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Speaker 1: Welcome, Mollitasted, our senior reporter editor, extraordinary. Thank you. You

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Speaker 1: have been looking into fossil fuel funding in universities in

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Speaker 1: lots of different ways. But there's some news recently on

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Speaker 1: this front. What's happening.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's been a lot of movement on a

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Speaker 2: conversation that I feel like has been going on, both

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Speaker 2: officially and unofficially for several years.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 2: One of the more interesting things that happened this month

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Speaker 2: is a team of researchers released a literature review, which

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Speaker 2: sounds kind of boring, but basically what they did is

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Speaker 2: they said to themselves, Okay, you know, in order to

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Speaker 2: move forward in researching fossil fuel funding in universities, we

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Speaker 2: need to figure out what we know first, right, So

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Speaker 2: they basically did what's called in academia literature review, which

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Speaker 2: is you look at all the literature on a topic

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Speaker 2: and you kind of come to some conclusions about it.

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Speaker 2: And what's interesting about this literature review is that, you know,

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Speaker 2: even though activists and folks in universities, folks concerned about

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Speaker 2: the climate, have been talking about fossil fuel funding in

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Speaker 2: academia for a really long time, the researchers found that

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Speaker 2: there's actually not that many peer reviewed articles about it.

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Speaker 2: There's not that much peer reviewed research about what all

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Speaker 2: of this oil money is doing to academic research. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: which is kind of crazy because like the parallels here

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Speaker 2: that they drew were conflict of interest studies on bias

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Speaker 2: in research are really prevalent. When it comes to other

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Speaker 2: industries like tobacco pharmaceuticals, you can find hundreds of peer

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Speaker 2: reviewed articles on this topic like what happens when an

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Speaker 2: industry funds research. Those discussions have been going on for decades,

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Speaker 2: but there's there's just not a lot with fossil fuel funding,

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Speaker 2: and a lot of it is really recent. They found

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Speaker 2: seven peer reviewed articles in their search, and only a

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Speaker 2: few of them were before twenty twelve, so you know,

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Speaker 2: there's a real dearth of peer reviewed research on this topic.

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Speaker 2: So to complete their literature review, what they did was

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Speaker 2: they use what they call gray literature, which is reports

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Speaker 2: from NGOs, reports from journalists, you know, articles about what

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Speaker 2: fossil fuel funding is doing and moving through universities, and

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Speaker 2: reports from students too, which are a really valuable part

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Speaker 2: of this conversation, and they use that to kind of

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Speaker 2: bulk out the literature review and found that there's a

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Speaker 2: lot of really valuable work going on to understand how

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Speaker 2: this industry is shaping policy at the top levels of university.

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Speaker 2: But there's also like still a lot more that especially

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Speaker 2: folks involved in academia can do. Academia needs to kind

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Speaker 2: of turn the mirror towards itself in a sense and

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Speaker 2: really take a much closer look at how this industry

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Speaker 2: is shaping what's going on inside of it.

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Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. I think it just sort of helps to

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Speaker 1: have this report as like a official accounting of where

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Speaker 1: this stuff is at now totally as we're looking towards

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Speaker 1: getting more information and figuring out more speaking of which

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Speaker 1: I know there are also student reports coming out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so yeah, there's a batch of new research that's coming

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Speaker 1: on this stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah so what actually and that sort of ties into

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Speaker 2: the literature review. So I was talking to one of

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Speaker 2: the researchers, Jeffrey Supran, and you know, he really emphasized

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Speaker 2: that again, a lot of their literature review came from

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Speaker 2: students on campus noticing stuff about how their university takes

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Speaker 2: fossil fuel money, and you know, there's no replaceable way

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Speaker 2: of doing research on a campus that's quite like being

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Speaker 2: on the campus and being in the campus culture and

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Speaker 2: understanding the way a school works, whether you work there

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Speaker 2: or you're a student there, or you're an a lum

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Speaker 2: Those are really the front lines of understanding this kind

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Speaker 2: of stuff. And so there's been a push from a

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Speaker 2: group called the Campus Climate Network. They have gathered students

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Speaker 2: on a couple of different universities across the US and

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Speaker 2: some international groups as well, and the first batch of

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Speaker 2: their reports on how fossil fuel money is working throughout

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Speaker 2: their specific universities were also released in September, and these

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Speaker 2: students put a lot of really interesting numbers on a

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Speaker 2: problem that doesn't have a lot of numbers right now.

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Speaker 2: I think the last real accounting was Data for Progress

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Speaker 2: estimated back in twenty twenty three that five fossil fuel

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Speaker 2: companies had donated I think seven hundred million to a

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Speaker 2: group of US universities over the past decade, and they

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Speaker 2: said that was almost certainly an undercount, and really turns

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Speaker 2: out it was. So One number that really shocked me

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Speaker 2: was students at Columbia really buckled down and combed their

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Speaker 2: universities public facing documents like stuff they could obtain publicly.

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Speaker 2: This isn't any sort of pea into the inner workings

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Speaker 2: of Columbia. They just sat down and they did the work.

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Speaker 2: They expanded the reach a little bit to not just

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Speaker 2: five major fossil fuel companies, but a variety of different

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Speaker 2: fossil fuel influences, and by their calculations, Columbia has taken

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Speaker 2: I think more than thirty seven million since two thousand

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Speaker 2: and five in fossil fuel funding, which includes an environmental

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Speaker 2: health professorship endowed by a descendant of Hesse, the guy

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Speaker 2: who started HESS. So there is an environmental health field

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Speaker 2: of study that is being funded by like the Hess Foundation,

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Speaker 2: which I found particularly ironic, but yeah, it really goes

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Speaker 2: to show. And I think in the Data for Progress

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Speaker 2: report the number they put on Columbia was five million,

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Speaker 2: and you know, it really goes to show like when

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Speaker 2: you are familiar with how your school works and where

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Speaker 2: to look for these things, it can be insanely beneficial

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Speaker 2: in figuring out where the money is coming from and

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Speaker 2: what it's going.

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Speaker 1: Towards totally, which is a perfect segway into the other

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Speaker 1: thing that we're going to talk about in this episode,

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Speaker 1: which is like, I know, beautiful smooth transition, but like

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Speaker 1: the students are amazing because they know where to look

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Speaker 1: for things, and they also like catch with some things

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Speaker 1: on campus that they're kind of like, wait a minute,

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Speaker 1: that seems weird. And the other great place to look

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Speaker 1: for information on this stuff because again, a lot of

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Speaker 1: these schools do not disclose all of their funding, and

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Speaker 1: with the private schools in particular, you can't get at

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Speaker 1: it through public records requests. You have to talk to

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Speaker 1: people and figure it out. And one of the best

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Speaker 1: sources on that stuff is actually other professors at those

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Speaker 1: schools too, because in a lot of cases, people who

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Speaker 1: are working at these campuses and are working on climate stuff,

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Speaker 1: for example, are not super happy about the fact that

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Speaker 1: other people are taking fossil fuel money. Like actually, I

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Speaker 1: had an interesting conversation with Mark Jacobson at Stanford about

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Speaker 1: this and how much some of his colleagues there have

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Speaker 1: been ponying up to the fossil fuel money trough.

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Speaker 4: There's a lot of fossil fuel funding and institutes like

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Speaker 4: at our university we have these institutes that are funded

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Speaker 4: largely by fossil fuels. We have even in our new

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Speaker 4: school sustainability, what's the number one flagship research project? That

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Speaker 4: they're promoting. It's carbon capture besides Stanford Princeton and MIT

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Speaker 4: or culprits and pushing carbon capture, direct air capture, blue

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Speaker 4: hydrogen electro fuels. So these four technologies are really pushed

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Speaker 4: by the fossil fuel industry, and the fossil fuel industry

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Speaker 4: is funding universities.

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Speaker 1: And you had an interesting conversation with Craig Calendar, who's

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Speaker 1: a professor at UC San Diego, both about what he's

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Speaker 1: seen there but also they passed some interesting new policies recently.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Craig's doing some really interesting work and under his

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Speaker 2: and other folks on his committee's leadership kind of pioneering

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Speaker 2: the next step forward in talking.

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Speaker 1: About this kind of stuff.

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Speaker 2: He teaches the philosophy of science, so this is like

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Speaker 2: kind of right up his alley, and you know, he

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Speaker 2: got on the Academic Senate Committee and they started wrestling

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Speaker 2: with this question of like, Okay, what do we do

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Speaker 2: about fossil fuel money in our university, in the UC

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Speaker 2: system in general, what are the best policies to kind

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Speaker 2: of start tackling this. And so back in the early

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Speaker 2: two thousands, lots of schools joined on this bandwagon to

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Speaker 2: ban tobacco money for specifically medical or health research, and

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Speaker 2: a lot of these schools still have those policies in place. Surprisingly,

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Speaker 2: that policy actually failed, that you see, but they did

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Speaker 2: put on this other policy where you would need a

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Speaker 2: special review of tobacco money by the chancellor, and so

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Speaker 2: they said, okay, what if we do that for fossil

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Speaker 2: fuel money? And that was basically he said. They told

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Speaker 2: me that was kind of dead on arrival. There's all

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Speaker 2: sorts of concerns about academic freedom. I think late in

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Speaker 2: this conversation some times is when you bring this up,

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Speaker 2: it's you know, I think people who are working at

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Speaker 2: research centers and at universities think that you're accusing them

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Speaker 2: of like knowingly conspiring with oil and gas companies, which

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Speaker 2: is absolutely like, that's far and away not the case.

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Speaker 2: But there is research showing that when you take money

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Speaker 2: from an industrial funder or corporate funder, that does like

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Speaker 2: set the tone of your research, whether you sort of

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Speaker 2: realize it or not. You know, it doesn't mean that

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Speaker 2: you're emailing BP every day to update them on your

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Speaker 2: progress and destroying the climate, but it does mean that

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Speaker 2: if he is paying for something, then they want that

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Speaker 2: research done for a specific reason.

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Speaker 1: Right, shout out to Doug Allmond and his team at

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Speaker 1: YES and their nature piece.

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Speaker 2: Yes, that piece is so good and really highlights you know,

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Speaker 2: and he being at Colombia is also really interesting, especially

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Speaker 2: given this new student report telling some of the money involved.

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Speaker 2: But anyway, so Craig and the committee sort of regrouped

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Speaker 2: and they were like, all right, so going to get

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Speaker 2: a special review from the chancellor. Why don't we just

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Speaker 2: like beef up transparency disclosures around this. And I think

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Speaker 2: a lot of people I've talked to, and Amy, I'm

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Speaker 2: sure you had this experience too, Like people you talk

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Speaker 2: to about this are like shocked that that's not required,

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Speaker 2: but like they're really there's so few.

