Speaker 1: Hello, Welcome to Drill. This is Amy Westerveldt. I'm here
Speaker 1: today with a bit of an update to the history
Speaker 1: we chronicled in season three, where we looked at the
Speaker 1: last one hundred or so years of fossil fuel propaganda.
Speaker 1: A new study from Harvard researchers Jeffrey Supran and Naomi A.
Speaker 1: Risquez highlights how Exonmobile in particular, has used language both
Speaker 1: to undermine climate action and to push the idea that
Speaker 1: it's an individual consumer problem, not anything to do with
Speaker 1: them or the systems they helped to create and continue
Speaker 1: to profit from. Lead researcher Jeffrey Supran join me to
Speaker 1: talk through the studies' findings and what they mean for
Speaker 1: climate action more broadly, and what they might mean for
Speaker 1: the two dozen ors so climate cases making their way
Speaker 1: through the courts at the moment. That conversation coming up
Speaker 1: after this quick break.
Speaker 2: So basically, if if you run a do some code
Speaker 2: to say what words appear? I think within plus or
Speaker 2: minus five words of the words climate change and global warming,
Speaker 2: there is literally no word or phrase that is more
Speaker 2: common than risk or risks. So it basically became their
Speaker 2: their watchword throughout throughout the two thousands, and likewise, in
Speaker 2: terms of the words that individualized responsibility, all the same
Speaker 2: keywords pop up regarding meeting the energy demand of consumers,
Speaker 2: you know, meeting the needs, all these kinds of words.
Speaker 3: Did you find that you know, the word risk was
Speaker 3: used to in a way to introduce doubt, like it's
Speaker 3: a risk, but it's uncertainty. Was it that kind of
Speaker 3: framing or how how is it being used?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Right, So essentially they describe they talk about climate
Speaker 2: risk risks, you know, long term risk, potential risks, potential
Speaker 2: long term risks, all permutations on the word risk. And
Speaker 2: our interpretation is that Exomobile used risk just as they
Speaker 2: have used other rhetorical cousins like uncertainty and more research
Speaker 2: and sound science, essentially the same intention of what's sometimes
Speaker 2: called strategic ambiguity. It's exactly what the tobacco industry did,
Speaker 2: which is to shift the conversation from semantics, from concepts
Speaker 2: of reality to concepts of risk. And it's a very
Speaker 2: clever trick because you inject uncertainty into the narrative into
Speaker 2: the discourse about climate change while superficially not appearing to
Speaker 2: do so so. Essentially, rather than correcting the record and
Speaker 2: acknowledging how they previously promoted out. They just changed the
Speaker 2: subject a little bit. You know, risk is something that
Speaker 2: may may not happen, and by characterizing climate change as
Speaker 2: a risk, they implicitly implied that it was not a reality,
Speaker 2: even after clearly climate scientists had demonstrated that it was happening,
Speaker 2: that it is happening. And yeah, the thing that I
Speaker 2: think really gives us confidence in the use of this
Speaker 2: rhetorical tool is that it exactly mirrors the tobacco industry strategy.
Speaker 2: They did exactly the same thing, both for as a
Speaker 2: public relations tactics and also as a legal defense one.
Speaker 3: That's interesting. So can you talk a little bit about
Speaker 3: that part, how you mapped this to what the tobacco
Speaker 3: industry was doing as well.
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, Well, the way it first came up was
Speaker 2: running these so called Corpus comparison algorithms, so looking at,
Speaker 2: you know, what terms appear over or underused in one
Speaker 2: set of documents compared to another. And this term risk
Speaker 2: and risks started jumping out very early to us. And
Speaker 2: I just happened to know that Robert Procter, who's a
Speaker 2: tobacco historian, had written quite extensively about the use of
Speaker 2: risk as what he calls a legal having it both ways.
Speaker 2: So essentially, you know, an admission strong enough to ward
Speaker 2: off accusations of failing to warn the public, but at
Speaker 2: the same time weak enough to kind of exculpate them
Speaker 2: from charges of having just marketed this deadly product. And
Speaker 2: it was that parallel that I noticed with the word
Speaker 2: risk that really started to encourage me to latch on to,
Speaker 2: you know what, other parallels, what might we be seeing.
