WEBVTT - The First Day of School 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:04.080 I was sitting on the sea wall. 0:00:04.840 --> 0:00:06.040 I didn't see the way coming. 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:09.200 It just pushed me off, and I thought it was 0:00:09.200 --> 0:00:11.600 something else that way. I thought it was like a monster. 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:16.680 My grandmother told me to come to the church. So 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:23.599 I read here and sit washing, everybody yelling, washing, the 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:28.320 babies drying, and it was not good. 0:00:30.320 --> 0:00:32.760 What can you do to go up with each impact 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:34.680 of climate change? 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:38.080 I think the best thing I learned is to do 0:00:38.200 --> 0:00:42.960 an action plan. And so I'm dedicated to this place, 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.160 like I was destined to be in this place. 0:00:48.800 --> 0:00:49.839 That's why I'm gonna stay here. 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:57.279 I'm not gonna leave. I'm gonna stay watched, even if 0:00:57.320 --> 0:00:58.720 it means to try. 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:06.840 The effects were already very visible because we were doing 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:09.199 a film, so we wanted to capture it. So while 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:10.800 we were there, we talked to all these kids and 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:14.280 we were really struck by how much they knew about 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:20.400 climate change, Like they were more conversant in the causes 0:01:20.440 --> 0:01:24.120 and effects of climate change than like most adults that 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:24.480 I know. 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:30.760 This is Katie Worth. She's a reporter for Frontline and 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:34.399 this project she did on the Marshall Islands is really incredible. 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:39.720 It's super interactive, very immersive, super interesting project. I'll link 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:42.640 to it in the show notes, but for our purposes today, 0:01:42.760 --> 0:01:45.760 this thing she said about how even really little kids 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.520 in the Marshall Islands were pretty knowledgeable and conversant about 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.160 climate change. It really struck me. 0:01:52.840 --> 0:01:54.600 I'm pretty sure that I didn't even learn half of 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:56.880 what those kids said until I was like well into 0:01:56.920 --> 0:01:58.240 my career as a climate reporter. 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:00.680 Darna Nor, welcome to Drilled. 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:01.400 Thank you. 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:02.559 I'm excited to be here. 0:02:02.840 --> 0:02:05.680 If you don't already know. Darna is a climate reporter 0:02:05.880 --> 0:02:09.960 for Earther, that's giz Moto's climate and justice site. She 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:12.000 and I have been working together the past few months 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:15.040 to pull together this series about the fossil fuel industry's 0:02:15.120 --> 0:02:19.800 influence on education in America, particularly when it comes to 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:24.080 how we think about solutions to climate change. We're calling 0:02:24.120 --> 0:02:31.120 it the ABC's of Big Oil. So back to the 0:02:31.120 --> 0:02:34.720 Marshall Islands. That trip a few years ago prompted Frontline 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:38.240 reporter Katie Worth to want to look into what American 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:43.320 kids know about climate change. Oh man, and aren't there. 0:02:43.280 --> 0:02:45.800 Like a ton of Marshall Islands refugees here in the 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:48.680 US too, in Arkansas and Oklahoma? 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:53.600 Yeah? Yeah, both So Katie went to some schools in Arkansas, 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:58.239 where there's a large Marshallese population, to see what American 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:02.120 kids are learning there about climate change, and also to 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:05.000 kind of get a sense of, Okay, if these kids 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:09.000 on the Marshall Islands were to leave there and go 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:11.920 to one of these communities in the US, what would 0:03:11.919 --> 0:03:15.639 those same kids be learning here. She was expecting them 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.760 to know less, but she was not prepared for them 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.120 to be steeped in climate denial. 0:03:23.280 --> 0:03:26.639 We went to Springdale, Arkansas to visit some schools there 0:03:26.720 --> 0:03:29.919 because of this connection to the Marshall Islands, because it's 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:34.120 such a large marshal Leze community in Springdale. And so 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:38.360 I went and visited a few different schools, and one 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:43.040 of them was a middle school, and I started talking 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:48.920 to the science teachers and in walks this lobbyist for 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:51.320 the oil and gas industry. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.960 Katie actually shared some of the audios she recorded during 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:02.360 non physic part. 