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Speaker 1: Disclosure requirements for this stuff.

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Speaker 2: It is mind blowing. There's no federal policy, state policies,

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Speaker 2: nothing in the state. You know, most universities have some

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Speaker 2: sorts of ethics stuff, but like a lot of them

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Speaker 2: don't require you to talk about where you take money from.

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Speaker 1: And there's this really interesting thing. So like the last

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Speaker 1: time I wrote about this stuff was around the Data

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Speaker 1: for Progress report and the Holy School that gave me

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Speaker 1: like a full accounting of their funding from fossil fuel

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Speaker 1: companies was Berkeley, and when I asked them about what

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Speaker 1: they thought of this push to try to ban fossil

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Speaker 1: fuel funding of research, they were like, well, I don't

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Speaker 1: think we could do that without getting sued. And I said,

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Speaker 1: but what about you know, which is the thing people

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Speaker 1: always say is like, well we did it with the

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Speaker 1: tobacco industry and they were like yeah, but that was

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Speaker 1: pre Citizens United. So that's super interesting how that stuff

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Speaker 1: details with this idea that like it's part of academic

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Speaker 1: freedom to allow people to take money from wherever. And

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Speaker 1: something Craig said to me and I'm sure repeated to

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Speaker 1: you as well, is that like even when they talk

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Speaker 1: about transparency and disclosure, people will argue that it could

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Speaker 1: impact or have like a chilling effect on academic freedom. Yes,

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Speaker 1: people have to disclose where their funding is coming from.

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Speaker 1: And I'm kind of like I kind of feel okay

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Speaker 1: with that show, Like if you know what I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's like if somebody ooh, like this money is going

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Speaker 1: to make me look bad, or it's like, you know,

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Speaker 1: they're worried that they will be criticized for taking money

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Speaker 1: from somewhere I don't know. To me, I'm kind of

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Speaker 1: like I don't know, it just seems like where there's smoke,

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Speaker 1: there's fire on that one.

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Speaker 2: But totally. But it's also you know, and and yeah,

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Speaker 2: we talked about you know, he was like a lot

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Speaker 2: of the standards you think of this stuff come from

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Speaker 2: conversations around pharmaceutical products and like ethics around disclosure in

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Speaker 2: the pharmaceutical industry, and those conversations were like really heated

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Speaker 2: a couple of decades ago, and people were defending writing

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Speaker 2: an op ed in favor of a drug while being

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Speaker 2: paid for the company that manufactures that drug and saying

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Speaker 2: that's academic freedom.

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Speaker 1: So our conversations.

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Speaker 2: Around yeah, yeah, yeah, Like so that was a hot

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Speaker 2: button issue back in I think he said the eighties.

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Speaker 2: So I think that one thing I took away from

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Speaker 2: him is that our definition of academic freedom, both culturally

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Speaker 2: and in universities is subject to debate. I think most

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Speaker 2: people now would say that it's it's important to disclose

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Speaker 2: if you're getting paid by a drug company to promote

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Speaker 2: a drug. But there's also this issue it's not just

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Speaker 2: citizens united, but like increasingly universities and research have been

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Speaker 2: just so privatized over the past couple of decades.

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Speaker 1: That's a really important point. Like I know, I looked

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Speaker 1: at this a while ago, and I think it's probably

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Speaker 1: only gotten worse. But the proportion of research funding that

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Speaker 1: comes from the private sector has just been growing exponentially

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Speaker 1: over the past couple decades. So you have corporate donors,

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Speaker 1: then you have high net worth individuals donating and they

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Speaker 1: have specific agendas oftentimes too, and then you know, donor

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Speaker 1: advised funds have become a major donor to universities as well,

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Speaker 1: which is where you get a lot of like the

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Speaker 1: coke money, but also lots of other hidden industry interests

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Speaker 1: as well. So definitely, Yeahkes, there's a lot going on.

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Speaker 2: So Craig and his fellow faculty members on the Sundate

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Speaker 2: Committee formed is this policy that says, look, you can

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Speaker 2: take money from fossip, fel industries. That's fine, you just

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Speaker 2: have to disclose it, like you have to be really

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Speaker 2: clear about where it's from and what it's going towards.

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Speaker 1: Which is so reasonable and a really high margin right.

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Speaker 2: Right nine percent in may percent of the vote, So clearly,

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Speaker 2: you know, I think these conversations are are, perhaps for

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Speaker 2: folks on campuses, difficult to have with your peers who

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Speaker 2: might be taking money from a corporation and doing what

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Speaker 2: probably is like valuable research, but you know, having the

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Speaker 2: conversations around just how low of a barred disclosure is

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Speaker 2: and how much good actually just being forthcoming about where

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Speaker 2: the money is coming from can help address some of

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Speaker 2: the issues and honestly also just open up a dialogue

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Speaker 2: about like what's the purpose of taking this money? So

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Speaker 2: that measure is with the chancellor right now, so like

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Speaker 2: we still don't know if it's going to pass. In

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Speaker 2: the meantime, UCSD is actually all of their students are

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Speaker 2: being required to take climate change courses. It's a new

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Speaker 2: as of the semester and new curriculum requirement for everyone there,

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Speaker 2: which is like really cool. But like I think just

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Speaker 2: having people on campuses who are starting these conversations is

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Speaker 2: going to be some of the most important steps forward

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Speaker 2: in even just like learning more about this stuff and

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Speaker 2: figuring out where we're at with regards to to trust

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Speaker 2: feel money in universities.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and like where feels comfortable to draw the lines

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Speaker 1: because I feel like you and I were talking about

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Speaker 1: this before that like there's a certain amount of this

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Speaker 1: stuff that does seem kind of innocuous, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: sort of like, oh, they like funded a scholarship here,

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Speaker 1: or they funded uh, you know whatever. But then I

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Speaker 1: also am like, well, maybe I've just had that stuff

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Speaker 1: normalized so much that it seems fine. But there's influence

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Speaker 1: there too, And I agree like just really like talking

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Speaker 1: like just figuring out as a society, okay, how because honestly,

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Speaker 1: I mean, oil companies were like amongst the first to

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Speaker 1: actually be major private donors to universities, and they did

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Speaker 1: cotton on really quickly. Like there was I found and

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Speaker 1: a speech that a Standard Oil New Jersey guy gave

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Speaker 1: in the fifties, which is like there was this huge

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Speaker 1: influx of private money into universities because they changed the

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Speaker 1: tax code in the US, right and they made it

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Speaker 1: a write off, right, which it wasn't before. So like

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Speaker 1: the companies were starting to do more donations because it

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Speaker 1: was like, oh great, it's a tax write off. But

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Speaker 1: this guy who was at Standard Oil was like, no,

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Speaker 1: you guys are missing the much bigger value, which is

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Speaker 1: that like this is going to help us shape how

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Speaker 1: people view the economy and public policy, and it's going

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Speaker 1: to be the thing that's going to help us push

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Speaker 1: back against statism.

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Speaker 5: This is like, you know, so like they were really

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Speaker 5: really early, and I feel like I don't know that

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Speaker 5: there's been enough of a larger cultural conversation about how

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Speaker 5: much it's grown and how we feel about it.

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Speaker 1: I don't like when I was at school, I remember

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Speaker 1: there was a huge push around public private partnerships and

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Speaker 1: like commercializing the research that was coming out of universities,

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Speaker 1: and like it was kind of all upside right. It's like, oh, well,

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Speaker 1: like researchers, you know, don't just want their stuff sitting

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Speaker 1: in a lab somewhere. Companies are looking for new ideas.

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Speaker 1: It's a win win, you know, and they're just hasn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily been enough about like okay, but what are the downsides?

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Speaker 2: You know?

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Speaker 5: Yeah?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think it's going to get even murkier,

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Speaker 2: you know, as oil companies shift from like you know,

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Speaker 2: they're not doing explicit deny. No one's doing explicit denial anymore,

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Speaker 2: Like no one is denying that this problem is here,

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Speaker 2: but they are adopting different tactics to make sure that

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Speaker 2: they stay in business, which is a different conversation, right,

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Speaker 2: And so what where is the I find this topic

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Speaker 2: really endlessly fascinating because I think that a lot of uh,

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Speaker 2: disinformation reporting has a hard ethical line, right which it's

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Speaker 2: like this company is spreading disinformation, but like now it's like, okay,

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Speaker 2: so BP wants to stay in business and one of

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Speaker 2: the things they're doing is like funding research at universities

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Speaker 2: that will help them stay in business, and.

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Speaker 1: Like what do we do about that?

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Speaker 2: It's an interesting ethical question or you know, I think

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Speaker 2: Doug Almond in that paper, that twenty twenty two paper,

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Speaker 2: there's a bunch of recommendations that he has, which include like,

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Speaker 2: when someone from a research center that is funded by

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Speaker 2: oil and gas money testifies in front of lawmakers, they

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Speaker 2: should disclose the funding to their research center, which seems

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Speaker 2: really simple, but I can imagine a lot of people

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Speaker 2: would be extremely upset to have to do that. And

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Speaker 2: so you know, like where where are these ethical aligns?

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Speaker 2: Like what are we going to start accepting when it

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Speaker 2: comes to money in research and what is going to

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Speaker 2: be onerous to the total general Totally.

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Speaker 1: I've had so many conversations with people who either run

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Speaker 1: or work at centers that are heavily fossil fuel funded

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Speaker 1: or even exclusively fossil feel funded at universities, and they're

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Speaker 1: line of thinking, and I think this is pretty common

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Speaker 1: across a lot of these campuses. Is this idea that

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Speaker 1: but we're taking it to research solutions, So it's fine.

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Speaker 1: We're not taking it to fund a petroleum engineering department,

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Speaker 1: like that would be bad. But what we're doing is

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Speaker 1: actually taking their money to look into solutions. But you know,

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Speaker 1: I had a conversation with a guy at one place

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Speaker 1: who you know, was kind of like, what's like, what's

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Speaker 1: the problem with that if it's for not fossil fuel

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Speaker 1: development or whatever? And I was like, well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: what are you researching at your center? And he's like, oh,

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Speaker 1: like mostly mostly hydrogen, but like good hydrogen, green hydrogen,

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Speaker 1: and carbon capture. And I was like, okay, well, like

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Speaker 1: would would those be the research focuses of your center

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Speaker 1: absent the fossil fuel funding, right? And he was like

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Speaker 1: I don't know. And I'm like, that's that is where

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Speaker 1: the big question lies.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's a great that's a

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Speaker 2: great question, and like, yeah, I think I think that's

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Speaker 2: something that you know, I'm glad that, like people on

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Speaker 2: campuses are starting to talk about this, And honestly, it's

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Speaker 2: funny because.

