Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Drilled. I'm Amy Westervelt. In
Speaker 1: this season, we are going chapter by chapter of a
Speaker 1: great new book that pulls together all of the social
Speaker 1: science that we have so far peer reviewed social science
Speaker 1: on climate obstruction globally. It's called Climate Obstruction a Global Assessment.
Speaker 1: It's been pulled together by the Climate Social Science Network
Speaker 1: at Brown, which includes hundreds of social scientists working all
Speaker 1: over the world on trying to understand this issue. Today
Speaker 1: we are digging into a subject that is near and
Speaker 1: dear to my heart, the role of pr and media
Speaker 1: in climate obstruction. And to do that, I'm joined by
Speaker 1: two people who have been guests on this show before,
Speaker 1: Melissa Aronchek at Rutgers University and Max Boykoff from the
Speaker 1: University of Colorado at Boulder. We had a great conversation
Speaker 1: about the role that media plays both in helping to
Speaker 1: shape the public's understanding of climate and therefore the role
Speaker 1: it can play in obstruction, especially if it is targeted
Speaker 1: by bad faith actors, which it often is. It is
Speaker 1: a super interesting conversation. I hope you enjoy it as
Speaker 1: much as I did. That's coming up right after this
Speaker 1: quick break.
Speaker 2: My name is Max Boycott. I'm a professor here in
Speaker 2: environmental studies and a fellow in the Cooperative Institute for
Speaker 2: Research and Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Bowlder
Speaker 2: in the US.
Speaker 3: I'm Melissa Aaronjik. I'm a professor in the School of
Speaker 3: Communication and Information at Rutgers University in New Jersey.
Speaker 1: So I've probably talked to both of you about this
Speaker 1: separately before, but it does seem to me that the
Speaker 1: media fin avoids responsibility for climate obstruction or for playing
Speaker 1: any kind of a role in it. I think you
Speaker 1: show really clearly hear how it's kind of been used
Speaker 1: as a tool. So I want to kind of start
Speaker 1: by having you explain how, particularly the weaponization of this
Speaker 1: journalistic norm balanced reporting has contributed to the disparity between
Speaker 1: scientific consensus and the public's understanding of climate change.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm happy to start us off, and if you'll
Speaker 2: allow me to back out just a little bit to
Speaker 2: answer that question. And I think if we look back
Speaker 2: through time we can track in our group, the Media
Speaker 2: Climate Change Observatory has done this where we've tracked media
Speaker 2: coverage of climate change over time, and it really came
Speaker 2: into public consciousness and into the news starting the late
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties, and when that was happening, it was a
Speaker 2: new story to tell, and there a lot of different
Speaker 2: journalists and actors trying to make sense of what was
Speaker 2: going on and how to tell these stories. And as
Speaker 2: time went on, though, there was you know, in the
Speaker 2: late nineteen eighties was the establishment of the IPCC, the
Speaker 2: and a governmental pedaloid climate change. There was increasing understanding
Speaker 2: within the scientific community that humans contribute to climate change.
Speaker 2: And so from that period of time, journalism, as we've
Speaker 2: tracked it through various studies, had tried to make sense
Speaker 2: of that. And as they did that, and as they
Speaker 2: started to drawn expert voices and others to give them
Speaker 2: a sense of where science was on human contributions to
Speaker 2: climate change, journalists leaned back into their journalistic norms, including
Speaker 2: the journalistic normal balanced reporting, which one perspective to get
Speaker 2: another and help reader or the viewer the listener makes
Speaker 2: sense of what's going on. And so some early research
Speaker 2: that I had done with my brother, Jules Boykoff, who's
Speaker 2: at Pacific University and Political Science, we had just taken
Speaker 2: a look at how had US media been covering it
Speaker 2: from that time in the late nineteen eighties through at
Speaker 2: that point in two thousand and two when we finished
Speaker 2: up the study, and while there had been that conversion
Speaker 2: agreement in the scientific community and that had been communicated
Speaker 2: clearly through Dinner Governmental Panel and climate change assessments, that
Speaker 2: we had found that the journalistic community had continued to
Speaker 2: tell this quote unquote balance story and in so doing
Speaker 2: had perpetrated an informational bias and actually skewed the conversations
Speaker 2: in the public arena. And you know, part of the
Speaker 2: reason that we make those claims, and then others have
Speaker 2: also been looking at this Ober time, is that you know,
Speaker 2: quite frankly, people don't pick up peer review literature of
Speaker 2: the IPCC assessment reports. They rely on news coverage to
Speaker 2: help make sense of what's going on around them, and
Speaker 2: so news become this important bridge and this powerful driver
Speaker 2: of public conversation station. There has been a learning going on,
Speaker 2: a maturation or just sort of an integration of new
Speaker 2: understanding within the journalistic community. So we had put out
Speaker 2: that study, it actually gained traction. It ended up in
Speaker 2: al Gore's and Inconvenient Truth just briefly mentioned, so it
Speaker 2: got a lot more attention and journalists some were very
Speaker 2: eager to think carefully and recalibrate how they're telling these
Speaker 2: stories through their own reporting. Others, you know, weren't quite
Speaker 2: as receptive to that messaging and critique. But nonetheless, you know,
Speaker 2: we did some follow up work years later and found
Speaker 2: that that coverage had improved it, you know, when we
Speaker 2: looked it's with another collection of researchers here, led by
Speaker 2: Lucy mckelister. When we looked at it again in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one, we found that there had been tremendous improvements
Speaker 2: in US press along with UK, Australian, Canadian and New
Speaker 2: Zealand newspapers. But there it still isn't one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: And so you know, the way in which we went
Speaker 2: about it to look at the unit of analysis being
Speaker 2: each newspaper article. We can still see there's this room
Speaker 2: for improvement. But if somebody's picking up the paper and
Speaker 2: reading a very influential piece that isn't accurate, that is
Speaker 2: still falling, whether unwittingly or wittingly, to this sort of
Speaker 2: quote unquote balanced reporting that they themselves then start to
Speaker 2: get a skewed views. Still to this very day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if I've ever told either or
Speaker 1: maybe both of you this story. But I had I
Speaker 1: had this experience directly with I was a stringer at
Speaker 1: the Washington Post for a while, and like, because where
Speaker 1: I lived, that meant covering a lot of wildfires. And
Speaker 1: I went, I covered a fire once and the cal
Speaker 1: fire chief told me, give me this like very simple
Speaker 1: explanation for why fires were burning for so much longer
Speaker 1: now than they had. And this was, I mean, this
Speaker 1: wasn't that long ago. This was probably like twenty fifteen ish,
Speaker 1: and and he said, you know, are you from California.