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:06.360 Of the way we are made in the demand for 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.520 more energy here in the United States is we've had 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:14.080 some transformative of technological advances. It used to be then 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:16.920 in a section we would drill thirty six holls straight 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:20.680 down the draft, thousands of feet in the early two thousands, 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:23.600 an engineer from Texas, George Mitchell, and then at the 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:26.440 drilling loder that would go down thousands of feet and 0:04:26.560 --> 0:04:31.120 turn out horizontally or laterally, they call it kicking out. 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.920 Today we have wells that kick out up to two miles. 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:38.279 So when he did that, that changed everything. They combined 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:40.640 horizontal drilling with something we've been doing. 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:44.480 For a long time, hydro All Oh my god, that's unbelievable. 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:47.640 But we've been hearing about this sort of thing, right 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:51.400 Natural Gas Company is heading out pamphlets and schools sending 0:04:51.400 --> 0:04:53.159 people out to talk to the youth. 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:58.479 Yeah, yeah, totally, but usually they focus on either how 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.400 great it is to work the oil and gas industry 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:06.400 or on skewing the science in some way. Katie ended 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.599 up writing about how American schools teach climate change in 0:05:10.640 --> 0:05:14.400 her new book, Miseducation, and she included something from this 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:19.360 woman's presentation that really just floored me, especially when you 0:05:19.520 --> 0:05:22.560 keep in mind that this was a seventh grade class. 0:05:22.960 --> 0:05:24.800 A lot of what she was talking about was kind 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:30.279 of legitimate information, like, you know, how oil is taken 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:33.000 from the ground and the machinery that does that, and 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:35.479 kind of the geology of it all. But then she 0:05:35.640 --> 0:05:40.159 got into talking about carbon emissions, and she didn't really 0:05:40.200 --> 0:05:44.320 explain what carbon emissions were. She didn't explain why they 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.800 might be a problem. She said that it would be 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:51.120 a problem, but she didn't explain anything about global warming 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:55.640 or climate change. But instead immediate immediately launched into this 0:05:57.040 --> 0:06:00.159 list of all the problems that exist with all of 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:04.680 the different fuels. So, like's solar. If it's cloudy, you 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:09.159 don't get energy, and wind mills kill birds and so on. 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.160 Here's that part of the lobbyist presentation. 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.400 But with any source, I mean, like this problems with 0:06:16.480 --> 0:06:18.640 fossil fuels in terms of carbonission. 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:20.760 There's problems with all these energies. 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:22.880 Sort of, somebody's gonna have a problem with it. 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:23.640 Uh. 0:06:24.080 --> 0:06:28.080 Geofile powers right, super expensive. The parts of the layer 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.800 that they did works really wet, but it's expensive. 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:33.159 Solar. 0:06:33.800 --> 0:06:36.840 The p what that the materials they use to make 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:41.200 solar caws some sometime when you have a chance to 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:43.120 look up rare earth minerals. 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:47.920 Nice, some of those some of these space. 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:49.600 They make them with are not things that you would 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.640 want laying around in your yap. Another thing, solar is 0:06:53.680 --> 0:06:56.040 a tornado, what happens the. 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.599 Solar feeling, So. 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:02.560 Wind power lot invent. 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:06.200 Because I say it's burked that. You know, there's somebodys 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:08.560 have a problem, don't lot haital powers. 0:07:08.600 --> 0:07:10.680 I'd say that we shouldn't be damn. 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.640 About bodies and lot luck of them on biomass. 0:07:13.120 --> 0:07:15.440 Because I said we shouldn't be growing food for fuel 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:19.800 when they are people starting on there. So you're gonna 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:21.560 find a problem in any. 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:22.400 One of these sources. 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.880 And then she talks about how important fossil fuels are 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.360 to the world and how how they've lifted people out 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:34.400 of poverty, and if we stop using fossil fuels, we'll 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:37.200 leave a whole bunch of people in poverty, according to her, 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:40.640 which is not supported by evidence, but you know that 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:42.960 was the narrative that she was telling. So she was 0:07:42.960 --> 0:07:46.200 talking about how when you're considering energy, you have to 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:49.880 do some thinking about your value. She says, first of all, 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.640 you need to decide your standard of value. You need 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:58.200 to decide is human life the most important? Humans getting healthier, wealthier, happier, 0:07:58.280 --> 0:08:01.840 living longer, or is prison team nature more important? Do 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:04.880 you want to quit building new houses, stop getting stuff 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:06.680 out of the ground, do we want to leave it 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.600 exactly as it is, because that would be difficult. Thankfully, 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:12.840 we don't have to choose in this country. We are 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.160 working in a happy medium at this point. 