WEBVTT - S14, Ep5 | How the Fossil Fuel Industry Sabotages Climate Action 0:00:04.920 --> 0:00:08.920 Hello, and welcome back to Drill. I'm Amy Westervelt. This 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:14.319 is our fourteenth, fourteenth season, and we're doing what I 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.520 like to think of as the opposite of the Ezra 0:00:17.640 --> 0:00:22.960 Klein approach. We're digging deep and trying to understand. 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:25.200 The moment that we're in because we're at a really 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:29.880 bad time on climate right now, and you know, democracy 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:34.520 and justice and all sorts of other things, and we're 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:39.200 only just starting to really understand some of the forces 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:41.120 that have worked really hard. 0:00:40.960 --> 0:00:44.240 To bring us to this moment. So you know, it's 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.680 time to do the reading. For me, understanding the lack. 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:51.960 Of political will to act on climate has always begun 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:53.159 with talking. 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.760 To social scientists, So for this season, I wanted to 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.520 talk to some of the best, the folks behind an 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:02.560 incredible new book from the Climate Social Science Network at 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:07.280 Brown University that pulls together everything we currently know about 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:12.000 climate obstruction, how it's happened all over the world. In 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:14.319 the first four episodes of the season, we looked at 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:19.440 how obstruction works, so we looked at pr and media 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:23.400 and the psychology of this stuff. In the next few episodes, 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:27.240 we'll focus on who's doing it, which industries are working 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:32.240 the hardest to obstruct climate action. First up, no surprise, 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:36.240 the fossil fuel industry. They're not the only ones doing it, 0:01:36.319 --> 0:01:39.199 of course, but they are certainly one of the biggest 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:43.240 obstacles to climate action. Joining me today is a voice 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:47.280 that might be familiar to longtime listeners, Kurt Davies, the 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.640 investigator who read to us from so many great documents 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.080 that he'd found back in season one of the podcasts. 0:01:54.560 --> 0:01:57.480 Kurt is at the Center for Climate Integrity. These days 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:01.520 we also have Jeff Dembigie, global Energy editor of diesbog 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:06.120 and author of the book The Petroleum Papers, and Christopher 0:02:06.120 --> 0:02:10.040 Eckberk from the University of Lund in Sweden. Let's get 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:10.560 in to it. 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:18.240 I am Kurt Davies. 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.280 I am the Director of Special Investigations at the Center 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:23.639 for Climate Integrity in Washington, d C. 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:24.200 Hi. 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:29.440 I'm kristofek but I'm associate Senior lecturer in Human Ecology 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:31.520 at Lund University in Sweden. 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:32.359 Hi. 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:37.320 I am Jeff dam Bickie. I am Global Managing Editor 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.760 with the Climate Investigation Side ds MOG. 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:45.040 I want to start out talking about this thing that 0:02:45.120 --> 0:02:48.440 you guys start with in your chapter, which is the 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:55.000 oil and gas industry's sudden embrace post Paris of net 0:02:55.080 --> 0:03:00.680 zero and all that it entails. There's this this line 0:03:01.000 --> 0:03:05.679 from an email that came out during the government's investigations 0:03:05.760 --> 0:03:09.520 in the US on climate disinformation. That's from the BP 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:14.240 global head of Sustainability and Climate Policy, and Kurt, I'm 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.040 going to ask you to do what I always ask 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.800 you to do, which is read documents. Could you read 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:25.200 this line from this guy? He kind of references embracing 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:28.040 net zero and backing the Paris Climate Agreement is the 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:31.600 most obvious course of action to take, and then he says, yes. 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:36.320 I was reading the whole thing again earlier. And so 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:41.080 it's an internal discussion within BP about Trump what Trump 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.720 is going to do with Paris in March of twenty seventeen. 0:03:44.800 --> 0:03:48.520 And that's important because we really didn't know what they 0:03:48.560 --> 0:03:51.480 would do yet. And there's an article they're referring to 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:56.080 where it says Trump administration might stay in Paris but 0:03:56.440 --> 0:04:01.000 kill the Obama pledge, so effectively be in the agreement 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:06.200 without agreeing to do anything. And so the discussion within 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:11.120 VP is Paul Jeffers' rights to Bob Stout and about 0:04:11.160 --> 0:04:16.480 six other people. He says, interesting Obviously I don't know 0:04:16.520 --> 0:04:19.120 what will happen, but this looks like the most obvious 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.560 course of action to take all of the benefits and 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.560 few of the risks. This is really why the Paris 0:04:25.600 --> 0:04:29.200 Agreement was designed the way it was to enable flexible 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:32.839 transition from one political regime to the next. No one 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.559 is committed to anything other than to stay in the game. 0:04:36.360 --> 0:04:43.000 And that last line, wow, really applies to the oil companies, right. 