Speaker 1: I said yes, And he said, well, you probably remember
Speaker 1: when you were growing up that you would like go
Speaker 1: to bout at night and the fire would be twenty
Speaker 1: percent contained, and you'd wake up in the morning and
Speaker 1: it would be like sixty percent contained or at least fifty.
Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, that was that was the norm,
Speaker 1: you know. And he said, yeah, that's how it used
Speaker 1: to work because it would get cool and humidity would
Speaker 1: increase at night. And now that doesn't happen anymore. So
Speaker 1: these fires are burning like the same intensity twenty four
Speaker 1: to seven and that's why they're getting so big, and
Speaker 1: that's climate change. And I was like, wow, what a great,
Speaker 1: like simple way to understand that. And I put it
Speaker 1: on this story and my editor, who at the time
Speaker 1: was the national editor of the Washington Post, suggested taking
Speaker 1: out the part where he said that's climate change because
Speaker 1: and his comment was, this is a wildfire story, not
Speaker 1: a politics story. I said, like, I had been a
Speaker 1: climate reporter for a long time, so I knew enough
Speaker 1: to kind of push back on that and say, well,
Speaker 1: you know, that's an industry talking point. There's nothing political
Speaker 1: about what he's saying, you do, and he like, O,
Speaker 1: listen to me and let me keep it in. But
Speaker 1: the average person that's just like getting sent off to
Speaker 1: you know, cover a flutter of fire, is not necessarily
Speaker 1: going to feel confident, you know, saying oh, you're wrong,
Speaker 1: it's not political. But like, you know, I don't think
Speaker 1: that that guy was being hounded by exon every day.
Speaker 1: It was just so ingrained in him that like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I think of it every time I think
Speaker 1: about this, because it's it was such a simple way
Speaker 1: that that stuff like creeps in.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anyway, Obviously the media is not coming up with
Speaker 1: this stuff on their own. What entities are working to
Speaker 1: serve up misleading climate narratives to the media or ensure
Speaker 1: that people who are like spokespeople for the industry or
Speaker 1: who carry water for them and their ideas are given
Speaker 1: a voice in the media.
Speaker 3: Well, are you asking Amy about public relations firms outages
Speaker 3: looking for fossil fuel?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the like broad ecosystem of like people that
Speaker 1: are approaching the media with these narratives or talking points.
Speaker 1: I would think of PR firms maybe like internal PR folks, companies,
Speaker 1: prink tanks, I think are doing a fair bit, you know,
Speaker 1: that whole ecosystem.
Speaker 3: What does it look like. Well, one thing we need
Speaker 3: to think about is the network of influence. That's really
Speaker 3: something that has taken us a while to really get
Speaker 3: our thinking around. And I think, you know, we're still
Speaker 3: finding connections that we didn't really know existed, which is
Speaker 3: kind of amazing. At least since the nineteen seventies, we
Speaker 3: have started to see connections among not just media platforms
Speaker 3: and people who set the agenda in the media, but
Speaker 3: think tanks, research centers, private donors, lobbyists, and lawyers PR firms.
Speaker 3: We're starting to get better and better evidence of this network,
Speaker 3: and both journalists and researchers are uncovered just how far
Speaker 3: back these relationships of denial go. But I do think
Speaker 3: it's also important to remember that we're you know, all
Speaker 3: of those groups I just mentioned operate in society and
Speaker 3: that society in general, and really, you know, if we
Speaker 3: just again zoom out from fossil fuels per se and
Speaker 3: just look at our entire consumer society, the way our
Speaker 3: lifestyles are set up right now, the status quo is
Speaker 3: one in which fossil fuels play a very big role,
Speaker 3: and it's very hard for people to imagine alternatives, especially
Speaker 3: when we don't see a lot of presentation of those
Speaker 3: alternatives in public communication. So it's a very vast and
Speaker 3: really has been for a long time, very intractable problem
Speaker 3: that we've been trying to work through.
Speaker 2: Yes, definitely, I mean we can draw links directly from
Speaker 2: through the structures from who owns a lot of the
Speaker 2: corporate media. But then also, as you mentioned, Mellissa, that
Speaker 2: just the pr the way that these firms are so influential,
Speaker 2: the way they play roles in the network developing strategy,
Speaker 2: we really get immersed if you're watching commercial television just
Speaker 2: with all kinds of marketing and imagery and assertions that
Speaker 2: can at times be seen as greenwashing. But then on
Speaker 2: top of that, you know, at the very core, we're
Speaker 2: primed to fall into this because we've got a lot
Speaker 2: of other things that we want to focus in on.
Speaker 2: We don't have to worry about it. And so when
Speaker 2: this sort of apparatus, when it flows through courses, through
Speaker 2: the veins of our lives, we take it. We're ready
Speaker 2: for it. Would just say all right, let's focus in
Speaker 2: on other things. And so this apparatus gives us that
Speaker 2: opportunity to not have to face it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned four key contrarian viewpoints that are amplified
Speaker 1: by the media, and I wonder if I could have
Speaker 1: you name those and talk about how you or the
Speaker 1: research that you were looking at honed in on those
Speaker 1: four Yeah.
Speaker 3: One really influential source for thinking about these four viewpoints
Speaker 3: these kind of arguments for climate delay comes from the
Speaker 3: scholar William Lamb and collaborators. It's in the academic Journal
Speaker 3: of Global Sustainability, and it's really become a go to
Speaker 3: source for a lot of us. They have this fantastic
Speaker 3: chart which summarizes the argument, so it's very useful. So
Speaker 3: the first argument for climate delay is to suggest that
Speaker 3: someone else should take actions first, so in other words,
Speaker 3: redirecting responsibility for the problem away from themselves, which in
Speaker 3: this case would often be a fossil fuel company onto
Speaker 3: somebody else. So the classic one is suggesting that consumers themselves,
Speaker 3: individuals themselves should take actions to address climate change, you know,
Speaker 3: recycle for instance. The second argument has to do with
Speaker 3: saying that we can't mitigate climate change. It's simply not possible.
Speaker 3: You have to just kind of give in to the
Speaker 3: fact that it's never going to happen. And you've seen
Speaker 3: a lot of arguments like that, especially by climate deni
Speaker 3: as saying, you know, change is just impossible. We can't
Speaker 3: change our current way of life, we can't do that,
Speaker 3: or saying it's basically a catastrophe and you know, doom
Speaker 3: and bloom apocalypse, there's nothing to be done. There's a
Speaker 3: third argument, which is actually a little more insidious, where
Speaker 3: fossil fuel companies will push non transformative solutions. That's how
Speaker 3: Lamb and his collaborators put it. And you know, this
Speaker 3: one's insidious because it seems like solutions are just around
Speaker 3: the corner, but in fact these solutions are very problematic
Speaker 3: and often really backwards. One would be to say future
Speaker 3: technologies are going to solve the problem, so you know,
Speaker 3: we don't have to worry now because in the future
Speaker 3: we'll have AI solving climate change. These kind of very vague,
Speaker 3: very always future focused ideas for how the problem will
Speaker 3: be solved. Another one is to say you can't restrict
Speaker 3: or regulate companies because then they won't be able to
Speaker 3: come up with solutions for climate change, so you have
Speaker 3: to kind of give them time to figure it out.