0:08:16.080 --> 0:08:19.960 A happy medium. Tell that to all the people evacuating 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:23.440 hurricanes and fires and floods this year. And this really 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:25.240 gets to the heart of what we wanted to focus 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:28.000 on in this series, because you're right, we know a 0:08:28.000 --> 0:08:30.480 little bit about how oil companies try to shape the 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.960 way kids understand the problem and the science, and that's 0:08:34.000 --> 0:08:36.720 really bad. But then there's this other thing that seems 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:40.160 so much more insidious and potentially like an even bigger problem. 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:44.240 Yeah, exactly, this way the industry positions itself in the 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:49.080 world and in people's lives and in the economy, and 0:08:49.120 --> 0:08:52.000 the way it tries to frame what is or isn't possible. 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:56.360 It's like all the solutions to climate change have been 0:08:56.480 --> 0:08:58.280 narrowed before we even start. 0:08:59.120 --> 0:09:01.480 So that's what we're to look at in this series. 0:09:01.880 --> 0:09:05.480 Why and how the fossil fuel industry invaded social science 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:09.559 curricula and what impact that's had on how Americans approached 0:09:09.640 --> 0:09:12.600 these big problems like climate change and how to stop 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:13.439 climate change. 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:17.600 Over the next four episodes will trace the industry's influence 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:23.200 from elementary schools through to universities. But first, how did 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:26.560 the fossil fuel industry get into schools in the first place. 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:30.520 That's today's story coming up after this quick break. 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:55.600 And using the magic of research. Oil companies compete with 0:09:55.679 --> 0:09:59.959 each other in taking the petroleum molecular parts and real 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:11.160 arranging it into where you name it. Fabriaks, tooth brushes, tires, insecticides, cosmetics, wheatkillers, 0:10:12.160 --> 0:10:15.760 a whole galaxy of things to make a better life 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:16.240 on earth. 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:19.800 And you know it isn't just oil. 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.640 Companies that try to outdo each other competing for the 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:27.160 customer's dollar. The same story is true of almost every 0:10:27.240 --> 0:10:31.240 successful business enterprise in America. 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:34.400 Some of the miracles of petroleum are familiar to us. All. 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.079 We know, for instance, that oil made possible one of 0:10:38.120 --> 0:10:43.400 the greatest inventions of history, the internal combustion engine, which 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.400 gave us mastery over the air, meant mass transportation for 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:51.800 the world, changed, the face of continence quickened, the very 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:56.000 pulse of civilization provided man with an ease of living. 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:04.200 Is the magic barrel of your life, and we've opened 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:07.559 it so we can show you some of the modern 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:12.800 day miracles that it contains. 0:11:10.880 --> 0:11:12.400 That were made with the. 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:26.840 Help of petro chemicals, which means chemicals from petroleum. 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:30.680 The nineteen fifties were a real heyday for corporate sponsored 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:35.079 pro capitalist infotainment. That last one there was called the 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:38.840 Magic Barrel. It's an early example of an industry funded 0:11:38.880 --> 0:11:42.680 curriculum used in schools. It was actually a partnership between 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:47.640 DuPont and the American Petroleum Institute to promote petro chemicals. 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.640 The barrel in question is actually an oil barrel. Magic 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:55.920 but you can hear a common thread through all of 0:11:55.960 --> 0:12:00.520 these that links oil to capitalism and American idea entity 0:12:01.080 --> 0:12:04.480 and reminds you that your entire life revolves around this stuff. 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:09.160 There are very interesting common themes. You know, energy is 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:13.600 vital to your life. Your whole existence is dependent on energy. 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:17.319 You better love us, we make energy for you. That's 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:22.360 super effective to show somebody, whether they are conscious of 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.959 it or not, how much they're dependent on fossil fuels. 