WEBVTT - Redefining Environmentalists 0:00:00.520 --> 0:00:04.280 For more than fifty years, Corporate America and its PR 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:09.840 firms have worked really hard to brand environmentalists alternately as 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:17.000 dangerous radicals or silly idealists, rubes who romanticize farming and 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:22.840 yearn for that most ridiculous goal, pristine nature. 0:00:23.600 --> 0:00:27.360 The idea of the Provice of Christinas is this idea 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:31.440 that everyone who is arguing to protect human health, who 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:35.080 is arguing to protect people's water supplies, the quality of 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:42.400 their air, is really only focused on protecting protecting Christine 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.760 places for their view, for the enjoyment of select number 0:00:45.800 --> 0:00:46.280 of people. 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.720 That's Carol Muffett, President and CEO of the Center for 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:54.760 International Environmental Law. In our series with Earther last year, 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.240 the ABC's of Big Oil, about the fossil fuel industry's 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:03.000 influence in schools, Carol walked us through a presentation he 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.600 unearthed that laid out the importance of shaping the public's 0:01:06.640 --> 0:01:10.880 opinions about the oil industry and about environmental issues. 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.240 This is at the heart of the industry's efforts to 0:01:14.360 --> 0:01:19.320 paint environmentalists as a special interest. And you know, those 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:24.000 efforts were for a long time, very very effective. But 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.440 the industry was really effective at presenting all of them 0:01:27.840 --> 0:01:31.880 as just environmentalists who were bunny hunters, who were concerned 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:36.319 about trees and monnies and didn't care about people at all. 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:41.000 Reporter Katie Worth, author of the new book Miseducation, brought 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:45.080 us some incredible tape of a fossil fuel lobbyist speaking 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.640 to a middle school class in Arkansas trotting out this 0:01:48.840 --> 0:01:52.200 exact same idea is utilized. 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:57.480 The most important thing here is being healthier, wealthier, happier, 0:01:57.800 --> 0:02:05.560 living longer, or is pristine nature more important? Building new houses, 0:02:06.560 --> 0:02:09.080 stop getting step out of the ground, want to leading 0:02:09.160 --> 0:02:12.600 exactly as it is, because that would be difficult. 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:16.040 The idea that environmentalists just care about polar bears and 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:20.320 trees wasn't all the industry's fault. Of course, there has 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.680 always been certain factions of the environmental and climate movements 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:28.080 who do a better job of advocating for polar bears 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:34.320 than people. But what the industry's education and marketing campaigns 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:38.320 pulled off was framing these two things, humans and nature, 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:44.680 as somehow always separate and mutually exclusive. You can't possibly 0:02:44.760 --> 0:02:48.640 care about people if you care about polar bears. You 0:02:48.680 --> 0:02:52.400 can't possibly care about the poor if you think trees 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:57.040 are cool. Obviously none of that is true. You can 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:01.120 care about both human communities and polar bear just fine. 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.640 This idea that people in nature are separate, or that 0:03:05.720 --> 0:03:09.680 it's shameful in some way to care about nature is 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:14.760 one that climate organizers would do well to reject. Here's 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:19.079 a jibwe attorney and climate activist Tara Hauska. 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:21.680 I think the climate movement does itself a huge disservice 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:28.000 by even trying to condition themselves or allow their conditioning 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:31.280 to continue, that we are somehow separate from nature, that 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.960 nature can be summed up in statistical data and analysis, 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:40.120 and that we are hard knows, you know. Here's the solutions. 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.760 There are tons of examples of ads and campaigns that 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:51.320 underscore the framing of the silly, unrealistic, elitist environmentalist. Today, 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:53.600 we're going to look at one that I uncovered recently 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.120 and just can't stop thinking about. It's one of the 0:03:56.160 --> 0:03:59.839 records produced as part of the Standard School Broadcast, which 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:04.840 started in nineteen twenty eight and continued for decades, eventually 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:09.600 becoming the Chevron School Broadcast. This installment, in particular is 0:04:09.640 --> 0:04:15.400 about the Industrial Revolution and introduces an obnoxious counter to 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:22.599 the Progress and Innovation of Industrialists, Ms Scratch, the Environmentalist 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:27.200 and consumer Advocate. This album came out in nineteen seventy two, 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.880 so a few years after Rachel Carson and Ralph Nader 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:36.839 started to make the issues of public health and environmental 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:41.839 conservation a big deal. It would have played in hundreds 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:46.400 of schools throughout the Western United States throughout the seventies. 