Speaker 2: And so it was in the process of looking at
Speaker 2: other terms and other discourses that are constructed, that we
Speaker 2: started to realize they were also promoting this shift of
Speaker 2: responsibility away from the company and onto consumers by publicly
Speaker 2: fixating on consumer energy demand rather than the fossil fuels
Speaker 2: that the company supplies. And in that regard too, I
Speaker 2: then came across another study from just a few years
Speaker 2: ago that really in detail laid out exactly how the
Speaker 2: tobacco industry had done this too. In the case of
Speaker 2: the tobacco industry, they played a two pronged approach where
Speaker 2: in public they used so called demand as liberty, and
Speaker 2: in litigation in defense against lawsuits, they flipped it flip
Speaker 2: the script and basically talked about Demander's blame And what
Speaker 2: we've essentially found is Exo Mobile have done exactly the
Speaker 2: same thing in a slightly different way. The nuances are
Speaker 2: slightly different, but the overall pattern is the same, which
Speaker 2: is that demand is used in public to very subtly
Speaker 2: put the responsibility on the shoulders of the public, and
Speaker 2: then when it comes to defending itself in court, the
Speaker 2: gloves will come off a little bit and they'll really
Speaker 2: double down on that Demander's blame rhetoric. So this is
Speaker 2: really exciting. This is interesting to us because not only
Speaker 2: are the existing patterns evident, but it also these insights
Speaker 2: allow us to begin to foresee how their defense against
Speaker 2: litigation and activism is going to expand in the coming years.
Speaker 2: So we're just starting to see the first early warning
Speaker 2: signs of that strategy, that that blame game that they're playing.
Speaker 3: That was actually like a big part of the decision
Speaker 3: in San Francisco exactly. Yeah, Judge Alsop's ruling, like he
Speaker 3: kind of talked about that, It's like, well, sure, you know,
Speaker 3: and that was very much the argument that was being
Speaker 3: made too, is that you know, hey, we're just fulfilling it, right,
Speaker 3: and without us, the industrial revolution wouldn't have happened all this, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right, right, yeah, yeah, no, So that's actually
Speaker 2: I mean, we point this out in the paper that
Speaker 2: the reason Judge us Up made that decision was very much,
Speaker 2: you know, in response to the argument being made by
Speaker 2: Chevron's lawyer and defense of x On and other companies,
Speaker 2: where he very explicitly said, it's not production that is
Speaker 2: causing greenhouse gas missions, it's consumers. It's the demand. It's
Speaker 2: quote the way that people are living their lives. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And you know, of course we're the first to acknowledge
Speaker 2: that demand is a legitimate part of the climate problem
Speaker 2: and its solution, but it's not the only part, and
Speaker 2: it's not actually the business focus of Exomobile, which is
Speaker 2: a supplier company. So this this very intriguing. This is
Speaker 2: very intriguing and convenient. I came across a few years
Speaker 2: ago the fact that BP had first promoted the concept
Speaker 2: of carbon footprint in two thousand and four, two thousand
Speaker 2: and six, and so that you know, I think has
Speaker 2: really helped to kind of anecdotally demonstrate the role of
Speaker 2: the fossil fee industry in promoting these individualized responsibility narratives.
Speaker 2: But what we think we're doing for the first time
Speaker 2: with this work is to actually systematically and empirically prove
Speaker 2: in this case Exo Mobile's role in encouraging and embodying
Speaker 2: those discourses. It's not to say, you know, of course
Speaker 2: the X mobile has done this alone. It's it's been
Speaker 2: part of a massive individualization effort by the fossil free
Speaker 2: industry seemingly writ large, and also just industries in general.
Speaker 2: That comes and it's so subtle, Like you know, Naomi
Speaker 2: and I analyze these advertorials previously from you know, through
Speaker 2: the lens of analyzing explicit doubts and climate denial, and
Speaker 2: it basically escaped unnoticed that there was this systematic usage
Speaker 2: of of of terms and topics to to yeah, to
Speaker 2: to shift responsibility away from the company. But for me,
Speaker 2: that's what makes it all the more important, because we're
Speaker 2: starting to be able to flag genuinely insidious and subtle
Speaker 2: propaganda that is shifting the way everyone thinks about this,
Speaker 2: whether they realize it or not.
Speaker 3: It sort of like laponizes American identity in a way too.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: We we briefly touch on near the end of the
Speaker 2: paper how you know it too. It's too massive of
Speaker 2: a separate thing to go into the details of how
Speaker 2: sociologically that sort of quote unquote rugged individualism has has
Speaker 2: entrenched itself in American culture and ideology, but it really has.
