Speaker 1: Hadrid listeners were back. They took a long break there
Speaker 1: to work on reporting the next season, and because pandemic
Speaker 1: parenting makes work hard, this month we'll be releasing a
Speaker 1: few bonus episodes and next month we'll get into our
Speaker 1: next narrative season. And it's a long history of the
Speaker 1: gas industry, including the fracking boom, how that fed into
Speaker 1: a plastics boom, and the many crazy tactics the industry
Speaker 1: has used and continues to use to pain itself as
Speaker 1: a clean energy solution. Make sure you're subscribed so you
Speaker 1: don't miss that. Also, a quick update on last season.
Speaker 1: In the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York
Speaker 1: just ruled in Stephen Donziger's favor on at least some
Speaker 1: of the civil contempt charges he was facing. If you
Speaker 1: don't have any idea what I'm talking about, go back
Speaker 1: and listen to season five, all about the long Chevron
Speaker 1: Ecuador case. It's been going on for more than thirty years.
Speaker 1: Donziger is still going to trial on criminal contempt charges,
Speaker 1: and we'll have a longer update on all of that
Speaker 1: for you soon, but this is a small win for him.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking to Stanford researcher Ben Fronta, you might
Speaker 1: remember from season one. Fronta studies the history of science,
Speaker 1: and we spoke with him last time about how much
Speaker 1: oil money is funding climate research centers at university campuses
Speaker 1: all over the country. Today, I invited him on to
Speaker 1: share a really big recent discovery that I don't think
Speaker 1: has gotten nearly enough attention about how early the American
Speaker 1: Petroleum Institute knew about climate change and importantly started messaging
Speaker 1: against climate action that started happening in nineteen eighty. According
Speaker 1: to some new stuff that Fronta has dug up, that's
Speaker 1: way earlier than people previously thought. The American Petroleum Institute is,
Speaker 1: of course, the trade group for the oil and gas industry.
Speaker 1: It's been around for more than one hundred years and
Speaker 1: was the brainchild of one of our mad men from
Speaker 1: season three, Ivy Ledbetter Lee, the longtime publicist for the
Speaker 1: Rockefellers and Standard Oil. So you know, no big surprise
Speaker 1: that they were in on climate denial early. That conversation
Speaker 1: coming up right after this quick break.
Speaker 2: So my name is Ben Fronta, and I'm a jdphd
Speaker 2: student at Stanford University. The PhD part of my life
Speaker 2: is about the history of climate science. So I do
Speaker 2: research on the history of climate science in general and
Speaker 2: what fossil fuel companies knew about climate change.
Speaker 1: Awesome, And you recently published something about a policy booklet
Speaker 1: you found published by the American Petroleum Institute in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty Can you explain a little bit about what that
Speaker 1: is how you found it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, So I found this while doing archival research
Speaker 2: at the University of Wyoming that's in Laramie, and it's
Speaker 2: a policy book published by the American Petroleum Institute, and
Speaker 2: I believe it is the earliest known climate disinformation from
Speaker 2: the API. And of course, you know, the API is
Speaker 2: really the nerve center of the US oil and gas industry,
Speaker 2: so all the major players of the industry were members
Speaker 2: of it, including Exxon and Chevron, as well as the
Speaker 2: European companies like UPNHL.
Speaker 1: Right, this was super interesting to me when I was
Speaker 1: reading it because one of the Exon guys that I interviewed,
Speaker 1: this guy, Richard Werthemer, said that he, you know, he
Speaker 1: was at Exon during this time period, I think from
Speaker 1: like seventy nine to eighty two or eighty three, and
Speaker 1: he said that that he had suspected that like the
Speaker 1: big shift in the industry was kind of orchestrated through
Speaker 1: the API, and that you know, Exon had a lot
Speaker 1: of power there, but also the API had a lot
Speaker 1: of power throughout the industry. So anyway, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's interesting to see how they were starting
Speaker 1: to talk about the issue in nineteen eighty So what
Speaker 1: was like kind of the big the big finding for
Speaker 1: you in this what was was there anything surprising?