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.720 That's Kurt Davies, and he's the founder and director of 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:33.560 the Climate Investigation Center. He spent the last twenty years 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:36.880 or so researching fossil fuel propaganda, and he's found a 0:12:36.920 --> 0:12:39.720 lot of it in schools. One thing case that he's 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:42.600 noticed is that oil companies and industry groups like the 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:47.160 American Petroleum Institute will often combine a curriculum package that's 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.600 targeted at kids with these ad campaigns that are meant 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:51.719 for their parents. 0:12:51.679 --> 0:12:54.840 So that the ad campaigns that are aimed at the 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:59.640 parents through whether it's American Petroleum Institute or Exxon broadcasting 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:05.120 during sporting events, mimic or mirror what we see in 0:13:05.120 --> 0:13:10.640 these curricula packages of showing how how cool energy is, 0:13:10.760 --> 0:13:16.559 how it creates jobs, how it's the lifeblood of our economy, 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:20.079 how we can't live without it, and how changing that 0:13:20.280 --> 0:13:20.880 would hurt you. 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:24.080 There are some early examples in the nineteen forties of 0:13:24.200 --> 0:13:28.240 Standard Oil and the American Petroleum Institute sending materials to 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:32.320 schools that are very pro oil and pro industry, but 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:35.800 the practice seems to have really ramped up during the 0:13:35.840 --> 0:13:39.120 Cold War in the nineteen fifties, when the industry felt 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.959 the need to remind Americans over and over again how 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:46.800 prosperous and happy oil and capitalism had made them. Then 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:49.680 you see this same sort of messaging explode again in 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:53.160 the nineteen seventies as a reaction to the social movements 0:13:53.240 --> 0:13:58.600 of the nineteen sixties. There's this incredible series that Phillips 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.719 Petroleum commissioned called American Enterprise. 0:14:02.240 --> 0:14:05.120 When we needed coal and iron, the raw materials of 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:09.000 the Industrial Revolution, we had them right under our feet. 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:11.520 There were huge It came out in the nineteen seventies 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:15.800 and it's hosted by William Shatner, and it just kind 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:20.120 of very subtly and persistently delivers this message that America 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:23.880 is great because of extraction and capitalism. 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:28.280 Sources here in our backyard. When we needed petroleum, we 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:33.160 had it, black gold in Pennsylvania and the Southwest. When 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:36.480 we needed uranium for nuclear power, we had it. Our 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:41.080 hills hold enough to last for centuries. The land has 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:45.160 provided on a grand scale. This open pit copper mine 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.280 and Utah you're looking at is so large you can 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:50.640 see it from the moon. Thanks to the Earth's bounty, 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:53.320 we've increased and multiplied at a rate unmatched by any 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:55.400 nation in history. 0:14:57.080 --> 0:15:00.720 Yeah, that whole series is really something, and not just 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.760 because you hear William Shatner's voice in it so much. 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:06.760 And we know from marketing reports that this was sent 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:08.920 out to more than half of America. At high schools 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:12.200 in the nineteen seventies. Obviously that wasn't the only thing 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:14.800 that people were learning about in terms of economics or 0:15:14.840 --> 0:15:18.760 politics or natural resources in high school, I hope. But 0:15:18.800 --> 0:15:20.520 that's still a lot of people who are getting the 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.600 same narratives that you now hear really often in response 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:25.120 to climate policy proposals. 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:29.480 Yeah, so, okay, you see this pattern throughout history where 0:15:29.520 --> 0:15:32.880 the industry steps up certain types of curricula when they 0:15:33.000 --> 0:15:38.640 feel ideologically threatened, and there are lots of reasons they 0:15:38.760 --> 0:15:41.320 might want to have a hand in shaping the minds 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:45.440 of future voters and politicians. But why would schools go along. 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.120 Well, we kind of heard the same thing from everyone. 0:15:49.680 --> 0:15:53.320 Education's underfunded, so that's a vulnerability. 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:57.160 I remember talking to one person who was like, look, 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.800 I barely have three minutes in the day to pee, 0:16:00.120 --> 0:16:04.240 So if somebody sends me this lesson plan and it's 0:16:04.280 --> 0:16:08.640 like really well produced and looks very professional, I might 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:09.080 use it. 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:13.120 So these people who make their own curriculum take advantage 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:17.120 of that. They give away free lesson plans. That's great 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:19.120 if you're a teacher and you suddenly get this whole 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:23.240 kit that's set up for you to teach science through 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:28.040 teaching about energy or teach you know, teach about economics. 