WEBVTT - S14, Ep1 | Welcome to the World of Obstruction 0:00:01.920 --> 0:00:04.800 For more than a decade now, maybe more than two decades, 0:00:05.040 --> 0:00:07.760 people have been talking about how the thing stopping us 0:00:07.760 --> 0:00:11.200 from acting on the climate crisis. It's not so much 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:17.360 science or technology. It's not about understanding the problem or 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:21.479 even having the technology to do something about it, but 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:25.919 about political will. We have enough data. We know how 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:30.600 greenhouse gas emissions change the atmosphere, we know how they'll 0:00:30.640 --> 0:00:34.000 continue to change it, we know what the impacts of 0:00:34.040 --> 0:00:37.519 those changes will be. We know that human activity is 0:00:37.560 --> 0:00:41.040 the largest source of those gases by far, and we 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:44.400 have all sorts of good and viable options for doing 0:00:44.440 --> 0:00:49.440 things differently, and yet no government on Earth has managed 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:54.360 to do what's required to adequately address this problem, and 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:58.160 every international body form to deal with it remains hopelessly 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:02.000 incapable of doing so. In a few months, I'll be 0:01:02.040 --> 0:01:05.840 headed to the thirtieth Conference of the Parties, the annual 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:09.120 Climate Summit that brings together all the members of the 0:01:09.240 --> 0:01:13.440 UN Framework on Climate Change Convention, and ask them to 0:01:13.560 --> 0:01:16.240 figure out a way to work together. 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:16.880 On this problem. 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:21.760 We've covered the crisis of legitimacy facing that body before, 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.600 but it's more dire than ever right now, and it 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:29.280 does not help that the US has adopted the Toddler 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:33.240 approach to climate change, pretending it isn't there and hoping 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:36.440 that does the trick. And the lead up to the conference, 0:01:36.520 --> 0:01:38.319 I got my hands on a new books that's been 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:42.280 pulled together by the Climate Social Science Network at Brown University. 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.520 It's an exhaustive global survey of the pure viewed research 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:50.920 on climate obstruction. Which might sound boring and academic, but 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:52.960 if you're a listener to this show, you know that 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:56.320 I love to nerd out on some social science. This 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.760 is the first book of its kind because climate obstruction 0:02:00.120 --> 0:02:04.480 is a relatively new field of research and it is fascinating. 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:07.600 It's also a really good way to prep for all 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:10.079 the nonsense we're about to see it this year's cop 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:15.200 in Brazil, So prep with me. I'm reading the book 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.520 before I go and talking to some of the researchers 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:19.320 who worked on it to get a sense of where 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:22.560 we're at while we're here, and what the heck might 0:02:22.680 --> 0:02:27.560 work to get us unstuck. I'm Amy Westerbelt. Welcome to 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:31.800 a new season of Drilled. We're calling it obstruction today. 0:02:32.440 --> 0:02:34.559 Welcome to the world of obstruction. 0:02:48.200 --> 0:02:51.520 So I'm tim Ands Roberts, I'm professor at Brown University 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:54.880 and director of the Climate Social Science Network. Climate Social 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:58.240 Science Network is a network of eight hundred more than 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:02.720 eight hundred scholars. We're now in forty nine countries. So 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:06.239 this is a group that's people who study sort of 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:10.160 the politics of climate change, and especially we're focused on 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.240 who is blocking action on climate change. Our theory of 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:17.120 change is that we've failed largely at addressing climate change 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.680 because we didn't understand the opposition that we faced, and 0:03:20.720 --> 0:03:22.160 we were quite naive about that. 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:26.160 I'm Jennifer jack Quett. I'm a professor at the University 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:30.240 of Miami and I'm also the research associate Research director 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.440 at the Climate Social Science Network, headquartered at Brown University. 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:38.280 Christian Downey, I'm professor at the Strand National University in Canberra. 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:42.840 And they were joined also by Carlos Malani, professor of 0:03:43.040 --> 0:03:47.520 International Relations at Rio de Janeiro State University and coordinator 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:52.840 of the university's Interdisciplinary Observatory on Climate Change, who was 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:56.680 having some Wi fi issues, because hey, that's life these days. 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:02.000 Let's start with the most basically question, Can I have 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:06.600 you give me a quick definition of climate obstruction? 0:04:07.160 --> 0:04:07.240 Is? 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:09.320 What is this thing we're talking about. 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.560 In the book, we define climate obstruction as intentional actions 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.560 and efforts to slow or block policies on climate change, 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:22.040 and we've focused on twenty fifteen onwards or the sort 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:23.839 of post Paris agreement world. 