960 --> 00:44:33,400
Speaker 1: EV batteries after the useful life of the car? And

690
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: I've heard that so many times that I'm suspicious of

691
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 1: where that's being seated and how that's being seated, Like

692
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 1: did those people all come up with that organically, or

693
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:44,760
Speaker 1: you know, is there some you know, Facebook posts somewhere

694
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:47,960
Speaker 1: that campaign to like so doubt about EV batteries at

695
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:50,200
Speaker 1: the end of life and we know that that is

696
00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:52,960
Speaker 1: a solvable problem. And now there's a new company that's

697
00:44:53,000 --> 00:44:55,160
Speaker 1: going to harve by a founder of Tesla that's going

698
00:44:55,200 --> 00:44:57,279
Speaker 1: to try to harvest those batteries, et cetera.

699
00:44:57,440 --> 00:45:01,320
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's it's I don't know. It's so tough

700
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:06,880
Speaker 3: because I think there are important and nuanced conversations to

701
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:11,359
Speaker 3: be had about, you know, some of the the unintended

702
00:45:11,360 --> 00:45:15,759
Speaker 3: consequences of the solutions to climate change too, right, Like,

703
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:18,560
Speaker 3: I know there's a whole a lot going on around

704
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:22,279
Speaker 3: lithium mining right now and huge. Yeah, you know, those

705
00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:25,680
Speaker 3: are our very important conversations to be having. We don't

706
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 3: want to go into you know, the next energy generation

707
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 3: with the same exact mindset except for like the source

708
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:35,600
Speaker 3: of energy or else we're going to repeat, you know,

709
00:45:35,719 --> 00:45:37,720
Speaker 3: the same mistakes and end up with a new problem.

710
00:45:37,800 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 3: Right and unfortunately, it's like you almost can't have those

711
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:48,920
Speaker 3: conversations without it being weaponized by you know, people who

712
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 3: who don't want to see climate policy or who don't

713
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:56,319
Speaker 3: want to see energy transition to say, oh, let's see there.

714
00:45:56,520 --> 00:45:58,880
Speaker 3: You know, there's problems with this too. There's problems with

715
00:45:58,920 --> 00:46:01,560
Speaker 3: all of it. The other thing I thought was interesting

716
00:46:01,640 --> 00:46:04,560
Speaker 3: in your interview with John where he talks about how

717
00:46:05,160 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 3: there's a real focus on kind of weaponizing the human

718
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 3: tendency towards tribal identity and sticking with our group and

719
00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:16,440
Speaker 3: digging into our opinions and those kinds of things, because

720
00:46:16,520 --> 00:46:20,640
Speaker 3: you really see that in the fracturing of the climate

721
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 3: movement too, not just like climate people versus people who

722
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:27,360
Speaker 3: don't think we should act on climate, or centrist versus

723
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:30,720
Speaker 3: progressives or whatever, like even in these things like should

724
00:46:30,760 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 3: we or should we not mind lithium for electrification, it's

725
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:40,120
Speaker 3: like people can't even have, you know, a remotely nuanced

726
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 3: conversation about it.

727
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 1: And you know a lot of this is playing out

728
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:47,120
Speaker 1: in the pod casting place. And there was a big

729
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:50,080
Speaker 1: dust up recently with you know, Joe Rogan. He's been

730
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:53,959
Speaker 1: peddling in both climate and COVID misinformation for a long time,

731
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:57,200
Speaker 1: but it's COVID that got him in trouble. And then

732
00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:00,719
Speaker 1: you tweeted recently that he interviewed Michael Shellenberger, who I've

733
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:04,920
Speaker 1: interviewed numerous times, who's running for the governor of California.

734
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 1: So how does he embody kind of the evolution from

735
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:13,640
Speaker 1: science misinformation to solution information? And what did you think

736
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:16,800
Speaker 1: about when you saw Rogan and Schellenberger together that photo?