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:52.120 In a series of vignettes, a baritone captain of industry 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:56.000 regales listeners with tales of all the amazing innovations that 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:00.960 American industry has gifted the world. And then here comes 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:05.960 Miss Scratch, shrill and lecturing to rain on the parade. 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.320 It's so similar to how environmentalists are still depicted today 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.400 that I think it's worth a closer book that's coming 0:05:14.480 --> 0:05:29.560 up right after this quick break. So most of this 0:05:29.680 --> 0:05:33.400 record is one long skit, and the basic premise is 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:35.960 that a businessman has been asked by his boss to 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:40.159 give a thorough accounting of America's contributions to global industry. 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:45.680 He starts with the a's agriculture. 0:05:45.480 --> 0:05:48.160 Right without mechanized agriculture, There's some doubt that the Middle 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:52.760 West could ever have been opened up without slavery. That is, indeed, 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.719 the reaper may have served the cause of abolition. And 0:05:55.839 --> 0:05:59.560 throughout the years, our vast agricultural expansion hasn't benefited the 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:00.960 United States alone. 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:02.640 For example, right after. 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:06.360 World Wars one and two, US agriculture virtually kept Europe alive. 0:06:07.560 --> 0:06:10.159 And you, miss Scratch, you've heard all of these benefits 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.520 of mechanized agriculture. Have you anything to say against this 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:14.560 remarkable achievement? 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:15.359 Yes I have. 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:20.599 Look there, please the entry for nineteen thirty four, look 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:26.279 across the plains and see Oklahoma blowing away, the dust 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:31.840 bowl worked to death and left to blow away, or 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:33.560 this entry more recent. 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:36.080 Follow me down this country road. 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:39.039 The farm on the left belongs to a man whose 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:43.119 grandfather homesteaded the land back in the eighteen fifties. There's 0:06:43.160 --> 0:06:46.520 the house right next to the pepper tree, a nice 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:49.640 big verandah and a screen door to bang when kids 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:53.440 run through. But there on the veranda porch a hand 0:06:53.480 --> 0:06:58.520 lettered sign farm for sale. Why are they selling? They 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:02.000 can't compete against the big farm combines with their costly 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:06.040 equipment and corporate management and all the rest. And where 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:09.800 are they going to the cities where they will melt? 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:13.280 In with the other dispossessed and never feel at home again. 0:07:13.320 --> 0:07:16.960 As long as they live where, they'll forget the seasons 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:21.080 and the soil, and forget that things are born new 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.920 in their season and die in their season, and that 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:29.840 this is the way life should be. They'll forget, but worse, 0:07:30.520 --> 0:07:32.280 their children will never know. 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:36.320 Really, Miss Scratch, I think your romanticizing life on a farm. 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:38.600 Life on a farm is a hard life. 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.440 And life in a city is an easy life. 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:41.920 Yes, well, let's move on. 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:43.560 Ugh. 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:48.080 Miss Scratch is the worst. Her voice is annoying. She's 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:53.240 both naive and condescending, and the big booming voices of 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:56.680 the men who know things get to sort of end 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.400 her rant with an eye roll and a move on. 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:04.920 Next up, airplanes and air travel. The businessman mister Merritt 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:08.760 bit on the nose there anyway. Mister Merritt talks about 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:13.160 the amazing innovation of flight and how air travel opens 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:18.480 up the world and improves relations between different peoples. Then 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:21.640 Miss Scratch comes in like a wet blanket to point 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:27.200 out that planes are used for war and that back 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.600 home in America they're noisy and polluting. 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:34.320 The air jets are fouling, the air and assaulting our 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:37.720 ears with noise, and it's contributing to the acceleration of 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:41.040 our lives so that we think we've got to get everywhere. 0:08:40.480 --> 0:08:41.120 In a hurry. 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:47.560 She is Queen Buzzkill. What this little skit also does 0:08:47.679 --> 0:08:51.040 throughout is underscore the idea that there are two sides 0:08:51.040 --> 0:08:54.080 to every story, and that there are always trade offs 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:59.040 between progress and nature. Even the characters' names kind of 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.520 underscore this, this idea that there always has to be 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:07.400 this quote unquote balance between the two sides. Mss Scratch 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:11.520 and mister Merritt with him tallying up all the good 0:09:11.559 --> 0:09:15.960 things that industry has brought and her pointing out the downsides. 