Break In Case of Emergency

Mapping right-wing activism, corporate lobbying and climate denialism (w/ Geoff Dembicki)

• Climate Emergency Unit • Episode 7

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In this episode of Break in Case of Emergency, hosts Erin Blondeau and Emiko Newman speak with Geoff Dembicki, global managing editor of DeSmog, to discuss the intricate connections between conservative politics, corporate lobbying, and climate denialism. 

The conversation explores the mapping of Pierre Poilievre’s inner circle, the influence of lobbyists on climate policy and insights from Jordan Peterson’s ARC conference, where right-wing activists strategized against climate action and what they deem “woke” ideology. Dembicki emphasizes the importance of grassroots movements and the need for a united front in countering the climate counter movement, while also highlighting the role of media in shaping public perception.

This episode aired on April 19 2025.

Articles/podcasts mentioned in this episode:

Credits: Produced by Doug Hamilton-Evans, Emiko Newman, and Erin Blondeau. Hosted by Erin Blondeau and Emiko Newman. Featuring Geoff Dembicki. Music by Anjali Appadurai. Audio editing by Blue Light Studios. Artwork by Geoff Smith.

Erin Blondeau (00:02)
Hello and welcome back to Break in Case of Emergency, a podcast about mobilizing Canada for the climate crisis with audacious solutions rooted in justice and workers' rights. I'm your host, Erin Blondeau. I'm the Director of Communications at the Climate Emergency Unit.

Emiko Newman (00:18)
I'm your co-host, Emiko Newman. I'm the coordinator of the BC Climate Emergency Campaign.

Erin Blondeau (00:24)
And today we are very glad and excited to welcome a special guest today, Geoff Dembicki to the podcast. Geoff is the global managing editor of Desmog and the author of the petroleum papers inside the far right conspiracy to cover up climate change. Recently, Geoff published an interactive map that traces how conservative leader Pierre Pollievre's inner circle is packed with corporate lobbyists linked to oil and gas companies as well as corporate interests like Elon Musk's social media app X and right wing communications platforms like Rebel News and Canada Proud. Geoff also recently attended a major conference for conservatives around the world, organized and hosted by Jordan Peterson. So we're really looking forward to diving deep into the ARC conference and Geoff's map to make sense of the climate counter movement. Welcome to Breaking Case of Emergency, Geoff. It's so great to have you here.

Geoff Dembicki (01:21)
Yeah, thanks so much for having me on the show.

Erin Blondeau (01:24)
Great. Well, to begin, we just want to say that we're huge fans of Desmog at the Climate Emergency Unit. Could you start by just telling us a little bit about Desmog and the work that you do there?

Geoff Dembicki (01:34)
Yeah, so Desmog is a leading investigative journalism organization that looks specifically at the fossil fuel companies and conservative politicians and other anti-climate allies that sort of all work together to prevent solutions to the climate emergency. And I am a global managing editor, which means I oversee our teams in the UK, Europe, US and Canada. So I have a pretty global perspective on all of the reactionary anti-climate movements in those places.

Emiko Newman (02:18)
Thanks for sharing that, Geoff. That's actually, that must be really interesting having a good sense of how these movements are shifting and changing throughout the world so that you not only get the sense of what's happening here in Canada, but also how that might be similar to or different from how kind of the anti-climate movement or climate conspiracism is taking root globally. Do you find that there are connections that are quite obvious between what's happening in the various countries?

Geoff Dembicki (02:52)
yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I know we'll get into it later, later in the show when we talk about the art conference. But I'll say, you know, with the Canadian election coming up soon in Canada, we have a tendency to focus on politics as far as it extends to our national borders. And maybe we take a little peek over into the US from time to time. But from my perspective, at Desmog, I can say pretty confidently that the anti-climate forces in Canada, including Pierre Pollievre and the Federal Conservative Party, they're very, very much tied to this broader global anti-climate reactionary movement, which right now very much has a lot of its energy and focus in the Trump administration.