Speaker 2: Well? I was surprised because previously, the conventional wisdom about
Speaker 2: climate disinformation was that it arose around nineteen eighty nine,
Speaker 2: and that's when the fossil fuel industry created the Global
Speaker 2: Climate Coalition and groups like the Martial Institute began pushing
Speaker 2: out climate disinformation into the public sphere, you know, And
Speaker 2: this conventional wisdom led to a sort of question in
Speaker 2: historical circles because you know, as you've talked about on
Speaker 2: your podcast, companies like Exxon and the API were doing
Speaker 2: in house research and monitoring of climate science since at
Speaker 2: least the late nineteen seventies. So there was this question
Speaker 2: of were these companies initially supportive of climate science and
Speaker 2: then did they move to denial only later? And that
Speaker 2: question in that narrative, for example, was an important part
Speaker 2: of the New York Times magazine article Losing Earth, which
Speaker 2: was very popular, and it largely absolved the fossil fuel
Speaker 2: industry of climate and action throughout the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it kind of made it all about human nature, right,
Speaker 1: that's right, I know.
Speaker 2: And so this, this discovery shows that that narrative was mistaken. Now,
Speaker 2: of course, you know that narrative fit the information that
Speaker 2: was available at the time, or at least a lot
Speaker 2: of it. But now we know more, and it turns
Speaker 2: out that even as the industry was doing climate research internally,
Speaker 2: it was also promoting this false and misleading information about
Speaker 2: global warming to the public.
Speaker 1: That's super interesting. Maybe I'll have you read a couple
Speaker 1: of the more I don't know, like some of the
Speaker 1: lines that really try to convey doubt about the about
Speaker 1: the science of global warming.
Speaker 2: Sure, so the America Petroleum Institute, and I think this
Speaker 2: is also significant. It acknowledged in this document that CO
Speaker 2: two was a pollutant. It says when coal or any
Speaker 2: other fossil fuel is burned, carbon dioxide emissions occur. In itself,
Speaker 2: carbon dioxide is harmless. Nature itself is a major source. However,
Speaker 2: some scientists believe that large concentrations of carbon dioxide in
Speaker 2: the atmosphere can in time cause climatic changes, specifically higher
Speaker 2: temperatures worldwide, the quote unquote greenhouse effect. You know, even there, you.
Speaker 1: See some of these scientists believe, believe good one, good one, api.
Speaker 2: Exactly, but it goes on and it says other scientists
Speaker 2: are more sanguine or optimistic about the presence of carbon
Speaker 2: dioxide in the atmosphere. Some scientists, including doctor Carl Sagan
Speaker 2: Cornell University astronomer, see a cooling phenomenon as counteracting the
Speaker 2: greenhouse effect. So when I saw that, I was very interested, because,
Speaker 2: of course Carl Stagen is very famous astronomer and a
Speaker 2: public communicator about science, and he actually wrote about his
Speaker 2: worry comes deep concern about global warming in books like Cosmos,
Speaker 2: which I think was also from around nineteen eighty, and
Speaker 2: in that book he wrote, the service environment of Venus
Speaker 2: is a warning something disastrous can happen to a planet
Speaker 2: rather like our own. The carbon dioxide content of the
Speaker 2: Earth's atmosphere is increasing dramatically, and the possibility of a
Speaker 2: runaway greenhouse effect suggests that we have to be careful.
Speaker 2: Even a one or two degree rise in the global
Speaker 2: temperature can have catastrophic consequences.
Speaker 1: Wow. So that is the same exact year, nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: and it is not at all how the API is
Speaker 1: presenting it. Still not at all. Wow.
Speaker 2: So you know, that's one example of the of the
Speaker 2: misleading presentation about climate science that was given by the
Speaker 2: API to the public. And that's sort of a that's
Speaker 2: a classic technique portraying the scientific community as being more split,
Speaker 2: more divided on the issue than it actually is, and
Speaker 2: that of course became a staple of climate denial and
Speaker 2: deflecting attention away from fossil fuels for decades to come.
Speaker 1: That's super super interesting. What is this World Coal Study
Speaker 1: that you mentioned in this in this article.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is another another technique of climate it denial,
Speaker 2: and really something that the fossil fuel industry does fairly
Speaker 2: regularly is to point to studies that look like they're
Speaker 2: done independently by by scientists, by third parties, that apparently
Speaker 2: support the position of the industry. And in this booklet
Speaker 2: we have the exact same phenomenon. So the API pointed
Speaker 2: to something here called the World Coal Study, which was
Speaker 2: actually largely funded and even carried out by representatives of
Speaker 2: fossil fuel groups, but it was organized by a professor
Speaker 2: at MIT, so it looked credible from the outside.
Speaker 1: And MIT always taken that sweet spot money.
