Speaker 1: Welcome back to Drill. I'm Amy Westerveldt Darna Nor from
Speaker 1: Arthur and I are still working on pulling together another
Speaker 1: episode for our education series around what can be done
Speaker 1: about this problem of the fossil fuel industry infiltrating schools.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I wanted to bring you the extended
Speaker 1: version of my interview with Ben Fronta, the Stanford University
Speaker 1: researcher we heard from last time, who discovered how much
Speaker 1: fossil fuel interests we're shaping our understanding of economics in
Speaker 1: this country. Ben got into a lot more detail about
Speaker 1: things that he has seen at the university level. I
Speaker 1: think you'll find it interesting that conversation is coming up
Speaker 1: right after this quick break. This episode is supported by
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Speaker 1: thanks to Degrees for their support. I was super interested
Speaker 1: to read your paper because actually Darna and I were
Speaker 1: just saying, wow, like I was pulling together a list
Speaker 1: of you know, all of the things that either fossil
Speaker 1: fuel companies or you know, sort of foundations that have
Speaker 1: represented them or their interests are investing in at universities,
Speaker 1: and you know, there's so many of these economics research
Speaker 1: chairs and economic centers and whatever that I was like,
Speaker 1: I feel like we need to find we need to like,
Speaker 1: you know, dig into the ways that they're trying to
Speaker 1: shape people's understanding of the economy and how it works.
Speaker 1: And then I found actually in the Newsome archives this
Speaker 1: insane like cross industry strategy with like confidential stamps all
Speaker 1: over it that was like in as World War Two
Speaker 1: was about to end, all of these it was like
Speaker 1: Standard Oil, GM, General Electric. I can't remember what the
Speaker 1: other ones were, but they were all freaking out, maybe
Speaker 1: Ford about that. Not that you know, they were going
Speaker 1: to have a decline in sales because the government wasn't buying.
Speaker 3: Stuff from them anymore.
Speaker 1: They were worried that Americans, because the government had done
Speaker 1: such a good job of running everything during World War Two,
Speaker 1: that Americans would turn away from the idea of free enterprise.
Speaker 1: Oh and they were like, this is the number one
Speaker 1: problem facing every industry, like all hands on deck.
Speaker 2: So yeah, the problem was that the government was too
Speaker 2: competent based on and they didn't like how that looked. Yes,
Speaker 2: that's so interesting.
Speaker 1: They were like, uh, oh, Americans might have actually really
Speaker 1: enjoyed this competent government over the last few years. You know.
Speaker 3: I think it's only.
Speaker 2: A matter of time before the more you learn, the
Speaker 2: more you start to suspect that corporations have controlled your
Speaker 2: entire perception of reality from like the moment you're born. Yes,
Speaker 2: oh my god, what is even real?
Speaker 4: It is so disturbing, and I also just.
Speaker 1: You just yeah, you just see so many of the
Speaker 1: talking points that you still see today, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of being I don't know, being dreampt up and and
Speaker 1: sent out back then.
Speaker 2: Well it's so you know, the the PR techniques, they're
Speaker 2: so smart and going like one or more steps above
Speaker 2: the level of just the thing they're trying to sell
Speaker 2: in terms of awareness, and like my.
Speaker 1: Fav like, they shaped the context, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's sort of like yeah, I mean, don't sell don't
Speaker 2: don't sell water, put people in a desert, right right.
Speaker 2: I think my favorite example was in that propaganda book,
Speaker 2: Brene's talks about when he worked for like the piano industry,
Speaker 2: and he's instead of putting ads for pianos into like magazines,
Speaker 2: he's like, I went to architecture magazines and got them
Speaker 2: to like from highlight and talk about these celebrities homes
Speaker 2: that had a music room in them, Wow, the piano
Speaker 2: room in them. And then that became like the defined
Speaker 2: as like the American dream sort of like you needed
Speaker 2: to have a music room, need to have a piano room.
Speaker 2: And then it was like people would buy houses with
Speaker 2: a piano room. They didn't know how to play the piano,
Speaker 2: but they were like, now we need to get a
Speaker 2: piano for the piano room. But they never even had
Speaker 2: to advertise pianos. Yeah, it was like what, like, it's
Speaker 2: so I mean, it's just so smart.
Speaker 3: It's so smart.
Speaker 1: I can't remember where I read this, if it was
Speaker 1: there or somewhere else. The watch example, the like pocket
Speaker 1: watches and wrist watches.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: Okay, this watch.
Speaker 1: Manufacturer came to him and to help them, like they
Speaker 1: wanted to see if they could break down the gender
Speaker 1: taboo about men wearing wristwatches because apparently at the time,
Speaker 1: it was like if you were a wrist watch, you
Speaker 1: were gay, Like only women wore wristwatches, and like real
Speaker 1: men had pocket watches and whatever.
Speaker 3: And so he commissioned a rapport.
Speaker 1: Who knows if it was like even valid, but he
Speaker 1: commissioned a report like that US soldiers. Well, first he
Speaker 1: was like, who's the most.
Speaker 3: Manly man soldiers?
Speaker 1: And then he was like, okay, US soldiers are getting
Speaker 1: picked off in the trenches when they light a match
Speaker 1: to look at their pocket watch. And so he convinced
Speaker 1: the army to make wristwatches standard issue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there you go.
Speaker 1: It became like a masculine accessory. Just like this guy
Speaker 1: was so smart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was very.
Speaker 1: Much you know, he knew he was smart and like
Speaker 1: really liked being smarter than me.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly. I mean yeah, it's kind of a godlike
Speaker 2: yeah sort of feeling, probably to think that you're shaping
Speaker 2: people's like fundamental perceptions about you know, what's cool, what's
Speaker 2: not cool, what's masculine, what's good, all of that stuff off, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, they're making decisions that they think are
Speaker 2: their own.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, I mean about about you know, like silly
Speaker 4: things like what kind of watch you're going to have,
Speaker 4: but then also about really big things.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the thing that I find so interesting too,
Speaker 1: is it's sort of like the same techniques, whether they're
Speaker 1: trying to sell watches or you know, policy. So I
Speaker 1: was hoping to get you talking about I have I
Speaker 1: think I have you telling me this story a long
Speaker 1: time ago on really bad phone tape.