737
00:47:17,120 --> 00:47:19,000
Speaker 3: It was so interesting because I had just I was

738
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 3: just listening to your conversation with John and then I

739
00:47:22,680 --> 00:47:25,719
Speaker 3: saw that that you know, interview had happened, and I

740
00:47:25,760 --> 00:47:27,640
Speaker 3: was like, oh, this is like a perfect example of

741
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 3: this of this evolution, because Joe Rogan has you know,

742
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 3: interviewed lots of kind of garden variety climate deniers, you know,

743
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:39,360
Speaker 3: will say, actually Car two is good for us in

744
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:42,799
Speaker 3: the atmosphere and things of that nature. And now he's

745
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:50,399
Speaker 3: graduated to Schellenberger, who you know is a like likes

746
00:47:50,440 --> 00:47:54,279
Speaker 3: to kind of burnish his environmental credentials and say I

747
00:47:54,320 --> 00:47:58,719
Speaker 3: was an environmental activist and and now I'm apologizing to

748
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:02,800
Speaker 3: the world for all the alarmism that we created about

749
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:06,160
Speaker 3: climate change. And yes it's a problem, but we don't

750
00:48:06,160 --> 00:48:10,120
Speaker 3: need to actually make any drastic changes. And very very

751
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 3: much a big user of one of the strategies that

752
00:48:13,600 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 3: John Cook talked about, which is cherry picking datas. I

753
00:48:18,080 --> 00:48:21,480
Speaker 3: went through his book when it came out and found

754
00:48:21,680 --> 00:48:27,799
Speaker 3: I think three thousand examples of cherry picked data that

755
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:31,080
Speaker 3: was like making a very flawed argument.

756
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:33,279
Speaker 1: So how much of this is you know, you and

757
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:36,600
Speaker 1: I both came out of you know, traditional news backgrounds.

758
00:48:36,680 --> 00:48:38,680
Speaker 1: You know, when I worked at the AP, there was

759
00:48:38,719 --> 00:48:40,839
Speaker 1: a saying that if you think your mother loves you,

760
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: you better call and confirm that it's still true, you know.

761
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:49,280
Speaker 1: And so the But in Podland and the realm of podcasts,

762
00:48:49,320 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 1: which are you know, those traditional rules rules don't apply.

763
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:56,919
Speaker 1: They're regulated differently. So how you know, talk about you know,

764
00:48:57,080 --> 00:49:01,399
Speaker 1: how much of this is a real function of, you know,

765
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:07,440
Speaker 1: the surge of podcasting and how can podland avoid becoming

766
00:49:07,480 --> 00:49:09,520
Speaker 1: the cesspool that is social media.

767
00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm actually very concerned about this because it is

768
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:18,040
Speaker 3: governed by the exact same rules as Twitter and Facebook.

769
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:21,759
Speaker 3: Podcasts are. But I think the public thinks of podcasts

770
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:27,560
Speaker 3: as being media right and therefore governed by media rules

771
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 3: like websites or newspapers or whatever, and it's not. Actually

772
00:49:32,239 --> 00:49:36,200
Speaker 3: so every person who's putting out a podcast is it's

773
00:49:36,280 --> 00:49:41,560
Speaker 3: up to them entirely what their process is for fact checking.

774
00:49:41,560 --> 00:49:42,440
Speaker 2: Or you know.

775
00:49:42,600 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 3: I mean, there are some basic consumer protection laws, but

776
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:53,000
Speaker 3: in terms of any kind of backstop there on truthfulness, no,

777
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 3: it's kind of up to each organization. And we've really

778
00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:00,400
Speaker 3: seen in the last few years what that can lead to.

779
00:50:00,880 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 3: Joe Rogan is a perfect example of you know, he

780
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:07,399
Speaker 3: kind of takes this approach that well, I'm just I'm

781
00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:11,040
Speaker 3: just sharing my opinion. And the problem there is that

782
00:50:11,239 --> 00:50:16,640
Speaker 3: when you're sharing your opinion and it sounds like expertise,

783
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:19,920
Speaker 3: then it can be very misleading to people.

784
00:50:20,080 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 1: You know, So maybe I learned from maybe he took

785
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:25,239
Speaker 1: a page from me.

786
00:50:26,080 --> 00:50:31,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I think that, you know, I'm

787
00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:35,400
Speaker 3: not a fan of censorship, and I think also like

788
00:50:35,440 --> 00:50:37,040
Speaker 3: the horse is kind of out of the barn, like

789
00:50:37,080 --> 00:50:40,319
Speaker 3: you're not gonna, you know, go back in time and

790
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:44,000
Speaker 3: set up rules that the podcast industry can you know,

791
00:50:44,719 --> 00:50:49,399
Speaker 3: can live by necessarily. But I do think that there's

792
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:53,400
Speaker 3: an argument to be made to bring podcasts under FCC

793
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:58,520
Speaker 3: regulations instead of the Federal Trade Commission FTC, which it's

794
00:50:58,600 --> 00:51:02,520
Speaker 3: under now. Not that the SEC is perfect, obviously, we