Emiko Newman (03:47)
Well, I think that actually leads us very nicely into our next question. So we mentioned your recent work mapping Pierre Pollievre's inner circle and right-wing activists. And this map that you've produced is a very complicated and extensive web of connections. And so we're interested to hear more from you about what that looks like. Can you walk us through it? Who's who in Pollievre's inner circle?

And where does this web of relationships take us?

Geoff Dembicki (04:21)
Yeah, and I should give a little bit of background about how this map was produced because Pierre Pollievre has over the last few years made it a key part of his political brand to portray himself as a member of the working class and someone who considers political lobbyists to be useless. That's what he said over and over again.

On its face, that's, it's a pretty ridiculous assertion given that Pollievre has been a career politician for the past 20 years. but at Desmog, we had seen like little bits and pieces about the various lobbyists who were sort of orbiting Pollievre's inner circle, including great reports and publications like The Breach. But as we dug deeper into it, we realized that there was this whole fascinating complex constellation of corporate interests and other lobbyists attached to Pollievre and the Conservative Party. And we thought the best way to communicate that to people in Canada was just to put it all in a map. Because it's not until you see sort of Pollievre and the Conservative Party at the center and then all of these spokes extending out to all of the behind the scenes players that you really get a sense of of the powerful industries that are advocating for a poly of government. And so I could go into more specific examples if you'd like.

Erin Blondeau (05:59)
Yeah, I think that would be really great because, know, in your, like exactly like you just said, and in your Pollievre mapped article, which we'll link to in the description of the podcast episode, you talk about how Pollievre has been championing himself as, you know, a member of the working class and a champion of blue collar workers. And this seems to be part of this rising trend of right-wing populism.

But I would love to know more about, know, do the findings of your mapping project prove or disprove this view that Pollievre is using to frame himself? And I guess, like as a reporter, you know, are you seeing this information impacting voters? Do you think that people understand that Pollievre has these connections and does that matter to people?

Geoff Dembicki (06:50)
I that's a good question, whether it's all resonating. I'm not sure yet. I guess we'll see on election day. But when we started looking at Pollievre's inner circle at Desmog, we began with the Conservative Party's National Council. And so this is a part of the party that maybe Canadians aren't as familiar with, but it handles a lot of the administration behind the scenes. And it's seen as the party's highest authority on a whole bunch of governance matters. And so the Conservative Party National Council is actually filled with active lobbyists. And there was a vote among Conservative Party members several years ago about whether to ban lobbyists from the National Council. And Conservative Party members voted against that ban.

And so as a result, the National Council, it has members like Aaron Scheewe, and he's managing director at a lobby group called Capitol Hill Group. Capitol Hill Group has many clients, including MBDA Missile Systems, Canadian International Pharmacy Association, and even X-Corp, which is the the social media platform that we all remember as Twitter, which is currently owned by the world's richest man, Elon Musk. And so whether the map proves or disproves, if Pauliev is a member of the working class, I'll sort of leave it up to your listeners to decide whether missile companies, the pharmaceutical lobby and Elon Musk represent blue collar workers.

Erin Blondeau (08:43)
Wow, that is so fascinating. Do you think that these connections are why Pollievre and the Conservative Party don't want to acknowledge climate change or that they're not building it into their party platforms? Do you think that these issues are connected?

Geoff Dembicki (09:02)
I mean, absolutely in some sense, because some of the other lobbyists that directly sit on the Conservative Party National Council and who are former advisors to Pollievre or who are currently helping work on his campaign, among their lobby groups, there's a lot of oil and gas representation. There's companies like Sinovus, Enbridge.

And so obviously, if you have this big team of insiders behind the scenes who directly represent the material interests of Canada's oil and gas lobby, that's going to have some impact on your policies as a federal leader. But I would also say that, you know, among conservative parties in Canada and worldwide, we've seen this really rapid kind of anti-climate turn in recent years, where parties like the Conservative Party in Canada, previously they were taking some small steps to sort of acknowledge climate change is the problem and we had to do something about it. And now you see that Pollievre is just full on build pipelines, frack for the gas, fossil fuels all the way. It's basically Trump's version of drill baby drill but with a Canadian spin on it.