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:26.440 I'm glad that you mentioned this about the reason that 0:04:26.480 --> 0:04:29.760 we haven't acted has a lot to do with not 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:33.960 understanding the opposition, because it leads right into my next question, 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.279 which is that you start with this framing of you know, 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:41.880 we're not behind on or not acting on climate just 0:04:42.040 --> 0:04:44.440 because of you know, these various things that people have 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:48.000 pointed to in terms of, you know, issues with neoliberalism 0:04:48.120 --> 0:04:52.400 or democracy, but also because of this concerted effort to 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:56.680 obstruct climate action. I think it's it's so important to 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:58.960 have it spelled out, and it's it's one of those 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:01.479 things that seems but I've never seen it in a 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:04.080 paper before. So can you talk a little bit about 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:09.000 why it's important to have this really explicitly stated and supported, 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:13.360 and how important a contribution you think this volume will 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.240 be to this kind of larger understanding of the issue. 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:18.880 Yeah, So I'm going to start again on this, and 0:05:18.920 --> 0:05:21.560 I promise I won't be the dominating the conversation so 0:05:21.680 --> 0:05:26.240 much later on, But these are really to me a 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:29.280 key change in the way we're starting to think about 0:05:29.480 --> 0:05:32.280 why we're not acting on climate change. And we just 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.159 here again and again that oh, humans are selfish, or 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:39.760 the science isn't there, the technology of renewable energy just 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:45.560 is lame, and it's you know, intermittent and unreliable. That 0:05:45.640 --> 0:05:51.400 our democracy can't function dealing with hard problems, or that 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.000 neoliberalism is this economic system that drive us to make 0:05:55.040 --> 0:06:00.480 short term decisions. Or our religion, our religious base and 0:06:00.480 --> 0:06:04.520 other cultural beliefs are such that we can't solve big problems. 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:11.120 But we have solved big problems in the past, acid, rain, ozone, lead, 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:14.279 and asbestos. Those are just the environmental examples, but we 0:06:14.320 --> 0:06:17.880 have many others that our societies have risen to the 0:06:17.960 --> 0:06:22.040 challenge of. And I think this case is different because 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.400 we've had a leading industry, the largest industry in the 0:06:25.440 --> 0:06:29.480 history of humankind, oil and gas and coal. The fossil 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:35.400 fuel industries have learned from those past regulatory efforts and said, 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:38.039 wait a minute, we don't have an alternative. We're just 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:41.480 going to fight it and block any effort to really 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:46.120 seriously address climate change, and their strategies were sophisticated. They 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:49.840 were tailored for every political context in the world, you know, 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:55.240 for every town or US state or subregion to nations 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.680 and un negotiations as we'll talk about, and then even 0:06:58.720 --> 0:07:01.120 in the same countries, the strateg these change as the 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:04.880 president changes or as you know, political winds shift. So 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.359 you know, that's sort of answering your first question on 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:11.520 you know why is you know, what's what's new here 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.119 on why it's important to say it's not inevitable again 0:07:15.320 --> 0:07:18.280 that it's pretty fatalistic to say that humans can't solve 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.200 big problems, so just throw up your hands. So we've 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:26.080 got to address this problem. And the insights from learning 0:07:26.120 --> 0:07:29.440 about obstruction offers new knowledge about how we might actually 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:32.640 counter it. And I would really ask my colleagues to 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:35.320 help me on this, But I think this volume is 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:39.080 a quantum leap. We've never had a really global look. 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:43.080 We have one hundred and ten of the world's scholars. 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:45.480 I mean, the list of people involved in this book 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:48.440 is really a who's who in this area of climate 0:07:48.480 --> 0:07:51.920 politics research. And you know, we have a far range 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:54.600 of a far wider range of sectors that we're just 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.520 starting to understand we have all these topics and we 0:07:57.680 --> 0:08:00.480 pulled together a bunch of work, which is a lot 0:08:00.480 --> 0:08:03.800 of which is original. So there's we've never had anything 0:08:03.840 --> 0:08:05.920 like this, and I'm really quite excited to have this 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:06.640 thing coming out. 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:09.480 And I guess I would just add there amy that 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:13.640 it was so exciting to be scholars and professors and 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:19.520 see the coalescence around a subfield that is climate obstruction globally. 