Ep 1: Welcome to “The Spill,” Our New Weekly Newscast

The Spill – Ep 1

[00:00:00] Amy Westervelt: Hello Welcome to Drilled I’m Amy Westervelt and this is a new segment we’re doing hopefully every week in between narrative seasons called The Spill. Alleen and Nina introduce yourselves!

[00:00:13] Nina: Hi, I’m Nina Lakhani. I am the global climate justice reporter for Drilled and now The Spill

[00:00:19] Alleen Brown: and I’m Alleen Brown. I’m a senior editor at Drilled and really excited to be talking to The Spill today

[00:00:24] Amy Westervelt: Yay! Awesome. So yeah we’ll be talking amongst ourselves about current news, things that are happening in media, and then also using this as a place to interview other reporters, writers, experts all the stuff that has been a bit of a hodgepodge of the bonus episodes of Drilled, now organized into weekly episodes in your feed. Okay so, let’s talk about some of the current climate news. There’s been a lot of stuff happening… not necessarily a lot of news covering it. What are the things that you guys are paying attention to on the climate beat right now. [00:01:00] What’s happening all around us at the moment?

[00:01:04] Nina: I mean, I think we’re, know, this year, like every year for the last few years has shown us that we are now full force in climate breakdown. You know, this isn’t something that’s gonna happen. It’s happening now, and it’s happening at a really terrifying speed, at a scale which even, you know, the worst case scenario models were not forecasting to be happening so quickly.

You know, so, this catastrophic breaking of the glacier in the Himalayas, you know, which caused this unbelievable, I mean, like terrifying floods at the Nepal, Tibet border. Confirmed so far 1,200 dead with thousands more still missing. And I think, you know, this piece of this glacier broke off and the force at which it landed recorded at more than five on the Richter scale, on the earthquake Richter scale, you know.

And, you know, this area of the Himalayas is really poorly studied, partly ’cause it’s hard to reach, but partly because, you know, the whole world hasn’t taken [00:02:00] responsibility of monitoring what’s happening at all of these glaciers, right? But you know, when I’ve been reading some of the coverage like this last week or so, you know, I mean, seventy-five percent of the, of the glaciers in the Himalaya region could all be gone by the end of this century. And we’re already seeing like far more glacier lakes. The lakes are bigger, they’re deeper, you know, and all of this means what? Like much more catastrophic flooding, sea level rise, all the things that we’re seeing in communities around the world, you know, from Mexico to India and Bangladesh to Australia.

And so I think just the images of what’s happened in, at the Nepal-Tibet border have been like horrifying, you know? And

[00:02:40] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:02:41] Nina: terrifying. Yeah. And you know, and like at the same time, you know, we’re seeing record-breaking profits from the fossil fuel companies, right? And I think that we absolutely can’t forget that, you know, that There is a clear line of responsibility here, right? They’re sort of raking in billions of dollars, right? While we’ve got these catastrophic floods [00:03:00] and,

[00:03:00] Amy Westervelt: They’re negotiating like how to drill more in the Arctic while we have these catastrophic floods Yeah

[00:03:06] Alleen Brown: And, you know, the war in Iran is directly contributing to those profits. You know, we’re seeing the affordability of gas and, and daily essentials skyrocket while the oil and gas industry is seeing, again, record profits directly tied to the same war that is changing everyday people’s ability to live.

[00:03:29] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:03:29] Nina: yeah

The Guardian my former employer did a really good analysis recently, and in the first three months after the illegal sort of invasion of Iran, eight of the biggest oil companies amassed profits of more than $90 billion. I mean, literally as… In three months, in three months, right?

As, so as, you know fuel prices rose spectacularly for, like, everybody, more than 90 billion in just the first three months after the you know, the Iran invasion

[00:03:58] Alleen Brown: Right and, and that [00:04:00] was double what they’d brought in the year before. You know, so you can see that direct relationship and, and the way that profits are just going up. And, you know, I, I think one thing that I’ve really no- I mean, you know, this isn’t something new, but I think it’s something that’s just getting so much less focus in the media and, you know, in, in conversations more broadly.

But you know, these catastrophes that we’re talking about, we’re talking about some of the largest scale ones like in, in Nepal, but like no matter where you live, you’re being impacted directly by the actions of the fossil fuel industry. You know, there’s the question of affordability, but also, you know, I was visiting family in Minneapolis this, this summer, and right as I was there the Boundary Waters, this wilderness area in northern Minnesota was on fire.

You know, there were these really catastrophic fires taking place. That’s an area that’s like beloved by so many people in the region. People go canoe there. And it’s like a water area. It’s a, it’s a [00:05:00] bunch of like interconnected waterways.

[00:05:02] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:05:03] Alleen Brown: and, and that was in flames because of a combination of you know past extractivism loggers going in and totally changing the ecosystem there and kind of displacing Indigenous people who had their own fire-based practices and, and ways of managing the land.

And also you know, the burning of fossil fuels.

[00:05:23] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:05:23] Alleen Brown: so yeah.

[00:05:25] Amy Westervelt: One of our producers Ray Pang who did the SLAPP’d season goes and does a canoe trip on the Boundary Waters every year and couldn’t go this year because of the fires

[00:05:34] Alleen Brown: Yeah. Mm-hmm

[00:05:35] Amy Westervelt: I feel like everyone I’ve spoken to this past few months has had like some kind of personal life impact related to climate But like I don’t know The I feel like there’s been this You guys have both covered climate for a long time as have I I feel like there’s been this assumption for a really long time that as that happens that magically the political will to do something about it will appear And in [00:06:00] fact we’re seeing a total disconnect on that front It’s like it’s never been more present and the fossil fuel industry and the politicians in its pocket have never been working harder to stop anyone from acting on it It’s it’s a a weird moment

[00:06:18] Nina: On a personal note, I was at home, you know, from, for all of July and August. You know, London, England famously drizzly gray skies.