0:04:43.200 --> 0:04:46.400 They don't have to really commit to anything, but they 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:47.440 want to stay in the game. 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:52.360 Right, Okay, So why were oil and gas companies so 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.000 into the idea of net zero comitment. 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:58.440 Well, I think it was a period when the global 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:03.640 consensus really was in favor of climate action, aggressive climate 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:08.080 action perhaps, or just the appearance of it. And the 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:12.520 oil and gas industry always wants to look like it's 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:17.279 on the side of what all global governments and everyone 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.520 is going to do for climate and the economy. And 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:25.599 so during this period, the companies are all coming out 0:05:25.600 --> 0:05:28.200 and saying, yeah, we like we like net zero two, 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:34.280 this is great, We're going to transform our operations with 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:38.000 all sorts of new technologies. And it was also a 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:43.000 period when a bunch of internal documents from the industry 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:47.599 had been unearthed by journalists at the Los Angeles Times 0:05:47.600 --> 0:05:51.840 and other outlets, and a bunch of lawsuits were beginning 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:55.680 to be filed against the industry that really scrutinized its 0:05:55.800 --> 0:05:59.800 past history of climate change denial and other obstruction tactics. 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:02.599 And so this this was a period when it just 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:05.200 really made a lot of sense for a whole bunch 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.279 of reasons for the industry to try to portray itself 0:06:08.279 --> 0:06:09.360 as a climate leader. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:11.560 The only thing I would add to that, I think 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:16.080 is that the net zero concept actually starts a few 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:20.520 years earlier with the IPCC, with the scientists, and they 0:06:21.279 --> 0:06:25.240 are trying to figure out what dangerous climate change is, 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:30.080 debating the two degree one point five degree limit, and 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:33.720 it's originally a chart that shows if you're going to 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:36.520 get to a safe climate, you have to have net 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:40.440 zero emissions by some point in time to get there, 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:45.880 And so governments adopt that language, and then the corporations say, well, 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:48.760 if we're saying the same thing, that'll be cozy. So 0:06:49.080 --> 0:06:51.960 I feel like it was of convenience that they started 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:56.680 using the same verbiage to seem like they were in 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:03.359 sync with the scientists. Commandment and the government effort. 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.839 I think it also relates to something that we probably 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:12.760 will come back to, but this focus on emissions specifically 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.400 that there was this was also a way to talk 0:07:15.440 --> 0:07:21.720 about climate action without having to talk about well extraction 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:28.120 of fossil fuels basically or scope three emissions in more 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:32.920 specific ways. So it was a sort of way out 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:38.320 of more difficult discussions for fossil fuel companies. 0:07:38.800 --> 0:07:39.320 Exactly. 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:42.920 Okay, so you guys talk in this chapter about climate 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:47.760 obstruction in a few different ways, and specifically about three 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:54.200 categories of obstruction tactics, denial, delay, and co optation. Can 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:58.320 I have you define those terms for us and talk 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:01.360 a little bit about the interplay between them. I thought 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:04.480 this was really important, this point that you make that 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:07.760 wasn't like first there was denial, and then there was delay, 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:09.440 and then there was this sort of like all this 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:12.120 stuff happening all the time. So would love to have 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:13.600 you explain that. 