795
00:51:02,600 --> 00:51:06,880
Speaker 3: see tons of misinformation on cable news for example, as well,

796
00:51:07,320 --> 00:51:12,400
Speaker 3: but there's at least some amount of more proactive action

797
00:51:12,640 --> 00:51:16,239
Speaker 3: to try to curb that there. And the other thing is,

798
00:51:16,520 --> 00:51:19,439
Speaker 3: I do think that you're seeing the industry itself start

799
00:51:19,560 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 3: to sort of take some somewhat of a turn. You're

800
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:25,200
Speaker 3: always going to have these kind of rogue actors, but

801
00:51:25,760 --> 00:51:29,080
Speaker 3: the podcast platforms are thinking about, you know, what can

802
00:51:29,120 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 3: we do to sort of let the more high quality

803
00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:38,640
Speaker 3: reported stuff rise to the top and highlight that stuff

804
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:43,359
Speaker 3: versus some guy in his mom's garage, you know, And

805
00:51:43,920 --> 00:51:47,440
Speaker 3: companies are starting to hire fact checkers more and more too.

806
00:51:47,480 --> 00:51:49,839
Speaker 3: This has like become just in the last couple of years.

807
00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:52,520
Speaker 3: I've seen a major major shift where I had to

808
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:56,319
Speaker 3: really convince people before that that was worth spending money on.

809
00:51:56,640 --> 00:51:59,040
Speaker 3: But because of the FTC thing. The other problem with

810
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:02,160
Speaker 3: podcasts is that the ads don't go by the same rules.

811
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:05,600
Speaker 1: So we've we've struggled with that. How you've like fact

812
00:52:05,680 --> 00:52:07,960
Speaker 1: checked the ads that come on your platform. That Daily

813
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:11,360
Speaker 1: got called out for some things on natural gas. I

814
00:52:11,400 --> 00:52:15,400
Speaker 1: think it was that that was not quite meet the

815
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:16,800
Speaker 1: standards of the New York Times.

816
00:52:16,840 --> 00:52:18,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, exactly.

817
00:52:18,200 --> 00:52:18,759
Speaker 1: Yeah.

818
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:22,960
Speaker 3: The fact that you saw this explosion in oil companies

819
00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:26,919
Speaker 3: in particular advertising and podcasts a few years ago, it's

820
00:52:27,000 --> 00:52:29,600
Speaker 3: for a reason. You know, they don't they don't spend

821
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:32,799
Speaker 3: money on stuff just to try things out. They're they're

822
00:52:32,920 --> 00:52:35,719
Speaker 3: very smart and very strategic. So if you know, if

823
00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:39,760
Speaker 3: they're investing a lot there and then social media ads,

824
00:52:39,800 --> 00:52:43,000
Speaker 3: it's because they have more control over the story there.

825
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:45,799
Speaker 1: Right, which all gets to the need for the educated,

826
00:52:46,000 --> 00:52:49,520
Speaker 1: discerning public to sort of, you know, check ourselves and

827
00:52:49,680 --> 00:52:53,680
Speaker 1: what's the difference between the editorial, the podcast, the advertisement.

828
00:52:54,080 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 1: One of the themes running through this is the narrative

829
00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:59,520
Speaker 1: of personal responsibility, both for climate action and for I guess,

830
00:52:59,560 --> 00:53:03,960
Speaker 1: for the information we take in versus corporate responsibility, for

831
00:53:04,440 --> 00:53:09,360
Speaker 1: corporate responsibility for climate, corporate responsibility or producer responsibility for

832
00:53:09,480 --> 00:53:14,880
Speaker 1: media and for energy. You know, BP popularized the idea

833
00:53:14,880 --> 00:53:18,480
Speaker 1: of the personal carbon footprint twenty years ago, and I

834
00:53:18,600 --> 00:53:21,279
Speaker 1: respect your work a lot, and you have really gone

835
00:53:21,280 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 1: after you know, the villains, energy companies, energy suppliers as

836
00:53:25,840 --> 00:53:31,319
Speaker 1: villains in the climate story. And I've also pursued the

837
00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:35,080
Speaker 1: limitations and the truth of the personal responsibility. And I

838
00:53:35,160 --> 00:53:38,480
Speaker 1: want to play a clip from brit Ray, who's a

839
00:53:38,520 --> 00:53:42,080
Speaker 1: researcher at Stanford University who's had this to say.