[00:06:25] Amy Westervelt: Famously not

[00:06:26] Nina: it, it did,

[00:06:27] Amy Westervelt: this

[00:06:28] Nina: it did, yeah, I mean, yeah, the UK had five heat waves this year, like, over 35 degrees Celsius.

I’m sorry, I don’t know what that is in Fahrenheit.

[00:06:36] Amy Westervelt: around 95 to 100 you know

to 100

[00:06:41] Nina: Yeah, five heat waves. And for the whole of July and the first three weeks of August, it did not rain once across Wales and in most of England. I mean, so when the solar eclipse happened in London I went to a park in North London to watch it with my niece, and it was 35 degrees at 6:00, 6:00 [00:07:00] PM, but all the leaves of the park have fallen.

They’re all yellow. All of the leaves are down. And so under your foot it felt like autumn, right? Because of the crackling of the leaves and the grass is all just, like, completely dead, you know? And yet it was, like, in, you’re in the middle of the summer. It was like, it’s really quite dystopian. And on your point, Amy, I think that, I think that c- climate catastrophe, the breakdown is now happening so fast and everywhere that people have Very quickly it’s become normalized. Do you know?

[00:07:31] Alleen Brown: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:32] Nina: become, you know, normalized. So y- you know, yes, you have, you know, you have decent media coverage when these catastrophic floods happen, like, this glacier breaks off in the Himalayas.

But every day these things are happening. People are dying from wildfires from drought, you know, and it’s just become normalized really, really quickly. And I think actually, like, heat deaths is a really good one because I think with floods and fires it’s very visual, right?

You have the cameras there and, like, you can really see it. [00:08:00] you know drought and heat and the food insecurity that it causes and the deaths it causes are, they sort of just happen, right? They’re hard to photograph, they’re hard to visualize, you know?

But we know in Europe this year, I mean, just, you know Europe counts excess deaths, so they look at- over a period– I would say over the last 20 years, how many people have died in a particular week, right? On average. And then when there’s a heatwave, they look s- at how many people have died, and they calculate them to be excess deaths related to the heat. So these aren’t deaths that, you know, a tiny number will be things from like heatstroke, for example, but the vast majority will be from you know, an exacerbation of existing conditions, whether that be a heart condition or asthma or diabetes, right? And in Europe this year, j-just in May, June and July, in half of Europe, so this is not even counting like the other half, 35,000 excess deaths were reported from heat just in June and July, right?

In

[00:08:57] Alleen Brown: Wow.

[00:08:57] Nina: July. So that–

[00:08:58] Alleen Brown: Hmm

[00:08:58] Nina: was even hotter, [00:09:00] right? And so and so you’re– You know, this is– And– But the thing is, this is– th-this has happened like two or three times over the last five or six years, you know? And like, The first time was meant to be the game changer, right?

This is gonna wake up everyone. There’s gonna be political action. But here we are again, you know, and it’s sort of… Yeah, and it’s just like we’re accepting the fact that tens of thousands of people, are dying before they’re needed to have died, right? ‘Cause every heat death is a preventable death.

Every s- Nobody needs to die of heat. You know, public health experts will tell you that, that every single one is preventable. And yeah, but we seem to have just accepted that as, “Okay, well, that’s what’s gonna happen now.”

[00:09:35] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:09:35] Alleen Brown: And I think that’s a good segue into talking about one of the… We, we wanted to talk a bit about how media is covering this moment. And,

[00:09:43] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:09:44] Alleen Brown: NPR put out a big piece recently looking at the way heat deaths are undercounted in the US. So the CDC has tracked I think an average of around 1,700 heat deaths annually.

NPR [00:10:00] partnering with Boston University looked more closely at excess deaths and found up to 9,000 deaths annually in the US that could be attributed to heat. So Nina, to your point, yeah, this is just being vastly undercounted. I know you’ve done a ton of reporting on this, this issue specifically.

[00:10:19] Nina: Yeah. I you know, when I was working for The Guardian in the US, I spent three or four consecutive summers in Arizona, specifically reporting on extreme heat in Maricopa County, where Phoenix, which is the U- US’ fifth largest city and its hottest big city,

[00:10:36] Amy Westervelt: hot

[00:10:36] Nina: as well as sort of some, some of the surrounding, yeah, some of the surrounding counties, you know. actually, Maricopa County is by far the, you know, it’s the gold standard when it comes to in the US, and because in the US they don’t count excess deaths, right? And they never have. And so you’ve had these like unbelievably sort of under- underreporting of excess deaths. You know, for the years I was working there, [00:11:00] sometimes the deaths that were counted in Maricopa County would, would be half of what the CDC was reporting was happening across the country, which obviously isn’t true, right?

It obviously couldn- cannot be true that Yeah, they’re counting it and … But they count them in it, and I think they don’t do the excess deaths in part because of the way the health system is so disjointed, right? You know, like, you know, there is no public health system, so having that access to that data and data being collected in the same way is much more difficult. But I honestly also have think there’s just been a lack of will, right? I mean, there’s a lot of clever scientists and public health officials in the US, right? … I mean, it’s possible, right? It’s definitely possible. Yeah, and, and even in Maricopa County, which I like I say, you know, it’s a gold standard, they have trained their forensic team, you know, to look for signs of possible heat contribution to a death, and they do autopsies, and they do investigations to the extent that in possible heat deaths investigators will go to a person’s house and see, and they note on the autopsy form [00:12:00] then did the person have a cooling system, air conditioner?