Speaker 2: And so we briefly note that what it really seems
Speaker 2: like Examobile did was to tap into that individualizing of
Speaker 2: society and risk that has been happening of the last
Speaker 2: few decades and really bring it to bear on climate change. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's one piece of the puzzle, and we think it's
Speaker 2: an important one because it's the first definitive proof of
Speaker 2: these kinds of subtle strategies, which, by the way, I
Speaker 2: think you would enjoy. We include a quote in here
Speaker 2: from Herbs Schmertz where I don't know if you saw it,
Speaker 2: but yeah, yeah, where he specifically in his book says
Speaker 2: he calls the first guiding principle of He says, the
Speaker 2: first guiding principle of public affairs is to quote unquote
Speaker 2: quote grab the gro words and stick your opponents with
Speaker 2: the bad ones. And he specifically talks about the power
Speaker 2: of I think he calls it semantic infiltration, whereby he
Speaker 2: says it's the process, whereby language does the dirty work
Speaker 2: of politics, and that is exactly what we're seeing here.
Speaker 3: That's really interesting, well, because you know, I mean I
Speaker 3: I do. You see it all the time that like
Speaker 3: the industry really tries to position itself as like the
Speaker 3: only demand side only industry in the world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, that's right. It's the it's
Speaker 4: the only it's the only problem and the only industry
Speaker 4: where the only solutions are demand side. There is nothing
Speaker 4: to be done on the supply side.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 2: Framed in the context of anything else, it would sound ridiculous, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's totally ridiculous.
Speaker 3: And you see just how much bullshit it is when
Speaker 3: you look at what they did, you know, in the eighties,
Speaker 3: when there was no longer sort of restricted supply problem,
Speaker 3: but Americans had gotten really good at energy efficiency. I
Speaker 3: found all these old Chevron shareholder magazines where you were
Speaker 3: really freaking out about the fact that, Okay, we have
Speaker 3: more supply now, but demand is remaining flat because people
Speaker 3: have gotten so good at conserving energy. They were like,
Speaker 3: what are we going to do to get demand back up,
Speaker 3: and they are dropped prices. Whenever there's a of some kind,
Speaker 3: they fiddle with the pricing to drive demand. Or I mean,
Speaker 3: even if you look at what's happening with the natural
Speaker 3: gas glut and the plastics stuff, you know, they just
Speaker 3: found another criket for it.
Speaker 2: And also just more at the at the human scale
Speaker 2: that I think people can relate to, you know, I
Speaker 2: mean I've been I've given many talks where some guy
Speaker 2: at the back has stood up and said, I'm a
Speaker 2: hypocrite because my shoes contain you know, rubber or something.
Speaker 2: Those accusations of hypocrisy level that climate academics and activists
Speaker 2: alike who criticize the fossil food industry. That's that's the
Speaker 2: ground level manifestation of this this brainwashing. Frankly, Yeah, and
Speaker 2: so I think it kind of that's the really profound
Speaker 2: thing about this that it manifests itself at all scales
Speaker 2: and all segments of society, whether it be the way
Speaker 2: scholars and you know, scientists think about the kinds of
Speaker 2: problems they're asking to the kind of stories journalists, right,
Speaker 2: you know, and it's only really like you and Emily
Speaker 2: and a few others who are kind of countering that now,
Speaker 2: and whether it be you know, the average joe who
Speaker 2: when you bring up climate change the number one thing
Speaker 2: they think about is changing their light bulbs and stuff.
Speaker 3: Right, that came up even with the crab fishermen that
Speaker 3: doing the oil companies, even the ones actually that was
Speaker 3: an interesting case because a lot of them didn't and
Speaker 3: still don't believe that humans contribute to climate But the
Speaker 3: whole thing was the companies had information that they were
Speaker 3: using to make their companies more resilient to climate change,
Speaker 3: and that they were keeping that information and that it
Speaker 3: really doesn't matter what causes climate change, that they were
Speaker 3: covering it up. But even the ones who who were
Speaker 3: more you know, like actually like yes, think that climate
Speaker 3: change is real and that we need to do something
Speaker 3: about it and all that kind of stuff, they were
Speaker 3: actually slower to join that suit because they were like,
Speaker 3: but I'm a hypocrite because I drive a big boat
Speaker 3: that burns diesel.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was crazy to me. I was like, Wow,
Speaker 3: the people who are actual climate dryers are joining this suit,
Speaker 3: and the people who actually believe that we need to
Speaker 3: act on climate are the ones dragging their feet because
Speaker 3: this hypocrisy thing is so strong.