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.640 When we get to automotive, it really jumps out. 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.480 The automobile is an incredible convenience to the average American 0:09:24.520 --> 0:09:28.400 in his everyday life. For parents getting to work, running 0:09:28.400 --> 0:09:30.920 down to the store, picking up the kids, and for 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:34.440 the kids themselves, going on vacation trips, going on dates. 0:09:35.160 --> 0:09:38.720 Almost everything we Americans do involves the automobile in some way. 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:41.199 Don't forget that most of us took a quick ride 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:43.000 in a car on our way to being born. 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:47.000 Miss Scratch. Anything on the debit side, for the automotive industry. 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.400 Mister Merritt reminds us that most of us took a 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:51.640 quick ride in a car on our way to being born. 0:09:52.559 --> 0:09:55.040 May I remind you that many of us will take 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:56.079 a quick ride in a. 0:09:56.080 --> 0:09:57.240 Car to our death. 0:10:01.480 --> 0:10:07.280 More than fifty five thousand deaths each year in automobile crashes. 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:10.800 It's true that horses used to kick their owners in 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:32.960 the shins now, and then what fifty five thousand deaths? 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:35.720 Anything further? 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:36.959 Miss, scratch you bet. 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:42.200 Automobiles contribute their pollutants to our air. Air that's getting 0:10:42.240 --> 0:10:45.560 so foul it threatens to choke the life of our cities. 0:10:46.200 --> 0:10:52.000 Ugly concrete scars striped across our land, mountains sliced, and 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:56.560 meadows defiled for highways and freeways so that people can 0:10:56.600 --> 0:11:01.720 go tearing mindlessly from one place to another. And then 0:11:02.280 --> 0:11:06.120 on our vacation we get in our car and drive 0:11:06.240 --> 0:11:10.520 a long way to reach those beautiful places we'd probably 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.360 still have all around us if we'd never even had 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:14.200 the automobile. 0:11:14.800 --> 0:11:17.000 Anything further, Well. 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.120 None of this mentions the fact that mister Merritt's average 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:24.880 family is burdened down by car payments, upkeep insurance. 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:25.280 Well as far as that goes. 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:29.319 The automotive industry itself contributes to millions of paychecks. It's 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:32.120 provided employment that has helped to build our economy and 0:11:32.200 --> 0:11:35.720 consumer economy with the highest standard of living in the world. 0:11:35.760 --> 0:11:38.440 Every house with its share of worthless. 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:41.040 Junks, every family freed from grudgery, junk. 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.439 That wears out as soon as possible, so they have 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:45.440 to go out and buy another one or two. 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:47.679 Time for recreation, time. 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.199 Spent sitting at a baseball game or a football game, 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:55.040 or in front of the television set, a nation full of. 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:57.200 Spectation time for the family. 0:11:57.480 --> 0:11:59.440 Six hundred thousand divorces. 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:01.400 Every time, friend and enjoying life. 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:03.920 More than twenty thousand suicides. 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:08.080 A year, Miss Scratch. Would you give up your automobile? 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:12.199 Would you give up your standard of living? Would you 0:12:12.240 --> 0:12:15.120 prefer to live like an Australian aborigine without even a 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:18.200 vessel to carry water in and a lifespan of thirty years? 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:24.520 That last bit is the exact talking point that still 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:28.800 gets lobbed at climate activists today. Do you want to 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:33.120 give up your car, or your iPhone or your computer? 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:36.840 If not, better not say a word about climate change, 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:40.720 or you're just a hypocrite. Seems to me it's time 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.840 to rethink what it means to be an environmentalist or 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:48.439 a climate activist, to reject the framing of the fossil 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:53.600 fuel industry, to stop reacting to that frame and instead 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:59.280 define it for ourselves. In fact, reframing that identity might 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:04.119 even be part of a larger climate solution. Here's Tarahawska again. 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:09.480 That connectivity that needs to happen. It needs to happen 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:16.800 between every human being and nature. I think we'd be 0:13:16.800 --> 0:13:18.880 a lot further along in that conversation if we were 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:23.600 accepting of that as a solution and also creating space 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:24.959 for it to really be heard. 0:13:39.559 --> 0:13:42.559 That's it for this time. Thanks as always for listening. 0:13:42.880 --> 0:13:46.000 I'm in the process of digitizing a whole bunch of 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:49.240 the standard school broadcast records and I will make those 0:13:49.280 --> 0:13:54.200 available online in the coming weeks at drillednews dot com, 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.920 so keep an eye out for that. 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