[00:12:02] Alleen Brown: Hmm.

[00:12:03] Nina: or no? Was it turned on? Yes or no? They will ask why not, you know. Like, was it fu- was it working or was it not working? ‘Cause one of the things I’ve found is e- you know, even when people had air conditioners, sometimes they wouldn’t have the money to run them, or they didn’t have the money to fix them if they were broken, right? But even in Maricopa County, I mean, last year I did an investigation looking at hundreds and hundreds of autopsy reports from the previous two years, and, you know, there were whole number of deaths that were investigated as potential heat deaths, but then were not included. They were then included either as a death by substance misuse or a death of, of a, a unhoused person, and it made no sense.

These were people that, you know, heat had clearly contributed, and there were other people with similar cases that had made the numbers. So there was even an undercount going on in Maricopa County, right? And so, I mean, you know, it’s great that NPR and BU have teamed up. My [00:13:00] instinct would be being from Europe and seeing how they, you know, it seems improbable that a country of 320 million which has n-

[00:13:07] Amy Westervelt: Had that few…yeah

[00:13:08] Nina: yeah, which has the worst health system in, like, the, you know, the developed world would have less heat deaths than the UK.

[00:13:14] Alleen Brown: Yeah. Oh my God

[00:13:16] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:13:17] Nina: But at least it’s a start. At least it’s a start.

[00:13:19] Amy Westervelt: Yeah wanted to just also mention that Venezuela’s back in the news

[00:13:25] Nina: oh, yes

[00:13:26] Alleen Brown: Mm.

[00:13:26] Amy Westervelt: the US fucking Venezuela over is back the

[00:13:31] Alleen Brown: Unbelievable.

[00:13:32] Amy Westervelt: it’s

[00:13:32] Alleen Brown: Mm-hmm

[00:13:33] Amy Westervelt: I think I have a a theory on this that like a lot of it Well we know a lot of it is Trump trying to to scramble to bring oil prices down you know as the Ir like his

[00:13:46] Alleen Brown: Yes,

[00:13:47] Amy Westervelt: is

[00:13:47] Alleen Brown: totally

[00:13:48] Amy Westervelt: He’s like Oh don’t worry about it We’re gonna solve the crisis with Venezuelan oil over here Which you know A is not how that works Like this idea that somehow these [00:14:00] fields are gonna produce more than they ever have and that it’s all gonna be fine and it’s an easy like plugandplay operation is just just not how those things work But also all kinds of nonsense going on with how he’s approaching these oil fields and and who’s getting what oil and how it’s moving around the world in general yeah what have you guys been seeing on on that front?

[00:14:24] Alleen Brown: I mean to your point, this has nothing to do with affordability. Like, these oil fields if they end up producing more than they already are, it will take years. US refineries that process that kind of oil are already backed up.

[00:14:38] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:14:40] Alleen Brown: you know, this is, this is such like, it’s such a, like, retro tactic to just step in.

I mean, it, it, I guess it’s never stopped to some degree, but to just step in and and take oil, that’s what’s happening. The US government has overthrown a government and stepped in and just [00:15:00] blatantly taken the oil. At the same time, you know, the, the company that the US is working with is run by a guy who has an arrest warrant out in Switzerland, you know?

He’s been investigated in the US for money laundering. But he’s friends with the Trump administration, so you know, blatant corruption is at the core of all of this

[00:15:21] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:15:23] Nina: Yeah, and I think, you know, let’s not forget that the illegal operation in Venezuela to abduct the sitting president happened in January, right? So way before the, the illegal invasion of the Iran war, right? And so it was always about getting access to the oil, and it was always a big grift, right?

And like you say, Alleen th- this, you know, this is, to me, I would describe it as a smash-and-grab imperial invasion, right? You know,

[00:15:47] Amy Westervelt: big

[00:15:48] Nina: school natural resource-

[00:15:49] Amy Westervelt: Big U.S. in Latin America in the 50s vibes Yeah

[00:15:52] Alleen Brown: totally

[00:15:53] Nina: And I th- you know, so, you know, and like you’re saying, the Pentagon has done a deal with a Venezuelan national who is, has [00:16:00] alleged, you know, money laundering and huge bribery scandal, and with a company that is registered in Barbados. I mean, I think when you say those words outlo- loud, you’re like, “Hang on, did I actually say that,” right?

You know, I mean and you know, you know, when the invasion happened in January, you know, I mean, at Drilled we did quite a lot of reporting on this, right? So that was an, it was a, it was a, an illegal invasion under every sense of the word, like all international law. you know, and we, and, and the, and the private corporations are, you know, like rubbing their hands in glee and sort of hearing the cash register go are potentially breaking the law, right?

To get involved in a deal that has you know, that is illegal, right from its roots,

[00:16:44] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:16:45] Nina: is could potentially land these corporations and their executives up in court one day, right? And I know that the Tru- Trump and and the Israeli government are busy trying to dismantle our international justice system, but these laws still exist.

They are [00:17:00] still the law, and they are breaking them, right? You know, and I mean, I think one good example is just to connect, I guess, some of what we’re talking about, you know, is that there are three massive oil commodity traders globally, and one of them, Vitol, is one of two traders that has been doing this sort of backroom deal with Trump to get access to this Venezuelan oil. And it’s also one of two commodity traders that a new report published in the beginning of September by Oil Change International and SOMO, which is a Dutch organization investigating multinational corporations, have found was one of two traders responsible for selling 11% of the crude oil that Israel has bought since the start of the genocide, you know.