Speaker 3: Yet again, this future facing solutionism. Again, these are problematic
Speaker 3: because they seem like, back to what Max was saying
Speaker 3: a moment ago, they seem to make us feel better,
Speaker 3: and they make us feel like we don't have to
Speaker 3: do anything that you know, companies have. It's kind of
Speaker 3: the opposite from the redirect responsibility frame anyway. And then
Speaker 3: the last one is about emphasizing all of the problems
Speaker 3: with the solutions that are being proposed that are viable. So,
Speaker 3: for instance, you've got a solution in mind which involves
Speaker 3: social justice, but you know that means that vulnerable members
Speaker 3: of our society might have to bear the brunt of
Speaker 3: the solutions, So we can't do that. We need solutions
Speaker 3: that work for everyone. Otherwise we shouldn't have solutions at all.
Speaker 3: So these discourse types to be fancy shows this tendency
Speaker 3: among actors of disinformation to actually move away from overt denial,
Speaker 3: like moving away from saying climate change isn't happening, it's
Speaker 3: not real, and having more subtle tactics to just undo
Speaker 3: or delegitimate climate solutions just by saying that they're not
Speaker 3: going to work for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 2: It could be a good opportunity to just to point
Speaker 2: out that Melissa and I were leading on this chapter
Speaker 2: where we were essentially pulling together a lot of the
Speaker 2: current research to help us understand how this discourse is
Speaker 2: being steered through news, social media, advertising, public relations, and
Speaker 2: we led on this chapter, but Trav Cone, Maanelas, and
Speaker 2: Hannah Morris and Chris Russell also contributed to this. So
Speaker 2: it was a great opportunity for us to pull together
Speaker 2: this kind of research from William Lamb and colleagues and
Speaker 2: others to help provide a bit more of a cogent picture.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I love that study. The graphic so simple,
Speaker 1: but like it's so helpful. Okay, so you mentioned social
Speaker 1: media there Obviously, the media itself has gone through quite
Speaker 1: a few pretty big transitions over the last couple decades.
Speaker 1: How have those transitions contributed to the ability of corporations
Speaker 1: and PR firms and these other entities that you've mentioned
Speaker 1: to really kind of hijack the new even more, or
Speaker 1: push even legacy media to kind of amplify these sorts
Speaker 1: of talking points.
Speaker 3: Well, it will be no surprise to anyone if I
Speaker 3: say that in the Western hemisphere, at least in the
Speaker 3: global North, our media are in crisis, especially news media,
Speaker 3: and even more in trouble our legacy news media such
Speaker 3: as radio and newspapers, which are dealing with economic and
Speaker 3: political crises as well as extreme political polarization, which has
Speaker 3: shattered the sense among a lot of the public that
Speaker 3: our news outlets provide fact based and reliable information. That's
Speaker 3: kind of the current picture. But it has been quite
Speaker 3: a while now that oil and gas producers and their
Speaker 3: collaborators have actively worked with both legacy news and social
Speaker 3: media platforms, as well as PR firms and advertising agencies
Speaker 3: to promote disinformation that obstricts climate policy. Max talked about
Speaker 3: the news balance, but we've also seen how oil and
Speaker 3: gas companies do source building with journalists to promote their
Speaker 3: industry point of view and news coverage. But then, of
Speaker 3: course we also have social media where there's less of
Speaker 3: an intermediary or date keeping function, so oil and gas
Speaker 3: companies can pretty much post whatever they want. Not to
Speaker 3: mention blogs, instant messaging, and because our mainstream media is
Speaker 3: under corporate control, and because their business model needs advertising
Speaker 3: revenue to stay afloat, it has also become harder and
Speaker 3: harder for news to remain separate from promotional content. Yes,
Speaker 3: I don't you know, there's even more we could say.
Speaker 3: We talk about this in the chapter for the book.
Speaker 3: We have these newer kinds of threats with emerging digital
Speaker 3: technologies and social media. Because now disinformation campaigns can operate
Speaker 3: at a massive scale and scope, they can target certain
Speaker 3: groups much more precisely. You have technology companies and their
Speaker 3: platforms that let powerful actors shape information in ways that
Speaker 3: lack accountability. And on top of everything else, we have
Speaker 3: the explosion of artificial intelligence, which is changing at day
Speaker 3: and is incredibly difficult to detect and predict. Not to
Speaker 3: mention the environmental costs of AI use, the energy consumption
Speaker 3: generated by AI, the waste generated by AI systems, especially
Speaker 3: data centers, which contribute to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution.
Speaker 3: So we've got like a I was going to say
Speaker 3: a triple threat, but I think this is like an
Speaker 3: octuple threat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are definitely several dynamics that and they're pointing
Speaker 2: in discouraging directions. It means you've pointed out, Melissa, that
Speaker 2: there's been increasing consolidation. Some of the media mergers and
Speaker 2: acquisitions and everything that are going on just kind of
Speaker 2: feel beyond us as everyday people. Skydance is merging with Paramount,
Speaker 2: and what does that mean for Colbert and what does
Speaker 2: that mean for the news? I get it's getting just
Speaker 2: bigger and bigger all the time. And as we look around,
Speaker 2: we can see that our local independent news are strained.
Speaker 2: Just some of the recent decisions from the Trump administration
Speaker 2: have put even further strain on these news sources. And
Speaker 2: so we've across this country, across the world, we've got
Speaker 2: many news deserts. So people are increasingly reliant on these
Speaker 2: corporate media sources to make sense of what's going on
Speaker 2: in the world, and that's through legacy media. As Melissa's
Speaker 2: pointed out, once you get into social media, gets even
Speaker 2: more confusing with algorithms and the blending. Even some of
Speaker 2: your work amy has found its way into our chapter
Speaker 2: where you've pointed out this confusion that can take place
Speaker 2: between straight news reporting and some advertising that's going on
Speaker 2: from these carb based industry players. And so while there
Speaker 2: are definitely a lot of dynamics at play, it's discouraging
Speaker 2: and challenging.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if you've looked at or if there's
Speaker 1: any research yet, or if it's maybe too early on
Speaker 1: this around the way that influencers are sort of replacing reporters,
Speaker 1: Like I see this all the time, even I have
Speaker 1: an intern right now who was.