Speaker 3: But when you were at Harvard and you.
Speaker 1: Realized that the Harvard Kennedy School had a lot of
Speaker 1: fossil fuel funding, and I think it was you that
Speaker 1: said that someone didn't want students to talk to reporters
Speaker 1: about having that funding.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so now you're getting into the juicy details. This
Speaker 2: is back yeah, spill the dirt, spill the beans.
Speaker 3: Just kidding.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So this was back when I was a
Speaker 2: grad student at Harvard and I was working at the
Speaker 2: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and you know
Speaker 2: that's in the Kennedy School of Government. The role of
Speaker 2: fossil fuel companies in academia had started to become a
Speaker 2: bigger issue. And this was around probably like twenty fifteen
Speaker 2: or so. For instance, I think you know when the
Speaker 2: Journalist School journalism school at Columbia came out with the
Speaker 2: Exon New Investigation or they started doing some work related
Speaker 2: to that. Then Exxon responded by kind of threatening to
Speaker 2: take away their funding in so many words, and it
Speaker 2: just people became more and more interested in you know,
Speaker 2: who's who's funding these these programs at universities, and you know,
Speaker 2: is it fossil fuel companies? And what kind of pressure
Speaker 2: does that put on those academic programs to do one
Speaker 2: thing or another, or study one thing or another, or
Speaker 2: or not to study something. And I started to look
Speaker 2: into this issue at Harvard, looking at what programs are
Speaker 2: funded by by oil companies, and a lot of the
Speaker 2: programs at the Kennedy School, the Government school to do
Speaker 2: with public policy were funded and as far as I
Speaker 2: still know, as I know, they still are funded by
Speaker 2: big oil companies. You know, for example, I worked at
Speaker 2: the Belfer Center for Science International Affairs. It's one of
Speaker 2: the most influential academic think tanks in the world world,
Speaker 2: and the founder of that founded an oil and gas company.
Speaker 2: That's how he made his fortune to begin with. The
Speaker 2: environmental economics program at Harvard funded by oil companies and
Speaker 2: so on. So it's not just that public policy schools
Speaker 2: are being funded by oil companies. Sometimes it's that the
Speaker 2: programs that are focused on climate or environment or sustainability
Speaker 2: in particular, those are often funded by the oil companies. Now,
Speaker 2: so back to twenty fifteen, so this issue is starting
Speaker 2: to emerge. I'm starting to write about it a little bit,
Speaker 2: and it was seen as a very unpopular thing to do.
Speaker 1: Yes, I have, Yes, I remember you had quite a
Speaker 1: like Twitter kerfuffle happened about this stuff, right, oh.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know, and that was even years later. I
Speaker 2: mean that was, you know, only a few years years ago.
Speaker 2: And you know, at this early stage, it was seen
Speaker 2: as just really uncouth to raise this issue. And I
Speaker 2: even had, you know, professors at the Kennedy School who
Speaker 2: just wouldn't talk to me, you know, I think because
Speaker 2: they were upset that I was writing about the issue.
Speaker 2: But anyway, to get to the main point. Once we
Speaker 2: were called into an all staff meeting for the researchers
Speaker 2: at the Kennedy School in the Belafare Center, and we
Speaker 2: were simply told instructed that, you know, if any journalists
Speaker 2: come to talk to us about you know, oil companies
Speaker 2: funding the research done there, just don't talk to them,
Speaker 2: you know, don't talk to the journalists. We don't want
Speaker 2: you know, we were told that we don't want activists,
Speaker 2: we don't want journalists digging around and and you know,
Speaker 2: finding out that that the programs are being funded by
Speaker 2: oil companies, and I mean when I heard this, I
Speaker 2: you know, I was pretty surprised that that level of
Speaker 2: secrecy was being pursued. I mean, at that time, I
Speaker 2: was mostly working in physics, because that's what my PhD was,
Speaker 2: in applied physics. And you know, often we would get
Speaker 2: funded from all sorts of places, including like Department of Defense,
Speaker 2: sources that you know, not everybody would think are great.
Speaker 2: But regardless, we always advertised and disclosed who was funding
Speaker 2: our research, and we were generally proud of it, but
Speaker 2: we definitely didn't keep it a secret, right And so,
Speaker 2: you know, encountering this secrecy in the public policy space,
Speaker 2: I just thought that was so strange. And of course
Speaker 2: for me, you know, when they said don't talk about
Speaker 2: this thing, you know, I wanted to talk about it.
Speaker 2: My ears bricked up and I was like, you know,
Speaker 2: I was, you know, probably dozing off in the back
Speaker 2: or something, and I like, my you know, I popped
Speaker 2: up alert and I was like, oh, that's something interesting
Speaker 2: is going on. So yeah, you know, and but I
Speaker 2: think it speaks to the broader issue, which is, which is,
Speaker 2: to what degree have has the fossil fuel industry shaped
Speaker 2: very public policy responses and paradigms and ways of thinking
Speaker 2: about climate change as a problem. How has the industry
Speaker 2: shaped those things at the basic level, at the level
Speaker 2: of students learning about them and in universities, you know.
Speaker 2: And I it's the these these questions, you know, as
Speaker 2: we were just talking about, you know, burnets and other
Speaker 2: masters of the craft of public perception, they're not just
Speaker 2: shaped by you know, the final answer that you get
Speaker 2: when you're analyzing a problem. It's shaped by how do
Speaker 2: you even think about the problem in the first place?
Speaker 2: What's the paradigm with through which you are seeing a
Speaker 2: problem defining it? You know, And that's the level that's
Speaker 2: the sort of all encompassing scale where that's relevant for
Speaker 2: when people are learning about these issues in universities, you know,
Speaker 2: among other scales, but that's a really important one. So
Speaker 2: you know, I think, to me, that just speaks to
Speaker 2: that broader issue. And of course I think since then,
Speaker 2: finally now today there's more and more awareness that. Yes,
Speaker 2: especially big oil companies have been very present in these elite,
Speaker 2: very influential academic programs in the social sciences, in the
Speaker 2: policy arena. And the question that's obvious that we should
Speaker 2: ask is what effect has that had, right, What has
Speaker 2: been the influence of decades of funding from these special interests.