So a company involved in trade to enable a state that has been found to be breaking international law, to be committing war crimes and has been accused of genocide, you know, is, is not okay. Like, it is not legal for them to be doing that, right?

And just because the Trump [00:18:00] administration says it is fine doesn’t make it legal, and it’s not, you know?

[00:18:03] Amy Westervelt: Yeah I also actually like this of coming back to the press coverage side of things too there’s a thing going on that happens every time there’s discussion I think in the media around price per barrel and then price at the pump and all of this stuff that the oil companies do a really good job of holding their hands up and saying like It’s not us that’s driving the price up Like we don’t have control over the price at the pump right But like A they have a lot of control over foreign policy domestic policy f you know subsidies all of those things But the other thing that’s happening right now is like like Trump for a moment there I don’t know if you guys caught this a couple weeks ago like he was complaining about the oil companies having record profits and like the price at the pump and whatever as though like he hasn’t enabled all of that and they aren’t his largest donors And now he’s turned it to focusing on the refining companies and no one is pushing back on that [00:19:00] framing and saying like Well most of the refining companies are s are subsidiaries of the oil majors These are not like separate companies

[00:19:07] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:19:07] Amy Westervelt: mean Some of them are Like there’s a few but for the most part they are in business together. Just yesterday I saw multiple different headlines from large mainstream media organizations repeating this Oh Trump you know he had a meeting with the refiners so it was like Trump to meet with refining executives over the price gouging and this and that and the other as though this is like some different industry than the one that you know propped him up and that he has

[00:19:35] Nina: Yeah

[00:19:35] Amy Westervelt: the favor to

[00:19:36] Alleen Brown: yeah, as if his presidency is not a huge win for the fossil fuel industry. That’s wild. Yeah. I mean

[00:19:44] Nina: mean, his presidency is the fossil fuel industry. I mean, it is. They’re the

[00:19:47] Alleen Brown: Yes.

[00:19:48] Nina: They’re the same

[00:19:49] Alleen Brown: Yes.

[00:19:49] Nina: like, you know, it’s,

[00:19:51] Alleen Brown: Mm-hmm

[00:19:51] Amy Westervelt: Yeah Yeah

[00:19:53] Nina: I, mean, and, you know, this is I think one of the most depressing things to watch, and this is, you know, when, you know, w- we have got [00:20:00] so many colleagues doing brilliant, brilliant work, you know in all sorts of

[00:20:03] Alleen Brown: Yeah. Mm.

[00:20:04] Nina: you know.

But for me, one of the most depressing things to watch in this Tru- Trump admin- term has been to see, you know, that have done great work over the years become a journalist that Trump can pick up the phone and say, “Hey, I’m doing this in I- and I’m gonna do this in Iran, and I’ve told Netanyahu that he’s gotta do this,” and they just print it.

[00:20:25] Alleen Brown: Mm-hmm.

[00:20:26] Nina: print, they just print the propaganda

[00:20:27] Alleen Brown: Right

[00:20:28] Nina: like, verbatim and without any scrutiny at all. And, you know, you know, good journalists, good, good sort of media outlets, and you just think, “What is going on?” You know? And on top of that, you have all these, like, extreme right sort of, you know platforms as well.

But just the fact he has now got this whole group of journalists that he can ring up at the drop of a hat, and they print or, you know, broadcast whatever he says is, like, really, really depressing, you know?

[00:20:55] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:20:56] Alleen Brown: and like none of this is disconnected from [00:21:00] what feels like the collapse of the media industry as it has existed, as problematic as it always has been. You know, we’ve been seeing wave after wave of mass layoffs for years, and that, you know, fundamentally changes the way that these wars, the industry, and the climate crisis is gonna be covered.

You know, multiple mainstream media outlets have cut their climate desks, Washington Post, Reuters, NPR, CBS. You know, at the same time as these, these, again, these newsrooms are s- are shrinking more broadly, meaning that no one really, like, has capacity to, to cover climate crisis the way they might have years ago.

You know Grist had a story up about this data from the University of Colorado that shows that since 2021, global news coverage of the, of climate change has dropped 38%. You know, journalists and, you know, some of the folks that are getting laid [00:22:00] off are doing their best to keep doing good work, but you know-

[00:22:03] Amy Westervelt: fewer places to to print

[00:22:06] Nina: Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

[00:22:08] Amy Westervelt: we get pitches f all the time

[00:22:11] Alleen Brown: Yeah

[00:22:12] Amy Westervelt: I mean I you know that that the only reason we’re turning it down is just bandwidth right It’s like there’s just there’s just like only so much that any outlet can do and then the ones that are still out there have to constantly be fundraising as well So it’s like yeah it’s it’s not for lack of stories or for lack of good journalists that are more than competent

[00:22:34] Nina: Mm-hmm

[00:22:35] Amy Westervelt: those stories It’s yeah it’s the industry in general And I think also like a lot of people are like Oh well social media and the influencer economy and da da da

[00:22:45] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:22:45] Amy Westervelt: happen like on accident guys Like that wasn’t like Oh whoops the tech guys ruined the media ecosystem. They built an entire parallel information ecosystem that they could control entirely,

[00:22:58] Alleen Brown: Yeah

[00:22:59] Amy Westervelt: They gave [00:23:00] themselves all the benefits of publishers and none of the liability They’re very good at like wrapping any