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:16.880 I think this is actually one of the most important 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:20.960 things that we contribute with is just to focus on 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:25.880 this that the responses from fossil fuel companies aren't really 0:08:26.280 --> 0:08:29.720 they're not linear in that sense, but very dependent on context, 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.240 and we can show that, yeah, all companies in different 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:38.959 regions use these different tactics throughout well basically from the 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:43.880 nineteen seventies and onwards, but depending on context. So it's 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:48.800 not sort of this obvious development from denying scientific facts 0:08:48.840 --> 0:08:53.760 to delaying sort of obstructing the environmental policy or climate 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:59.760 change policy discussions, but rather that these strategies change depending 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:05.240 on the challenges specific challenges that oil industry face. And 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:09.040 I think with the three categories it was one way 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:11.440 to divide it. But I mean there's a lot of 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:16.840 different concepts floating around in these discussions. But I would 0:09:16.880 --> 0:09:21.319 say that perhaps with denial, we're talking specifically about well 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:27.800 denying the scientific facts of climate change, global warming, and 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:33.080 we delay. Our focus is primarily on the sort of 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:37.280 economic scare tactics of fossil fuel company and sort of 0:09:37.320 --> 0:09:41.560 this idea that climate change action or action against climate 0:09:41.600 --> 0:09:48.280 change will hurt different people regions in different ways. And 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:52.560 with co optation, we trace basically the way that fossil 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:59.240 fuel companies have been involved in framing the issue in 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:04.600 coming up suggestions on how to perhaps tackle the question 0:10:04.920 --> 0:10:06.360 or not tackle the question. 0:10:06.720 --> 0:10:09.800 And what I would add to that is there's sort 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.360 of like two overriding things that are key to understanding 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:17.520 these tactics. One is that no matter what tactic the 0:10:17.559 --> 0:10:20.400 oil and gas industry is using at any given time, 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:24.760 the ultimate goal is to allow the industry to keep 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:29.400 producing as much oil and gas as possible. And what 0:10:29.600 --> 0:10:34.320 allows the industry to shift back and forth between these 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:39.679 tactics depending on whatever the political or economic context is, 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:43.240 is that the industry is always right on the vanguard 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:47.359 of doing all of the research and establishing the expertise 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:51.320 it needs to lead any given debate. So oil and 0:10:51.360 --> 0:10:54.160 gas companies were able to deny the science because they 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:57.520 had studied the science for so long. They were able 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:02.160 to use convincing sounding economics scare tactics because they were 0:11:02.200 --> 0:11:05.679 some of the first organizations to really study the economics 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:08.040 of climate change, and they were able to co op 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:13.880 the process because the process of international climate negotiations, because 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:17.560 from day one they were involved with it, learning all 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.720 the nuances of it. And so I think that's really 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:22.720 key to all of this as well. 0:11:23.920 --> 0:11:28.200 And I think pointing out that these things are shifting 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.480 around all the time and constantly being used helps people 0:11:31.800 --> 0:11:34.160 understand the resurgence of denial. 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:37.880 Now right, Yeah, that was I think we worked hard 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:41.400 at that in the chapter to sort of break that, 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:46.160 as you said, linear logic that people have used like that, 0:11:46.240 --> 0:11:49.000 it went from a period of denial into a period 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:54.760 of play along, feel good co optation. And it really 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:59.880 is whatever tactic is needed at any given time, they 0:11:59.880 --> 0:12:03.680 can play it, and that's what happens. And here we 0:12:03.720 --> 0:12:06.800 are now and you don't see any green washing because 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:08.679 they don't need to have green washing right now. 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.720 It's not necessary any necessary. 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:12.199 Yeah. 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:15.240 You do talk about the evolution of denial a little 0:12:15.280 --> 0:12:18.840 bit too, and not just denial of climate change and 0:12:18.880 --> 0:12:21.720 the science behind what drives it and all that, but 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:26.960 also of even more basic concepts like I don't know, 0:12:27.000 --> 0:12:32.120 this thing of we're yeah, we're totally committed to this 0:12:32.160 --> 0:12:37.199 stuff while continuing to increase production volumes and things like that, which, 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:40.360 as you point out, has just becomes so normal that 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:44.560 it's people don't even pay attention to it anymore. So, Yeah, 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:47.000 I would love to have you expand on that a 0:12:47.000 --> 0:12:49.560 little bit. What are some of the other ways that 0:12:49.600 --> 0:12:53.520 they use denial of basic science to their benefit. 