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:23.040 And you know, we've learned a lot about the history 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.400 of climate science. We understand that these companies largely understood 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.840 climate science in the early even in the early twentieth 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:32.920 century potentially, but we don't see the first example of 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:37.120 actual climate obstruction until nineteen eighty with the American Petroleum Institute. 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:38.360 We only know. 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:42.840 About that now because of great reporting and digging done 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.160 by civil society and journalists in the nineties. And then 0:08:46.200 --> 0:08:48.480 this field is really born in the late nineties and 0:08:48.520 --> 0:08:54.240 early two thousands in terms of having academics and scholarly attention. 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.520 And so now in twenty twenty five, we finally see 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:01.400 enough research come together to just to find a global 0:09:01.480 --> 0:09:04.400 volume like this that I just think is really really exciting, 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:06.199 and we did learn a lot of new things along 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:07.000 the way, and. 0:09:07.200 --> 0:09:10.080 I think there's yet another issue that should be mentioned. 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:15.800 I think this umbrella concept like climate obstruction is important 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.880 because it shows how climate policies are not only a 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:24.240 sectual policy. I mean, climate policies at the beginning were 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:28.400 very much related to a scientific issue, to an environmental agenda. 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.920 And we can really understand through the lenses of climate 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:39.640 obstruction that climate policies they touch transport, energy, they touch agriculture, 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:44.120 I mean, a series of other fields and other policies 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:48.280 crossing across the board of governmental policies. And I think 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.400 that this is important for the sake of understanding this 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:56.800 umbrella concept of climate obstruction. And also I mean, and 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:00.559 yet another issue I think that we could easily understand, 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:03.959 particularly through chapter number four. I think it was the 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:07.640 chapter on the far right, for example, the linkages the 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:14.560 connections between democratic backlash and the growth of climate obstruction 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:19.640 networks and organizations in different countries, with so many different contexts, 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:24.959 but with this commonality of attacking climate policies altogether, also 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.400 for the sake of attacking democratic advance. 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.640 Okay, can you talk a little bit about what sorts 0:10:32.640 --> 0:10:37.280 of entities get involved in obstructing climate policy? I know 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:40.720 you're like, yes, we gave you a whole book about this, 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:44.800 but yeah, in broad strokes, what are the sorts of 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:47.480 entities that get involved in these kinds of activities. 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.520 Look, one of the key findings I guess from all 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:52.640 the work that we've done to bring this book together 0:10:52.720 --> 0:10:55.120 is that, as you may guess, large oil and gas 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:58.960 corporations are really front and center here, but importantly they're 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:00.839 not the only ones. So a lot of the early 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:04.400 work focused on organizations that your listeners will be familiar with, 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:06.960 X on Mobile, Chevron, Shell and others, and the role 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:11.160 that they've played obstructing action on climate change. Of course, 0:11:11.240 --> 0:11:13.160 there's a good reason to do that. We know since 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:17.280 the nineteen eighties these organizations have spent tens hundreds of 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:21.200 millions of dollars denying the existence of climate change, funding 0:11:21.240 --> 0:11:25.760 television campaigns, online campaign social media campaigns, etc. But as 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:27.960 I said, they're not the only ones. So we have 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:30.960 a lot of evidence now about the role of coal companies, utilities, 0:11:31.000 --> 0:11:34.400 car manufacturers, meat and dairy producers that have joined in 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:38.480 efforts to delay slow down climate policies. So if you 0:11:38.520 --> 0:11:41.160 take the meat and dairy industry, for example, it's a 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.400 sector that's uniquely emissions intensive compared with other agricultural industries 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:47.959 because of its methane emissions, and so they've played a 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.680 key role too. The other kind of interesting thing we 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:54.480 observe is that you have these supply chains that create 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.839 coalitions right across the economy. So if you think about 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:01.200 utilities that we rely on to general electricity, well, in 0:12:01.240 --> 0:12:04.320 many countries they still are dependent on coal and gas, 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:07.719 so you see coalitions between coal, gas, and utilities. Or 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.400 you take one that you wouldn't really think of, like railroads. 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.000 In many places, railroads are dependent on coal and so 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.439 they work together to move the coal around the country. 