840
00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:44,960
Speaker 15: It's a huge part of a lot of activist rhetoric

841
00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:49,480
Speaker 15: that we shouldn't be focusing on our individual minuscule impact

842
00:53:49,760 --> 00:53:53,280
Speaker 15: in relation to who's out there really spreading the damage,

843
00:53:53,320 --> 00:53:55,840
Speaker 15: you know, the fossil fuel companies, the corrupt politicians, the

844
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:59,360
Speaker 15: lobbyist et cetera, that are fueling the damage as we

845
00:53:59,400 --> 00:54:04,040
Speaker 15: speak and have and for decades. And I really think that.

846
00:54:03,440 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 16: That is, of course true on an intellectual level in

847
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:09,680
Speaker 16: many ways, but there's also perhaps a propulsion to turn

848
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:13,319
Speaker 16: away from looking within because it brings up shame, it

849
00:54:13,320 --> 00:54:17,160
Speaker 16: brings up guilt, it brings up intolerable emotions that produce

850
00:54:17,200 --> 00:54:18,640
Speaker 16: a bunch of defensive reactions.

851
00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:23,160
Speaker 1: That's Britt Ray, who has a PhD and climate science communication.

852
00:54:23,280 --> 00:54:26,080
Speaker 1: So I'm going to ask you if someone can villainization

853
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:30,400
Speaker 1: sometimes be easy or than looking at ourselves and our

854
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:31,239
Speaker 1: own complicity.

855
00:54:31,880 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 3: I definitely thin get can be and I also agree

856
00:54:35,200 --> 00:54:40,400
Speaker 3: with Britt And I also think that there's again going

857
00:54:40,440 --> 00:54:42,840
Speaker 3: to sound like a broken record here, like a real

858
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:46,760
Speaker 3: need for nuance in the conversation around personal responsibility because

859
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:51,800
Speaker 3: the reality is that the top ten percent of consumers globally,

860
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:56,279
Speaker 3: which most Americans fall into, are responsible for a much

861
00:54:56,360 --> 00:55:00,919
Speaker 3: larger proportion of global CO two emissions than everyone else

862
00:55:00,960 --> 00:55:03,640
Speaker 3: in the world. Right, So I absolutely think that we

863
00:55:03,680 --> 00:55:07,759
Speaker 3: should look at that and take responsibility for, you know,

864
00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:11,279
Speaker 3: the ways that we're you know, contributing to that. I

865
00:55:11,320 --> 00:55:14,480
Speaker 3: also think, just as a human, it feels better to

866
00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:18,840
Speaker 3: live according to your values than not, you know, on

867
00:55:18,960 --> 00:55:22,120
Speaker 3: a on a real basic level. And I think also

868
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:27,280
Speaker 3: that there's something to be said for individual action beyond consumerism.

869
00:55:27,400 --> 00:55:30,000
Speaker 3: This is something that really bugs me that the personal

870
00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:32,920
Speaker 3: responsibility stuff always gets well down to what we buy

871
00:55:33,120 --> 00:55:36,320
Speaker 3: right or how we travel.

872
00:55:36,320 --> 00:55:36,640
Speaker 1: You know.

873
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:41,520
Speaker 3: But like individual action can also be civic action. It

874
00:55:41,520 --> 00:55:45,719
Speaker 3: can be political organizing, It can be finding ways to

875
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:50,560
Speaker 3: make your community more resilient. It can be mutual aid.

876
00:55:51,080 --> 00:55:52,719
Speaker 3: There are lots and lots and lots of things that

877
00:55:52,760 --> 00:55:56,279
Speaker 3: have nothing to do with buying different stuff that are

878
00:55:56,320 --> 00:55:59,080
Speaker 3: individual actions that are very important and that are a

879
00:55:59,120 --> 00:56:01,960
Speaker 3: critical part of of how we not only address this

880
00:56:01,960 --> 00:56:03,959
Speaker 3: problem but actually survive it, you know.

881
00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:07,879
Speaker 1: Right, And yes, Bill mckibbon said years ago the most

882
00:56:07,880 --> 00:56:10,920
Speaker 1: important thing an individual can do is not act as

883
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:14,080
Speaker 1: an individual. And I'm recently thinking about the best thing

884
00:56:14,120 --> 00:56:16,239
Speaker 1: you can do is have relationships and make this part

885
00:56:16,239 --> 00:56:19,759
Speaker 1: of your life and your relationships whoever those relationships are with,

886
00:56:20,400 --> 00:56:21,880
Speaker 1: to make climate part of it.