[00:23:05] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:06] Amy Westervelt: regulate them in the the language of you know civil rights as though they’re not just another industry trying to avoid being

[00:23:13] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:13] Amy Westervelt: Um like they’re

[00:23:15] Alleen Brown: Right. there’s there’s not

[00:23:18] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:23:18] Alleen Brown: a system where politicians are required to disclose campaign funding to influencers. That just happens in the dark. And, you know

[00:23:29] Amy Westervelt: I mean I know we’re on a podcast right now but podcasts are actually like this is why they’re so popular with these guys is that they’re not

[00:23:35] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:36] Amy Westervelt: by the FCC They’re regulated by the Federal Trade Commission which is very different. If you hear a lie on a podcast for example you can file a complaint with the FTC but they won’t investigate it unless they get like 100 plus other complaints about the same lie. This is why like Joe Rogan was able to lie his ass off forever and it was only

[00:23:58] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:23:59] Amy Westervelt: other [00:24:00] people in the podcast industry kind of kicking up a fuss about it that made Spotify be like Okay we’re gonna you know fact check some of his stuff There is no there’s almost no legal recourse So they can go

[00:24:13] Nina: I mean, f- yeah

[00:24:15] Amy Westervelt: content and in the ads There’s no regulation of the ads either So like yeah

[00:24:21] Nina: I mean, f- so just for our non-US listeners, because I think we have some, I mean, like, does that… These are, these are, these are American regulators that Amy’s talking about. And, and the, you know, the sort of, I guess the panorama is quite different in different places. EU is certainly, trying to do a better job, but facing a lot of, like a backlash and a lot of,

[00:24:42] Amy Westervelt: Yep

[00:24:42] Nina: you know, pushback from Big Tech and although, you know, all of these sort of, you know, industries that have something to lose from that. But yeah, I mean, I think you know, y- you know, they’re also p- you know, podcasts aren’t regulated. They’re also just really popular, right? You know,

[00:24:55] Alleen Brown: Mm-hmm

[00:24:56] Nina: you know, politicians wanna go and, and reach a lot of, you know, reach, reach a lot [00:25:00] of people on them that way. I do think about mainstream media coverage, though.

I don’t think it’s just a numbers game. I don’t think it’s just that, you know I think it’s a way that coverage has traditionally been organized, you know. And I see this as being quite different now in some of the excellent, like, small independent outlets that have, have launched in the last few years, right? And even some brilliant sort of investigative newsletters that are, you know, that are happening that I think the way that mainstream media was, has, is always been organized is across desks, right? So, and the climate crisis environment was a particular speciality, right? And so actually, the political coverage you know, so this is, this is like a simple example.

When we have COP no UK prime minister would have a climate environment journalist with them. They would just have someone from the politics teams, right? And so who are not specialists and who, who will just be like, “Oh, and the Prime Minister announced that he’s gonna do this,” you know. And so,

[00:25:55] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:25:56] Nina: just sort of lack of connecting the dots and I think, you know.

That’s [00:26:00] what we’re trying to do. I think that’s what others are trying to do, right? Think, okay, every single beat is a climate beat, right?

[00:26:06] Alleen Brown: Yes

[00:26:06] Nina: Impacts real estate, it impa- impacts your, you know, your pensions, it affect, impacts your health, it impacts sport, impacts education, impacts everything, right? And it absolutely should be the heart, center of all of our coverage, and it’s just not organized like that at all, right? And, and I see some mainstream media trying to do more collaborative work, you know, across desk, across beat. But I think, as you know, the climate is still considered to be like, like health, you know.

It’s something that you, you know, like it’s a policy area. Do you know what I mean? Rather than being something that is entwined. And I think the lack of connecting the dots between, for example, what we’re talking about, what’s happening in Venezuela, the, you know, the massive grift going on in the Pentagon,

[00:26:48] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:26:49] Nina: the glaciers sort of collapsing, the heat waves, all of that stuff.

Do you know what I mean? The, the corruption, the big tech money in politics, all of it’s connected, right? You know, and I think that [00:27:00] just the way mainstream media has always been organized isn’t set up to be thinking in that way.

[00:27:05] Amy Westervelt: dots I know I’ve always thought that like um the solution or at least part of the solution to that is having more climate people for lack of a better way to put it in in like the editorial decisionmaking structure of of organizations as opposed to like running the climate desk or running You know what I mean It’s like you almost need to

[00:27:26] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:27:26] Amy Westervelt: who sits across all of it in a way to be able to be like Oh that’s a you know this story Or like I we mentioned Venezuela and every time Venezuela comes up I have to mention the huge Guyana-sized hole in the coverage

of

[00:27:41] Alleen Brown: Hmm

[00:27:41] Amy Westervelt: the Venezuela stuff that like Marco Rubio the month before the US started attacking boats off the coast of Venezuela was in Guyana. He had been brought there by the government because the Venezuelan government has ever since Exxon discovered oil in Guyana been [00:28:00] trying to claim the territory that that oil is in for itself and they had just kind of upped that a bit by sending naval ships to the the floating offshore platform that that Exxon has off Guyana to say “Hey you’re illegally drilling in Venezuelan water” And the the Exxon guys freaked out and Marco Rubio shows up in Guyana saying Hey Venezuela you better watch out We will do whatever it takes to protect Exxon that’s what he Like he didn’t say to protect Guyana He didn’t say to protect the US or US interests He said to protect Exxon.