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Speaker 1: Talk about it, because yeah, I'm like, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: maybe they would be maybe we do need more money

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Speaker 1: in those things. And like, you know, the other thing

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Speaker 1: too is that like people will be like, well, where

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Speaker 1: else is the money gonna come from?

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Speaker 6: Right?

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Speaker 1: It's not like there's some big pot of you know,

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Speaker 1: no strings attached money just waiting to fund research. And

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Speaker 1: when I've asked students about that, they're kind of like, well, a,

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Speaker 1: I'm okay with less research if it means less bias

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Speaker 1: in the research. And I'm like, okay, good, you know,

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Speaker 1: interesting to think about, yes. But also, and I mean

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Speaker 1: I think about this with with respect to the fossil

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Speaker 1: fuel industry all the time in general, like why do

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Speaker 1: they have to be in charge of how that money

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Speaker 1: gets spent? That's the piece where I'm like, Okay, well

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Speaker 1: what if they can donate, but they can't have any

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Speaker 1: influence right for the most part, is not a thing

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Speaker 1: that they are interested in doing. No, almost every thing

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Speaker 1: I've ever seen or talk to someone about or whatever,

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Speaker 1: there are strings attached. It's like, well, we only want

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Speaker 1: to fund research on X, Y Z, or we want

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Speaker 1: to have a say in the research projects that are chosen,

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Speaker 1: or yeah, we want to have a person who works

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Speaker 1: at that center, or you know, it's like there's there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of ways that they end up having

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Speaker 1: influence if they spend the money, and like you know,

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Speaker 1: they don't really make big donations without that. Yeah about

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Speaker 1: the strings attached.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Craig compared compared this to like, you know, everyone's

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Speaker 2: doing it, but no one wants to show their hand

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Speaker 2: in poker, Like no one wants to be the guy

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Speaker 2: who goes first. And right. I do think, like, you know,

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Speaker 2: if if that is a condition for accepting money, then

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Speaker 2: like defend it, you know, like make sure like make

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Speaker 2: sure or you have the guardrails in place so that

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Speaker 2: it's like we are taking money for this specific project

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Speaker 2: and we think this is actually a good thing and

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Speaker 2: we're gonna like put your say it with your whole chest.

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Speaker 2: Is kind of where I'm at with this, you know. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: Like if you think it's if you think having an

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Speaker 2: oil executive sit on the board of a center that

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Speaker 2: is doing this kind of research is a good thing,

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Speaker 2: then why don't you publicize the guardrails you're you're putting

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Speaker 2: in place to make sure that the research is you know,

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Speaker 2: not biased. Why don't you, like I hate to be

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Speaker 2: like a investigative reporter, a stereotype, but like sunlight is

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Speaker 2: the best disinfective, just put it out there, make sure

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Speaker 2: everything is really public, which is the opposite of what's

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Speaker 2: happening right now.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, totally awesome. All right, coming up,

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Speaker 1: Molly talks to Jeffrey Suprin and Craig Calendar and we

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Speaker 1: get into a lot more details on this stuff that's

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Speaker 1: all coming up after this quick break. I'm Amy Westervelt,

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Speaker 1: and this is drilled. Let's start at the beginning.

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Speaker 2: So the first piece of research you guys have is

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Speaker 2: two thousand and three, right, It's the New Economics Foundation Report,

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Speaker 2: And like I got to tell you, like I looked

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Speaker 2: it up and I was pretty not surprised, but it

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Speaker 2: sounded like something that could have been written yesterday, right,

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Speaker 2: And like a lot of the tenets of what people

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Speaker 2: who study this stuff they were right there. And you

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Speaker 2: do the math, and there are like kids in college

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Speaker 2: now who were born after that report came out, Right,

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Speaker 2: So you know, this stuff has been out there for

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Speaker 2: a while. How has the research around it grown and changed?

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Speaker 2: And was it the nature of academia to sort of

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Speaker 2: sit on topics for a while? Until someone kind of

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Speaker 2: lights a fire under someone's ass or is it the

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Speaker 2: circular nature of this kind of discussion, or like, what

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Speaker 2: kind of prevented this from catching on quicker in the literature,

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Speaker 2: do you think?

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Speaker 7: I mean so, I think this our findings are a

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Speaker 7: bit of an interesting needle to thread in terms of

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Speaker 7: communicating them, because on the one hand, what we found

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Speaker 7: is that civil society, right like non academic researchers have

438
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:24,040
Speaker 7: been warning about this for quite some time, right since,

439
00:24:24,119 --> 00:24:26,720
Speaker 7: as you said, the early two thousands. So part of

440
00:24:26,760 --> 00:24:29,639
Speaker 7: the story is that there has been quite a significant delay,

441
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:32,359
Speaker 7: like on the order of a decade or more in

442
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 7: terms of an uptake on this topic by academics who

443
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 7: are doing more scholarly, peer reviewed research. So on the

444
00:24:39,119 --> 00:24:42,040
Speaker 7: one hand, this is a story about sort of an

445
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:47,639
Speaker 7: intransigence and the delayed serious attention being paid on it.

446
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 7: But on the other hand, I think what we find

447
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:52,280
Speaker 7: is that there has already been enough research, both the

448
00:24:52,320 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 7: gray literature and the peer of viewed literature to substantiate

449
00:24:55,640 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 7: that there already is an emerging consensus around the idea

450
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:04,240
Speaker 7: that this is a big, threatening problem that should be

451
00:25:04,280 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 7: taken more seriously. But yeah, I guess, like specifically on

452
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:10,640
Speaker 7: this question of how it's evolved and why it hasn't

453
00:25:10,640 --> 00:25:14,480
Speaker 7: evolved quicker academically, I think you could ask almost the

454
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 7: same question about why supply side climate research very broadly

455
00:25:23,240 --> 00:25:25,200
Speaker 7: has only taken off in the last few years, and

456
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:30,200
Speaker 7: for anyone listening who isn't very familiar, supply side academic

457
00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:34,880
Speaker 7: literature basically refers to putting fossil fuel production and supply

458
00:25:35,160 --> 00:25:39,520
Speaker 7: front and center rather than just consumer demand and the

459
00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 7: associated greenhouse gas mission. So it's about looking at the

460
00:25:44,000 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 7: top end of the pipeline rather than the bottom end,

461
00:25:47,119 --> 00:25:48,840
Speaker 7: to use like an oil industry.

462
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:53,119
Speaker 2: Metaphorprint versus the people who are actually like selling the

463
00:25:53,160 --> 00:25:54,640
Speaker 2: shoes kind of yeah.

464
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, and and and and it's really

465
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 7: by some kind of fortune, I suppose, over almost exactly

466
00:26:02,520 --> 00:26:06,320
Speaker 7: the span of my academic career on this topic, that

467
00:26:06,320 --> 00:26:10,879
Speaker 7: that transition has happened. And I've actually, i think written

468
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:14,080
Speaker 7: a few articles about and definitely some Twitter threads like

469
00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:16,520
Speaker 7: about why this has happened. And I think it's a

470
00:26:17,080 --> 00:26:23,399
Speaker 7: confluence of multiple factors, perhaps foremostly activism that has really

471
00:26:23,840 --> 00:26:27,680
Speaker 7: you know, especially I'm thinking of the fossil fuel divestment movement,

472
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:32,679
Speaker 7: the Blockadia campaigns, things that really put front and center

473
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 7: fossil fuels and fossil fuel producers and their political complicity

474
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,800
Speaker 7: as much as anything through lobbying and disinformation and so on.

475
00:26:41,440 --> 00:26:43,440
Speaker 7: And I think going along with that has been things

476
00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:46,720
Speaker 7: like the economics the warnings of carbon bubbles and stranded

477
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:50,720
Speaker 7: fossil fuel assets, increasing public health research about the direct

478
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:54,480
Speaker 7: public health harms and fossil fuels, and frankly the economics

479
00:26:54,480 --> 00:27:00,000
Speaker 7: of renewables that has increasingly made fossil fuels economically more expensive.

480
00:27:00,280 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 7: And so I think it's a number of those factors

481
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 7: that will come together. I would say also it's about courage.

482
00:27:06,840 --> 00:27:09,359
Speaker 7: Like I wrote a piece back in like I don't

483
00:27:09,359 --> 00:27:14,359
Speaker 7: know twenty sixteen, seventeen or so in Huffington Post saying

484
00:27:14,400 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 7: like higher education needs to be braver when it comes

485
00:27:17,359 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 7: to addressing the climate crisis. And part of that was

486
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:23,400
Speaker 7: about a campaign we were running to try to get

487
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,160
Speaker 7: the American Geophysical Union, which is the world's largest earth

488
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 7: science organization, to reject funding from Exomobile. And at the

489
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:33,840
Speaker 7: same time we were campaign for fossil fuel Divestment MIT

490
00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 7: and students were doing us around the world, and we

491
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:39,119
Speaker 7: were very conscious that the very universities we were asking

492
00:27:39,320 --> 00:27:42,359
Speaker 7: to take climate action were also taking hundreds of millions

493
00:27:42,400 --> 00:27:46,120
Speaker 7: of dollars from David Cooch and other fossil fuel interests.

494
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:49,720
Speaker 7: And so I think that there's just been this generational

495
00:27:49,720 --> 00:27:52,639
Speaker 7: shift too, in terms of like no longer feeling like

496
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:55,280
Speaker 7: we have time to waste, in terms of, you know,

497
00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 7: I'm going to get tenure and be really safe before

498
00:27:57,680 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 7: I start to address this topic. Although constentity, that is

499
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:05,880
Speaker 7: what has happened to me. But that is purely kind

500
00:28:05,880 --> 00:28:08,359
Speaker 7: of coincidence, because you know, like I've been, I've been

501
00:28:08,400 --> 00:28:11,760
Speaker 7: writing publicly but in a non academic way about this

502
00:28:11,840 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 7: since like twenty sixteen, seventeen, but it's just taking a

503
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 7: long while to get our ducks in a row because

504
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:20,400
Speaker 7: academics are like, you know, psychhiding cats. But yeah, I mean,

505
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 7: I think it's just taken a moment for the sort

506
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:27,600
Speaker 7: of the realization that this is a big deal, like

507
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:32,160
Speaker 7: when I testified in the Senate, like very recently, and

508
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:35,640
Speaker 7: I think perhaps the most interesting documents that came out

509
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:39,720
Speaker 7: of that joint how Senate investigation were the revelations these

510
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:44,920
Speaker 7: internal oil industry memos showing how strategic and intentional. Their

511
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 7: infiltration of academia and their weaponization of those relationships has

512
00:28:48,680 --> 00:28:50,680
Speaker 7: been and a lot of people were coming up to

513
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,560
Speaker 7: me afterwards and being like, Oh, this whole like academia

514
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:56,600
Speaker 7: thing actually seems kind of important, And I was like, yeah,

515
00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 7: like this is what we've been saying for a while.