Speaker 3: Like, do you know this guy blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: I get all my news from him, and I looked
Speaker 1: him up and he's like one of these people who
Speaker 1: sort of reads headline in videos, which is all well
Speaker 1: and good, except that, like, if those people end up
Speaker 1: getting all the funding and all the audience, then there
Speaker 1: won't be any reporters writing the stuff for them to
Speaker 1: read anymore. I just see this huge shift in like
Speaker 1: the credibility that people are ascribing to influencers for what
Speaker 1: appears to be no rhyme or reason, and it's not
Speaker 1: like these people are like, hey, listen to me, I'm
Speaker 1: very credible for these reasons. It's just like some random
Speaker 1: guy anyway.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: If you guys have looked at that, but it's freaking
Speaker 1: me out.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: That problem first became really clear to me when I
Speaker 3: was teaching an undergraduate class on media and politics a
Speaker 3: few years ago and we had this assignment that I
Speaker 3: gave them where I said the student had to identify
Speaker 3: the source of the media they were looking at, and
Speaker 3: their answers were things like Facebook or well, probably not,
Speaker 3: because nobody under the age of twenty five books of Facebook,
Speaker 3: but you know, social media were listed as the source
Speaker 3: for these students, and I said, no, no, I don't
Speaker 3: mean where you saw it. I mean the original source.
Speaker 3: And they really didn't know what I was talking about.
Speaker 3: And that's when it hit me that the way our
Speaker 3: media platforms are organized, the way we access information online
Speaker 3: is really not the way we people of my generation
Speaker 3: used to access or understand. So the source is not
Speaker 3: nearly as relevant to younger people as the content itself
Speaker 3: and the way it's presented. So that you know, if
Speaker 3: we're talking about a space where influencers come to have
Speaker 3: a lot more credibility. That really does have to do
Speaker 3: with what's getting put in front of people, and that
Speaker 3: in itself has to do with how algorithms work, and
Speaker 3: how prior usage patterns work, and how the location of
Speaker 3: the individual works. We know about all of these data
Speaker 3: points that inform what kind of information is put in
Speaker 3: front of people, and so an influencer who might froughten
Speaker 3: your attention at some other time for some other completely
Speaker 3: different topic suddenly seems like somebody much more reliable and
Speaker 3: trust worth than a source you don't know. And that
Speaker 3: proximity in time and space to you is really problematic
Speaker 3: when it comes to information about complex, scientific and highly
Speaker 3: polarized issues like climate chain.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm finding that too with students I work
Speaker 2: with my kids. As they're getting older, you know, they'll say, oh,
Speaker 2: same new sources, new sources, YouTube, new sources, TikTok, right,
Speaker 2: And so my experiences have been similar. And that's a
Speaker 2: demographic shift that we ought to be talking more about.
Speaker 2: But on top of that, I'd say, relevant to you know,
Speaker 2: what we're talking about here as well, is that there's
Speaker 2: been documentation that now oil companies have been hiring these
Speaker 2: TikTok influencers court young people. Yeah, they are the pathways forward,
Speaker 2: and so the savvy pr firms, advertising firms, carbon based
Speaker 2: industry actors themselves are getting into this. So you're what
Speaker 2: we're sensing together is definitely something that's deliberate and that
Speaker 2: it is going on.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you had some really really interesting references to new
Speaker 1: research around this kind of persistent intersection between a certain
Speaker 1: type of conservative identity and climate contrarianism. I know, the
Speaker 1: first paper I ever read on that that I still
Speaker 1: love because I think it's the funniest title ever is
Speaker 1: the Cool Dude's Paper from it Wrighte and Dunlaver.
Speaker 3: But you have some really new stuff that's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I would love to have you guys just unpack that
Speaker 1: and why this is such a persistent connection between this
Speaker 1: particular identity and climate contriianism.
Speaker 2: We do get into some of the contours of what's
Speaker 2: been developing more recently new research that work. There's a
Speaker 2: whole group of work by Riley Dunlop and Aaron mccrite
Speaker 2: that's been really and really pathbreaking in the early days
Speaker 2: of getting a handle on who are these climate conturions,
Speaker 2: what are their motives? How are they effectively obstructing climate action,
Speaker 2: climate pulsy action, greater engagement. And when you refer to
Speaker 2: that emyre, the cool Dude's piece just refers to maybe
Speaker 2: colloquially older white guys who are very influential in these spaces.
Speaker 2: And some of them, you know, are microblogging on Twitter
Speaker 2: x even Blue Sky and others massed on for a
Speaker 2: little bit there. They're you know, sometimes maybe just sitting
Speaker 2: in their basements and they're comfortable suburban homes. And these
Speaker 2: folks demographically may not be at the forefront of climate
Speaker 2: impacts like many others. And so there's been research that's
Speaker 2: followed on theirs. I've done some myself where I've gone
Speaker 2: to the Heartland Institute meetings about a decade apart and
Speaker 2: sought to make sense of who they are, what are
Speaker 2: their motivations. So that finds its way into our chapter.
Speaker 2: Another kind of layer of this is that we've we've
Speaker 2: documented in this chapter a lot of good research that's
Speaker 2: been done that's been tracking how it is much more
Speaker 2: evident and influential within certain countries with ties to fossil
Speaker 2: fuel industry. And reliance on fossil fuels. Matthew Hornsey and
Speaker 2: colleagues have done some really good work that compares and
Speaker 2: contrasts these discourses across countries. So there's places like the
Speaker 2: United States where the belly of the beast in a
Speaker 2: certain way, the UK, Australia, certain elements of Brazil around
Speaker 2: food consumption and fossil fuels, they have much more vocal
Speaker 2: and I guess legible audible climate contrarian groups collections which
Speaker 2: can be you know, cacaphanous at times, but the overall
Speaker 2: goals of distracting, delaying, denying the facts and the evidence
Speaker 2: around this, there are through lines there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. I didn't realize there was actual research on
Speaker 1: this that amongst the developed countries or more developed countries,
Speaker 1: that the UK and the US really stand out as
Speaker 1: being places where media really continues to give a platform
Speaker 1: to climate skepticism. So again, i'd love to have you
Speaker 1: kind of talk about the research on that and share
Speaker 1: your thoughts on why that might be.
Speaker 3: I do think a big part of that just you know, again,
Speaker 3: I think we have to understand the background or the
Speaker 3: structural or systemic issue here. So I do think a
Speaker 3: big part of that has to do with the ownership
Speaker 3: structure of so many news outlets in the UK and
Speaker 3: the US and who's so the question of who owns
Speaker 3: the media becomes really salient here. But another issue that
Speaker 3: affects the way we think about how the UK and
Speaker 3: the US stand out as giving a platform for skepticism
Speaker 3: is simply that there's a lot more research out there
Speaker 3: about the UK and the US than about other parts
Speaker 3: of the world. So it's not just that American and
Speaker 3: British media platforms enables skepticism, which they do, but that
Speaker 3: we know much more about it there than we do
Speaker 3: about what's going on in other places. And I really
Speaker 3: want to underline that as a very big challenge when
Speaker 3: you're writing, as we did for as a contribution to
Speaker 3: this book, a Global Assessment of Climate Obstruction. It just
Speaker 3: I think one takeaway that we had from working on
Speaker 3: this chapter was that we really need better and more
Speaker 3: sustained research all over the world to recognize how some
Speaker 3: of the climate skeptic frames and platforms and styles are
Speaker 3: being exported to other parts of the world, or how
Speaker 3: we are getting imported from other parts of the world.