Speaker 2: Obviously there's a conflict of interest when these programs are
Speaker 2: meant to defend society against the problems that these companies
Speaker 2: are creating, and yet these programs are dependent on those
Speaker 2: companies to exist. So it's a big issue and I
Speaker 2: you know, I think the time it's more than ripe
Speaker 2: to address it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, can you talk.
Speaker 1: About some of the other places that you have seen
Speaker 1: this come up? I know that there there's kind of
Speaker 1: oil funding at every every really every big universe you
Speaker 1: can think of. But are there other, I guess public
Speaker 1: policy or economics examples that you've found that were that
Speaker 1: were surprising.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, you know, this latest research is a is
Speaker 2: one example some some new research that be out soon
Speaker 2: and by the time this airs might already be out.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It tracks the activity of a group of economic consultants
Speaker 2: who were hired by the petroleum industry for decades to
Speaker 2: produce analyzes that were then used by the companies and
Speaker 2: by others opposing restrictions on fossil fuels to tell the
Speaker 2: public that it would just be way too expensive to
Speaker 2: act on climate and that in any case, climate was
Speaker 2: not going to be a big deal, so the best
Speaker 2: thing to do is just do nothing. And this was
Speaker 2: the economic ammunition that the industry used alongside their scientific
Speaker 2: merchants of doubt. And so if you look back into
Speaker 2: the newspaper record and you know that record of communication
Speaker 2: from the oil companies, they often employed this two pronged
Speaker 2: stress strategy of using the scientific merchants of doubt to
Speaker 2: cast doubt on the science itself. And you know by them,
Speaker 2: I mean the people that people like Naomi Orescus and
Speaker 2: other historians, Eric Conway and other historians have have documented
Speaker 2: and their think tanks like the George Marshall Institute and
Speaker 2: so on. That's the scientific side to litigate the science.
Speaker 2: Then on the economic side, you have the economists hired
Speaker 2: by the patroleum industry often to say it's just way
Speaker 2: too expensive to do anything. And so that's this other
Speaker 2: side that has not been examined as much. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: really it has been allowed to survive. I think because
Speaker 2: it hasn't been examined. It's sort of flown under the radar.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you know when I first noticed this, I was
Speaker 2: really shocked because I first noticed this probably around maybe
Speaker 2: three years ago, and I I was doing you know,
Speaker 2: academic research. One thing I do in my historical research
Speaker 2: is I'll download like the entire online newspaper record. For example,
Speaker 2: I studied the American Petroleum Institute, and so I'll download
Speaker 2: every newspaper article on an online database with the words
Speaker 2: American Patrolling Institute and global warming or climate change in
Speaker 2: their record. You know, that might be you know, a
Speaker 2: few thousand articles, and I'll sort them in chronological order,
Speaker 2: and I'll read all of them just to just to
Speaker 2: get the story, just to see, you know, what are
Speaker 2: their phases of communication, you know, what are the battles
Speaker 2: they're fighting at different times. And I was doing that
Speaker 2: over you know, it takes many days to read that
Speaker 2: much material, but I was doing doing that and I
Speaker 2: noticed that, huh, like these there are these economists that
Speaker 2: keep coming up again and again. Wow, And I was like,
Speaker 2: that's interesting, and this is you know, this was stuff
Speaker 2: from like the early to mid nineteen nineties, so this
Speaker 2: is a while ago. I thought, Oh, I'm sure they're not,
Speaker 2: you know, doing stuff anymore. Then at the same time
Speaker 2: I was doing this research, President Trump announced that the
Speaker 2: US was going to pull out of the Paris Agreement.
Speaker 2: And in his speech, I think this was in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 2: he said that the Paris Agreement was going to cost
Speaker 2: you know, an American family, you know, four thousand dollars
Speaker 2: per year or something like that. You know, it's going
Speaker 2: to cost a lot of money. And I thought, this
Speaker 2: doesn't really make sense, because those parts of the Paris
Speaker 2: Agreement are not legally binding to begin with. I thought,
Speaker 2: who are the economists that are saying this? Who where
Speaker 2: where's this analysis coming from? To give President Trump the
Speaker 2: talking points, you know, to say that in a speech.
Speaker 2: And I looked up the economic analysis that that President
Speaker 2: Trump used and it was the same people. It was
Speaker 2: the same economists that I had that I had noticed.
Speaker 2: We're working on these things in like the mid nineties,
Speaker 2: doing giving the same talking points against the Kyoto Protocol
Speaker 2: of course ninety seven.
Speaker 1: God damn it, I swear that, like the Groundhog Day
Speaker 1: miss of all of that is so infuriating. It's just wow,
Speaker 1: we're right back at the same place again, and the
Speaker 1: same thing is happening, and we still don't actually know
Speaker 1: how it happened the first time. I know, And yet people,
Speaker 1: I think I find this all the time that people
Speaker 1: are like, Okay, yeah, we know, we know. What are
Speaker 1: you going to work on next? And I'm like, I
Speaker 1: don't think we do know.
Speaker 3: Actually I don't think we know. I think we've just
Speaker 3: scratched the surface. Oh yeah, of what happened.
Speaker 2: Then you agree, what we have so far I think
Speaker 2: is just a faint trace of what has what occurred,
Speaker 2: And I mean there's much more. I mean, at least
Speaker 2: I feel like we're continuing to find important material, important
Speaker 2: records that reshape or understanding of what has happened. And
Speaker 2: doesn't seem to be close to getting to that to
Speaker 2: the end of it, that's for sure. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: and people forget it's you know, in the nineties, there
Speaker 2: were some some enterprising journalists who did notice the industry's
Speaker 2: influence right at the time, and they, you know, they're heroes.
Speaker 2: They were saying things that nobody else was saying. They
Speaker 2: were seeing things no one else was seeing, and you know. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: just not enough people listened to them at the time,
Speaker 2: so some people noticed, but not enough people noticed. And
Speaker 2: so you know, just because one person noticed something at
Speaker 2: one time doesn't mean that everybody knows. Right, it's very
Speaker 2: important fact.