516
00:28:59,320 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 7: So I don't know, it's just a I guess it's

517
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:03,680
Speaker 7: just the way things happen that sometimes things take a

518
00:29:03,720 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 7: moment for people to cotton onto them.

519
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:06,640
Speaker 5: Yeah.

520
00:29:06,680 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 2: I mean, actually, now that you're saying it, it's like

521
00:29:08,520 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 2: a lot of people I know who are doing activism

522
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:12,600
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nine, twenty ten, like you know,

523
00:29:12,760 --> 00:29:15,600
Speaker 2: they grew up and like furthered in their careers, and

524
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:18,640
Speaker 2: it does seem like academia is more rife with people

525
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 2: who came from a different perspective on this and who

526
00:29:21,960 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 2: might have actually had experience on the front lines of

527
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:29,080
Speaker 2: activism versus just coming at this from like an academic perspective.

528
00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 6: You know.

529
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:33,000
Speaker 7: Yeah, exactly, I think. And that's kind of the general

530
00:29:33,000 --> 00:29:36,320
Speaker 7: trend that we observed that essentially activists and advocates and

531
00:29:36,560 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 7: civil society in general has been on the leading edge

532
00:29:40,960 --> 00:29:45,280
Speaker 7: of addressing this and recognizing this problem, and it still is. Frankly,

533
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,360
Speaker 7: it's still frankly the student at activists at places like

534
00:29:48,400 --> 00:29:52,400
Speaker 7: Campus Climate Network leading the charge back in twenty twelve

535
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 7: twenty thirteen. Like when we were organizing around fossil fueled

536
00:29:55,840 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 7: divestment at MIT, we were explicitly conscious of the fact

537
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 7: that there was also this funding problem. But I guess

538
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 7: alan naive approach was, well, let's solve one problem at

539
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:09,920
Speaker 7: a time, and we thought, you know, once a MITS divested,

540
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:14,680
Speaker 7: then we'll get onto addressing the funding issue. Unfortunately they

541
00:30:14,720 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 7: never divested. But actually I just the students miit just

542
00:30:18,520 --> 00:30:20,680
Speaker 7: reached out to me the other day and in a

543
00:30:20,720 --> 00:30:23,480
Speaker 7: couple of weeks their graduate student union has a referendum

544
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,360
Speaker 7: vote on whether the university should take fossil fuel funding.

545
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 7: So there is a new generation, you know, working on this.

546
00:30:31,440 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 2: That ties into my next question, which is folks in

547
00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:35,960
Speaker 2: the climate world love the tobacco industry.

548
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:37,520
Speaker 1: Analogy with good reason.

549
00:30:37,360 --> 00:30:41,120
Speaker 2: Right, and now everyone I've interviewed on the university funding

550
00:30:41,120 --> 00:30:44,040
Speaker 2: aspect brings up the tobacco conversation. And in the early

551
00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 2: two thousands, it seems like a lot of the conversation

552
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 2: around tobacco funding policies was coming from academics and public

553
00:30:49,920 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 2: health groups and not the kind of grassroots students and

554
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 2: frontline folks that we're talking about here. And it does

555
00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 2: seem like as a result, a lot of you university

556
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:05,120
Speaker 2: is very explicitly decided to stop taking tobacco funding or

557
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:09,040
Speaker 2: really put guardrails on other types of funding. No one

558
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:11,280
Speaker 2: has really been able to do that with fossil fuel

559
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:14,760
Speaker 2: funding yet, Like, why do you think the response from

560
00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 2: universities to this movement has been so limited?

561
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 1: Have we just not given them enough time?

562
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 2: Or is it the nature of the request is thornier

563
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 2: than when it comes to you know, pharmaceuticals or tobacco.

564
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:28,040
Speaker 2: What are some of the sticking points that you've noticed

565
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 2: in this work and the rest of your work.

566
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, in a way the questions above my

567
00:31:32,320 --> 00:31:35,640
Speaker 7: pay grade. Ultimately, it's university leaders themselves who have to

568
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 7: explain the decision making. I would, you know, to give

569
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 7: them the benefit of the doubt. It has in some

570
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:46,600
Speaker 7: cases been a relatively recent push, you know, like on

571
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 7: the order of a few years by students and faculty

572
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 7: trying to get universities to cut these ties. But in

573
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 7: other cases, I mentioned the American Geo Physical Union. We

574
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:58,240
Speaker 7: ran a year long campaign and we wrote a whole

575
00:31:58,280 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 7: report proving that the EXON sponsorship of the AGU conference

576
00:32:03,160 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 7: violated the organization's own by laws. And this is an

577
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:12,959
Speaker 7: organization of for and by Earth scientists, you know. And

578
00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 7: the only way the funding relationship ended was because in

579
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,040
Speaker 7: the end, after like more than a decade or two,

580
00:32:19,200 --> 00:32:22,160
Speaker 7: Exon actually cut their tires. And my only presumption is

581
00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 7: that it ended up being on net worse pr than

582
00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 7: good pr for them that we were running this campaign,

583
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 7: So there is a measurable sort of recalcitrants from universities

584
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:37,840
Speaker 7: to act on this. And you know, our reports specifically

585
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:41,040
Speaker 7: shines a spotlight on the failure to disclose like a

586
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 7: failure of transparency to even just provide data on who

587
00:32:46,320 --> 00:32:48,959
Speaker 7: is funding and how much are they funding, let alone

588
00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 7: you know, what are the terms of these these contractual agreements.

589
00:32:52,840 --> 00:32:55,600
Speaker 7: And all the evidence that we have uncovered points to

590
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:58,719
Speaker 7: the fact that these relationships are and these contracts are

591
00:32:58,800 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 7: sometimes really problem in terms of the control that they

592
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,760
Speaker 7: hand to the fossil fuel funders. As far as universities

593
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 7: are concerned, this is a significant source of revenue and

594
00:33:12,600 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 7: they obviously I remember once a board member at MIT

595
00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 7: telling us it's not so much an issue of should

596
00:33:19,720 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 7: they take money from A or should they take money

597
00:33:21,720 --> 00:33:23,880
Speaker 7: from be. They just want to take money from everywhere,

598
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 7: you know, like anywhere they can find it. And I

599
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:31,280
Speaker 7: think we're sympathetic as scholars to the fact that funding

600
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:35,720
Speaker 7: is tight and federal funding has been falling in part

601
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 7: as a result of the politics that the oil industry

602
00:33:37,920 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 7: has been lobbying in favor of for decades. So there

603
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 7: is a circularity to all this. So we're not saying

604
00:33:43,640 --> 00:33:47,960
Speaker 7: it's easy and necessarily the immediate response has to be

605
00:33:48,120 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 7: just like cutt ale ties overnight. You know, if people

606
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:54,040
Speaker 7: make that response, that's like saying, oh, you're saying we

607
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 7: should end fossil fuel use tomorrow. It's like it's a

608
00:33:57,320 --> 00:34:02,480
Speaker 7: very reductive oversimplification of raising of concerns and the proposal

609
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:06,040
Speaker 7: that we, as you said, do more. There are dozens

610
00:34:06,040 --> 00:34:10,160
Speaker 7: and dozens of safeguards that you can impose between doing

611
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,880
Speaker 7: nothing and cutting the ties. And I have another paper

612
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,120
Speaker 7: coming out where we really elaborate all those in detail,

613
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:20,880
Speaker 7: based on the history of tobacco but also pharmaceuticals and

614
00:34:20,960 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 7: junk food. I myself have really taken most insight from

615
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 7: those other disciplines where there has been an awful lot

616
00:34:28,480 --> 00:34:31,600
Speaker 7: of scholarship proving that these conflicts of interest often lead

617
00:34:31,640 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 7: to bias.

618
00:34:32,600 --> 00:34:35,799
Speaker 2: That's something I sort of noticed in the spring when

619
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 2: both the documents came out, and then concurrently there were

620
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:41,880
Speaker 2: all of those campus protests where they were really calling

621
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:45,480
Speaker 2: out the campus ties to like Lockheed and Razeon and

622
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 2: defense contractors. And I saw a lot of not in

623
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:51,319
Speaker 2: response to the FOSSi Field documents, but a lot of

624
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 2: university kind of folks who sided with the universities saying, well,

625
00:34:55,000 --> 00:34:57,759
Speaker 2: there's no way to just cut off all funding altogether, right,

626
00:34:57,880 --> 00:34:59,840
Speaker 2: Like where else are we going to get the money?

627
00:35:00,040 --> 00:35:03,799
Speaker 2: And I'm glad you mentioned the safeguards because one thing

628
00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:06,360
Speaker 2: that I think is difficult is like there's just no

629
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 2: way to tell a lot of the time what the

630
00:35:08,480 --> 00:35:11,600
Speaker 2: money is going to be used for, Like if Exxon

631
00:35:11,719 --> 00:35:14,560
Speaker 2: is building a dance hall versus if it's funding studies

632
00:35:14,560 --> 00:35:18,400
Speaker 2: on renewable energy. Right, and either a group of students

633
00:35:18,480 --> 00:35:22,080
Speaker 2: or some faculty who want to either do research in

634
00:35:22,360 --> 00:35:26,560
Speaker 2: academic discipline on this or start some sort of group

635
00:35:26,600 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 2: on campus, what can they do to kind of root

636
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 2: a little bit more down into how funding is used

637
00:35:32,120 --> 00:35:34,480
Speaker 2: at their university, what tools are available to their disposal.

638
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:37,600
Speaker 7: Well, it's actually interesting you asked that question. If I

639
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:40,480
Speaker 7: was a little more prepared, i'd have like a perfect response.