Speaker 3: Various kinds of climate skepticism but we just don't know
Speaker 3: as much as we need to in some parts of
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've been working more and more with reporters in Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique,
Speaker 1: and especially in Uganda and Tanzania. I was really surprised
Speaker 1: at how much it had been like really drilled into
Speaker 1: them the like very old school false equivalence thing, you
Speaker 1: know of, like if you quote a scientist about climate change,
Speaker 1: then you have to talk to I don't know, like
Speaker 1: the government person in charge of petroleum contractors too. Made.
Speaker 3: I was just going to mention something that one of
Speaker 3: our co authors, Mayana Laws and has been really focusing
Speaker 3: on that relates to this question, which is about how
Speaker 3: emerging analyzes of climate coverage in places like Brazil might
Speaker 3: make few references to climate skepticism. But that could be
Speaker 3: because they're not focusing on fossil fuel emissions, but they
Speaker 3: are focusing on things like carbon pollution from agriculture or
Speaker 3: other land use practices. So I think that's just something
Speaker 3: else to keep in mind when we're talking about climate skepticism.
Speaker 3: It might sometimes certain stories might fall outside of the
Speaker 3: purview of research on climate skepticism, but it is climate skepticism.
Speaker 3: It just might look different in the news piece.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Melissa, you make great points, and just from referencing Mayena,
Speaker 2: that's she's an example of you know, she has been
Speaker 2: really influential in helping tell these stories out of Brazil.
Speaker 2: And we need many more researchers like Maena and others
Speaker 2: to come together so that we can tell these stories
Speaker 2: more comprehensively. So this book itself, you know, our chapter
Speaker 2: contribution to it, a larger project is trying to take
Speaker 2: a step forward and more systematically understanding how these dynamics
Speaker 2: play out in various times and spaces and that. But
Speaker 2: it is stunning, you know, given the amount of funding
Speaker 2: and capacity that there is within these pr agencies, within advertising,
Speaker 2: within news reporting that shapes the stories that we get
Speaker 2: on a daily basis, that we don't have a larger,
Speaker 2: more coordinated effort to understand all these dynamics from a
Speaker 2: social sciences perspective, from humanities and how that relates to
Speaker 2: the natural physical sciences.
Speaker 1: The most recent IPCC report was the first to include
Speaker 1: social sciences and the first to really note this stuff
Speaker 1: as a huge blocker to policy action. And Max, I
Speaker 1: know I've talked to you about this before, so I
Speaker 1: won't have you repeat like an hour's worth of stuff.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I just am curious, like, why do you
Speaker 1: think it took so long for the IPCC to start
Speaker 1: looking at this as part of the problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it is a good question. As we've
Speaker 2: grown to understand more about climate change, it's not a
Speaker 2: single issue. We're increasingly recognizing that it's a set of
Speaker 2: intersecting challenges that flow through every aspect of our lives,
Speaker 2: meeting our livelihood needs and everything else, and in so doing,
Speaker 2: we need to understand it from not just physical biological perspectives,
Speaker 2: but human behavior perspectives. And there have been social scientists
Speaker 2: that have come on board and been a part of
Speaker 2: some of the previous IPCC reports, but this really was
Speaker 2: a big step forward with some of us that were
Speaker 2: invited along. So I was a contributing author to that
Speaker 2: most recent IPCC report. And so when you ask that question,
Speaker 2: I mean, I think the kind of simple answer is
Speaker 2: because there were folks like me and me included to
Speaker 2: bring the very thoroughly researched work that we're talking about
Speaker 2: in this chapter and this larger book into the pages
Speaker 2: of the IPCC. But I think a bigger part of
Speaker 2: that is just that more folks from different disciplines, seeing
Speaker 2: this as an integrative, interdisciplinary set of challenges, are being
Speaker 2: invited in to help provide those insights through the thoroughly
Speaker 2: researched work that's going on out there, and so it
Speaker 2: is a step forward. You know, they're selecting authors for
Speaker 2: the next one. We could possibly debate for a full
Speaker 2: hour about the wisdom of another big assessment report years
Speaker 2: and off, while we need to do a lot interim.
Speaker 2: But having said that, they're selecting authors for the next one,
Speaker 2: I hope that continues to flow into these pages. And
Speaker 2: the work that we talk about in the chapter that
Speaker 2: we capture that's in the larger reports themselves actually didn't
Speaker 2: make it into the summary for policy makers, and that too,
Speaker 2: we could talk about for quite a while. But there's
Speaker 2: still a lot of work to do to make this
Speaker 2: much more legible and to make this a larger conversation
Speaker 2: through the IPCC.
Speaker 1: Okay, Melissa, I feel like this is going to be
Speaker 1: your best question, which is about the pr firms.
Speaker 3: I love this.
Speaker 1: Description of them as sort of the glue joining carbon
Speaker 1: based industries, media organizations, and economic sectors using collisions campaigns
Speaker 1: and other coordinated processes to question the efficacy of science,
Speaker 1: news and institutions engaging climate related issues. Again, this is
Speaker 1: one I know you could spend many hours talking about.
Speaker 1: Can I have you give a little bit of an
Speaker 1: overview of the role that PR firms play here. If
Speaker 1: you want to talk about advertising firms too, that's fine.
Speaker 1: Maybe the difference between them, because I feel like they
Speaker 1: get conflated a lot. Maybe there's not that much difference
Speaker 1: between them anymore. I don't know, anyway, over to you.
Speaker 3: So, the most important thing I learned when I started
Speaker 3: researching the role of AD agencies and PR firms and
Speaker 3: climate disinformation is that these firms are not just mouthpieces
Speaker 3: for their fossil fuel clients. They are coming up with
Speaker 3: the strategies, They are creating messages, They are developing the
Speaker 3: relationships with news media and other organizations who are friendly
Speaker 3: to their cause. For a long time, climate researchers only
Speaker 3: focused on the fossil fuel companies themselves, and that was
Speaker 3: relevant and necessary. So we now have a lot more
Speaker 3: information about what Exxon does, or what Shell does, or
Speaker 3: what VP does. But lately journalists and researchers have started
Speaker 3: paying a lot more attention to the consultants and strategists
Speaker 3: who come up with the positioning for these fossil fueld
Speaker 3: companies and who play key roles in managing these companies
Speaker 3: media image and their marketing and strategic plan. I do
Speaker 3: want to mention that there is a very important pioneer
Speaker 3: of this kind of research who's name as John Stauber
Speaker 3: of the Center for Media and Democracy in Wisconsin. He
Speaker 3: founded that center back in nineteen ninety three, and in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety five he wrote this book which I think
Speaker 3: has the best name that any book like this could have,
Speaker 3: which is called Toxic Sludge Is Good for You, which
Speaker 3: was an expose of the PR firms involved in environmental disinformation.