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.200 It's like easy, easy stuff. 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:34.000 And what they usually do some of them are like 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:38.200 outright climate denial, but then there's a lot of materials 0:16:38.240 --> 0:16:43.120 that are much subtler and you wouldn't necessarily catch if 0:16:43.160 --> 0:16:45.240 you weren't really looking for it. 0:16:46.120 --> 0:16:50.520 Okay, Yeah, So teachers are overworked and underpaid, and at 0:16:50.520 --> 0:16:54.240 the same time, schools are underfunded. So if you're producing 0:16:54.280 --> 0:16:57.240 this really slight looking curricula, it's really not that hard 0:16:57.280 --> 0:17:00.000 to get it into schools. And then we also found 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:02.880 in our research that companies have targeted groups like the 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:06.119 National Science Teachers of America and even the Department of 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:08.720 Energy to get them all to push these really industry 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:12.720 friendly curricula. And Katy talks about another type of organization too. 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:20.440 There's an organization called the National Energy Education Development Project. 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:25.399 I think their whole purpose is to create educational materials 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:29.040 about energy, which seems like a good thing, you know, 0:17:29.080 --> 0:17:31.840 and they talk about energy conservation. They talk about every 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:36.480 all kinds of energy, including some renewables, which, like in theory, 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:40.360 sounds like a good thing. But they are sponsored by 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:43.560 all of these energy companies and some of them are 0:17:43.760 --> 0:17:46.520 you know, wind or solar companies, but most of them 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:49.840 are fossil fuel companies and that's how they get the 0:17:50.160 --> 0:17:53.159 vast majority of their budget. And so they told me 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:56.760 that they aren't influenced by their sponsors. But then if 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:00.760 you actually look at the materials they produce, it's really 0:18:00.840 --> 0:18:04.040 industry friendly. And so like, for example, they have this 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:09.199 whole set of these packets of things of activities and 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:14.280 lessons for different age groups about all the different energy sources, 0:18:14.400 --> 0:18:19.399 and there's like fourteen pages of information and activities about petroleum. 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:26.040 Nowhere in those materials is carbon dioxide mentioned. Climate change 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:31.840 isn't mentioned, and the only environmental impacts they do talk 0:18:31.880 --> 0:18:35.440 about environmental impact, but what they talk about is water 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:40.080 pollution or air pollution. And then they say, I'm going 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:42.600 to quote this directly, and then there's a paragraph there 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.720 is the petroleum industry works hard to protect the environment. 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:50.960 Gasoline and diesel fuel have been changed to burn cleaner, 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:53.800 and oil companies work to make sure that they drill 0:18:53.880 --> 0:18:56.480 and transport oil as safely as possible. 0:18:58.600 --> 0:19:04.040 Wow, so this really gets us back to what's in 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:06.880 it for the industry. For more on that, we had 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:10.880 Carol Muffett, President and CEO of the Center for International 0:19:11.000 --> 0:19:15.680 Environmental Law, walk us through a presentation he found where 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:20.280 a well known oil industry consultant laid out why investing 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:25.040 in building education programs was a good idea for the industry. 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:27.399 Carol took us to Zoom School. 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:32.520 This presentation is being presented against the backdrop of an 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:37.440 industry that has been doing this aggressively and somewhat successfully 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:40.600 for years. And I think it's really important to know 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:46.120 that the presentation is given by a guy named John Tobin, 0:19:46.520 --> 0:19:51.320 who whose expertise was not in education. His expertise was 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:56.119 in speculating about oil and gas. But he brought something 0:19:56.240 --> 0:20:00.280 valuable to the table. And nowhere is that value there 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:07.000 than in the names of the inaugural board members that 0:20:07.240 --> 0:20:09.000 signed on to his. 0:20:09.160 --> 0:20:10.680 Energy literacy project. 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:15.680 Now Here was was a tiny, tiny nonprofit. But he's 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:21.639 got senior executives from Chevron and Phillips both on his board. 0:20:22.000 --> 0:20:25.160 He's got an executive the head of a co funded 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:30.440 think tank that advocated for property rights and free market environmentalism. 0:20:30.800 --> 0:20:33.359 He had Pennsylvanian Power and Light, which was a major 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.720 coal plant operator at the time, and a member of 0:20:36.720 --> 0:20:38.160 the Global Climate Coalition. 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:41.120 I think it's really important for everyone listening to kind 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:42.879 of have a picture in their minds of what this 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:46.920 presentation looks like, because it's really something. There's a black 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.040 background and this weird Neon orb thing at the top 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:51.160 of every page. 0:20:51.440 --> 0:20:55.080 It's truly, truly a lot, very very good example of 0:20:55.119 --> 0:20:59.000 like late nineties, early two thousands graphic skills. 