Speaker 1: For more than fifty years, Corporate America and its PR
Speaker 1: firms have worked really hard to brand environmentalists alternately as
Speaker 1: dangerous radicals or silly idealists, rubes who romanticize farming and
Speaker 1: yearn for that most ridiculous goal, pristine nature.
Speaker 2: The idea of the Provice of Christinas is this idea
Speaker 2: that everyone who is arguing to protect human health, who
Speaker 2: is arguing to protect people's water supplies, the quality of
Speaker 2: their air, is really only focused on protecting protecting Christine
Speaker 2: places for their view, for the enjoyment of select number
Speaker 2: of people.
Speaker 1: That's Carol Muffett, President and CEO of the Center for
Speaker 1: International Environmental Law. In our series with Earther last year,
Speaker 1: the ABC's of Big Oil, about the fossil fuel industry's
Speaker 1: influence in schools, Carol walked us through a presentation he
Speaker 1: unearthed that laid out the importance of shaping the public's
Speaker 1: opinions about the oil industry and about environmental issues.
Speaker 2: This is at the heart of the industry's efforts to
Speaker 2: paint environmentalists as a special interest. And you know, those
Speaker 2: efforts were for a long time, very very effective. But
Speaker 2: the industry was really effective at presenting all of them
Speaker 2: as just environmentalists who were bunny hunters, who were concerned
Speaker 2: about trees and monnies and didn't care about people at all.
Speaker 1: Reporter Katie Worth, author of the new book Miseducation, brought
Speaker 1: us some incredible tape of a fossil fuel lobbyist speaking
Speaker 1: to a middle school class in Arkansas trotting out this
Speaker 1: exact same idea is utilized.
Speaker 3: The most important thing here is being healthier, wealthier, happier,
Speaker 3: living longer, or is pristine nature more important? Building new houses,
Speaker 3: stop getting step out of the ground, want to leading
Speaker 3: exactly as it is, because that would be difficult.
Speaker 1: The idea that environmentalists just care about polar bears and
Speaker 1: trees wasn't all the industry's fault. Of course, there has
Speaker 1: always been certain factions of the environmental and climate movements
Speaker 1: who do a better job of advocating for polar bears
Speaker 1: than people. But what the industry's education and marketing campaigns
Speaker 1: pulled off was framing these two things, humans and nature,
Speaker 1: as somehow always separate and mutually exclusive. You can't possibly
Speaker 1: care about people if you care about polar bears. You
Speaker 1: can't possibly care about the poor if you think trees
Speaker 1: are cool. Obviously none of that is true. You can
Speaker 1: care about both human communities and polar bear just fine.
Speaker 1: This idea that people in nature are separate, or that
Speaker 1: it's shameful in some way to care about nature is
Speaker 1: one that climate organizers would do well to reject. Here's
Speaker 1: a jibwe attorney and climate activist Tara Hauska.
Speaker 4: I think the climate movement does itself a huge disservice
Speaker 4: by even trying to condition themselves or allow their conditioning
Speaker 4: to continue, that we are somehow separate from nature, that
Speaker 4: nature can be summed up in statistical data and analysis,
Speaker 4: and that we are hard knows, you know. Here's the solutions.
Speaker 1: There are tons of examples of ads and campaigns that
Speaker 1: underscore the framing of the silly, unrealistic, elitist environmentalist. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to look at one that I uncovered recently
Speaker 1: and just can't stop thinking about. It's one of the
Speaker 1: records produced as part of the Standard School Broadcast, which
Speaker 1: started in nineteen twenty eight and continued for decades, eventually
Speaker 1: becoming the Chevron School Broadcast. This installment, in particular is
Speaker 1: about the Industrial Revolution and introduces an obnoxious counter to
Speaker 1: the Progress and Innovation of Industrialists, Ms Scratch, the Environmentalist
Speaker 1: and consumer Advocate. This album came out in nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: so a few years after Rachel Carson and Ralph Nader
Speaker 1: started to make the issues of public health and environmental
Speaker 1: conservation a big deal. It would have played in hundreds
Speaker 1: of schools throughout the Western United States throughout the seventies.