Speaker 1: Did you look into the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Speaker 1: I haven't, ben I just started looking into them. And
Speaker 1: Exon Mobile is a funder of.
Speaker 2: Them now, uh huh.
Speaker 1: And the Bradley Foundation has funded them forever. They had
Speaker 1: donations for a long time from Scaife and Olin, all
Speaker 1: the usual suspects. But like I'm looking back now through
Speaker 1: the wayback machine to see exactly when Exon came on,
Speaker 1: so I can see like what exactly their influence has been.
Speaker 3: Because it's crazy.
Speaker 1: It's like those guys are like, you know, the president
Speaker 1: of the NBER is like the main I don't know,
Speaker 1: he's in charge of the economics program at MIT, so
Speaker 1: like vice president is like runs the economics department at Harvard.
Speaker 1: It's like every economics department at every major university is
Speaker 1: run by someone who's part of the NBER, which sounds
Speaker 1: and acts like it's some kind of neutral you know,
Speaker 1: or maybe government entity, but is ye at all And
Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh my gosh, these guys have been
Speaker 1: influencing like how people think about economics, you know, since
Speaker 1: the twenties, and they've been you know, funded by sort
Speaker 1: of titans of industry all along.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like how far back do you want to go?
Speaker 2: I mean the development of neoclassical economics, which basically asserted
Speaker 2: that you know, the economy, left to its own devices,
Speaker 2: would spontaneously find, you know, an equilibrium that was optimal
Speaker 2: for natural at least. Yeah, I mean you know, in
Speaker 2: many ways that was formulated as a scientific defense against Marxism,
Speaker 2: right right. You know, So it's like how far back
Speaker 2: do you want to go in terms of you know,
Speaker 2: special interests, moneyed interests, vested interests, corporate interests often you know,
Speaker 2: trying to cultivate certain scientific ideas for political advantage, you know.
Speaker 2: And I mean it goes back, you know, at least
Speaker 2: that far, you know, and it's been it's never stopped.
Speaker 4: Really.
Speaker 1: Like what you see is that the pr industry comes
Speaker 1: about right when, like right after the very very first
Speaker 1: regulation is passed on any industry in the US on
Speaker 1: the railroads and the late you know, late eighteen hundreds
Speaker 1: and right when people who don't look like the people
Speaker 1: who are running all these companies start to get the vote,
Speaker 1: and like it is a tool to circumvent democracy, and
Speaker 1: it's I don't know, I'm just even actually even with
Speaker 1: the the economists, you know, what's his face.
Speaker 3: Ivy Lee created the.
Speaker 1: Bureau of Railroad Economics for the railroads, and all those
Speaker 1: economists were portrayed as being totally independent. Nobody knew that
Speaker 1: that thing was created by a PR firm and funded
Speaker 1: by the industry, and those economists got quoted in every
Speaker 1: newspaper all the time about the economic implications of various
Speaker 1: policies around the railroads, you know, and that was like
Speaker 1: what eighteen ninety eighteen ninety seven, maybe, so yeah, I
Speaker 1: just I don't know.
Speaker 2: Totally, yeah, you know, and so many of those strategies
Speaker 2: are dependent on not being seen, not being identified, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean that's sort of the whole idea behind like
Speaker 2: any third party technique, is to conceal the messenger, of course,
Speaker 2: and you know that's why it's so effective. Often simply
Speaker 2: simply revealing what's going on. I know that's not always sufficient,
Speaker 2: but yeah, you know, it can be hugely impactful just
Speaker 2: to be able to see to recognize something. Yes, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean that's why when I saw, you know, what
Speaker 2: was happening with President Trump in the Paris Agreement and
Speaker 2: he was using the same talking points it is, I
Speaker 2: thought it was worth pointing out that, Look, you know,
Speaker 2: we we have seen this before. This isn't new, right,
Speaker 2: This is the same exact strategy, same talking points, even
Speaker 2: in the same people you know that use this strategy
Speaker 2: back in mid nineties, the two thousands to fight the
Speaker 2: cap and trade you know, domestic US legislation proposals. You know,
Speaker 2: all of these proposals for decades. It's the same thing.
Speaker 2: So you know, at least if we can come to
Speaker 2: recognize it for what it is, hopefully, you know, some
Speaker 2: of its obstructing power can be taken away.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us who who this economist or these
Speaker 1: economists were in a little bit about them?
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, So, I mean it's a small group of them,
Speaker 2: at least the group that I looked at. The main one.
Speaker 2: His name is David Montgomery, and you know, he was
Speaker 2: a well respected economist. He before the nineties, you know,
Speaker 2: he'd worked in the Ford administration, the Carter administration, the
Speaker 2: George H. W. Bush Bush one administration, he worked in
Speaker 2: the Energy Information Administration, so he had a lot of credentials,
Speaker 2: and starting in the early nineties, nineteen ninety one or so,
Speaker 2: the petroleum industry hired him to estimate how much it
Speaker 2: would cost to to put regulations on fossil fuels to
Speaker 2: deal with climate change. You know. So, I mean think
Speaker 2: the first the first lesson of this history is that
Speaker 2: is that governments have they tried to act, you know,
Speaker 2: that early on, and that's when this sort of obstruction
Speaker 2: game really came to force, you know, three three decades
Speaker 2: ago essentially, And you know, so basically, he'd come out
Speaker 2: with an analysis that would say, oh, if you want
Speaker 2: to reduce CO two emissions, it's going to cost you know,
Speaker 2: all this money, hundreds of dollars per tonnesia two and
Speaker 2: that's going to you know, cost all these jobs, reduce
Speaker 2: GDP and so on. And generally he would say it's
Speaker 2: going to be really expensive, and climate change is not
Speaker 2: really going to be that bad, you know. So we
Speaker 2: had kind of two parts to it, and they were
Speaker 2: both they were both misleading in a sense at least
Speaker 2: because on the cost side, his models were inflating the
Speaker 2: costs based on the modeling approach and on the benefit side,
Speaker 2: as in global warming avoided. He didn't even address that
Speaker 2: there was zero analysis. It was simply an assertion like
Speaker 2: global warming is not really gonna be that bad. I
Speaker 2: think at one point he said, if anything, it'll cost
Speaker 2: half a percent of gross national product in the year
Speaker 2: twenty one hundred, which is like, you know, it's okay,
Speaker 2: one hundred and ten years from now, you can predict
Speaker 2: that with zero analysis. Okay, but you know, and then
Speaker 2: he's look at the you know, look at the comparison.