640
00:35:40,560 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 7: But we are actually in the process of trying to launch,

641
00:35:46,280 --> 00:35:50,160
Speaker 7: essentially a global survey to pool all of these insights

642
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:54,520
Speaker 7: from different campuses, and a lot of this information, probably

643
00:35:54,560 --> 00:35:56,920
Speaker 7: most of it is not on the internet, right, Like

644
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:00,239
Speaker 7: I can tell you that grad students who go to

645
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:03,760
Speaker 7: the careers for MIT, at least in my day, Exon

646
00:36:03,920 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 7: was a recruiter and they would hand out little stress

647
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:08,560
Speaker 7: reliever squeezy toys in the shape of an oil barrel

648
00:36:08,560 --> 00:36:09,520
Speaker 7: with the company logo on.

649
00:36:09,719 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 6: That's crazy.

650
00:36:10,400 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 1: They were the shape of an oil barrel. That's insane.

651
00:36:13,400 --> 00:36:15,040
Speaker 7: Yeah, I have a photo of it. There was another

652
00:36:15,400 --> 00:36:18,399
Speaker 7: any the Italian oil company sent us like a ten

653
00:36:18,480 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 7: thousand dollars custom made horse size toy in the shape

654
00:36:23,600 --> 00:36:26,200
Speaker 7: of the company logo, and it sat in my office

655
00:36:26,239 --> 00:36:28,560
Speaker 7: and we would would ride it like a horse like

656
00:36:28,600 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 7: it was like it was it's like so eccentric. So

657
00:36:33,480 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 7: like anything you can imagine exists, you know, like students

658
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:40,400
Speaker 7: that either Camebridge rugs. So I can't remember engineering students

659
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,480
Speaker 7: being required to wear hard hats with the BP logo

660
00:36:43,560 --> 00:36:46,239
Speaker 7: on things like that, you know, like and so I

661
00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 7: think one simple answer is that they should get in

662
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:52,600
Speaker 7: touch like people who want to be involved, because actually

663
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 7: we are looking for information, and you, as a student

664
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:01,360
Speaker 7: or a professor at your specific universe, have a unique

665
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:04,759
Speaker 7: insight into not just the financial ties, but the non

666
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,759
Speaker 7: financial ties, like these weird things that you see and hear.

667
00:37:09,080 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 7: Sometimes you will know about the dollar values of contracts

668
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:15,880
Speaker 7: because they're spoken about on campus, but they're not on

669
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:19,640
Speaker 7: any official database that the university releases. And we're developing

670
00:37:19,640 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 7: the infrastructure to pool all of these insights and give

671
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:27,160
Speaker 7: us some better statistics on these phenomena. Campus Climate Network,

672
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 7: which was formerly known as Fossil Free Research, is the

673
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 7: foremost use led organization campaigning to cut these fossil fuel

674
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:37,080
Speaker 7: ties at universities. For transparency sake, I should note that

675
00:37:37,120 --> 00:37:40,279
Speaker 7: I'm on the advisory board of Campus Climate Network, and they,

676
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,160
Speaker 7: I'm sure would love for people to reach out, you know,

677
00:37:43,360 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 7: anything from providing information all the way up to helping

678
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:48,880
Speaker 7: launch a new campaign. As another university they're looking to

679
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:53,000
Speaker 7: help coordinate and facilitate that work. So I think those

680
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 7: are a couple of the ways at the individual level

681
00:37:55,760 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 7: scholars can inform themselves better about the science of comfort

682
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:02,840
Speaker 7: of interest, and that runs all the way through to

683
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:07,240
Speaker 7: the responsibility of universities as we discussed, but also journals

684
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 7: implementing better protective measures. Frankly, there are things that politicians

685
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,799
Speaker 7: can do, even at the national level, And as I said,

686
00:38:14,080 --> 00:38:16,360
Speaker 7: we're almost ready to publish a sort of kind of

687
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 7: comprehensive guidebook if you like, on all those different measures.

688
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 2: You're totally right where it's like just being in a

689
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:24,920
Speaker 2: place and being in the culture of a place is

690
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 2: like way more important than what anyone can do kind

691
00:38:28,000 --> 00:38:30,440
Speaker 2: of from the outside. On the journals thing, I was

692
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:34,759
Speaker 2: talking to Craig Calendar, he's one of the uses, and

693
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:39,800
Speaker 2: he told me that pharmaceutical journals have much more regulations

694
00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:44,319
Speaker 2: on disclosing conflicts of interest than energy journal He said

695
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:48,200
Speaker 2: that like most climate and energy journals don't really require

696
00:38:48,360 --> 00:38:51,600
Speaker 2: the types of disclosures that pharmaceutical journals do. Is that

697
00:38:51,680 --> 00:38:52,600
Speaker 2: something you've seen.

698
00:38:53,600 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's broadly correct. The measures in place for public

699
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 7: health researchers all levels from you know, disclosures they have

700
00:39:02,960 --> 00:39:06,799
Speaker 7: to make internally within their universities. Yeah, through to disclosures

701
00:39:06,800 --> 00:39:10,600
Speaker 7: they have to make with the journals are much tighter

702
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:14,000
Speaker 7: when it comes to research that in any way touches

703
00:39:14,040 --> 00:39:17,040
Speaker 7: on areas that tobacco or pharmaceuticals or others might get

704
00:39:17,040 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 7: involved in. And in comparison, climate and energy research right

705
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:24,000
Speaker 7: now is the world West. I think it's certainly something

706
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 7: that there is already a blueprint in place with safeguards

707
00:39:28,000 --> 00:39:31,640
Speaker 7: against tobacco and pharmaceutical funding to mitigate most of this,

708
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:34,440
Speaker 7: and so we don't have to reinvent a lot of wheels.

709
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 7: In many cases, we can just implement these things. So

710
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:41,080
Speaker 7: it's all about simply compelling those impositions of power and

711
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:44,000
Speaker 7: decision making to do so. And that's kind of the

712
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:47,920
Speaker 7: point of this paper is to basically ask the question

713
00:39:47,960 --> 00:39:51,520
Speaker 7: of what do we know already? Because often the first

714
00:39:51,560 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 7: step to solving a problem is recognizing there is one,

715
00:39:54,520 --> 00:39:58,320
Speaker 7: and so bringing all of our current knowledge together allowed

716
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:01,279
Speaker 7: us to realize that although yes, there are many many

717
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:06,840
Speaker 7: details that need to be further scrutinized, broadly speaking, a

718
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:08,919
Speaker 7: lot of this thinking has been done when it comes

719
00:40:08,960 --> 00:40:12,360
Speaker 7: to other industries, and so I think that you know,

720
00:40:12,400 --> 00:40:15,520
Speaker 7: we see this as essentially putting university leaders on notice

721
00:40:15,920 --> 00:40:18,839
Speaker 7: that the existing research is clear that this has been

722
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 7: a massive elephant in the climate and energy policy research realm,

723
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:27,400
Speaker 7: and they need to start taking it seriously, starting with

724
00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 7: just acknowledging the science of conflicts of interest, because right

725
00:40:31,200 --> 00:40:34,440
Speaker 7: now they basically do the opposite, and they actively solicit

726
00:40:34,600 --> 00:40:36,840
Speaker 7: and encourage this kind of oil industry funding.

727
00:40:37,040 --> 00:40:38,200
Speaker 6: The actual opposite.

728
00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 7: Yeah, the actual opposite.

729
00:40:46,440 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 2: So let's get started with the basics. How did you

730
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 2: get involved in this specific issue given that your academic

731
00:40:54,719 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 2: background isn't exactly climate change.

732
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:02,239
Speaker 6: So I got into this because, yeah, I thought, I

733
00:41:02,239 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 6: I've taught environmental ethics for about twenty or thirty years,

734
00:41:05,520 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 6: but also I'm a philosopher of science and of philosters

735
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:12,640
Speaker 6: of science. One sort of thing we look at is methodology,

736
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 6: and then of course bias, and so you know, those

737
00:41:17,640 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 6: two interests sort of collided. At one point a long

738
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,640
Speaker 6: time ago, I co taught a course with Naomi Erski's

739
00:41:24,239 --> 00:41:28,480
Speaker 6: who's the author of Merchants of Doubt and the movie

740
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 6: Merchants of Doubt, and so this had been on my

741
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:37,560
Speaker 6: radar for a long time. Then you know, I got

742
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:41,560
Speaker 6: recruited to the Campus Climate Change Committee, which is the

743
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:47,320
Speaker 6: only standing academic senate committee in the UC system devoted

744
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 6: to campus climate change in the whole system. Yeah, in

745
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:52,320
Speaker 6: the whole system.

746
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 2: Wow.

747
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:56,400
Speaker 6: And actually, when we think about solutions, that's one of

748
00:41:56,440 --> 00:41:59,240
Speaker 6: the biggest ones I think is actually having an academic

749
00:41:59,280 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 6: senate committee lends a lot of legitimacy to the climate

750
00:42:03,920 --> 00:42:08,680
Speaker 6: change question. And so then this team, we were approaching

751
00:42:08,680 --> 00:42:12,719
Speaker 6: all sorts of different issues like offsets and climate teaching

752
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:15,960
Speaker 6: and all sorts of things. And one of the topics

753
00:42:16,040 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 6: was then also, of course all the fossil fuel money

754
00:42:18,719 --> 00:42:22,360
Speaker 6: coming in, and so we decided to have an initiative

755
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:25,919
Speaker 6: on research. And so then I was put in as

756
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:29,520
Speaker 6: one of the one of the main people thinking about that. So,

757
00:42:29,920 --> 00:42:31,239
Speaker 6: you know, the first thing I did was then look

758
00:42:31,280 --> 00:42:34,120
Speaker 6: at what u SE did with tobacco back in the

759
00:42:34,320 --> 00:42:38,480
Speaker 6: early two thousands, and they tried to ban which would

760
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 6: be like what the group Fossil Free Research is calling for,

761
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:45,280
Speaker 6: you know, ban on taking money from fossil fuel industry

762
00:42:45,719 --> 00:42:49,840
Speaker 6: for climate research. Many schools did ban, or many units

763
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:54,440
Speaker 6: in particularly banned taking tobacco money for medical or health research.