Speaker 2: Yes, and that study which that study came out in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two or nineteen eighty as well. So that
Speaker 2: study also came out in nineteen eighty and it called
Speaker 2: for a tripling of worldwide coal production by the year
Speaker 2: two thousand, and it simply asserted that this would have
Speaker 2: no serious consequences for human health or for the environment. Wow,
Speaker 2: which is a rather laughable conclusion.
Speaker 1: This was like around the same time that people were
Speaker 1: trying to make the argument that CO two emissions would
Speaker 1: grow more plants on the planet too.
Speaker 2: That's right, This is about when that argument arose. And
Speaker 2: I want to just note that this World Coal study,
Speaker 2: even though we might think that its conclusions really make
Speaker 2: no sense, it was actually quite influential. So the director
Speaker 2: of that study, that was MIT business professor Carol Wilson.
Speaker 2: He lobbied the Carter administration and with using the study
Speaker 2: WOW to double coal production by nineteen ninety the which
Speaker 2: was actually adopted and it became official G seven policy
Speaker 2: that the G seven countries are the United States, the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan,
Speaker 2: and Canada. That became official G seven policy in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty one.
Speaker 1: Wow. Wow, I love this quote from him that you
Speaker 1: have too, where he's describing his year as having spent
Speaker 1: the last year peddling coal all over the.
Speaker 2: What a glorious year that was.
Speaker 1: Wow. That's yeah, that's really that's really interesting. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about this industry wide task force
Speaker 1: that API had created sort of the year before as well.
Speaker 1: I know that Nila Banerji wrote about that a few
Speaker 1: years back, but just to kind of orient people in
Speaker 1: this time period again.
Speaker 2: That's right. So you know, this nineteen eighty document shows
Speaker 2: what the API was telling the public about climate change,
Speaker 2: and we can compare that to the internal memos that
Speaker 2: the API had at the time. And one of the
Speaker 2: most important groups in the API related to climate change
Speaker 2: was this task Force on CO two and Climate And
Speaker 2: really what this was was a group to monitor climate
Speaker 2: science and developments, and it had representatives on it from
Speaker 2: the major oil companies who were members of the API,
Speaker 2: from BP, from Exxon and so on. And one of
Speaker 2: the bombshell documents that we have so far is the
Speaker 2: meeting minutes of a presentation given to that task force
Speaker 2: by a researcher from Stanford University about climate change. And
Speaker 2: this was from around the same time, so this presentation
Speaker 2: was from nineteen eighty and during this presentation the person
Speaker 2: presenting his name was John Lawerman. He was an engineer
Speaker 2: from Stanford University. He talked about the likely impacts of
Speaker 2: fossil fuels if they continued to be developed as they were,
Speaker 2: and one of the slides says one of the slides says,
Speaker 2: a one degree rise would happen by two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: but it would be barely noticeable. A two and a
Speaker 2: half degree rise would happen by twenty thirty eight, and
Speaker 2: that would have major economic consequences and would be strongly
Speaker 2: regionally dependent on where you were in the world. And
Speaker 2: then a five degree rise would happen by twenty sixty seven,
Speaker 2: and that would have globally catastrophic effects. And you know,
Speaker 2: of course we have already seen about a one degree rise,
Speaker 2: so this is fairly on track. But this shows that
Speaker 2: by nineteen eighty the API had actually been directly warned
Speaker 2: that business as usual would would create these globally catastrophic
Speaker 2: effects within the twenty first century. And yet in this
Speaker 2: policy book, the API is telling the public we need
Speaker 2: to expand fossil fuel production of all kinds oil, gas,
Speaker 2: and coal, because at that time, the oil industry wanted
Speaker 2: a lot of coal production and order to produce synthetic fuels,
Speaker 2: which is liquid fuel made out of coal, and it
Speaker 2: knew that this would lead to a huge amount of
Speaker 2: CO two being put into the atmosphere, and yet it
Speaker 2: told the public that this would be safe, and this
Speaker 2: is essentially the opposite of what the group had just
Speaker 2: been warned about that very year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting, especially interesting given that, you know, the
Speaker 1: API has been named in Minnesota's climate fraud lawsuit. So
Speaker 1: it'll be interesting to see how some of this stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, plays into that and also what else they
Speaker 1: might find when I guess it's if, but when they
Speaker 1: get to discovery in that case, Yeah, that.