Speaker 2: Action costs a lot, in action doesn't cost much. You know,
Speaker 2: you do the math. And so the point was, don't
Speaker 2: do anything and wait, and you know, eventually he was
Speaker 2: joined by other colleagues. They worked at different economic consulting firms,
Speaker 2: and one of the main one they worked at over
Speaker 2: this period time was called Charles River Associates, which still exists.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's still a major consulting firm. But you know,
Speaker 2: they've moved around. I think that the analysis that Trump
Speaker 2: used to leave the Paris Agreement that was done by
Speaker 2: NIRA near a economic consulting different, you know, and so
Speaker 2: they sort of moved around. But it was the same
Speaker 2: story again and again. Nineteen ninety three, the Clinton administration
Speaker 2: tried to put out what eventually was called the BTU tax,
Speaker 2: but that was this hybrid energy and carbon. It was
Speaker 2: like an energy tax that was heavier if you were
Speaker 2: carbon intensive. And you know, same strategy. The industry litigated
Speaker 2: the science, brought out their merchants of doubt, said climate
Speaker 2: science was unproven, then brought out their economists, the same
Speaker 2: group of people who said, oh, it's going to be
Speaker 2: really really expensive. Kyoto protocol because domestic policies were failing clearly,
Speaker 2: so governments moved to the international approach through through the
Speaker 2: UN process, Kyota pro Protocol comes out again, exact same strategy. Now,
Speaker 2: of course Kyota Protocol was you know, adopted, but it
Speaker 2: was not ratified by the United States. Of course, the
Speaker 2: United States left that with George with Georgia Bush two
Speaker 2: in the early two thousands, and again, you know, it
Speaker 2: is the same strategy. It's that this is going to
Speaker 2: be economically disastrous and the science is really is still uncertain,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's the exact same strategy. Then now
Speaker 2: that that failed, goes back to the domestic approach again.
Speaker 2: So that's when we had this series of cap and
Speaker 2: trade bills in the in the Senate, in the House,
Speaker 2: like blacks of Market and so on and again it was,
Speaker 2: you know, every time there was a major climate policy proposal,
Speaker 2: it's like these same guys would just right would disappear again.
Speaker 2: And you know, generally they were you know, being commissioned
Speaker 2: by the American Patroleum Institute or other industry groups, and
Speaker 2: you know, it was the same analysis. They were just
Speaker 2: you know, turning the crank essentially again and again. And
Speaker 2: you know, so it's this, it's this parallel sort of
Speaker 2: this whole shaping of economics. And eventually their analyzes became
Speaker 2: conventional wisdom. I mean, by right, by a twenty ten
Speaker 2: or so. They are they've been at this for twenty years.
Speaker 2: And you know, senators were saying, look, it's like we
Speaker 2: don't even need to study because we know that they've
Speaker 2: already been saying this for twenty years. And so really,
Speaker 2: in a way, the scientific merchants of doubt ultimately, you know,
Speaker 2: were they failed. I guess they over overcome. Their power waned,
Speaker 2: but this the economics part that their power did not
Speaker 2: really wane in the same way. And you know the
Speaker 2: implications are larger as well, because I looked at these
Speaker 2: economic this economic consulting firm, largely because I just stumbled
Speaker 2: upon their activities. But they were not alone. You know,
Speaker 2: there were other consulting firms doing very similar work. But
Speaker 2: also their work is not that different from the work
Speaker 2: done at MIT at the Joint program where they do
Speaker 2: economic modeling there. That program is funded by the oil industry.
Speaker 2: Not only the oil industry, but they do receive funding
Speaker 2: from the oil industry, you know. They these groups participated
Speaker 2: in something called the Energy Modeling Forum at Stanford University.
Speaker 1: I remember you talking about this like BP Shall Chevron,
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: All of the absolutely, and that that group is funded,
Speaker 2: you know, almost entirely by fossil fuel interests. You know.
Speaker 2: So there's the consulting part, then there's the academic environmental
Speaker 2: economics part, and the industry is involved with both in
Speaker 2: terms of their funding. And you know, I think at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, the question is, you know, now,
Speaker 2: like where does this leave us? Is the analysis wrong?
Speaker 2: First of all? Is a good question to ask, you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, okay, what if it's actually right? Now? One
Speaker 2: of the nice things about this study was that one
Speaker 2: of these economists was willing to talk to me and
Speaker 2: you know, and honestly share his perspective and experiences, and
Speaker 2: we talked about the limitations of their models, you know,
Speaker 2: and their models were essentially based on, you know, based
Speaker 2: on assumptions that have become mainstream in American economics, like
Speaker 2: the economy performs optimally without intervention and so on. These
Speaker 2: are unscientific concepts that because they can't be tested, of course, right,
Speaker 2: And but it's just taken as an article of faith
Speaker 2: that if somebody has to do something that they're not
Speaker 2: already doing, it must be suboptimal, right, And you know,
Speaker 2: it's a tautological it's a circular reasoning type of logic,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's based on that. And then there
Speaker 2: are assumptions built into the model about how expensive clean
Speaker 2: energy is going to be, and it's assumed to be
Speaker 2: expensive like forever, like really expensive, you know, and things
Speaker 2: like that. So the way the model itself is constructed,
Speaker 2: it's not really like reliable in terms of what is
Speaker 2: this actually going to cost? So that part's not really
Speaker 2: quantitatively reliable. Then you have the other side, which is
Speaker 2: the benefit side, which is not even being addressed, right,
Speaker 2: So it's impossible to even make it a comparison in
Speaker 2: terms of is this policy worth that are not? And
Speaker 2: so you know, at the end of the day, the
Speaker 2: public has been sold this. I mean, it's a fraudulent
Speaker 2: it's a fraudulent economic product. Right. You have economist saying
Speaker 2: we did the analysis and it's too expensive, and you
Speaker 2: know it's it's you know, now even by their own admission,
Speaker 2: that's not true. And this has been going on for decades,
Speaker 2: you know. So now the question is what do we
Speaker 2: do about What do we do about this?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? And I think that's because so embedded.