764
00:42:55,640 --> 00:42:59,440
Speaker 6: So surprisingly that failed. That you see, so the University

765
00:42:59,440 --> 00:43:04,360
Speaker 6: of California voted down a tobacco ban by a large

766
00:43:04,400 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 6: margin due to worries about academic freedom, but they did

767
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,080
Speaker 6: put in this other policy that we still have that

768
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:16,040
Speaker 6: mandates a special review of any tobacco money that's accepted,

769
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:18,399
Speaker 6: and so the chancellor has to form an ad hoc

770
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:21,759
Speaker 6: committee reviewing it, and I write a public letter if

771
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 6: it's accepted on why it's justified. And so I thought, well,

772
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:27,239
Speaker 6: that's not as good as a ban, but you know

773
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:30,920
Speaker 6: that's if that worked with tobacco, and the fossil fuel

774
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 6: issue and climate change are even worse, so why not

775
00:43:34,640 --> 00:43:37,759
Speaker 6: just run with this. So it basically just took that

776
00:43:37,800 --> 00:43:41,799
Speaker 6: policy and crossed off the word tobacco and replaced it

777
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:45,680
Speaker 6: with fossil fuel and then tried to run with that.

778
00:43:46,160 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 6: But we were more or less told that that was

779
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 6: dead on arrival, and.

780
00:43:49,280 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 2: Just her timeline like when when did you first get

781
00:43:52,760 --> 00:43:54,320
Speaker 2: involved with the committee itself?

782
00:43:54,360 --> 00:43:59,560
Speaker 6: And like when four years four years ago? Four years ago? Okay? Yeah,

783
00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:04,319
Speaker 6: So then we've switched to a transparency measure because we thought, well,

784
00:44:04,360 --> 00:44:08,760
Speaker 6: transparency seemed to us and it seems to many people,

785
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:11,839
Speaker 6: you know, all over the place. If I just take

786
00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:14,880
Speaker 6: my dog for a walk and talk to somebody. You know,

787
00:44:14,920 --> 00:44:19,080
Speaker 6: they're all about transparency. So we switched then from this

788
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:23,839
Speaker 6: kind of special review, not anything bandlike or any kind

789
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:25,960
Speaker 6: of friction on this. They can still take as much

790
00:44:26,000 --> 00:44:28,640
Speaker 6: money as you want from anyone you want, but it

791
00:44:28,680 --> 00:44:32,160
Speaker 6: would definitely disclose it. And so we pushed this policy

792
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:36,239
Speaker 6: for about three years and then in May it was

793
00:44:36,280 --> 00:44:40,520
Speaker 6: finally voted on in the Academic Senate UCSD and it

794
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:44,800
Speaker 6: passed with ninety one percent of the vote, which was great.

795
00:44:45,760 --> 00:44:48,719
Speaker 2: It does it does feel like I think a lot

796
00:44:48,719 --> 00:44:51,840
Speaker 2: of people are just really surprised to hear that that's

797
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:55,440
Speaker 2: not like a set policy, especially at a public school.

798
00:44:55,840 --> 00:44:58,759
Speaker 6: Yeah, so if this policy, which got voted on but

799
00:44:58,800 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 6: has not been implemented yet, if it gets implemented, it

800
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:06,080
Speaker 6: will be by far the most progressive transparency policy in

801
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:11,400
Speaker 6: the country. I think none of the schools disclose anything

802
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:14,439
Speaker 6: apart from what they have to more or less so

803
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:17,160
Speaker 6: that if you take federal money, then the federal government

804
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 6: insists you disclose. They might encourage you to disclose, but

805
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:25,520
Speaker 6: you don't have to, and they jealously guard the information.

806
00:45:26,360 --> 00:45:32,040
Speaker 6: So it's not common practice at all. It does surprise

807
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:34,480
Speaker 6: most people when you talk to them. That, especially a

808
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 6: big public research university doesn't disclose a lot of this stuff.

809
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:41,759
Speaker 6: U see does disclose more than most I think, but

810
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:47,880
Speaker 6: you cannot find if they're like gifts to centers and

811
00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,360
Speaker 6: things like that. You cannot find that information anywhere apart

812
00:45:51,360 --> 00:45:54,680
Speaker 6: from a foyer request. So, for instance, the institute I

813
00:45:54,760 --> 00:45:58,760
Speaker 6: co direct, the Institute for Practical Ethics, that would challenge

814
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:01,880
Speaker 6: you to find out where we get funding. There's no

815
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:02,879
Speaker 6: way you could find out.

816
00:46:03,120 --> 00:46:04,920
Speaker 2: So I could be talking to you right now, and

817
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 2: you could be like cashing or your institute could be

818
00:46:08,520 --> 00:46:12,680
Speaker 2: cashing a check from like Chevron, and I just wouldn't

819
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:16,960
Speaker 2: have any idea unless you chose to disclose. Is that's right?

820
00:46:17,520 --> 00:46:22,120
Speaker 6: Yeah, So the university might disclose some aspects of some grants,

821
00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 6: but not gifts. And if you think about this, I mean,

822
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:30,080
Speaker 6: if we're going to be now fair and think about

823
00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:34,799
Speaker 6: it from the anti transparency side, you know, from their

824
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:38,800
Speaker 6: point of view, what's happened is public funding is basically

825
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:42,320
Speaker 6: plummeted in the universities. They have to make up the gap.

826
00:46:43,239 --> 00:46:44,520
Speaker 6: So a lot of that gap is going to be

827
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:48,200
Speaker 6: filled by money from industry and then but you have

828
00:46:48,239 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 6: other schools. Were not the only school who is funding

829
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 6: deprived from public funds, they all are, and so then

830
00:46:55,480 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 6: it's like a battle against them. And so these donors,

831
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 6: you know, so they're then it's like a high stakes

832
00:47:01,719 --> 00:47:06,720
Speaker 6: game of poker. And so the idea of disclosing your

833
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:10,360
Speaker 6: gift funding is like, you know, showing your hand and

834
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:13,799
Speaker 6: the game of poker from their point of view, of course,

835
00:47:13,840 --> 00:47:19,600
Speaker 6: if everybody showed their hand, you know, then it would

836
00:47:19,600 --> 00:47:20,520
Speaker 6: be we.

837
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,280
Speaker 1: Wouldn't be playing poker, basically playing poker.

838
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, which, Yeah, one of the takeaways that Jeffrey Suprann

839
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:30,240
Speaker 2: and I were talking about was that there's this robust

840
00:47:30,320 --> 00:47:34,840
Speaker 2: body of research around conflict of interest with regards to

841
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:38,400
Speaker 2: money from other industries. Like there's a lot around tobacco.

842
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 2: There's been conversations about fast food funding, but until very

843
00:47:42,880 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 2: very recently, the conversation around oil and gas was like

844
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:50,240
Speaker 2: people noticed it was happening, but it didn't really start

845
00:47:50,320 --> 00:47:53,360
Speaker 2: becoming an issue until like very recently. Does that track

846
00:47:53,440 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 2: with your experience in thinking about this and working on this,

847
00:47:57,120 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 2: and why do you think it's taken so long for

848
00:47:59,560 --> 00:48:01,320
Speaker 2: folks to kind of start this conversation.

849
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:08,080
Speaker 6: Yeah, that does track with my understanding. So much of

850
00:48:08,120 --> 00:48:12,200
Speaker 6: the movement and energy was all based around health and

851
00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:15,360
Speaker 6: big pharma, and so you had all of these conflict

852
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:20,440
Speaker 6: of interest policies and things which were challenged and fought

853
00:48:20,640 --> 00:48:25,000
Speaker 6: step you tooth and nail. From the early seventies, National

854
00:48:25,040 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 6: Academy of Science have reports about conflicts of interests with

855
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:33,200
Speaker 6: big Pharma and so these things. It took decades really

856
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:35,040
Speaker 6: for a lot of this to all get to the

857
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:38,200
Speaker 6: where it is now. Even things that you think of

858
00:48:38,280 --> 00:48:41,640
Speaker 6: as like completely consensus, you know, so for instance, that

859
00:48:41,719 --> 00:48:45,279
Speaker 6: there would be internal review board that would review the

860
00:48:45,320 --> 00:48:48,760
Speaker 6: ethics of whether the subjects of an experiment have consent,

861
00:48:49,280 --> 00:48:52,520
Speaker 6: Even that stuff was fought. People are stunned when they hear.

862
00:48:52,400 --> 00:48:53,760
Speaker 1: This, but that's crazy.

863
00:48:54,719 --> 00:48:57,319
Speaker 6: If you just look back a little while, you would

864
00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 6: see that people fought based on that. There like freedom,

865
00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:04,080
Speaker 6: because it's like a restraint on academic freedom. You can't

866
00:49:04,080 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 6: do the experiment the way you want it, or you

867
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 6: have to change the design, maybe you can't even do

868
00:49:08,200 --> 00:49:12,880
Speaker 6: it because it's unethical. And so people thought this. People

869
00:49:12,920 --> 00:49:15,800
Speaker 6: thought all the conflict of interest rules and all the journals,

870
00:49:15,840 --> 00:49:19,480
Speaker 6: they thought everything. I was reading a paper with one

871
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,440
Speaker 6: of the one of the main medical journals, had instituted

872
00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 6: a thing where you couldn't write op ed or editorial

873
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:29,359
Speaker 6: if you were about a particular drug if you were

874
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 6: being paid for by the company that made that drug.

875
00:49:32,200 --> 00:49:35,040
Speaker 6: And then the reaction was that this was called the

876
00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:41,160
Speaker 6: new McCarthyism. People are really heated against that sort of thing.

877
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:43,960
Speaker 6: It's greaz it's so much of the energy. It was

878
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:47,360
Speaker 6: all there in a big pharma. Yeah, even on like

879
00:49:47,520 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 6: core things like just you know, ethical consent forms and

880
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:56,840
Speaker 6: things like that. This seventies, eighties, nineties, you know, going

881
00:49:57,320 --> 00:49:59,560
Speaker 6: all the way up to eventually you have Obamas the

882
00:49:59,600 --> 00:50:03,480
Speaker 6: Sunshine Act, which most people don't know about. Maybe you

883
00:50:03,520 --> 00:50:05,799
Speaker 6: can go online and then go to a registry and

884
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:10,520
Speaker 6: then see if your physician is taking money from particular companies,

885
00:50:10,719 --> 00:50:13,719
Speaker 6: and then when the physician recommends a particular drug, you

886
00:50:13,719 --> 00:50:15,920
Speaker 6: can see where they're getting many money from that person

887
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:20,520
Speaker 6: that that company. So that was actually what the UCSD

888
00:50:20,880 --> 00:50:22,680
Speaker 6: thing was modeled after, is to have a kind of

889
00:50:22,680 --> 00:50:26,520
Speaker 6: public registry like in this Obama Sunshine Act. But that

890
00:50:26,760 --> 00:50:31,759
Speaker 6: was maybe what two thousand, somewhere between two maybe two,

891
00:50:32,080 --> 00:50:35,160
Speaker 6: I guess twenty eleven, But it is around then.