Speaker 3: And I mentioned that because that really was a very
Speaker 3: important guide that came out at a time when most
Speaker 3: of us were looking the other way. It really has
Speaker 3: helped later researchers and journalists think about this. So a
Speaker 3: second major finding that we have about the role of
Speaker 3: PR firms and AD agencies in climate disinformation is that
Speaker 3: these firms are embedded in a very wide ecosystem of influence.
Speaker 3: We mentioned this well earlier in our conversation, but just
Speaker 3: important to remember PR firms and ad agencies are doing
Speaker 3: work for not only fossil fuel companies, but also their
Speaker 3: trade associations, industry councils and science advisory councils, for think
Speaker 3: tanks and research institutes, ENGOs, foundations, Chambers of commerce, organizational boards.
Speaker 3: I mean, the list goes on, and the important thing
Speaker 3: that really came to me is that these firms play
Speaker 3: several roles in keeping this network together. This is the
Speaker 3: glue part. One of the things that these PR firms
Speaker 3: and other consultants do is intelligence gathering across different industries
Speaker 3: as well as inside the environmental community. So you'll have
Speaker 3: PR firms hiring people who used to work at government
Speaker 3: agencies working on environmental issues or from other organizations that
Speaker 3: influence public policy on environment or climate and energy issues.
Speaker 3: Another thing these PR firms will do is conduct industry
Speaker 3: friendly research that help clients promote their viewpoints in the media.
Speaker 3: So there's a massive production of scientific material, legal material,
Speaker 3: and technical material to circulate in the media. So, like
Speaker 3: you said, Amy, I could really go on for several
Speaker 3: more hours about this, but I just really want to
Speaker 3: communicate that these firms are not just about spin. There's
Speaker 3: so much more going on and they deserve all of
Speaker 3: the attention that we've been trying to give to them
Speaker 3: over the last few years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this has written up a lot of great research
Speaker 2: on this and a book fit is worth checking out
Speaker 2: for all your listeners. Yes, just to maybe animate this
Speaker 2: with a very recent example. You know, Edelman, big influential
Speaker 2: ad agency that's helped promote fossil fuels with various companies
Speaker 2: as clients, has just been hired by cop thirty in
Speaker 2: Brazil to with the strategy. So these things are happening
Speaker 2: and circulating all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know, I was just reading about that. Okay,
Speaker 1: we talked a little bit about social media and digital
Speaker 1: but can I have you hone in on the digital
Speaker 1: platforms in particular and sort of structurally, what is going
Speaker 1: on with them with respect to spreading disinformation around and
Speaker 1: what are people trying to do.
Speaker 3: So, I mean, yes, digital platforms are very troubling sources
Speaker 3: of climate disinformation. In fact, some have argued that digital
Speaker 3: platforms are actually completely complicit in spreading climate denial because
Speaker 3: they do such a terrible job of monitoring the content
Speaker 3: on their sites in the name of you know, they
Speaker 3: want to avoid so called censorship, or they say they're
Speaker 3: just technology companies and not media companies, so they're not
Speaker 3: responsible for the content on their sites. They also take
Speaker 3: ads from fossil fuel companies. We have one report we
Speaker 3: talk about in the chapter that estimates that Google alone
Speaker 3: received twenty three point seven million dollars between twenty twenty
Speaker 3: and twenty twenty two from the five largest oil companies
Speaker 3: in the world to promote their advertising. We can also
Speaker 3: really level our sites at meta slash Facebook, which has
Speaker 3: overridden its own independent fact checkers for climate science. It
Speaker 3: has also allowed fossil fuel companies to purchase misleading ads.
Speaker 3: And another real problem that is posed by companies like
Speaker 3: Facebook is that they have a data sharing tool called
Speaker 3: crowd Tangle, which is traditionally relied upon by journalists and
Speaker 3: academics to analyze engagement with content on the platform, and
Speaker 3: they keep tweaking the data sharing tools so that it's
Speaker 3: less transparent and less useful for journalists and academics. So
Speaker 3: it's very hard to get a long term view of
Speaker 3: how engagement is changing over time, and it's very difficult
Speaker 3: to understand all the demographics and other data points that
Speaker 3: researchers need. So it's so it's yeah, it's really it
Speaker 3: really feels like the wild West. There's a group called
Speaker 3: Climate Action Against Disinformation CAD, which has done a lot
Speaker 3: of really interesting research in this area, and they've talked
Speaker 3: about how really the four big platforms of TikTok, Meta, YouTube,
Speaker 3: and X have become complicit in the spread of climate denial.
Speaker 3: And they put X out of those four last among
Speaker 3: platforms because of their absolute total absence of policies on
Speaker 3: climate disinformation, failing to effectively enforce whatever policies they do have,
Speaker 3: and total lack of public transparency.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty comprehensive answer. It's nice to hear listening
Speaker 2: to what you've laid out, Melissa. I mean, even if
Speaker 2: we were to say there's no deliberate malintent with all
Speaker 2: these big companies, even just as you had pointed out
Speaker 2: the absence of policies on just information the way in
Speaker 2: which you know, at the start of the year, Zuckerberg
Speaker 2: it said that they're getting rid of its fact checking
Speaker 2: policy and just starting some community board community notes. I
Speaker 2: should say that just the misinformation that proliferates because of
Speaker 2: the influence of these and the lack of intentional fact checking,
Speaker 2: amongst them is really troubling.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you both or either of you has
Speaker 1: a response to this very concerning trend of people recasting
Speaker 1: fact checking as censorship and like how that plays into
Speaker 1: this stuff.
Speaker 2: I may not answer that head on, but I think
Speaker 2: part of how we've then gotten into these places is
Speaker 2: that people like those within the academic research community haven't
Speaker 2: advocated adequately for facts and evidence and truths as they
Speaker 2: come about. And so that is a form of advocacy.