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.880 So you see these coalitions right up and down supply chains. 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:24.680 One manifestation of this is large trade associations that represent 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.640 multiple industries taking positions to block climate change. So in 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:31.520 the US, it's well known groups like the US Chamber 0:12:31.520 --> 0:12:35.520 of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers. These are large 0:12:35.520 --> 0:12:39.880 member based organizations that represent some of the largest industries 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.720 in the country. In Europe there's groups like the European 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:46.720 Roundtable of Industrialists. In Indonesia there's the Chamber of Commerce 0:12:46.760 --> 0:12:50.320 in Industry and so on. So many of these larger 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:54.160 bodies that represent business right across society have taken quite 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:58.280 extreme anti climate positions in part because of these linkages 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:01.480 across supply chains. So the short answer is, yes, it's 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:03.480 oil and gas, but it's much more than that as well. 0:13:03.800 --> 0:13:07.240 Talk about responsibility. I really like this framing that you 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:11.239 have in there of attribution for obstruction mapping to attribution 0:13:12.320 --> 0:13:14.880 science around emissions. So I'd love to have you guys 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:18.920 talk about what makes fossil fuel producers uniquely liable for 0:13:19.000 --> 0:13:22.040 both climate change itself and climate obstruction. I know we 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.320 just talked about the fact that they're obviously not the 0:13:24.360 --> 0:13:30.320 only ones, but they are a major source. So yeah, 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:34.360 so what makes them uniquely liable? Yes? 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:37.480 Thanks Samy. I feel seen with this question. So I 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.360 really like it, and I think you've you've stated it 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:43.800 well on drilled. You know, you have the actual pollution, 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:46.800 the greenouse gas emissions, and you have a set of 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.240 actors that emerge in attribution science who is responsible for 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.200 these emissions. And then you have a separate issue that 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:58.320 climate obstruction is really interested in about information pollution and 0:13:58.360 --> 0:14:02.800 the lobbying and these instructionist actions. And this is not 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:05.840 necessarily a one to one overlap in terms of these 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.720 sets of entities. So one way that it does seem 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:14.480 uniquely different is, for instance, Saudi Aramco, state owned fossil 0:14:14.480 --> 0:14:19.320 fuel company seems less involved in climate obstruction than investor 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:23.280 owned Exon Mobile and for all sorts of reasons, that's true, 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:25.680 far less influential. Certainly in the US. 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:27.600 Context, that's true. 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:32.640 And then you also have these interesting because we've identified 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:35.520 this network of climate obstruction, because we are aware now 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:40.400 of major PR firms like Edelman being involved in climate obstruction. 0:14:41.240 --> 0:14:44.920 Edelman has very little to do with climate emissions, with 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:48.840 greenhouse gas emissions, but a lot to do with information pollution, 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:52.320 and so we identify this new set of actors who 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:56.000 have responsibility in the realm of climate obstruction, but who 0:14:56.000 --> 0:14:59.800 may have very little responsibility in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:01.960 Yeah, I think this is one point, as Jennifer was saying, 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:03.520 that we were tried to make clear in the book, 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.080 is that some actors are more consequential than others, and 0:15:06.120 --> 0:15:09.400 not all participants here in obstruction, you know, are equally liable. 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:12.400 Are just kind of one additional point there that we 0:15:12.480 --> 0:15:14.920 make in the book is that these types of actors 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:16.920 that you're talking about some of these large oil and 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.000 gas producers, and we know from some great existing studies 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:24.080 there's about ninety carbon majors, for example, that are responsible 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:26.840 across oil, gas, and cement for a large chunk of 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:30.440 rises in global mean average global temperatures and even sea 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:33.280 level rise. So this attribution science is really pinpointing that. 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:35.880 But it's not, as Jennifer was saying, it's not only 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:39.400 that these companies are responsible for the emissions, but they 0:15:39.440 --> 0:15:43.560 also continue to spew out emissions expand their production, even 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:46.080 though many of these firms know better than most because 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:49.240 of their in house scientific knowledge, the damage that they're doing, 0:15:49.400 --> 0:15:52.480 how their practices are heating the planet. And then for 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.440 these organizations to go on and use these huge amounts 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.400 of revenues that they're generating in profits, to use a 0:15:58.480 --> 0:16:01.240 large chunk of that to then engage in political activities 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:04.120 to try and delay policies, to try and block policies 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.320 that are actually going to reduce emissions. I think that's 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.120 why you're saying, some of these organizations being taken to court, 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:12.360 being figned libel in courts and human rights commissions right 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:13.440 across the world. 