Speaker 1: In a series of vignettes, a baritone captain of industry
Speaker 1: regales listeners with tales of all the amazing innovations that
Speaker 1: American industry has gifted the world. And then here comes
Speaker 1: Miss Scratch, shrill and lecturing to rain on the parade.
Speaker 1: It's so similar to how environmentalists are still depicted today
Speaker 1: that I think it's worth a closer book that's coming
Speaker 1: up right after this quick break. So most of this
Speaker 1: record is one long skit, and the basic premise is
Speaker 1: that a businessman has been asked by his boss to
Speaker 1: give a thorough accounting of America's contributions to global industry.
Speaker 1: He starts with the a's agriculture.
Speaker 5: Right without mechanized agriculture, There's some doubt that the Middle
Speaker 5: West could ever have been opened up without slavery. That is, indeed,
Speaker 5: the reaper may have served the cause of abolition. And
Speaker 5: throughout the years, our vast agricultural expansion hasn't benefited the
Speaker 5: United States alone.
Speaker 6: For example, right after.
Speaker 5: World Wars one and two, US agriculture virtually kept Europe alive.
Speaker 7: And you, miss Scratch, you've heard all of these benefits
Speaker 7: of mechanized agriculture. Have you anything to say against this
Speaker 7: remarkable achievement?
Speaker 8: Yes I have.
Speaker 9: Look there, please the entry for nineteen thirty four, look
Speaker 9: across the plains and see Oklahoma blowing away, the dust
Speaker 9: bowl worked to death and left to blow away, or
Speaker 9: this entry more recent.
Speaker 8: Follow me down this country road.
Speaker 9: The farm on the left belongs to a man whose
Speaker 9: grandfather homesteaded the land back in the eighteen fifties. There's
Speaker 9: the house right next to the pepper tree, a nice
Speaker 9: big verandah and a screen door to bang when kids
Speaker 9: run through. But there on the veranda porch a hand
Speaker 9: lettered sign farm for sale. Why are they selling? They
Speaker 9: can't compete against the big farm combines with their costly
Speaker 9: equipment and corporate management and all the rest. And where
Speaker 9: are they going to the cities where they will melt?
Speaker 9: In with the other dispossessed and never feel at home again.
Speaker 9: As long as they live where, they'll forget the seasons
Speaker 9: and the soil, and forget that things are born new
Speaker 9: in their season and die in their season, and that
Speaker 9: this is the way life should be. They'll forget, but worse,
Speaker 9: their children will never know.
Speaker 5: Really, Miss Scratch, I think your romanticizing life on a farm.
Speaker 6: Life on a farm is a hard life.
Speaker 8: And life in a city is an easy life.
Speaker 7: Yes, well, let's move on.
Speaker 6: Ugh.
Speaker 1: Miss Scratch is the worst. Her voice is annoying. She's
Speaker 1: both naive and condescending, and the big booming voices of
Speaker 1: the men who know things get to sort of end
Speaker 1: her rant with an eye roll and a move on.
Speaker 1: Next up, airplanes and air travel. The businessman mister Merritt
Speaker 1: bit on the nose there anyway. Mister Merritt talks about
Speaker 1: the amazing innovation of flight and how air travel opens
Speaker 1: up the world and improves relations between different peoples. Then
Speaker 1: Miss Scratch comes in like a wet blanket to point
Speaker 1: out that planes are used for war and that back
Speaker 1: home in America they're noisy and polluting.
Speaker 9: The air jets are fouling, the air and assaulting our
Speaker 9: ears with noise, and it's contributing to the acceleration of
Speaker 9: our lives so that we think we've got to get everywhere.
Speaker 8: In a hurry.
Speaker 1: She is Queen Buzzkill. What this little skit also does
Speaker 1: throughout is underscore the idea that there are two sides
Speaker 1: to every story, and that there are always trade offs
Speaker 1: between progress and nature. Even the characters' names kind of
Speaker 1: underscore this, this idea that there always has to be
Speaker 1: this quote unquote balance between the two sides. Mss Scratch
Speaker 1: and mister Merritt with him tallying up all the good
Speaker 1: things that industry has brought and her pointing out the downsides.