Speaker 2: Will be very interesting. Yeah. When I see this, this false,
Speaker 2: misleading information coming from the API nineteen eighty, it tells
Speaker 2: me that at that time the industry wasn't just paying
Speaker 2: close attention to climate science through its internal task force,
Speaker 2: but it was also actively intervening to prevent climate from
Speaker 2: being fully considered in public policy, even at that time,
Speaker 2: and that suggests that this sort of approach of denial
Speaker 2: and deception was the first instinct, if you want to
Speaker 2: think about it that way, of the petroleum industry as
Speaker 2: the climate policy grew in the public eye. So you know,
Speaker 2: even in the early eighties, from the very earliest days
Speaker 2: of climate as a policy matter, the industry was already
Speaker 2: poisoning the well, if you want to use that phrase.
Speaker 2: And this means there may not have been a time
Speaker 2: when climate policy discussion were free from the influence of
Speaker 2: disinformation from the industry. It might have always been corrupted
Speaker 2: if disinformation was being put out there this early.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do feel like it's really important to understand
Speaker 1: sort of how the public's understanding and politicians understanding of
Speaker 1: climate science was shaped in those early years when you know,
Speaker 1: oil companies were doing some research.
Speaker 2: You know, if we think about this, you know, this
Speaker 2: is nineteen eighty and that might seem like a long
Speaker 2: time ago, and in some ways it is a long
Speaker 2: time ago. But because energy infrastructure lasts for so long,
Speaker 2: the things that happened in nineteen eighty still have direct
Speaker 2: impacts today energy decisions, like if you build a refinery
Speaker 2: or a coal plant or pipeline that's going to last
Speaker 2: for sometimes fifty years or more. This sort of disinformation
Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty and of course ever since then, has actual,
Speaker 2: real material effects on how much global warming we experience
Speaker 2: now and in the future, and therefore how much damage occurs.
Speaker 2: So even though this is in the past, decades in
Speaker 2: the past, in a very real sense, it is causing
Speaker 2: us harm today. And you know, that's just that's I think,
Speaker 2: you know, an unfortunate aspect of it. But it's also
Speaker 2: why it's so important that we figure out what happened
Speaker 2: us we can correct it totally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because well it's so it's frustrating to see the
Speaker 1: same thing get repeated in so many ways now, you know,
Speaker 1: or even I was talking to someone earlier today who
Speaker 1: is like, Wow, all of a sudden, it seems like
Speaker 1: disinformation is such a big thing, And I'm like, it's
Speaker 1: not all of a sudden, though, it's been That's like,
Speaker 1: because because this whole machine has been built for like
Speaker 1: one hundred years, right, that's right, we need to understand that.
Speaker 1: And I my big soapbox recently is that I really
Speaker 1: think the media needs to take a hard look at
Speaker 1: itself and its role in all of this stuff and
Speaker 1: ways that it can inoculate itself and the public against
Speaker 1: more of it.
Speaker 2: That's absolutely right, Yeah, because you know, as you've talked
Speaker 2: about it in your podcast, some of these techniques of
Speaker 2: mass manipulation, you know, are very old and they're commonly
Speaker 2: used between different industries. Techniques like the third party technique
Speaker 2: where you you know, falsely ascribe essentially your own position
Speaker 2: to a group that looks like it's independent from you,
Speaker 2: but it's actually not. You know, that's just one example.
Speaker 2: But but these sort of pr techniques, they're very common,
Speaker 2: and it's amazing how how common they are once you
Speaker 2: learn about them, and you know, you have a whole
Speaker 2: season about that, and it's one of the best resources
Speaker 2: about that topic. But I think it would be you know,
Speaker 2: amazing for for the media to develop a closer familiarity
Speaker 2: with all that.
Speaker 1: That's it for this time. Big thanks to Ben Fronta
Speaker 1: for joining us. I will drop links in the show
Speaker 1: notes to his research on this subject and the documents
Speaker 1: that he was able to find. Come back next next
Speaker 1: week we'll be talking about a new report that had
Speaker 1: the oil and gas guys all up in arms. It
Speaker 1: found that, surprise, all those jobs that the fracking industry
Speaker 1: was supposed to deliver never really materialized. Come back for
Speaker 1: that and we'll see you too. Drilled is an original
Speaker 1: production of Critical Frequency. It's reported and produced by me
Speaker 1: Amy Westervelt. Our music is composed by b Beeman, David Whited,
Speaker 1: and Martin Wissenberg. You can find us online at drillednews
Speaker 1: dot com, where you'll find transcripts and related documents for
Speaker 1: podcast episodes, as well as more climate accountability reporting. You
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