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.040 And with no doubt we should think of those original 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:20.240 emitters as the kind of beating heart of climate obstruction 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:25.520 that you don't have Edleman without excellent mobile. But nevertheless, 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:27.400 we have to think of the network as a whole 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:29.960 as we identify, you know, sort of the main entities 0:16:30.000 --> 0:16:33.200 involved in shaping public opinion and politics. 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:36.400 And there are some actors and they are very important 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:38.960 at opening some doors that would not have been opened 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:43.920 without their responsibility and their share of responsibility. As Jennifer said, 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:47.040 of course, I mean the vir firm or some religious 0:16:47.080 --> 0:16:50.480 actors as the case here in Latin America for example. 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.600 They are not the key emitters, but they are those 0:16:53.640 --> 0:16:59.040 who are helping pollute the information environment and contributing to 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:03.080 the dissemination of climate and these are roles that are 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:05.399 very important for the sake of delaying action. 0:17:05.960 --> 0:17:08.639 Right, I want to get into the ten key findings 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:11.119 that you summarize in this chapter for the rest of 0:17:11.160 --> 0:17:14.040 the book. Let's start with it's not just about climate denial, 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.359 thank you. I feel like I can't believe we're still 0:17:17.400 --> 0:17:21.080 having that conversation where it gets us to that, but 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.480 we are, so let's talk about that. 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:25.800 Yeah, And I will say that there were more than 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:28.240 ten findings in this book, of course, so we had 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.120 to leave a lot out of this list, but this 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:35.000 is to me the biggest one, and people don't really 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:39.200 often get it or know that this sort of transition 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:43.960 has happened, that that those who were denying the reality 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:47.440 of climate change have largely moved on. There are some 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:52.240 you know, weirdos and you know extreme people who continue 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:54.480 to say, oh, it's not real. I heard one just 0:17:54.520 --> 0:17:59.359 the other day at a hearing about offshore wind in 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:03.800 Rhode Island. But he was one of twenty five pieces 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:08.159 of testimony against offshore wind. The rest were saying things 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:12.600 like it's not you know, it's not reliable, it's not affordable, 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:17.840 it's going to itself cause you a lot massive environmental damage, 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.560 and so on, and those kind of arguments are really 0:18:20.560 --> 0:18:25.880 attacks on climate solutions, and we're seeing a huge surgeon those. 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:30.480 So some excellent research built on earlier work by John Cook, 0:18:31.240 --> 0:18:35.480 who has a wonderful things like a game called Cranky 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:40.600 Uncle and about you know, how do you help sort 0:18:40.600 --> 0:18:47.119 of prebunk or help people recognize misinformation. So a categorization 0:18:47.480 --> 0:18:49.520 scheme that he built and then was built upon by 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:53.440 Travis Cohen and mere Jim Nanco at Exeter University in 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:56.800 the UK. And what they've shown really is that just 0:18:56.960 --> 0:19:01.720 even quantitatively, if you can use sort of AI or 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:06.320 other machine learning to categorize you know, types of claims 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:10.520 about climate change. And we're seeing a market shift away 0:19:10.560 --> 0:19:14.399 from this attacking the science itself about the reality of 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.640 climate change, but rather much more about the solutions. So 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:20.960 some people are calling this sort of delayism, or as 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:23.639 William Lamb in an article called discourse, is a climate 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:28.119 delay that's been proven useful for understanding the shift. You know, 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:31.280 people are saying, well, we should re'll act on it later, 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:34.000 or the techno when the technology gets better, or well, 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:37.280 you know, we'll hope that some great technology will fall 0:19:37.320 --> 0:19:39.600 from the sky, or the you know, the usual things 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:45.080 will become viable like nuclear fusion or you know, hydrogen 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:47.360 and so on that you know, you've covered a lot 0:19:47.400 --> 0:19:50.960 in this on the show. So anyway, and then there's 0:19:51.000 --> 0:19:53.600 other attacks which are on the scientists and on the 0:19:53.680 --> 0:19:57.240 activists and on people like us so on the even 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:02.040 on the journalists and the social scientists. So are there 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:05.760 are new approaches to slowing down action climate change? They 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:09.320 don't need to really say that it's not happening. They 0:20:09.359 --> 0:20:13.480 can now attack the solutions and those of us who 0:20:13.480 --> 0:20:17.199 are seeking the advance solutions quickly. 