Speaker 1: When we get to automotive, it really jumps out.
Speaker 5: The automobile is an incredible convenience to the average American
Speaker 5: in his everyday life. For parents getting to work, running
Speaker 5: down to the store, picking up the kids, and for
Speaker 5: the kids themselves, going on vacation trips, going on dates.
Speaker 5: Almost everything we Americans do involves the automobile in some way.
Speaker 5: Don't forget that most of us took a quick ride
Speaker 5: in a car on our way to being born.
Speaker 7: Miss Scratch. Anything on the debit side, for the automotive industry.
Speaker 9: Mister Merritt reminds us that most of us took a
Speaker 9: quick ride in a car on our way to being born.
Speaker 9: May I remind you that many of us will take
Speaker 9: a quick ride in a.
Speaker 8: Car to our death.
Speaker 9: More than fifty five thousand deaths each year in automobile crashes.
Speaker 9: It's true that horses used to kick their owners in
Speaker 9: the shins now, and then what fifty five thousand deaths?
Speaker 7: Anything further?
Speaker 8: Miss, scratch you bet.
Speaker 9: Automobiles contribute their pollutants to our air. Air that's getting
Speaker 9: so foul it threatens to choke the life of our cities.
Speaker 9: Ugly concrete scars striped across our land, mountains sliced, and
Speaker 9: meadows defiled for highways and freeways so that people can
Speaker 9: go tearing mindlessly from one place to another. And then
Speaker 9: on our vacation we get in our car and drive
Speaker 9: a long way to reach those beautiful places we'd probably
Speaker 9: still have all around us if we'd never even had
Speaker 9: the automobile.
Speaker 7: Anything further, Well.
Speaker 9: None of this mentions the fact that mister Merritt's average
Speaker 9: family is burdened down by car payments, upkeep insurance.
Speaker 6: Well as far as that goes.
Speaker 5: The automotive industry itself contributes to millions of paychecks. It's
Speaker 5: provided employment that has helped to build our economy and
Speaker 5: consumer economy with the highest standard of living in the world.
Speaker 8: Every house with its share of worthless.
Speaker 6: Junks, every family freed from grudgery, junk.
Speaker 9: That wears out as soon as possible, so they have
Speaker 9: to go out and buy another one or two.
Speaker 6: Time for recreation, time.
Speaker 9: Spent sitting at a baseball game or a football game,
Speaker 9: or in front of the television set, a nation full of.
Speaker 6: Spectation time for the family.
Speaker 8: Six hundred thousand divorces.
Speaker 6: Every time, friend and enjoying life.
Speaker 8: More than twenty thousand suicides.
Speaker 5: A year, Miss Scratch. Would you give up your automobile?
Speaker 5: Would you give up your standard of living? Would you
Speaker 5: prefer to live like an Australian aborigine without even a
Speaker 5: vessel to carry water in and a lifespan of thirty years?
Speaker 1: That last bit is the exact talking point that still
Speaker 1: gets lobbed at climate activists today. Do you want to
Speaker 1: give up your car, or your iPhone or your computer?
Speaker 1: If not, better not say a word about climate change,
Speaker 1: or you're just a hypocrite. Seems to me it's time
Speaker 1: to rethink what it means to be an environmentalist or
Speaker 1: a climate activist, to reject the framing of the fossil
Speaker 1: fuel industry, to stop reacting to that frame and instead
Speaker 1: define it for ourselves. In fact, reframing that identity might
Speaker 1: even be part of a larger climate solution. Here's Tarahawska again.
Speaker 4: That connectivity that needs to happen. It needs to happen
Speaker 4: between every human being and nature. I think we'd be
Speaker 4: a lot further along in that conversation if we were
Speaker 4: accepting of that as a solution and also creating space
Speaker 4: for it to really be heard.
Speaker 1: That's it for this time. Thanks as always for listening.
Speaker 1: I'm in the process of digitizing a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: the standard school broadcast records and I will make those
Speaker 1: available online in the coming weeks at drillednews dot com,
Speaker 1: so keep an eye out for that. Big thanks to
Speaker 1: this week's new Patreon supporters, Simon Bennett and mar Sell Boma.
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