[00:28:35] Rubio: It would be a very bad day for the Venezuelan regime. Were to attack Guyana or attack ExxonMobil or anything, like, it would be a very bad day or a very bad week for them, and it would not end well for them. Um, I’m not gonna get into details of what we’ll do, we’re not big on those kinds of threats.

I think everybody understands,

[00:28:52] Amy Westervelt: So like it’s not even uh you know an insinuation that like the government

[00:28:58] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:28:58] Amy Westervelt: is acting on [00:29:00] behalf of the oil majors They’re just straightup saying it and

[00:29:03] Nina: Yeah

[00:29:04] Amy Westervelt: if you don’t have someone your newsroom who can point that out when the Venezuela stuff comes up or when Iran comes up or whatever then yeah it just becomes like a foreign

[00:29:15] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:29:15] Amy Westervelt: story or a politics story

[00:29:18] Alleen Brown: Right. Yeah, I mean, we really need climate journalism to step out of the realm of simply, like, science and,

[00:29:26] Amy Westervelt: Yes

[00:29:27] Alleen Brown: n- the realm of the natural world. I mean, that’s really important, but you know, I think rising authoritarianism around the world is one of the most important climate stories that we’re seeing.

You know, we’re seeing a, a, a retraction or even collapse, just like with journalism, we’re seeing retraction of civil society both in the US and globally. I specialize more in the US and so just here, you know, thinking about big climate nonprofits, 350.org basically shut down its US operation because they lacked funding last year.[00:30:00]

[00:30:00] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:30:01] Alleen Brown: the Sierra Club has shrunk pretty dramatically. Greenpeace is on its heels because of this lawsuit that we covered in the, the series SLAPP’d filed by Energy Transfer,

[00:30:14] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:30:14] Alleen Brown: has just decimated their ability to respond to the climate crisis. And, you know, maybe this is, like, a little bit of a different kind of thing, but the Sunrise Movement w- which has, like, famously led youth climate activism in the US has shifted its focus to authoritarianism,

[00:30:32] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:30:32] Alleen Brown: they say that that’s, you know, we have to fight authoritarianism if we’re gonna address the climate crisis seriously.

[00:30:39] Amy Westervelt: That these two things go hand in hand Yeah

[00:30:42] Nina: Mm-hmm.

So is, so is Friends of the Earth England actually which

[00:30:46] Alleen Brown: Mm, interesting

[00:30:47] Nina: Asad Rehman who, who was once the director of War on Want. And exactly for what you’re saying, you know, it’s like actually if you wanna tackle the climate crisis, you have to be tackling the rise of the far right, [00:31:00] authoritarianism, misinformation, all of those things, right?

And so it sort of … You can’t do one of these without the other

[00:31:07] Amy Westervelt: Yeah Yeah that’s a good segue into talking about some of the stuff that we’re all working on cause actually every single thing we just talked about totally plays into the stuff that we’re working on right now Alleen since your project is is actually the most recent one do you wanna talk a little bit about The Propagandist and what you unearthed there

[00:31:29] Alleen Brown: Yeah, absolutely. So Drilled just put out this podcast that I hosted and reported called The Propagandist. It’s based on over 100 pages of public records from this private security company that was hired by the parent company of the Dakota Access Pipeline. So that company is Energy Transfer, and you’ll remember in 2016 and 2017 indigenous people from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe led a movement to stop that pipeline’s construction, largely on the grounds of [00:32:00] wanting to protect their water.

Also, they were concerned about sacred sites, treaty rights and, you know, this global movement kind of mobilized behind the tribe also on the grounds of you know, slowing the climate crisis.

[00:32:13] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:32:14] Alleen Brown: so this company, the, the pipeline company hired this mercenary private security company that got its start in the wake of the global war on terror.

It was founded by an ex-comen- commander of the Special Forces unit Delta Force. And they basically brought their I guess, war on terror tactics to the homeland and aimed them at indigenous people. So this story focuses specifically on that company’s propaganda efforts. They hired this guy, this tech guy, really.

He was, like, a virtual reality enthusiast, and he created a lot of Facebook content designed to divide people within the movement against each other [00:33:00] and also to divide the movement and the surrounding communities, which were mostly white, rural people. So, you know, they spread this information on Facebook without disclosing who was behind the pages, and it really influenced the way people thought about what was happening on the ground.

And, you know, I found that those divisions in, in those communities persist 10 years later. You know, I think this story’s important because this is a type of strategy that happens all around the world. It’s rare that we have such a close look– the stories are based on WhatsApp chats, emails.

You know, in one case, the propaganda guy is chatting with someone who was, someone working for TigerSwan who’s going undercover into the protest spaces pretending to be a friend. And they’re really explicitly talking about how to divide people, how to break relationships, really, or potential relationships.

[00:33:58] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:33:59] Alleen Brown: you know, I [00:34:00] think it, I think this stuff really helps- explain the polarization that we see today and the tearing of the social fabric that we see in mining communities around the world, places where extraction happens. This is not just in this one place, and now it’s sort of on overdrive with the rise of influencers, the collapse of journalism ecosystems and

[00:34:24] Amy Westervelt: And the growth

[00:34:24] Alleen Brown: and AI.

Yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm.

[00:34:28] Amy Westervelt: My f favorite detail about the that guy is that he used like a cute dog to to like weasel his way into the protest camps It’s

[00:34:37] Alleen Brown: Yeah. I mean, that’s…

[00:34:40] Nina: Oh my god, I’d have fallen for it immediately.

[00:34:42] Alleen Brown: Yeah, yeah.