Speaker 2: It's advocacy of a sort. It's not advocating for particular
Speaker 2: policy actions or advocating for certain outcomes. But in the
Speaker 2: absence of that, we've allowed ourselves to devolve into this
Speaker 2: place where fact checking can be seen as, like you say,
Speaker 2: some kind of censorship, some kind of intervention, that that
Speaker 2: is unwanted and that curtails free speech. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: where things can turn on their head. But I think
Speaker 2: I find myself somewhat culpable and those within our communities
Speaker 2: for not advocating more strenuously for facts and evidence and
Speaker 2: for not helping others better understand these these uh, you know,
Speaker 2: the landscape of how this matters, how facts matter.
Speaker 3: Maybe I mean we should talk about rapid attribution because
Speaker 3: that's wine.
Speaker 1: It does kind of like blend into that. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: is what is rapid attribution? Let me have you define it?
Speaker 1: And then like how could it help with this?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I heard about this idea through Jill Hopka's work.
Speaker 3: Others have spoken about it, but she has a great
Speaker 3: piece on this topic. The basic idea behind rapid attribution
Speaker 3: is to respond to misleading media content as quickly as possible.
Speaker 3: So this has to do with, of course, this incredible
Speaker 3: speed of the news cycle these days, and the fact
Speaker 3: that our attention is constantly pulled in a million different
Speaker 3: directions online. And if you contrast that with the academic
Speaker 3: research and publication cycle, I mean, there's just no contest.
Speaker 3: It's our research and publication cycle is incredibly slow. We
Speaker 3: work in cycles of years, not cycles of minutes. So
Speaker 3: what some researchers are calling for is a monitoring and
Speaker 3: rapid response service to provide facts, to provide accurate information
Speaker 3: to the public while they're thinking about the issue, not
Speaker 3: a year or two later. And so some have suggested
Speaker 3: that maybe academic researchers can take a page from nonprofit
Speaker 3: projects or even projects like Max's observatory groups like Max's Observatory,
Speaker 3: by working either more closely with those groups or working
Speaker 3: with other research centers to track and analyze digital media
Speaker 3: and social media disinformation as it happens and provide a
Speaker 3: researcher's lens on the response.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of that old saying why I can
Speaker 2: travel around the world while the truth is putting on
Speaker 2: its shoes. That these are efforts to try and close
Speaker 2: that feedback loop. They're improving, but even today and say
Speaker 2: print news journalism, if something is wrong, they print a
Speaker 2: correction the next day, it's still not adequate. There are
Speaker 2: many more efforts that are going on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, you have this very interesting section to me
Speaker 1: about how how these narratives shape not just people's understanding
Speaker 1: of the issues and how urgent they are, but also
Speaker 1: ambition on climate and I wonder if you could walk
Speaker 1: through that. I also wanted to ask you about a
Speaker 1: tendency for a lot of reporters who are on the
Speaker 1: climate beat to focus on just events based reporting. I
Speaker 1: feel like that kind of into this too.
Speaker 3: I'm going to refreak question like the way all good
Speaker 3: you know, political interviews are so media trained it's great yes,
Speaker 3: you asked, So all I answer a piece of what
Speaker 3: you asked. So you asked about how do some of
Speaker 3: the narratives that we see in the media shape people's
Speaker 3: ambition to do something about climate change. And so here
Speaker 3: there's a variety of climate obstruction that I know really
Speaker 3: well because I've spent a lot of years studying how
Speaker 3: big brands and other business groups sidesteck their role in
Speaker 3: contributing to climate change, and because they generate narratives that
Speaker 3: are very influential, very seductive, but that really are problematic.
Speaker 3: And they do this by promoting that they're at the
Speaker 3: table with us, that they're collaborators, their consensus makers, or
Speaker 3: that they're willing to compromise. And in fact, I would
Speaker 3: say that some of the most effective undermining of environmental
Speaker 3: science has come from business leaders who say that their
Speaker 3: company is working alongside scientists or alongside public policy makers
Speaker 3: to solve climate problems. So here we have to come
Speaker 3: back to PR specialists, because their entire resondet is to
Speaker 3: promote consensus among public audiences, that's the public in public relations,
Speaker 3: is to relate to the public. They influence people by
Speaker 3: aligning their clients' messages with public values and beliefs. That's
Speaker 3: a classic branding strategy. And it's also about creating legitimacy
Speaker 3: for their client organizations like fossil fuel companies, and about
Speaker 3: creating trust in their message. So, for example, PR consultants
Speaker 3: will create public private partnerships or sponsorships for their clients
Speaker 3: that make them look good. Shell for instance, the oil
Speaker 3: company sponsors youth programs, they sponsor healthcare initiatives, sponsor housing projects,
Speaker 3: and that's not It's hard to point to that and
Speaker 3: say that's bad. You shouldn't sponsor those projects. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, if you think about how that acts
Speaker 3: back on the company to make them look good, when
Speaker 3: in fact, alongside those sponsorships they are also expanding the
Speaker 3: infrastructure for oil production, it becomes really challenging to uphold
Speaker 3: their good image. I could go on, but maybe I
Speaker 3: could leave it at that for now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great. Did you want to add anything in there, mix.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it relates back to some of the
Speaker 2: things we were talking about before. Melissa was talking about
Speaker 2: discourses of climate delay and kind of honing in on
Speaker 2: the four that William Lamb and colleagues had pointed out
Speaker 2: that we got in the chapter. And another way in
Speaker 2: which we can see this kind of narrative is through
Speaker 2: the way in which some of the redirection of responsibility
Speaker 2: comes through the individualization of responsibility. And so some of
Speaker 2: the narratives that take place through the media and through
Speaker 2: everyday lives can come into the notion of carbon footprints,
Speaker 2: which themselves we're seen as creation by the foss fuel
Speaker 2: industry to redirect attention to the individual rather than larger
Speaker 2: corporate actors who are contributing significantly to these issues. And
Speaker 2: so that individualization can have several different kind of pushes
Speaker 2: and pulls. It can distract from their responsibilities, but then
Speaker 2: they can also, you know, very importantly, it can have
Speaker 2: us feel like, oh my gosh, we get overwhelmed with
Speaker 2: the enormity of the challenges that we have before us,
Speaker 2: and so it can push us into these spaces of
Speaker 2: paralysis if we if we subscribe to this kind of atomized,
Speaker 2: individualized way of acting, and we also, on top of
Speaker 2: that can tend to you know, start to name and
Speaker 2: shame and blame one another instead of looking at some
Speaker 2: of the clear fact around us. And so you know,
Speaker 2: there's there's been a lot of work over time among
Speaker 2: them was some important work by Richard he that points
Speaker 2: out that two thirds of industrial greenhouse gas emissions, fossil
Speaker 2: fuel use, methane leaks, and manufacturing have come from ninety
Speaker 2: companies around the world since the john of the Industrial Revolution.