Emiko Newman (10:30)
Well, this is super important work that you've done here, Geoff, with this mapping. I think it's so, it's crucial that we're increasing the transparency between these connections that that Pollievre has to the oil and gas lobby and to major right-wing media outlets and corporations. And I'm curious, like, how serious is this? Is it just a matter of them running in the same circles or is there more overt influence and
coordination or even collusion going on here?

Geoff Dembicki (11:03)
I mean, I would love to know the specifics of all of these relationships. What we have to go with as journalists and members of the public is just the fact that all of these relationships exist and that you have major Canadian oil companies represented by lobbying groups whose leaders are helping set policy for the Conservative Party. I would say, didn't really, Desmog didn't really get into this in the map so much, but prominent oil company CEOs in Canada have donated directly to the Pierre Pollievre campaign, have hosted fundraisers for him in Calgary, have attended those fancy fundraisers and are very much hoping that Pollievre will win the election rather than Mark Carney and the liberals.

Erin Blondeau (12:09)
Wow, that is very interesting and very telling and also sadly not surprising. I'm thinking about the great book that you published about the petroleum papers and how deep these kind of climate counter movement and climate denial networks go. With your work, have you also looked at connections with the Liberal Party or other Canadian political parties?

Geoff Dembicki (12:36)
Yeah, and that's a great question because the liberals, despite how they're portrayed by the conservatives as sort of like insane, like communist, anti-energy, like radicals, are very much also a party of big business. And they have tons of ties to oil and gas and have arguably done more for the oil and gas sector than the conservatives have.

and, one good example of that is the tens of billions of dollars that have been spent on the trans mountain pipeline, which the, Justin Trudeau government, purchased. And, and so actually, at, at Desmog, we're, talking about, a future version of this map that will focus on, on Mark Carney and the liberals. But the reason we wanted to start with Pollievre is, just because he's, he's been so adamant about marketing himself as a blue collar champion. And we thought that the dissonance between that and the actual power players behind him was so strong that we just wanted to communicate it.

Emiko Newman (13:49)
And it's so nicely laid out. think seeing it visually mapped out is just so impactful and really gives you a sense of how deep all these connections run, Geoff. I just wanted to give you a chance to say if there's anything else that you want our listeners to know about the mapping project or if there are any other really critical implications of this work you've done.

Geoff Dembicki (14:13)
think one, there's one interesting piece of this map that I kind of, that sort of became more evident to me as we were putting it together. And that is that Pollievre has, he's made all these attacks on corporate lobbyists and said they're useless and they won't be a part of his administration or his government, I mean, if he becomes prime minister.

But I think what people have failed to appreciate is that Pollievre is just talking about lobbyists that he doesn't agree with, and he's perfectly fine opening up his government to lobbyists that are seen as allies of him or who are kind of on his side in a sense. And one example of that is this guy, David Murray, who is a former director of policy for Pollievre.

And now he's an executive with an advocacy marketing group called One Persuasion. And so David Murray actually says on his group's website that his previous connections to Polya will help open doors for new clients. And so he says, quote, there are many who speculate on how to approach.

And on how to approach this, and he's referring to Pollievre's view of lobbyists and government relations. And then he goes, David already knows how to do this. So it's the people who are connected to Pollievre are planning to use their access to give a whole array of corporate clients, sort of a direct line to the federal government in Canada.

Emiko Newman (16:04)
Right, which is obviously incredibly problematic and something that should be made known to the public. And I think a conclusion from this work that you've done is that Polyev is not anti-lobbyist or anti-media. He's anti certain types of lobbyists who don't agree with him and certain types of media that don't paint him in a good light.