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:56.040 Yeah, I think that the point here was that it's 0:12:56.120 --> 0:13:01.320 not just flat denial, it's not happening greening Earth, you know, 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:04.280 which we still see, we see again even in the 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:07.840 Trump report that just came out, but that we can 0:13:08.880 --> 0:13:15.240 denial can be just denying the urgency, denying what scientists 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:19.120 are saying needs to be cut to save us. And 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:24.680 the slowing down is a form of denial. And you know, ultimately, 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:28.320 you know, as we were saying, that the you know, 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:34.320 denying helps them avoid the real discussion of the need 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:37.280 for fossil fuel phase out, the need to cut production 0:13:37.360 --> 0:13:40.040 of their products, and that's what they really don't want, 0:13:40.120 --> 0:13:44.920 so they look for every other pathway that allows their 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:48.920 business to continue, and that includes you know, carbon capture 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:54.079 mythologies and treating with natural carbon credits and all these 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:58.599 other schemes that are in fact denying what the scientists 0:13:58.800 --> 0:13:59.960 say is urgently needed. 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:03.120 Now, I was just thinking about bringing it back to 0:14:03.160 --> 0:14:06.280 this Stanley Cohen, who's sort of been very influential in 0:14:06.360 --> 0:14:10.000 the discussion of denial and his idea of implicatory denial 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.640 that is very much what we see basically people not 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:18.800 acting others have talked about, yeah, refusal or other words, 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:22.320 just to describe what we also show in the chapter 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:27.280 that even though we have these promises of a climate action, 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:32.440 we see that, Yeah, production just goes up, and there's 0:14:32.480 --> 0:14:36.240 like in their own annual reports, there's no sign of 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:37.800 cutting production. 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:40.760 So yeah, and what I would say is, like with 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:46.600 the implicit denial, it's basically like the same obstruction mechanism, 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.840 Like in the hardcore denial days in like the nineties, 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:53.840 industry would be like, climate change isn't happening, and then 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:56.520 they would keep producing more and more oil and gas 0:14:56.600 --> 0:14:59.360 at the same time. So obviously they got a lot 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:03.560 of flack that they looked kind of crazy to the public. Eventually, 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:08.280 so the company is just like deleted that like really 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:12.440 in your face denial, but just kept doing basically the 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:15.520 exact same things. So now they say, oh, yeah, we 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.080 acknowledge climate change is real and urgent, and then their 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:23.160 production keeps going up and up and up. So despite 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.960 a lot of rhetorical change over the years, the sort 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:31.360 of material circumstances of what they're doing remain almost exactly 0:15:31.400 --> 0:15:31.840 the same. 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:35.800 And it might be also important to say that this 0:15:36.600 --> 0:15:41.960 sort of more obvious science denial hasn't disappeared. I mean, 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:47.920 it might have disappeared from the fossil fuel company strategies 0:15:48.040 --> 0:15:51.920 or rhetoric, but it has appeared in other places, like 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:55.960 in for right environments, and I mean with Trump and 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:00.960 others like we see see those kind of claims still there, 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:04.840 but perhaps not as much from fossil fueled companies as before. 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:09.520 Well, if you consider that the current Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:13.120 used to be a fracking executive until very recently, and 0:16:13.160 --> 0:16:17.560 now he's sponsoring a report saying that the human contribution 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:22.120 to climate change is I think we're. 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:28.480 Like that sure, And adding to that, I would credit 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:34.200 Exon's money and coke Industry's money with keeping denial alive. 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:35.680 You know, Exon. 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:38.880 Paid a fortune to keep these voices active in the 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:43.040 late nineties and into the early two thousands. Coke industries 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:45.360 paid a lot of money to these same organizations. So 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.480 the whole reason that Chris Wright has learned those things 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.680 is because of megaphones that the oil companies bought. 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:56.600 Yeah, yeah, well, Chris Writ's been brown down with the 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:02.240 cokes for a long time. Okay. So I realized that 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.120 this question could take like the whole hour to answer, 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:08.639 so feel free to just give me the headlines. But 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:10.040 I do want to talk a little bit about the 0:17:10.119 --> 0:17:14.800 role that industry led an industry funded research has played 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.520 into all of this as well, like the extent to 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:22.960 which they have tried to use credible seeming science or 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:29.359 credibly adjacent science to earn themselves a seat at the 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:33.280 table and then use that seat to mess things up. 0:17:33.200 --> 0:17:37.560 Along the way. You know, it's actually different for each company. 