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:01.600 And there's all these quo and clip art and these 0:21:01.640 --> 0:21:04.679 bizarre stock photos. This one side that I love just 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:07.640 has an illustration of it elephant, with the saying when 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:10.359 eating an elephant, take one bite at a time. 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:11.560 So deep. 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:15.400 But then there's this one thing that this guy, John Tobin, 0:21:15.600 --> 0:21:18.600 who made the presentation, seems to really want to drive 0:21:18.680 --> 0:21:21.119 home to people, and that's something that he calls the 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:26.040 three e's, and that's energy, economy, and environment and they're 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:27.560 in that order for a reason. 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:30.240 Okay, back to Zoom School. 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.840 I want to start by both talking about the threes 0:21:35.200 --> 0:21:40.480 and highlighting what the three ees means for industry. And 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:46.159 Tobin's presentation is compelling because it's so very explicit about 0:21:46.160 --> 0:21:50.320 that the three e's that we're pushed into classrooms by 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:57.560 Excellent Mobile for decades stood for energy, economy, and environment 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:00.280 and in that order, and we'll talk about why that 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:03.639 order is important as we go along. This presentation is 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.320 making the case for why those three e's are so 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:11.359 important to the industry in itself. What Chobin highlights is 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:17.119 that the oil and gas industry suffers from severe image problems, 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:21.639 and educating around the three e's is key to addressing 0:22:21.680 --> 0:22:25.800 those image problems and with it, making the companies themselves 0:22:25.800 --> 0:22:26.679 more profitable. 0:22:27.119 --> 0:22:31.200 Next line, there are more than fifty slides in his presentation, 0:22:31.400 --> 0:22:34.080 so we're going to skip ahead to the highlights. 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:37.280 And again bear in mind that he's speaking on behalf 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:42.680 of an organization that has senior executives for many of 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:46.959 the industry's largest companies behind it. What they're looking to 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:52.080 instill is a belief in a twenty eighth amendment that 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:55.280 the people's rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of 0:22:55.280 --> 0:23:00.480 happiness shall be fueled by cheap and abundant energy, yet 0:23:00.560 --> 0:23:04.399 again equating energy not only with the economy, but with 0:23:04.800 --> 0:23:13.840 liberty and freedom itself. This presentation happened in the wake 0:23:13.920 --> 0:23:18.440 of what was in fact a major victory for these programs, 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:22.439 because in the Energy Policy Act of two thousand and five, 0:23:23.000 --> 0:23:26.119 which was recognized at the time to be filled with 0:23:26.440 --> 0:23:30.120 massive giveaways to the oil and gas industry, and part 0:23:30.160 --> 0:23:36.600 of what was incorporated were provisions for millions of dollars 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:43.040 for educational programs focused specifically on the three e's on energy, 0:23:43.720 --> 0:23:45.240 economy and environment. 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:47.399 Okay, hold up a minute. 0:23:47.400 --> 0:23:49.080 I just want to make sure that everyone caught that 0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:53.480 the US government put millions of dollars toward pro oil 0:23:53.520 --> 0:23:57.080 industry energy education in two thousand and five, So a 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:00.400 good like thirty forty years after several signed has had 0:24:00.440 --> 0:24:03.240 already been sounding the alarm about climate change. 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:06.399 Yeah, and after world leaders had agreed to come together 0:24:06.640 --> 0:24:10.760 and reduce emissions because everyone understood the problem was that bad, 0:24:11.520 --> 0:24:14.120 until the US just said, just getting we're out. 0:24:14.400 --> 0:24:17.200 You're talking about the Kyoto Protocol, of course, And yeah, 0:24:17.200 --> 0:24:19.399 this is two thousand and five. So that's just a 0:24:19.400 --> 0:24:22.280 few years after the US Senate voted ninety five to 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:26.159 zero against ratifying Kyoto, and our lovely President George W. 0:24:26.240 --> 0:24:29.600 Bush officially pulled out of the agreement. And now the 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:32.800 government wasn't just not taking any action, it was actually 0:24:32.880 --> 0:24:38.240 funding an industry friendly take on energy education in American schools. 0:24:38.160 --> 0:24:40.800 And at the moment that he's presenting to ask THEE 0:24:41.080 --> 0:24:47.520 what he's acknowledging here is that between DOE and IOGCC, 0:24:47.800 --> 0:24:52.400 which is the independent oily gas companies, there were more 0:24:52.440 --> 0:24:57.360 than three hundred active school outreach programs, and I think 0:24:57.520 --> 0:25:03.440 most fundamentally, you see the explicit equation of the economy 0:25:03.680 --> 0:25:08.840 with freedom. The economy is economic growth, the economy is freedom. 0:25:09.200 --> 0:25:13.760 And when you know that economic growth is dependent on energy, 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:18.040 anything that you do to restrict the growth of energy 0:25:18.119 --> 0:25:20.600 is restricting the growth of the economy and is a 0:25:20.640 --> 0:25:26.200