Speaker 3: This is the thing that like we were saying before.
Speaker 1: That it's it's it's not just the you know, proposed solutions,
Speaker 1: it's the entire framing of the problem. It's like the
Speaker 1: soup that we're all swimming in.
Speaker 2: I thought.
Speaker 1: But you see, particularly the oil industry investing really, really
Speaker 1: heavily in making sure that no one can even think
Speaker 1: of an economy that doesn't work this way.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right. And you have of course, you know,
Speaker 2: students who are going to school to study economics, you know,
Speaker 2: they're taught that this is the way the world works. Yes,
Speaker 2: that this is how economies work. And there's been some
Speaker 2: fascinating historical research done on the origins of neoclassical economics,
Speaker 2: and I think one of the most compelling, some of
Speaker 2: the best work has been done by Phil Morowski, who's
Speaker 2: a historian of economics, and you know, and he shows
Speaker 2: quite convincingly, I think that neo classical economics when it
Speaker 2: was formed, the basic ideas of it was an imitation
Speaker 2: of what physics was at that time. And you know,
Speaker 2: physics was being seen as this pretty prestigious, like reliable science.
Speaker 2: You know, it's highly mathematical, and economics wanted to sort
Speaker 2: of scientize itself, and so it literally took the equations
Speaker 2: from physics at the time, and it took the ideas
Speaker 2: like ideas of spontaneous equilibrium, and it just said, this
Speaker 2: is how the economy works. It just sort of asserted that.
Speaker 2: And the sort of fatal flaw in that approach was
Speaker 2: that the physics version was at least testable, it was
Speaker 2: at least falsifiable, and eventually it was I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: new fields of physics were developed, like quantum physics, because
Speaker 2: of the failures of the older models to explain observation
Speaker 2: right now. The economics version was not based on observable
Speaker 2: variables that you can measure and test. It was simply
Speaker 2: an assertion of how the economy works. And no matter
Speaker 2: what you observe, you simply say, that's just a result
Speaker 2: of our theory, more or less. And so it's not
Speaker 2: something that you can test or approve or disprove, and
Speaker 2: so it's sort of persisted as more of an ideology,
Speaker 2: you know, or a pseudo science more than an actual
Speaker 2: scientific theory. And you know, this would just be a
Speaker 2: curiosity in the history of science if it were not
Speaker 2: for its major impacts on public policy today. And obviously
Speaker 2: it's major impacts on climate change, you know, because economists
Speaker 2: are invoking these theories in saying, you know, don't curtail
Speaker 2: fossil fuel use based on this model. It's going to
Speaker 2: be really expensive.
Speaker 1: Right in saying these are the only allowable solutions, Like
Speaker 1: it's it's just it just immediately narrows what can be
Speaker 1: done about about this about this problem.
Speaker 2: You know, and it like, like you said, it's not
Speaker 2: just the oil industry that benefits from these economic ideas,
Speaker 2: it's it's all regulated industries because embedded within you know,
Speaker 2: the self optimate, self optimizing market concept is the implication
Speaker 2: that regulation by nature is expensive MM, that you should
Speaker 2: more or less let things go, you know, or at
Speaker 2: least you can't really go that wrong if you do so.
Speaker 2: All regulated industries have a sort of you know, a
Speaker 2: benefit to be gained from from these these economic theories.
Speaker 2: The theories themselves are biased against regulating, you know, big industries.
Speaker 1: I was looking at all of the different law and
Speaker 1: economic centers that the Olan Foundation has set up at
Speaker 1: every university, and you know, they were like big funders
Speaker 1: of climate denile too. But like John Olan was a
Speaker 1: chemicals guy, you know, he and he was like tired
Speaker 1: of regulation, and he was tired of you know. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of these guys saw the lawsuits in
Speaker 1: the nineties against the tobacco companies as like a serious
Speaker 1: threat to any industry, and they really set about creating
Speaker 1: conservative litigation infrastructure that would combat what they saw as
Speaker 1: like liberal public interest law. And it's always it's I
Speaker 1: don't know, in every single one of these places. It's
Speaker 1: combined with economics and specifically teaching this sort of lass
Speaker 1: a fair free market economics, as you know, an unquestionable truth.
Speaker 2: And you know, there's the whole economics part, but there's
Speaker 2: also there's other interesting parts that I think we're on
Speaker 2: the verge of being aware of, you know, like some
Speaker 2: of in some of Exxon's internal documents from the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: in the late nineteen seventies about climate change, Exxon says
Speaker 2: they need to do research on not just the physical
Speaker 2: impacts of climate change, but on psychology, mass psychology, and
Speaker 2: risk perception, risk perception among lay people, you know, just
Speaker 2: everyday normal, regular people, but also among the policymakers and
Speaker 2: government officials. You know, how do you influence and control
Speaker 2: how people perceive this problem and how to respond to it?
Speaker 2: And you know, that's that's another area of social science
Speaker 2: that you know, it appears at least that the oil
Speaker 2: industry was very interested in being being expert at and
Speaker 2: potentially influencing. But I think we don't you know, I
Speaker 2: certainly don't know yet what you know, what they did
Speaker 2: in that area. But I think it's it's bigger than
Speaker 2: just economics.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Economics is sort of maybe the obvious one because it's
Speaker 2: used so much in public policy making.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmmm, well, and it's it is, it's just always
Speaker 1: used when people are talking about climate action, it's oh,
Speaker 1: you know, we need a livable planet, and people to
Speaker 1: have been getting better and better right about making a
Speaker 1: human focus. But I feel like the economics argument did
Speaker 1: that from the beginning, right where it's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you can't do this because it'll make people poor, or
Speaker 1: it'll cost people jobs, or you know, like they they
Speaker 1: were so on that from jump versus the environmental movement,
Speaker 1: which was like, you know, really stuck on trees and
Speaker 1: polar bears for.