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:42.440 We don't know a lot about what the individual companies 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.800 were studying, except for Shell and Exxon especially. We have 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:50.119 evidence that the American Patrolling Institute as a body was 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:54.200 monitoring the science very very broadly, and through the GCC. 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:59.119 They were sending people to the Governmental Panel and climate 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.720 change meetings, were reporting back to all of them what 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:05.200 was going on in the science. But as far as 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:10.000 their own research, we know exem was doing its own modeling, 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:12.840 it knew what was going on. We know Shell looked 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:15.800 at all the science in the early eighties and determined 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.960 that by the time the science was unequivocal, it would 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:23.000 be too late, in their words, which is kind of 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:27.959 grim and they actually proposed a more precautionary approach internally, 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.920 but never said that out loud to the world. Shell 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:37.280 but this is kind of crucial that they were playing 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.120 along and part of what they started to lead research 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:45.200 on was things like carbon capture, which is the ultimate 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:49.359 holy grail now for the oil industry is that we 0:18:49.400 --> 0:18:53.119 can keep burning fossil fuels as long as we capture 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:55.760 some of the carbon and tuck it back in the ground, 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:59.879 and which they have never done effectively, but that's on 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:04.840 the horizon. Dream has allowed them to keep producing in 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:09.240 selling oil because they're working on it, because they're researching it. 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:12.760 Yeah, and I would give the example of Exon and 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:17.359 carbon pricing. So in part of the period that we're 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:21.080 looking at in the chapter following the twenty fifteen Paris talks, 0:19:21.760 --> 0:19:26.080 Exon was part of organizations that we're calling for a 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.720 price on carbon and said, you know, this is the 0:19:28.760 --> 0:19:33.479 type of policy we could potentially support. And then of 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:38.320 course the Exon lobbyist Keith McCoy was secretly recorded by 0:19:38.680 --> 0:19:43.600 Greenpeace researchers saying that the company only supports a carbon 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:45.879 price because it gives it a nice talking point and 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:48.680 it actually knows that this is probably never going to 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:53.879 happen in the US. And that was just such a 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:56.800 fascinating admission because it sort of confirmed what a lot 0:19:56.840 --> 0:20:01.080 of people thought. But it also came as Exon was 0:20:01.200 --> 0:20:05.800 going to war with basically every major substantial climate policy 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:08.399 that was proposed in the US, and then as a 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:12.240 defense it could say, well, we support this carbon pricing thing. 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.440 And so of course after that interview came out, Exon 0:20:16.600 --> 0:20:19.680 kind of dropped any pretense of that. But I think 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:22.919 I think that shows what this co opting dynamic is 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:23.439 all about. 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:29.400 Also another example with that Learonovskiaez looked at the SHELL 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:34.159 sponsored research by James Lovelock, for example, which is I 0:20:34.200 --> 0:20:36.919 think that adds another bit to it that is not 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:41.320 always and this is historical research, so it's not always 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:45.480 that the industry let research have been like instrumental or 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:50.760 specifically targeting climate change or climate science. But sometimes it's 0:20:50.800 --> 0:20:53.399 sort of a broader perspective where they can sort of 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:58.040 pick and choose later on specific things that they bring 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.600 to the fore. So in this case, the adapt ability 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:07.000 of natural systems or the fact that some organisms emits 0:21:07.000 --> 0:21:09.800 CEO two that later on could be used as a 0:21:09.840 --> 0:21:12.520 part of science. Ton So I think it's also important 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:16.800 to like, not everything is very instrumental. They have a 0:21:16.840 --> 0:21:20.560 lot of resources so can actually fund quite broadly in 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:21.000 a sense. 