887
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:25,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I know Catherine Hahoe talks a lot about

888
00:56:25,680 --> 00:56:28,839
Speaker 3: the power of talking to other people about this, not

889
00:56:29,000 --> 00:56:32,040
Speaker 3: just in the vein of you know, persuading people to

890
00:56:32,120 --> 00:56:34,160
Speaker 3: see your point of view or things like that, but

891
00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:39,799
Speaker 3: just to create community to like actually to help with

892
00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:43,400
Speaker 3: processing those feelings of shame and fear and anxiety and

893
00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:45,359
Speaker 3: grief and all of those things that come up with

894
00:56:45,400 --> 00:56:47,600
Speaker 3: this too. Like you can't do that alone. You need

895
00:56:48,040 --> 00:56:50,480
Speaker 3: to talk to people, you know, but you speaking to

896
00:56:50,480 --> 00:56:54,240
Speaker 3: someone else about it can absolutely help them to feel

897
00:56:54,560 --> 00:56:57,000
Speaker 3: more like they're able to kind of work through that

898
00:56:57,040 --> 00:57:00,680
Speaker 3: stuff and get to a place where they can. To me,

899
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:03,840
Speaker 3: it's actually not about finding villains at all. It's about

900
00:57:04,320 --> 00:57:07,239
Speaker 3: figuring out what the what drove a problem like the

901
00:57:07,680 --> 00:57:09,759
Speaker 3: climate crisis in the first place, Like, how do you

902
00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 3: have a society that allows a small group of people

903
00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:16,080
Speaker 3: to make decisions that impact the whole world?

904
00:57:17,840 --> 00:57:18,080
Speaker 2: You know?

905
00:57:19,200 --> 00:57:21,720
Speaker 3: Like how does that happen? How does it get to

906
00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:26,600
Speaker 3: this point where we're facing this catastrophe and everyone feels

907
00:57:26,640 --> 00:57:30,040
Speaker 3: really powerless to do anything about it, you know, So

908
00:57:30,120 --> 00:57:32,800
Speaker 3: that is interesting to me. I'm like, you know, how

909
00:57:32,800 --> 00:57:35,160
Speaker 3: did this system get built? And who built it? And

910
00:57:35,560 --> 00:57:37,280
Speaker 3: why did they have the power to build it? And

911
00:57:37,320 --> 00:57:39,880
Speaker 3: how do we Because for me, I don't think you

912
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:43,440
Speaker 3: get to effective solutions if you don't understand that. How

913
00:57:43,480 --> 00:57:45,560
Speaker 3: do you solve a problem when you don't even know

914
00:57:45,840 --> 00:57:48,800
Speaker 3: the roots of it or where it came from. We

915
00:57:48,920 --> 00:57:51,160
Speaker 3: have to deal with the power structure, not just the

916
00:57:51,200 --> 00:57:51,880
Speaker 3: power source.

917
00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 1: Oh yeah right, it is ultimately about power. Yeah. Well,

918
00:57:55,640 --> 00:57:58,080
Speaker 1: Amy Westerville, thank you so much for coming on climate

919
00:57:58,120 --> 00:57:59,520
Speaker 1: and it's been a real pleasure.

920
00:57:59,520 --> 00:58:02,360
Speaker 3: And yeah, thanks for having me. Thank you so much.

921
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:07,040
Speaker 1: On this Climate one, we've been breaking down climate misinformation, tactics,

922
00:58:07,080 --> 00:58:10,720
Speaker 1: and ways to respond. Special thanks to Amy Westervelt for

923
00:58:10,760 --> 00:58:16,040
Speaker 1: this collaboration. Check out her excellent podcast Drilled. Climate one's

924
00:58:16,040 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 1: empowering conversations connect all aspects of the climate emergency. To

925
00:58:20,400 --> 00:58:23,320
Speaker 1: hear more, subscribe to our podcast on Apple or wherever

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Speaker 1: a rating or review or tell a friend. It really

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00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:42,120
Speaker 1: does help advance the climate conversation. Brad Marshland is our

931
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Speaker 1: senior producer. Our producers and audio editors are Aaron Abrocious

932
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:50,600
Speaker 1: and Austin Cologne. Our team also includes Arnov Gupta, Steve Fox,

933
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934
00:58:54,000 --> 00:58:57,960
Speaker 1: Young and arranged by Matt Wilcox. Gloria Duffy is CEO

935
00:58:58,080 --> 00:59:01,000
Speaker 1: of the Commonwealth Club of California, the non profit and

936
00:59:01,080 --> 00:59:05,200
Speaker 1: non partisan forum or our program originates. I'm Greg Dalton.