[00:34:43] Amy Westervelt: know I know

[00:34:44] Nina: I’m a sucker

[00:34:44] Alleen Brown: L-

[00:34:44] Nina: for cute dogs.

[00:34:46] Alleen Brown: I mean, that’s, I, I do think that the fossil fuel industry is really good at, like, identifying people’s, fears and desires and, and playing with those in serious ways. You know, I [00:35:00] think w- we talk a lot about, oh, you know, people aren’t saying the word climate crisis as much these days, and I think I agree that that’s bad.

But also, you know, I do think sometimes the environmental movement could do better at meeting people where they’re at, you know? I’m, I’m in New York. We have a mayor who’s talking all the time about affordability, and it makes a big difference.

[00:35:21] Amy Westervelt: Yeah Totally

[00:35:24] Nina: It’s amazing you’ve got all this detail. I mean, like, we’ve all reported on, the violence and criminalization a- of, defenders across the world, right? And these sort of, you know, these old school divide and conquer tactics that go back as far as colonialism goes back, but then also all the co- conscious counterinsurgency manuals, sort of all those sort of tactics that, you know, which have sort of just been tweaked and changed a little bit to meet the, you know, meet the sort of environment t- of today. And that’s what we’re see- that’s what you s- you know, you’ve found, and we’ve seen that happen. We see it happening in community after community, and they do it because it’s effective,

[00:35:59] Alleen Brown: [00:36:00] yeah

[00:36:00] Nina: I mean,

[00:36:00] Alleen Brown: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and I mean, the heart of this company explicitly talked about their work as counterinsurgency strategy, and, you know, a really important part of counterinsurgency is basically getting the local population to take on your priorities. You know, you want the local people to be the ones kind of advancing in, in Afghanistan it would be US interests.

You know it’s, the same thing is replicated in these sites of extraction

[00:36:31] Amy Westervelt: It’s interesting to see the the cause I I you know I’ve have this like longrunning obsession with the PR industry in general

[00:36:39] Alleen Brown: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:40] Amy Westervelt: of that But the history of that is also like almost all of the big leaders in that industry the people who really innovated new tactics they were all trained in military intelligence first

[00:36:53] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:53] Alleen Brown: Wow. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

[00:36:55] Amy Westervelt: psyops

[00:36:56] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:56] Amy Westervelt: the

[00:36:57] Alleen Brown: Yeah

[00:36:57] Amy Westervelt: and then came home and like had [00:37:00] this skill set that they put to work on behalf of companies

[00:37:03] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:04] Amy Westervelt: against the American public It’s like been going on for at least a century plus

[00:37:09] Alleen Brown: Yeah, Amy, tell us about your book. You, this is like directly related to big news you have.

[00:37:18] Amy Westervelt: Yes I’ve I’ve written a book. I have a book coming out this month it’s called Brought To You By and it is all about this kind of information warfare thing. Each chapter is sort of like different layer of the information ecosystem that’s been warped by these kinds of practices and walks people through how it works. A lot of the examples are climate and/or oil related but not all cause I I really wanted people to sort of see how these tactics work for all kinds of companies So any company that’s trying to circumvent democracy you know is gonna use some combination of these tactics if not all. [00:38:00] And I think also it’s important to understand and like I was thinking about this while you were talking about this private security company too and what they did at Standing Rock Like these things that companies do one time right as a project to avoid like they wanna avoid bad press on a refinery project or they want a pipeline to go through or whatever So they’ll do all this stuff that really messes with the information ecosystem and then they get their thing that they want and they leave but the pollution is still there And it spreads to other things you

[00:38:33] Alleen Brown: Yes

[00:38:34] Amy Westervelt: we see it over and over again It’s like they I mean this community that you reported on it’s been 10 years and that tension that they inflamed is still like that you know

[00:38:46] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:38:46] Alleen Brown: Yeah

[00:38:47] Amy Westervelt: happened as a result of that just because like they wanted to know just like th throw a turd in the punch bowl and walk away

[00:38:57] Alleen Brown: Right, and these are people’s lives, you know? Like, [00:39:00] it’s not, I mean, it is these big things like our ability to confront the climate crisis in a serious way, but it’s also, like, people in a town’s ability to have a relationship with their neighbor. These are, like, really intimate things that are being disrupted.

[00:39:16] Amy Westervelt: Yeah

[00:39:16] Nina: Mm-hmm. Well-

[00:39:19] Amy Westervelt: let’s have let’s talk a little bit about Displaced This is a new season that’s coming soon that Nina’s been working on all year and it’s it’s fascinating Every time I like mention it to people they’re like Ooh that sounds good I wanna listen to it So yeah tell us what you’ve been working on

[00:39:34] Nina: so this is a series, Displaced. It’s g- in– The reporting’s from three different communities in Latin America where communities have been displaced or are facing displacement because of some sort of climate disaster including coastal erosion, sea level rise, drought, extreme heat. And the series is about, how these communities are confronting this, you know, and, how they’re trying to get their governments to do the right thing and to, to, you know, to [00:40:00] give them what they need, and that sort of depends on the, on the community, what they’re looking for.

Some are fighting for the right to be resettled. Others are fighting for the right to remain. And I mean, so, so there’s lots and lots of, you know, great you know, characters from the communities that I spent a lot of time in. But also, you know, I think in talking, coming back to connecting the dots, you know, what we’re trying to do is really you know, connect what’s happening on the ground to things that are quite sort of like wonky and difficult to get people interested in, like climate finance, like loss and damage, adaptation, national adaptation policies.