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:20.960 This is not to say that climate denial does not 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.840 exist anymore right here in Brazil, for example, forward added 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:29.520 denialist government, I mean denying the actual existence of climate change, right, 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:30.920 We had ministers have. 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:32.240 One in the US right now. 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:37.080 Yes, I hope that, but I think that for us 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.800 to understand that, of course, obstruction is much more than denial, 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:44.320 but denial is still there, and even it's even if 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:49.639 it's not only denial anymore. Sometimes we can even still 0:20:49.680 --> 0:20:53.440 listen to some forms of interpretative denial, such as the 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:58.920 current president of Petro brass under government right saying that, 0:20:59.000 --> 0:21:02.240 for example, drilling oil at the mouth of the Amazon 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:05.200 doesn't have anything to do with floods in the South 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:10.840 cone of Brazil. Well, that's the sort of dissociating cause 0:21:10.960 --> 0:21:14.840 and effect. And I think that these are kinds of 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:18.199 messages that, in spite of all the advances in the 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:22.360 scientific fields, we can still listen from politicians and key 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:25.240 managers of oil industries and other businesses. 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:29.880 Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Okay, We've said, we've 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.800 mentioned this a couple of times already, but we'll probably 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:35.040 repeat it a few more that it's not it's not 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:38.399 just oil. It's not just big oil though, So can 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:40.400 I have you guys talk a little bit about what 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:45.760 are some of these other industries that are particularly involved 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:50.120 in climate obstruction? We mentioned animal egg before, so Jennifer, 0:21:50.160 --> 0:21:51.960 I'm sure you'll have more to add on that, but 0:21:52.080 --> 0:21:53.720 what are some of the other ones as well? 0:21:54.160 --> 0:21:56.240 Yeah, I think part of our excitement around this book 0:21:56.520 --> 0:22:00.560 was expanding out the sectors that we talk about, and 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:05.080 so we have various chapters dedicated to other sectors, one 0:22:05.119 --> 0:22:10.399 of which is animal agriculture. And we have known since 0:22:10.440 --> 0:22:13.400 two thousand and six when we got the first global 0:22:13.520 --> 0:22:19.160 assessment of livestocks impacts on greenhouse gases that the livestock 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:22.280 sector counts for anywhere from fifteen to twenty five percent 0:22:23.080 --> 0:22:26.639 of anthropogenic warming, depending on the kind of accounting that 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:32.199 you use. So it's not the biggest greenhouse gas emitter, 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:36.760 but it's up there. And in terms of what's interesting 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:41.120 is you'll hear in the animal agriculture industry frequently say 0:22:41.160 --> 0:22:44.800 that they get a disproportionate amount of attention relative to 0:22:44.880 --> 0:22:49.360 their emissions, and I think our view is inverted to that. 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:52.760 So again this kind of you know, sort of classic 0:22:52.800 --> 0:22:55.679 difference I think between what the scholars might say and 0:22:55.720 --> 0:22:58.920 what the industry might say. But yeah, animal agriculture is 0:22:58.920 --> 0:23:02.720 a major polluter. As to why it hasn't received the 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:06.080 same amount of attention, one reason, of course, is that 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:10.520 the science itself on attribution has lagged behind what we 0:23:10.600 --> 0:23:14.560 know about just sort of warming generally. So you know, 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:17.440 as we've understood climate change, we've had to understand who 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:21.919 is actually responsible for it, and identifying the livestock sector 0:23:22.040 --> 0:23:24.639 has come later than it has around some of the 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:29.920 other sectors. Notably, of course, the IPCCED does not identify 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:34.320 livestock as a particular sector. Animal agriculture is included here 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:37.640 because now we have a growing body of evidence, it's 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:40.879 not huge, less than a dozen papers actually, but to 0:23:41.000 --> 0:23:43.480 show that the meat and dairy industry has actively been 0:23:43.480 --> 0:23:50.000 involved in climate obstruction, that they have downplayed, denied, delayed, 0:23:50.280 --> 0:23:55.879 lobbied against, influenced public discourse around the topic of climate change. 0:23:56.680 --> 0:23:58.640 And that was a prerequisite. A lot of people would 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:00.639 have liked to see. A lot of author for instance, 0:24:00.640 --> 0:24:03.440 would have liked to see the financial sector and it's 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:06.159 rule in climate obstruction, but because we don't have a 0:24:06.200 --> 0:24:10.480 scholarly basis on which to build that body of evidence, 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:13.040 we set it aside for the next volume. 0:24:13.880 --> 0:24:15.600 Yeah, the only point to add there, I guess is 0:24:15.680 --> 0:24:17.520 one of the really nice things about this book was 0:24:17.560 --> 0:24:20.040