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:27.760 Yeah, just sort of like shape basic understandings and things too. Actually, relatedly, 0:21:28.359 --> 0:21:31.239 can I have you guys speak to how important it 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:35.640 was for these companies to get academics, especially academics connected 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:40.560 with elite universities, to carry water for some of their ideas, 0:21:40.800 --> 0:21:44.359 or even just to do research along with their scientists. 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:48.600 I think starting with the GCC, we see that they 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:54.440 were participating in scientific processes industry, especially Exon scientists were 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:58.480 co authors and part of the IPCC process. It was 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:01.320 important for them, they felt too, to be in that 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:05.640 room to know where the science was. They heavily focused 0:22:05.640 --> 0:22:09.600 on the modeling. They still do because they know that 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:14.520 the forecasting is really what drives the urgency, and they 0:22:14.640 --> 0:22:20.639 start to form partnerships with academic institutions BP at Princeton, 0:22:21.080 --> 0:22:28.440 EXON at Stanford, Exon at MIT to bring those logos 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:33.080 next to theirs. Then they also have third party surrogates 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:37.280 like Richard Lindzen at MIT or Pat Michaels who was 0:22:37.320 --> 0:22:41.080 at UVA, who will say the things that they don't 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:45.560 want to say, but they have an incredible academic label, 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:48.720 and they were more useful than just the pundits at 0:22:48.720 --> 0:22:52.680 the think tanks because it made it look like serious 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:57.080 people disagreed with the urgency of climate change or the 0:22:57.240 --> 0:23:00.199 Jim Hanson. It was a counter to the jimhnns and 0:23:00.880 --> 0:23:04.560 mode of speaking about the issue, or Steve Schneider. So 0:23:04.600 --> 0:23:07.359 it was a I think a very deliberate effort to 0:23:08.440 --> 0:23:09.720 again just cast doubt. 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:10.080 All. 0:23:10.200 --> 0:23:13.760 Their whole objective is to have some shred of doubt 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:17.280 around the issue, which gives somebody in the policy arena, 0:23:17.359 --> 0:23:21.399 some politician, the ability to say, let's wait and study this, 0:23:21.920 --> 0:23:23.520 let's look at this a little bit more. 0:23:23.600 --> 0:23:26.560 It's not that urgent. Look this guy at MIT just said, 0:23:27.240 --> 0:23:28.119 it's not that bad. 0:23:28.840 --> 0:23:33.720 That's ongoing and has been going heavily for thirty years now. 0:23:35.280 --> 0:23:39.200 Yeah, I would argue it's maybe even increasing now that 0:23:39.359 --> 0:23:44.480 public funding is getting good too. Anyone else want to 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:45.320 add to that. 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:50.879 Yeah, I'd say having these prestigious academic institutions attached to 0:23:51.280 --> 0:23:58.159 denial really helps influence policymakers. But from the very earliest 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:02.560 days of public denial, a lot of these spokespeople were 0:24:03.400 --> 0:24:08.320 encouraging Americans and whoever else to spread these ideas in 0:24:08.400 --> 0:24:12.040 their own social or family networks. So some of the 0:24:12.119 --> 0:24:16.200 earliest denial ads on the radio, people would say change 0:24:16.240 --> 0:24:19.399 begins at the dinner table. You should you should share 0:24:19.440 --> 0:24:22.160 these ideas with people close to you because it's such 0:24:22.160 --> 0:24:26.359 an important discussion to have. And so I think the 0:24:26.600 --> 0:24:29.240 only way that you can really convince a ton of 0:24:29.400 --> 0:24:32.800 people to accept something as crazy is what the companies 0:24:32.800 --> 0:24:36.679 were pushing with denial is if it comes from someone 0:24:36.720 --> 0:24:40.440 you trust, and so I think that's what this whole 0:24:40.520 --> 0:24:43.119 process is all about. And then, of course, when this 0:24:43.240 --> 0:24:49.040 whole discussion shifted online onto big digital media platforms, I 0:24:49.080 --> 0:24:53.600 think that really allowed all of this to supercharge because 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:57.280 it wasn't necessarily some big evil oil company telling you 0:24:57.400 --> 0:25:01.239 to distrust scientists. It was like your uncle who you 0:25:01.280 --> 0:25:03.840 meet with once a week, posting something on Facebook. 0:25:04.480 --> 0:25:10.639 Right, right, Okay, we mentioned economics before and how the 0:25:10.680 --> 0:25:13.359 industry was amongst the earliest, if not the earliest, to 0:25:13.400 --> 0:25:17.760 study the economic implications of climate policy. So would love 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:19.920 to talk about that a little bit more. What they 0:25:19.920 --> 0:25:23.920 did and how important that was to obstruction and efforts. 0:25:24.400 --> 0:25:30.520 Well, I always point to this study that Exxon's Canadian subsidiary, 0:25:30.680 --> 0:25:35.439 Imperial Oil, created in the early nineteen nineties, and so 0:25:35.800 --> 0:25:38.680 Imperial and Exon were like so far ahead of the 0:25:38.760 --> 0:25:43.439 curve in understanding climate change, that they were hiring consultants 0:25:43.480 --> 0:25:47.400 and actively studying solutions to climate change in the early nineties, 0:25:47.440 --> 0:25:50.120 and this was only a few years after James Hansen 0:25:50.160 --> 0:25:54.960 had given his testimony to Congress and turned climate change 0:25:55.000 --> 0:25:59.320 into sort of like a big mainstream issue. And so 0:25:59.359 --> 0:26:03.080 in one of these were ports that Exxon and Imperial commissioned, 0:26:03.720 --> 0:26:07.200 they determined that a price on carbon emissions in Canada 0:26:07.680 --> 0:26:13.040 could potentially stabilize greenhouse gas emissions in the country without 0:26:13.119 --> 0:26:16.680 a hugely negative impact on the economy because governments would 0:26:16.680 --> 0:26:22.920 have so much additional revenue from taxing carbon. The company 0:26:23.000 --> 0:26:27.359 and its consultants determined, however, that carbon pricing would be 0:26:27.480 --> 0:26:32.160 specifically bad for Imperial's bottom line, and therefore they came 0:26:32.240 --> 0:26:35.560 up with a strategy to portray carbon pricing and any 0:26:35.600 --> 0:26:39.760