892
00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:36,680
Speaker 2: I feel like that's right.

893
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:39,200
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think why it happened there was because you know,

894
00:50:39,280 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 6: everyone cares about medicine and health, and there was just

895
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:48,160
Speaker 6: so much interference. But then as those transparency policies started

896
00:50:48,160 --> 00:50:52,280
Speaker 6: to appear, then you start to see more conflicts of interest,

897
00:50:52,480 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 6: and then there's more works now, you know, fast forward

898
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:59,640
Speaker 6: to the fossil fuel case. You know, have those transparency

899
00:50:59,680 --> 00:51:03,440
Speaker 6: policy and a lot of those journals. It's more theoretical

900
00:51:03,480 --> 00:51:06,600
Speaker 6: and not something the American public cared about as much,

901
00:51:07,360 --> 00:51:12,000
Speaker 6: and so you didn't get as much transparency. The transparency alone,

902
00:51:12,040 --> 00:51:14,879
Speaker 6: of course, doesn't solve the problem at all. Right, it's

903
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 6: still say you can take the money and be influenced,

904
00:51:18,360 --> 00:51:21,200
Speaker 6: but you know, it's like a necessary condition for finding

905
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 6: the breadcrumbs that would lead you to serious conflicts of interest,

906
00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:28,560
Speaker 6: and so you need those transparency policies. And we've known,

907
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 6: really for a long time, but now we know without

908
00:51:31,719 --> 00:51:34,080
Speaker 6: beyond the shadow of the doubt, that there is this

909
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:38,960
Speaker 6: kind of influence. And that's not just like advertising and

910
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:41,960
Speaker 6: oh maybe they had to believe the wrong thing or something.

911
00:51:42,000 --> 00:51:46,880
Speaker 6: It's about a deliberate strategy, and that strategy is contrary

912
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:48,920
Speaker 6: to the mission of the university, which is to produce

913
00:51:48,920 --> 00:51:54,040
Speaker 6: an unbiased knowledge for you know, a democratic republic. So

914
00:51:54,080 --> 00:51:56,000
Speaker 6: you have a lot of people say that money doesn't

915
00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:59,560
Speaker 6: influence our outcomes and things like that, But the scientists

916
00:51:59,680 --> 00:52:02,960
Speaker 6: should be scientific about this. Now we've got a couple

917
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:07,399
Speaker 6: of decades of evidence, right, it's happening. And so if

918
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:13,360
Speaker 6: they apply their saying scientific you know, acumen to this problem,

919
00:52:13,480 --> 00:52:16,839
Speaker 6: then you can just see it's a problem. And then

920
00:52:16,840 --> 00:52:21,320
Speaker 6: once you know, now you've got the responsibility of this knowledge.

921
00:52:21,920 --> 00:52:24,319
Speaker 6: And then if you're being used as a weapon, and

922
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:26,919
Speaker 6: now you know you're being used as what your infrastructures

923
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:30,840
Speaker 6: allow it you to be weaponized, well, now you have

924
00:52:30,840 --> 00:52:33,400
Speaker 6: a duty to not be a weapon.

925
00:52:34,719 --> 00:52:36,560
Speaker 2: I think everyone kind of thinks they're going to be

926
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:40,000
Speaker 2: the exception, like, oh, if you know, I wouldn't be

927
00:52:40,600 --> 00:52:44,719
Speaker 2: swayed in my work. And I don't know what you

928
00:52:44,760 --> 00:52:47,440
Speaker 2: think about, but like it's hard to sort of articulate

929
00:52:47,440 --> 00:52:49,600
Speaker 2: where it's like, well, it's kind of not even about you.

930
00:52:49,719 --> 00:52:52,719
Speaker 2: It's just about the fact that this money was delivered

931
00:52:52,840 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 2: to the institution you're working at, not out of the

932
00:52:56,560 --> 00:52:59,880
Speaker 2: goodness of this company's heart. You know, it's like a

933
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:02,759
Speaker 2: tool doesn't know. It's a tool necessarily, it's not a

934
00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:05,680
Speaker 2: comment on the quality of the work even all the time.

935
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:09,040
Speaker 6: Well, yeah, so have two thoughts about this. What is

936
00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:12,120
Speaker 6: a lot of the work in this area has shown

937
00:53:12,160 --> 00:53:16,200
Speaker 6: that even if you are just the most pure researcher

938
00:53:16,280 --> 00:53:18,880
Speaker 6: in the world, you know, the most innocent, pure research

939
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:21,560
Speaker 6: in the world, still this money can make it such

940
00:53:21,600 --> 00:53:24,720
Speaker 6: that you're part of a network such that it distorts

941
00:53:24,800 --> 00:53:28,160
Speaker 6: the evidential base. So if you think of when Robert

942
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:33,080
Speaker 6: Profter showed how he called a distraction science where tobacco

943
00:53:34,000 --> 00:53:38,880
Speaker 6: would fund work on asbesos causing lung cancer, genetics causing

944
00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:42,680
Speaker 6: lung cancer, all that work maybe is perfectly good, and

945
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:45,359
Speaker 6: all those people are you know, as far as I know,

946
00:53:45,520 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 6: there was tobacco funded, but probably weren't doing anything bad science.

947
00:53:50,840 --> 00:53:54,719
Speaker 6: On the other hand, it skews the evidential landscape, you know,

948
00:53:54,760 --> 00:53:58,560
Speaker 6: in a big way. Same thing. I it is probably

949
00:53:58,560 --> 00:54:01,120
Speaker 6: happening now when think of how much money is going

950
00:54:01,120 --> 00:54:05,319
Speaker 6: into carbon capture and storage versus other things. And so

951
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:09,600
Speaker 6: you as the individual research could rightly say, yeah, it

952
00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 6: hasn't affected my outcomes, But you're part of this social network.

953
00:54:15,040 --> 00:54:18,319
Speaker 6: And when you think about that, so mostly we know

954
00:54:18,640 --> 00:54:22,319
Speaker 6: also that that's not true that it does buy us outcomes.

955
00:54:22,880 --> 00:54:25,080
Speaker 6: I'm saying, even if it didn't buy us outcomes, it

956
00:54:25,080 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 6: would still be the case that you could be part

957
00:54:27,719 --> 00:54:32,400
Speaker 6: of this kind of weaponization of the academic structure. And

958
00:54:32,440 --> 00:54:34,400
Speaker 6: then the other thing is, you know, it always reminds

959
00:54:34,480 --> 00:54:37,279
Speaker 6: me of when people say guns don't kill people. People do.

960
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:42,200
Speaker 6: And you might go to a store later and buy

961
00:54:42,239 --> 00:54:47,000
Speaker 6: a weapon to protect your dogs and cats and have

962
00:54:47,040 --> 00:54:49,960
Speaker 6: only love and peace in your heart. But we still

963
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:52,839
Speaker 6: know what having like automatic weapons does in the society.

964
00:54:52,880 --> 00:54:57,200
Speaker 6: It changes your incentives, it changes your choices, it changes

965
00:54:57,400 --> 00:55:01,319
Speaker 6: all around you that network, and so it will end

966
00:55:01,400 --> 00:55:05,359
Speaker 6: up leading to more deaths. And so again it's sort

967
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:08,800
Speaker 6: of failing to appreciate the way the individual and the

968
00:55:08,880 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 6: social connect to each other.

969
00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:15,919
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, in our society, I think people think

970
00:55:15,960 --> 00:55:20,399
Speaker 2: of professors and researchers as sort of the third leg

971
00:55:20,480 --> 00:55:25,160
Speaker 2: of knowledge, like an informed source. In journalism, we're always

972
00:55:25,200 --> 00:55:28,400
Speaker 2: taught to reach out to academics and confirm studies or

973
00:55:28,440 --> 00:55:32,920
Speaker 2: to talk to you about scientific issues. But the university

974
00:55:33,560 --> 00:55:37,080
Speaker 2: system in the country is so privatized and getting even

975
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:41,759
Speaker 2: more and more privatized each day, and I'm wondering which

976
00:55:41,800 --> 00:55:45,239
Speaker 2: people should know about the funding system for some of

977
00:55:45,280 --> 00:55:47,400
Speaker 2: these research that they might not know already.

978
00:55:47,920 --> 00:55:52,200
Speaker 6: Yeah. I think people are shocked really when they see

979
00:55:52,360 --> 00:55:56,920
Speaker 6: dependent most researches on getting grants in general, you know,

980
00:55:57,040 --> 00:55:59,239
Speaker 6: most of the grants are from the federal government, but

981
00:55:59,440 --> 00:56:03,160
Speaker 6: still she plays a huge role in many, many different disciplines.

982
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:08,240
Speaker 6: I think people are shocked. They don't really appreciate that fact.

983
00:56:09,000 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 6: It's a big question I think about whether once people

984
00:56:12,400 --> 00:56:15,680
Speaker 6: hear this, whether they'll continue to trust science. Now.

985
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, That's why I think the disclosure is so important,

986
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:21,879
Speaker 3: because who do you believe, you know, somebody who says, well, OK,

987
00:56:22,360 --> 00:56:26,080
Speaker 3: I have this interest, or somebody who says, no, I'm

988
00:56:26,160 --> 00:56:26,840
Speaker 3: hiding something.

989
00:56:27,719 --> 00:56:32,400
Speaker 2: So the resolution passed in May with ninety one percent support.

990
00:56:32,600 --> 00:56:35,319
Speaker 2: What are the next steps on campus right now?

991
00:56:35,520 --> 00:56:38,000
Speaker 6: Yeah? Good? So I think you know, when we're thinking

992
00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:40,960
Speaker 6: about solutions. The first thing is I think having an

993
00:56:40,960 --> 00:56:44,360
Speaker 6: academic Senate committee to devote to campus climate change was huge

994
00:56:44,520 --> 00:56:47,919
Speaker 6: and so the activist on campus who pushed for that

995
00:56:48,160 --> 00:56:52,080
Speaker 6: were really geniuses. So there was an academic Senate task

996
00:56:52,200 --> 00:56:55,920
Speaker 6: force devoted to climate change in the late twenty teens,

997
00:56:56,880 --> 00:57:02,399
Speaker 6: maybe twenty seventeen or nineteen somewhere around there, and then

998
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:04,960
Speaker 6: they came up with all these recommendations, and one was

999
00:57:05,000 --> 00:57:08,520
Speaker 6: the formation of this committee, and then it was formed.