Speaker 2: And so this naming and shaming and individualization is both
Speaker 2: a redirection of responsibility and that it's also really is
Speaker 2: a very effective technique of delay and distraction.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to end with this accountability piece and
Speaker 1: where we're at with accountability measures on this. So we
Speaker 1: talked about rapid attribution, but you mentioned this push for
Speaker 1: a universal definition of climate disinformation in the chapter, and
Speaker 1: then you know the potential for accountability for specific platforms.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear from each of you where you
Speaker 1: see the most progress I'm dealing.
Speaker 3: I'll just start by saying that the call for universal
Speaker 3: definition of climate disinformation as well as for more accountability
Speaker 3: my media platforms, came out, I believe in November twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four around the COP twenty nine climate negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Speaker 3: And this was a large group, a coalition of political groups, nonprofits,
Speaker 3: and so that was trying to encourage political leaders around
Speaker 3: the world to acknowledge that there is a major threat
Speaker 3: posed by climate disinformation as an obstacle to climate action,
Speaker 3: and to adopt a definition that will allow regulation and
Speaker 3: other forms of rules to get put in place, to
Speaker 3: be able to say, you know, to point at something
Speaker 3: and say that is climate disinformation based on this definition
Speaker 3: that all of us have agreed upon. I think that
Speaker 3: that would be very powerful. And then that third pillar
Speaker 3: is to hold platforms accountable. As you said, Amy, so
Speaker 3: just push social media companies ad tech publishers to prevent
Speaker 3: the spread of climate disinformation by agin acknowledging it and
Speaker 3: saying we're not going to allow this kind of garbage
Speaker 3: to be to be on our sites. I would say,
Speaker 3: if I had to, you know, leave with some Oh,
Speaker 3: but this is really not I don't intend this to
Speaker 3: be about t toooting my own hord. This is just
Speaker 3: something I know more about than other areas. We'll talk
Speaker 3: about it. It's in relation to this idea of adopting
Speaker 3: a universal definition, but it's on the topic of greenwashing,
Speaker 3: which is a subset of climate disinformation. This is something
Speaker 3: that some colleagues and I have been working pretty steadily
Speaker 3: on through the Climate Social Science Network we have a
Speaker 3: Greenwashing working group and we've just put out our second
Speaker 3: article that attempts to develop a very clear and coherent
Speaker 3: framework to identify greenwashing and to lay out a set
Speaker 3: of criteria that anyone can use. It's not just an
Speaker 3: academic thing. It's really about saying, here are the features.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: You know, if you can identify these features in whatever
Speaker 3: you're looking at that you think is greenwashing, and these
Speaker 3: features are there, you can call it greenwashing. You can
Speaker 3: go aheat them and say that's greenwashing. And we're really
Speaker 3: trying to promote greater accountability by all kinds of organizations,
Speaker 3: not not just companies, but other groups that advertently or
Speaker 3: inadvertently produce greenwashing material and just yeah, getting a definition
Speaker 3: that then will allow all these groups accountable. And we've
Speaker 3: had some real success with that framework. We've had a
Speaker 3: couple of groups, I know in Canadian cities, some lawmakers
Speaker 3: have used that framework to ask for public buses and
Speaker 3: other transit systems to take down their advertising that is
Speaker 3: greenwashing as a result of our study. So that's just
Speaker 3: one very small contribution to try t to just keep
Speaker 3: these different platforms and different outlets accountable.
Speaker 2: That's great I'm glad glad to hear those developments because
Speaker 2: they can feedback into news reporting, into pro engagement advertising,
Speaker 2: and on and on. I guess I would say that,
Speaker 2: you know, while we have talked about how you know,
Speaker 2: there are strains on our media literacy nowadays, generally my
Speaker 2: experience has been that once you open up these conversations,
Speaker 2: especially with young college aged people that I'm working with
Speaker 2: a lot teaching, that there is a real appetite and
Speaker 2: there's an ability to learn very quickly, and especially young
Speaker 2: people who have been born into the world where we've
Speaker 2: already had this on the public agenda. For those of
Speaker 2: us that are a little bit older, you know, we
Speaker 2: grew up in a world where this wasn't being discussed.
Speaker 2: But many young people now that are in college have
Speaker 2: been exposed to this, been talking about it, and they're
Speaker 2: well positioned to start to move forward with solutions. And
Speaker 2: I know at times we all may feel like this
Speaker 2: is really daunting. There are so many large forces and
Speaker 2: pressures that are working against this kind of progress. I
Speaker 2: guess I am in a quoting kind of mood. I
Speaker 2: think about Wes Jackson something he said about if you're
Speaker 2: not working on something that you plan on finishing in
Speaker 2: your lifetime, you're not thinking big enough. And so when
Speaker 2: we start to work with folks across demographics, across generations,
Speaker 2: and there is this appetite to learn, there is this
Speaker 2: appetite for positive change. I see it through the creative
Speaker 2: ways that students I'm working with are communicating about climate
Speaker 2: change with their peers and families and neighbors and roommates.
Speaker 2: That I find that as a source of encouragement. So
Speaker 2: while we have been focused in here on diagnosing some
Speaker 2: of the real daunting challenges, there are places where we
Speaker 2: can look to for encouragement and hope.
Speaker 3: Awesome, No, I really, Max was saying about students that
Speaker 3: I do see. The only moments lately when I do
Speaker 3: feel optimistic are actually working with my students and being
Speaker 3: out with my teen son. Yeah, you know, which is
Speaker 3: kind of ironic because in other ways he drives me
Speaker 3: absolutely Banata's butt.
Speaker 1: Yes he is.
Speaker 3: He is.
Speaker 4: You know, he's growing up to be a very savvy
Speaker 4: and media literate person. Despite what we say earlier, he
Speaker 4: is very aware of the climate crisis and that need
Speaker 4: to do something about it. I feel hopeful when I
Speaker 4: hear the kinds of things that he's thinking about and
Speaker 4: wanting to do when it comes to climate change, because
Speaker 4: he's on it, and I think his friends and roommates
Speaker 4: and others are too.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, it's kind of nice to end on a
Speaker 1: little bit of hope and grit. I do feel like
Speaker 1: people forget that these things take a long time. That's
Speaker 1: it for this time. Make sure you're subscribed so you
Speaker 1: don't miss an episode. You can find more on this season,
Speaker 1: including transcripts and lots of related articles and background information,
Speaker 1: on our website at Drilled Media. You can also sign
Speaker 1: up for our newsletter there. Our producers for this season
Speaker 1: are Martin Saltz, Oustwick and Peter Duff. Our theme song
Speaker 1: is Bird in the Hand by Foreknown. Our cover art
Speaker 1: is by Matthew Fleming. Our First Amendment attorney is James
Speaker 1: Wheaton with the First Amendment Project. The show was created, written,
Speaker 1: and reported by me Amy Westervelt. Thanks for listening and
Speaker 1: see you next time.