Who’s responsible, you know? Who’s accountable for what’s happening, how communities can access accountability and justice. Yeah, so that will be coming, I think, hopefully yeah, at the end of November, maybe beginning of December, something like that.

[00:40:48] Amy Westervelt: yeah. I think too, like the thing that keeps jumping out to me, I get- it’s I get to like, I get to listen to it along the way, and the thing that keeps jumping out to me is the really nuanced and detailed questions around [00:41:00] what does adaptation look like and who gets to decide how we adapt, how these communities adapt.

Even when, you know, the thing works and like you get the government to do the resettlement and everything, like there’s so many other things along the way

[00:41:17] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:18] Amy Westervelt: To happen in order to kind of keep a community whole and these questions of what are these communities owed and how, do you deal with, yeah, moving like a community that’s a, a fishing, ocean-based community further inland

[00:41:36] Nina: Mm-hmm.

[00:41:36] Amy Westervelt: like the, the fabric of that community.

There’s a, there’s just a lot more to it than just giving someone a new place to live, you know?

[00:41:44] Alleen Brown: These are communities that are de facto criminalized b- by the fact that they are Brown people that are being displaced by the climate crisis, and we’re living in a world where migration is increasingly criminalized. These are the same people that would be [00:42:00] snatched off the streets in Minneapolis or New York or anywhere else in the United States, and potentially deported to countries in Africa that they have no relationship to.

[00:42:11] Amy Westervelt: Ja

[00:42:12] Alleen Brown: so I think it’s so rare that we see in-depth coverage of these communities, and I’m really excited to listen to the podcast

[00:42:20] Amy Westervelt: fact, like that is a cycle

[00:42:21] Nina: Yeah, and

[00:42:22] Amy Westervelt: for one of the communities, right? People who have left a community because climate change has made it less viable in terms of farming, finding a job, all of that stuff, and been criminalized in the US and sent back only to face, more of the same.

The way that those two things are connected too I think is super interesting

[00:42:45] Nina: I mean, I think, though, as well, what this reporting and what a lot of the reporting, you know, that I do shows is, like, communities are not waiting for their governments to come and save them.

[00:42:54] Amy Westervelt: Or NGO

[00:42:54] Nina: they never have done, and they,

[00:42:56] Amy Westervelt: to come and save them.

[00:42:57] Alleen Brown: Mm-hmm.

[00:42:58] Nina: No, they’re not, and actually, where the [00:43:00] solutions lie are with these communities. And so when we’re talking about climate finance and we’re talking about adaptation plans, what we need to do is be able to sit and listen to what people are telling us, like what their priorities are, what the solutions for them would look like, right? And make sure the funding gets to them, right?

Because these are communities, you know, like, we started off talking about Nepal. Well, Nepal has c- contributed naught point, less than 0.01% of global greenhouse gases historically, right? These communities have contributed absolutely nothing to the climate crisis. Many of them still do not have access to electricity and light and clean water, right?

And, and so now and now even, you know, what they’re coming up with solutions, ways to adapt, and ways to, you know, to, to live dignified lives, and the money that is available isn’t getting to them, right? And so I think it’s sort of about, you know, not only have they not contributed to the climate crisis, they’re being excluded from the climate solutions that are on the table.[00:44:00]

[00:44:00] Alleen Brown: Hmm

[00:44:00] Amy Westervelt: Yeah. Okay, I’m just gonna put in two plugs for other projects coming down the line. One is that we will be doing some kind of coverage from COP, and that happens in November. COP is the annual UN, climate negotiations meeting. It’s being held in Turkey this year, but it’s co-hosted by Australia. actually quite a bit of talk about the Pacific Island nations trying to push Australia to push for some mention of fossil fuel phase out. Amazing to me that this is still even an argument that needs to be had.

[00:44:34] Nina: Not gonna

[00:44:34] Amy Westervelt: So we’ll have some reporting from there, and then also we’re actually working on a project of looking at the, the tech guys and their push to stop the regulation of disinformation in Europe.

There’s a huge push from them to stop that. There’s a huge influx of, like, MAGA groups in Europe that are also working to stop it and pushing this idea that, you know, “Oh, [00:45:00] Europe is trying to censor the US.” I just saw the other day, I’m scooping myself now, but whatever. I just saw a, a notice on the State Department website that the US has a call for proposals for organizations that will help to preserve the rule of law and fight against censorship in Europe, and preserve Western values. So, bleh, me.

[00:45:26] Alleen Brown: Cute. Amazing

[00:45:31] Amy Westervelt: Yeah. So we’re looking at all of that stuff too, and that project’ll come out you know, sort of late in the year, early next too. So lots of stuff. We’re trying to, you know, keep soldiering on over here. And we’ll have more episodes soon. So we’ll be running some interviews, some conversations with other Drilled reporters other reporters in general, authors, all of that stuff coming up. Make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss that. [00:46:00] And yeah, we’ll have more narrative season soon too.

[00:46:02] Alleen Brown: exciting

[00:46:03] Nina: Yeah, we’ve got a bunch of great interviews already lined up. We’ve got human rights experts. We’ve got a climate justice leader from a football club in Dublin, Ireland that is doing amazing work. We’ve got … Yeah, we’ve got a whole bunch of really interesting people. So yeah,

[00:46:19] Alleen Brown: Yeah.

[00:46:20] Nina: sign up

[00:46:21] Alleen Brown: I’m super excited to see what we’ll do. I think it’s gonna be great.

[00:46:26] Amy Westervelt: Thanks, Alleen.

[00:46:27] Nina: Well, we’re great, so it will be great.

[00:46:30] Amy Westervelt: Perfect.