Speaker 2: That's the thing that if you're really focused on your
Speaker 2: own sense of guilt and responsibility, you become hamstrung from
Speaker 2: acting on what you know in order to hold the
Speaker 2: systemic failures to account that are locking us into this
Speaker 2: fossil fuel status croo society.
Speaker 3: That's how powerful it is. So like, yes, it's subtle,
Speaker 3: but that you're totally right that, I think that's what
Speaker 3: makes it so much more powerful. Yeah, and especially it
Speaker 3: like plays into all of these sort of societal structures too.
Speaker 3: It's like that much effective.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, well exactly that was and is the really
Speaker 2: clever thing about Well, now we found the strategies that
Speaker 2: both tobacco and fossil fuels are using, which is that
Speaker 2: they cannot be pointed to so clearly, so blatantly as
Speaker 2: you know, lying or falsehoods or anything like that, because
Speaker 2: they basically draw on common and often correct pilance you know,
Speaker 2: of journalists and academics and the public. It's just they're
Speaker 2: kind of spinning these words in a in a confusing way.
Speaker 2: But one other thing, just to flag out of interest,
Speaker 2: is that we actually also likewise find sets of distinctive
Speaker 2: terms that together communicate various other discourses of delay, as
Speaker 2: we call them. So, you know, we find these systematic
Speaker 2: usages of terms that together, for example, constitute greenwashing, that
Speaker 2: constitute what we call fossil fuel solutionism, or that promote
Speaker 2: concepts of energy poverty, and you know, things like that,
Speaker 2: and these all weave together, you know, to construct this
Speaker 2: fossil fuel savior frame that we that we identify. But
Speaker 2: but yeah, I thought I really felt like the risk
Speaker 2: and responsibility parts are the ones that haven't been kind
Speaker 2: of hammered like people hasn't quite been kind of encapsulated
Speaker 2: properly yet. So that's why we kind of focus on that.
Speaker 3: I think that's super interesting. Well, I have this like
Speaker 3: long running obsession with the idea that like the sort
Speaker 3: of very entrenched personal responsibility narrative is sort of like
Speaker 3: at the root of every problem in the US. Yeah, basically,
Speaker 3: we're constantly asking individuals to solve systemic problems just with therapists, right,
Speaker 3: usually consumer choices.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that's the thing that kills me too,
Speaker 3: is that individual action doesn't even get painted and political
Speaker 3: action or activism or whatever, it's one hundred percent stuff.
Speaker 2: You back, right, Yeah, Yeah, and we yeah, yeah, we's
Speaker 2: that's our concluding point in the paper actually that we
Speaker 2: quote another scholar who kind of wrote about this in
Speaker 2: a more anecdotal way way back like in two thousand
Speaker 2: and one. He calls it the narrowing of our environmental imagination,
Speaker 2: you know, to consumers first and citizen second. And that's
Speaker 2: our bottom line really that that's what's happened here, and
Speaker 2: you're absolutely right. The other thing, just to flag with
Speaker 2: the hypocrite thing is that someone called Jen Schneider. She
Speaker 2: wrote a book called under Pressure, and we found that
Speaker 2: useful in doing this work because that book, it's a
Speaker 2: group of rhetoricians, you know, academics looking at specifically coal
Speaker 2: industry rhetoric, and we draw on some of their terminology
Speaker 2: for naming these discourses that we identify. One of their
Speaker 2: terms that we don't actually use because we classify it
Speaker 2: under individualized responsibility. But I think is really great is
Speaker 2: they talk about the hypocrites trap. That's their name for
Speaker 2: that rhetoric of hypocrisy. I'm just mentioning that because that
Speaker 2: I think that's quite a cool book and one of
Speaker 2: the only ones I've seen that also takes the time
Speaker 2: to identify and name these things, because that's important, you know,
Speaker 2: just developing this typology, just putting it out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, just making it clear that it's not like,
Speaker 3: I think there's this thing that happens where people think
Speaker 3: that it is some kind of natural.
Speaker 2: Adotation or like organically.
Speaker 3: Created you know, identity or whatever, and it's like, no.
Speaker 2: This was this was like really this was engineers engineered.
Speaker 3: And I think once people know that, then they can
Speaker 3: evaluate it in that context and form opinions that way,
Speaker 3: as opposed to just sort of that they're handed.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what we want, what we hope people
Speaker 2: will take from this study.
Speaker 1: That's it for today. Big thanks to Jeffrey Supran for
Speaker 1: joining us. You can find a link to the full
Speaker 1: study in the show notes. Thanks for listening, and we'll
Speaker 1: see you next week.
Speaker 2: M