1000
00:57:09,600 --> 00:57:12,520
Speaker 6: And then having it be a committee meant that it

1001
00:57:12,560 --> 00:57:17,400
Speaker 6: gives a legitimacy to the voices on campus who care

1002
00:57:17,440 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 6: about climate change because now you have a seat at

1003
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:23,960
Speaker 6: the table and can comment on various things that are

1004
00:57:23,960 --> 00:57:27,400
Speaker 6: going on. But you could also put forward resolutions and

1005
00:57:27,440 --> 00:57:31,400
Speaker 6: then see what the faculty whether they vote on this

1006
00:57:31,520 --> 00:57:35,520
Speaker 6: or not. So that was really just a stroke of

1007
00:57:35,560 --> 00:57:39,960
Speaker 6: genius and really very unique and right away, you know.

1008
00:57:39,960 --> 00:57:42,600
Speaker 6: So we had this memorial go through the whole system.

1009
00:57:42,800 --> 00:57:46,080
Speaker 6: It took about a year, but it was basically to

1010
00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:50,000
Speaker 6: replace this kind of carbon neutral by whatever date with

1011
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:55,120
Speaker 6: actual emission reduction targets, and implicitly it was it was

1012
00:57:55,400 --> 00:57:59,400
Speaker 6: against carbon offsets. You could see we were getting closer

1013
00:57:59,440 --> 00:58:02,640
Speaker 6: and closer to carbon neutral, but our missions were going up,

1014
00:58:03,280 --> 00:58:05,440
Speaker 6: up and up and up. So how can be getting

1015
00:58:05,440 --> 00:58:08,920
Speaker 6: closer to carbon neutral was by buying all these offsets.

1016
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:13,000
Speaker 6: And so we went, we had this memorial go through

1017
00:58:13,000 --> 00:58:17,880
Speaker 6: the whole to ten campuses and one resoundingly, I think

1018
00:58:17,920 --> 00:58:21,160
Speaker 6: it got about eighty five percent approval. And then we

1019
00:58:21,240 --> 00:58:26,200
Speaker 6: have the Climate education requirement that's starting in two weeks

1020
00:58:26,320 --> 00:58:28,680
Speaker 6: or three weeks. So already a whole list of courses

1021
00:58:28,720 --> 00:58:31,320
Speaker 6: have been approved, so every student will have to take

1022
00:58:31,360 --> 00:58:35,200
Speaker 6: this ongoing and then if it spreads to other campuses,

1023
00:58:35,280 --> 00:58:38,080
Speaker 6: this could be something that eventually affects hundreds of thousands

1024
00:58:38,080 --> 00:58:40,800
Speaker 6: of students. Now I'm off the committee as of just

1025
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:44,440
Speaker 6: a couple of weeks ago, served four years on it.

1026
00:58:44,560 --> 00:58:48,240
Speaker 6: I will be very curious to see hopefully the disclosure

1027
00:58:48,360 --> 00:58:51,600
Speaker 6: thing will be adopted. You see, like at many schools,

1028
00:58:51,600 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 6: you have what's called shared governance, and so it's shared

1029
00:58:55,080 --> 00:58:59,720
Speaker 6: between the admin and faculty. The admin where I think

1030
00:58:59,720 --> 00:59:02,640
Speaker 6: it's to say, we're not fans of the disclosure of policy,

1031
00:59:03,480 --> 00:59:06,280
Speaker 6: and so it's been sent to them asking them to

1032
00:59:06,560 --> 00:59:10,040
Speaker 6: make a team and to make it happen. So you see,

1033
00:59:10,080 --> 00:59:12,280
Speaker 6: has like the president of the whole system, and then

1034
00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:16,480
Speaker 6: each each campus has a chancellor, and so the chancellor

1035
00:59:16,520 --> 00:59:20,080
Speaker 6: would have to form a team to make this happen.

1036
00:59:21,160 --> 00:59:23,280
Speaker 6: So far as I know, I haven't heard of anything

1037
00:59:23,320 --> 00:59:24,320
Speaker 6: happening yet.

1038
00:59:24,760 --> 00:59:27,120
Speaker 1: So it could sort of sit in limbo.

1039
00:59:28,200 --> 00:59:32,320
Speaker 6: Just ask I think, I mean, there would be a

1040
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:37,320
Speaker 6: grave offense to share governance because if ninety one percent

1041
00:59:37,320 --> 00:59:40,320
Speaker 6: of the faculty voted in favor of it, it doesn't happen.

1042
00:59:40,800 --> 00:59:43,960
Speaker 6: It's about the faculty's own work and money.

1043
00:59:44,080 --> 00:59:48,360
Speaker 2: Okay, so it's it requires like a little bit more implementation,

1044
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:50,960
Speaker 2: but it's it's kind of with the chancellor's.

1045
00:59:50,480 --> 00:59:54,880
Speaker 6: Off us now, yeah, and then we'll see what happens.

1046
00:59:54,880 --> 00:59:59,560
Speaker 6: Hopefully it happens. But like I said, they weren't fans,

1047
01:00:00,080 --> 01:00:07,120
Speaker 6: so I'm not counting my chickens when I talk about

1048
01:00:07,160 --> 01:00:13,400
Speaker 6: this with people. The transparency thing opens the doors because

1049
01:00:13,440 --> 01:00:17,480
Speaker 6: if you want to give an industrial center money to

1050
01:00:17,520 --> 01:00:20,000
Speaker 6: find oil and gas, I'm curious if you agree or not.

1051
01:00:20,040 --> 01:00:22,439
Speaker 6: That doesn't seem to have the same ethical layers as

1052
01:00:23,040 --> 01:00:27,360
Speaker 6: BP funding a public policy school or Chevron funding.

1053
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:30,360
Speaker 2: You know, I was just looking at numbers for this center.

1054
01:00:30,600 --> 01:00:33,840
Speaker 2: I'm sure you've seen the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy,

1055
01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:37,160
Speaker 2: where their experts are constantly in front of Congress. They

1056
01:00:37,200 --> 01:00:41,000
Speaker 2: are doing policy work, and I think that people get

1057
01:00:41,040 --> 01:00:44,280
Speaker 2: really defensive, like you said when you mentioned funding, because

1058
01:00:44,280 --> 01:00:46,440
Speaker 2: they're like, well, we can't, you know, not take money.

1059
01:00:46,480 --> 01:00:49,120
Speaker 2: But it's like, why don't we just start having a

1060
01:00:49,160 --> 01:00:53,439
Speaker 2: conversation about where this money is going as a starting point,

1061
01:00:53,440 --> 01:00:55,000
Speaker 2: which we're not doing right now.

1062
01:00:55,040 --> 01:00:58,360
Speaker 6: You know, I couldn't agree more with what you just said.

1063
01:00:58,360 --> 01:01:02,960
Speaker 6: That the money that goes into shaping climate policy and

1064
01:01:03,000 --> 01:01:07,040
Speaker 6: that's not disclosed, that's what really bothers me the most.

1065
01:01:07,400 --> 01:01:11,200
Speaker 6: So of course, some petroleum engineer gets money from a

1066
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:15,400
Speaker 6: fossil fuel industry, I mean, that's the whole business model,

1067
01:01:15,480 --> 01:01:19,400
Speaker 6: and they typically they disclose it all, you know, and that,

1068
01:01:20,160 --> 01:01:23,480
Speaker 6: But when you're trying to influence policy, then if even

1069
01:01:23,520 --> 01:01:28,320
Speaker 6: our politicians are supposed to reveal their donors, and everyone's

1070
01:01:28,360 --> 01:01:31,920
Speaker 6: wanting now the Supreme Court to have to disclose who's

1071
01:01:31,960 --> 01:01:34,880
Speaker 6: giving them money and gifts, and we want our doctors

1072
01:01:34,880 --> 01:01:38,120
Speaker 6: to disclose money and gifts, whereas everybody have to disclose

1073
01:01:38,640 --> 01:01:43,040
Speaker 6: who are trying to influence industry policy except for these

1074
01:01:43,080 --> 01:01:48,200
Speaker 6: scientists at these climate centers. That's study by Doug Almon

1075
01:01:48,320 --> 01:01:53,520
Speaker 6: at Columbia where he looks at the favorability ratings coming

1076
01:01:53,520 --> 01:01:59,360
Speaker 6: out of climate centers comparing natural gas and methane versus renewables.

1077
01:01:59,720 --> 01:02:02,360
Speaker 6: I mean, and it's shocking. Really people are under the

1078
01:02:02,400 --> 01:02:05,800
Speaker 6: illusion that it doesn't really do anything, but holy moly,

1079
01:02:05,880 --> 01:02:08,040
Speaker 6: this money does a lot those centers produce all these

1080
01:02:08,040 --> 01:02:12,680
Speaker 6: white papers. Those white papers get used at local level

1081
01:02:12,880 --> 01:02:16,320
Speaker 6: to open up an area for fracking, or national level

1082
01:02:16,880 --> 01:02:22,640
Speaker 6: congressional evidence dockets just all over the place, and so

1083
01:02:22,720 --> 01:02:27,120
Speaker 6: it really does shape national policy and local policy. And

1084
01:02:27,200 --> 01:02:30,400
Speaker 6: so it's not the factor I think of why we're

1085
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Speaker 6: in the state we're in, but it's definitely a causal factor.

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Speaker 1: That's it for this time. We'll be back soon with

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Speaker 1: another episode in this series. Don't forget to check out

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Speaker 1: the print stories that are going along with this series

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Speaker 1: as well on our website at Drilled dot Media, and

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Speaker 1: of various co publishing partners, including Rolling Stone and Vox.

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Speaker 1: This episode was mixed and mastered by Peter duff. Our

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Speaker 1: theme music is Bird in the Hand by Forenoon. Our

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Speaker 1: artwork is by Matthew Fleming. You can also check us

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Speaker 1: out on Twitter we are Drilled, and everywhere else on

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Speaker 1: social media at Drilled Media. You can sign up for

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Speaker 1: our newsletter on our website as well that comes out

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01:03:20,160 --> 01:03:23,720
Speaker 1: once a week and gives in overview of an important

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Speaker 1: story that's happening in the climate universe, plus suggestions for

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Speaker 1: the week's five must read climate stories. It's never more

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Speaker 1: than a ten minute read, and people tell us it

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01:03:34,920 --> 01:03:38,080
Speaker 1: helps them keep up to date on all things climate