Speaker 3: Quite a while.
Speaker 1: Not that hey, I have nothing against trees, but it is,
Speaker 1: it is kind of hard to piece it all together.
Speaker 2: It is it's sprawling, and it's one of those topics
Speaker 2: that you only become aware of it if you're in
Speaker 2: a particular vantage point, and it's hard to get to
Speaker 2: that vantage point without being part of the issue, you know,
Speaker 2: without being sort of like, it's hard to know that
Speaker 2: the Kennedy School at Harvard is funded by oil unless
Speaker 2: you're a professor at the Kennedy School, right And at
Speaker 2: that point, you're you're not likely to point that out
Speaker 2: to the public, at least not without risking your career
Speaker 2: or some prospects. So it's the it's one of these
Speaker 2: things it's hard for people to become aware of it
Speaker 2: if they're not, if they don't have already a vested
Speaker 2: interest in maintaining it the way it is. So I
Speaker 2: think finally that's beginning to change. And I don't want to,
Speaker 2: you know, criticize, and I don't mean to criticize all economists,
Speaker 2: because you know, this is a particular approach that I'm
Speaker 2: talking about that unfortunately has become that for at least
Speaker 2: for a long time, very dominant in the United States
Speaker 2: at least, But it's a very diverse discipline, and I
Speaker 2: think now lately there are more and more economists who
Speaker 2: are doing really high quality work to look at, you know,
Speaker 2: how much does like sea level rise cost in terms
Speaker 2: of damage when you get a very different view of
Speaker 2: the cost of climate change if you use that bottom
Speaker 2: up approach rather than the sort of pre determined top
Speaker 2: down approach that was being used before. So it's also
Speaker 2: largely a matter of methodology, and this is beginning to change.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, why is it important whether
Speaker 2: the industry is funding the work? Well, you know, now,
Speaker 2: like if the industry is is not as dominant, then
Speaker 2: there is going to be that room for you know,
Speaker 2: other economists to use different different approaches, right right, right,
Speaker 2: And you know it's all a matter of what gets
Speaker 2: amplified and what doesn't.
Speaker 1: I'm curious about that because I feel like with a
Speaker 1: lot of the kind of more obvious oil funding of research,
Speaker 1: you know, them funding research into energy alternatives and things
Speaker 1: like that, that.
Speaker 3: There is pretty clearly laid out.
Speaker 1: I mean like actually Stanford even has had this on
Speaker 1: their website for.
Speaker 2: The Global Climate Energy Project.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, they had like on their website sort of
Speaker 1: you know, here's how we select projects, and here's two
Speaker 1: ways in where And I mean they just straight up
Speaker 1: admitted that the funders had the final call on what
Speaker 1: would get funded for research. But I don't think that's
Speaker 1: the case with the economic stuff. And it's also just
Speaker 1: not as not as straightforward. So did you get any
Speaker 1: have you ever, you know, from any of these things,
Speaker 1: gotten any sense of how much fossil fuel companies are dictating.
Speaker 3: You know, what they want.
Speaker 1: I guess if the API is commissioning a study from
Speaker 1: an economist, they're just straight up.
Speaker 3: Telling them what. But I wonder if it's that direct
Speaker 3: in university.
Speaker 2: Research, Yeah, I think it varies what I've seen is
Speaker 2: that it doesn't have to be that direct in order
Speaker 2: to have an effect. You know, if you think about
Speaker 2: you have an entire field, let's say climate economics or
Speaker 2: environmental economics as a field. You know, if you're an
Speaker 2: industry like the oil industry, you can send someone to
Speaker 2: all the environmental economics conferences around the country, right and
Speaker 2: monitor the research that people are doing. And there are
Speaker 2: certain paradigms and people frankly, but you know, if you
Speaker 2: think about their work in terms of a paradigm, what
Speaker 2: they're interested in, what they're not. There are certain paradigms
Speaker 2: that are helpful for the industry and others that are not,
Speaker 2: or more or less of course, and simply by funding
Speaker 2: certain things, you amplify that thing, and that takes up
Speaker 2: more space than what have otherwise, And so the recipient
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily have to be even aware, you know, that
Speaker 2: they're getting this money for any sort of strategic reason
Speaker 2: on the part of the industry. And I think often
Speaker 2: the recipients either are unaware or they don't like the idea,
Speaker 2: so they kind of ignore it the possibility. But you know,
Speaker 2: I mean that's why in this new research I open
Speaker 2: it with this quote from from a handbook from nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy eight, and this is sort of you know, earlier
Speaker 2: on in the sort of modern regulatory state in the
Speaker 2: United States. You know, a lot of regulatory policies being
Speaker 2: passed in the seventies, and so the big companies are
Speaker 2: trying to figure out, well, how do we respond to
Speaker 2: this new regime. And in this in this handbook written
Speaker 2: for regulated industries to basically game the system, you know,
Speaker 2: it says one of our main recommendations is to co
Speaker 2: opt the experts. You know, And it says, you know,
Speaker 2: this policy is made, you know, with the participation of experts,
Speaker 2: especially academics. It says a regulated firm or industry should
Speaker 2: be prepared whenever possible to co opt these experts. This
Speaker 2: is most effectively done by identifying the leading experts in
Speaker 2: each relevant field and hiring them as consultants or advisors,
Speaker 2: or giving them research grants and the like. It requires
Speaker 2: a modicum of must not be too blatant for the
Speaker 2: experts themselves, must not recognize that they've lost their objectivity
Speaker 2: and freedom of action. And at a minimum, it reduces
Speaker 2: the threat that these experts will testify against the industry
Speaker 2: or right against the interests of the of the industry.
Speaker 2: You know. So this was recognized as as a major
Speaker 2: central pillar of all regulated industry strategy counter regulatory strategy,
Speaker 2: you know, from very early on, you know, from the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies. So you know, in the case of climate,
Speaker 2: you know, I think what we see is that there
Speaker 2: are certain areas, like, you know, the fossil fuel industry
Speaker 2: really hates renewable portfolio standards, you know, because I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe your guess is as good as mine is.
Speaker 2: I'm not like super expert renewable portfolio standards, but my
Speaker 2: impression is that they're they're hard to gain. You know.
Speaker 2: It says you have to have this much renewables by
Speaker 2: this year, right, It's very straightforward, right, you know, it
Speaker 2: seems that the oil industry would much rather have a
Speaker 2: cap and try aid system that it can game, that
Speaker 2: it can get little you know, concessions with it. Can
Speaker 2: you know, manipulate the price and make it crash or
Speaker 2: make it make it sore, to like mess it up,
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, there's lots of ways to kind
Speaker 2: of mess up a cap and trade system so that
Speaker 2: it just doesn't work right. And you know, so you know,
Speaker 2: I see environmental economists who are big their whole career
Speaker 2: is based on cap and trade and doing paper after
Speaker 2: paper after paper about cap and trade systems and how
Speaker 2: to make it optimal and how to design it for
Speaker 2: this or that. You know, they're getting funded by the
Speaker 2: oil industry, so that becomes the dominant paradigm through which
Speaker 2: people knew environmental policy. Oh, cap and trade is default.
Speaker 2: Other things like renewable portfolio standard. That's that's alternative. That's
Speaker 2: what we that's not as good, you know, that's what
Speaker 2: we think about. Second, that's what we talk about on
Speaker 2: this you know, the last day of class if we
Speaker 2: have time. But the main thing is cap and trade,
Speaker 2: you know, even though there aren't really very many functional
Speaker 2: cap and trade systems in the world, you know, so
Speaker 2: it's like you can influence the entire way people learn
Speaker 2: about the issue. You know. Another great example is hydrogen
Speaker 2: versus electric vehicles. You know, this is another thing I
Speaker 2: noticed when I was looking at industry funding, was you
Speaker 2: know a lot of oil funding for hydrogen future, you know,
Speaker 2: for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and like none for electric
Speaker 2: battery vehicles. And I was like, this is sort of weird.
Speaker 2: I mean, do they just think that, you know, hydrogen
Speaker 2: is better and you know, well, I mean, obviously, by
Speaker 2: this point it's clear that at least now, hydrogen you know,
Speaker 2: vehicles are not you know, competitive at least currently. And
Speaker 2: what a lot of people don't realize is that almost
Speaker 2: all hydrogen is made out of natural gas, and so
Speaker 2: a lot of hydrogen, know, presumably would be either largely
Speaker 2: or significantly fossil fuel, you know, just sort of in disguise.
Speaker 2: And you know, so it's these sort of options. It's, well,
Speaker 2: if we have to go to non gas vehicles, we'd
Speaker 2: rather them be hydrogen than battery. You know, it's better
Speaker 2: for us. And so through this selective funding, you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's not that hard to shape the entire discussion.
Speaker 2: And of course, you know, when someone's been receiving funding
Speaker 2: for their research for decades, you know that that certainly
Speaker 2: shapes the way they think. It certainly shapes you know,
Speaker 2: where their allegiances are. You know, it's gonna dissuade them
Speaker 2: from you know, writing against the industry or testifying against it,
Speaker 2: and you know they're going to have connections within the industry.
Speaker 2: They're gonna they're going to promote the industry with their
Speaker 2: students as a place to work. You know, they're going
Speaker 2: to be getting grants. All of these things have an effect.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I think, you know, it doesn't have to
Speaker 2: be so blatant. It doesn't have to be you know,
Speaker 2: like a quick pro quo arrangement.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think about this with with respect to media influence
Speaker 1: all the time too, like people, I don't know. My
Speaker 1: current obsession on that front is the fact that Ted Boutrose,
Speaker 1: who's like Chevron's attorney, works for every major media outlet.
Speaker 1: Not he's CNN's first amen an attorney, but now he's
Speaker 1: also the New York Times first attorney and Reveal and
Speaker 1: he sits on the board of Pro Publica.
Speaker 3: And I'm like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like he's not doing that because he loves the media.
Speaker 3: You know. I just think about I'm like, well, you know,
Speaker 3: we have a First.
Speaker 1: Amendment attorney, and I talked to him pretty regularly, and
Speaker 1: I talked to him about all kinds of things, and
Speaker 1: he shares his opinion as attorneys are wont to do,
Speaker 1: you know, Like he's a smart guy who I pay
Speaker 1: a lot of money for his opinion. So like I
Speaker 1: listened to his onion on lots of things, you know,
Speaker 1: and the idea that like somehow Ted Brutros is just
Speaker 1: lurking around the hallways like every major media outlet in
Speaker 1: the country, but it has no influence on how anyone
Speaker 1: thinks of climate liability cases.
Speaker 3: Just seems really unlikely.
Speaker 2: Does seem unlikely now that you mentioned it?
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, I'm like, like it's weird to me because
Speaker 1: I'm like, do not know where the word influence means,
Speaker 1: Like it's not a bribe, Like it's subtle, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is interesting. You know, that's one of
Speaker 2: the oil company's big defenses is their First Amendment defense, right,
Speaker 2: But unfortunately for them, Yeah, I mean you probably know
Speaker 2: the First Amendment does not protect fraudulent communications.
Speaker 1: Drilled is an original production of the Critical Frequency podcast Network.
Speaker 1: This series is a collaboration with Earther, Gizmoto's climate and
Speaker 1: justice site. My co host and co reporter for the
Speaker 1: series is Darna Noor. Our editors are Julia Richie for
Speaker 1: Drilled and Brian Kahn for Earther. Our producer is Juliana Bradley.
Speaker 1: Mixing and mastering by Peter duff Our. Fact checker is
Speaker 1: Trevor Gowen. Music is by Martin Wissenberg.
Speaker 3: Our artwork was created.
Speaker 1: By Matthew Fleming. Our First Amendment attorney is James Wheaton
Speaker 1: of the First Amendment Project. You can find corresponding stories, videos,
Speaker 1: and documents for this series on earther dot com. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening and we'll see you next time. The down back,
Speaker 1: the down back, then the back, the down back,