Geoff Dembicki (16:29)
Exactly. Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

Emiko Newman (16:31)
So let's switch gears now and talk about this ARC conference that you attended recently. For our listeners, ARC stands for the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. Their website describes ARC as an international movement with a vision for a better world where empowered citizens take responsibility and work together to bring flourishing and prosperity to their families, communities, and nations. So, you know...

at face value doesn't sound too bad. The ARC conference is a multi-day networking event which aims to quote renew and restore Western civilization. Notably the man behind ARC is none other than Jordan Peterson which might ring some alarm bells for you if you know anything about Peterson but we'll touch on him more in a moment. So the first ARC conference was held back in October 2023, and they ran it for a second time in February. So that's the one that you attended, Geoff. And we're super curious to hear from you. What was your experience like attending this conference? What was it like rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest right-wing influencers and politicians in the world?

Geoff Dembicki (17:50)
Well, it was a pretty wild and surreal experience. I purchased a ticket to ARC a few months in advance of the event, and I wasn't sure if they would let me in. But I didn't have any hassle getting into the conference. I arrived in London, England in February, along with a couple reporters from Canada's National Observer who we were collaborating with on this reporting.

And so basically if you can picture this, this sort of like huge state of the art convention center in East London, and pretty much everyone there is connected to some sort of powerful conservative group. Many of them pushing outright climate change denial. So over the course of the event, I heard speakers, including Trump administration officials, leaders of political parties in the UK who deny that humans are causing climate change, representatives of Europe's far right, and a pretty sizable contingent of Canadians actually, including some people closely linked to the Conservative Party. So it was a good, for me at least, was...

It was a place where I could sort of really get a sense of what the globe, the global sort of reactionary conversation is like on climate change right now.

Erin Blondeau (19:29)
Yeah, Geoff, that sounds absolutely fascinating. And I've been listening to the National Observer's coverage on this because they have a podcast called The Takeover where they're kind of going through this. And it just sounds so fascinating, the things that they've talked about there. And there is one thing in particular that I wanted to ask you about. So with your work examining the ARC conference, it's unveiling a network of right-wing activists and politicians and corporate interests.

And they're all aligned against climate action in this kind of culture war to preserve quote unquote Western civilization like Emiko mentioned earlier. Are we seeing a similar desire to preserve this Eurocentric view of society in Canadian politics? And do you think that this Eurocentric view is getting in the way of transformative climate policy? You know, the climate policy that we need to see to transition away from fossil fuels that are causing climate change. Do you think that there's connections here between what you saw at ARC and Canadian politics?

Geoff Dembicki (20:38)
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think what I really noticed at ARC is how sort of the climate denial and anti-climate solution talking points are really evolving quite a bit. So ARC had three components. There was a lot of discussion about tech and AI, a lot of discussion about social conservative values and preserving the family, and then a lot of discussion about energy and climate change.

And so various speakers there were trying to make connections between all of those things. I almost came to think of it in a way as like conservative intersectionality. They were looking for these common points between issues that on the surface are quite a bit different from each other. But I think part of the reason that anti-climate voices are trying to turn climate change into a culture war topic is because they've largely lost the debate on whether climate change is real and happening. mean, it's obvious with all the disasters that we're seeing all of the time. And I think they're also really starting to lose the debate on climate action being terrible for the economy. I mean, last year there was over $2 trillion invested in the energy transition. So you have to be pretty ignorant if you have any knowledge of the global economy or finance to just ignore that. And so a lot of these anti-climate voices, including Jordan Peterson, who's kind of like a power broker of all of these different conservative interests, they've started lumping climate action in with opposition to like DEI initiatives, to gender pronouns to a preservation of European or Western civilization. And when you link climate action to all of those things, you actually don't have to make much of an argument against climate action. All you have to say is, hey, you don't like gender pronouns and climate action is part of the same group. So therefore you don't like that either. And people are like, okay, yeah, great. That totally makes sense to me. And so I think

The conservatives who were at ARC, including conservative MP Leslyn Lewis and former Alberta premier Jason Kenney and a few others, they're sort of observing all of this. see the trends. And I think in some sense that that sort of is filtering up into how Pierre Pollievre and the conservative party are talking about climate change these days, which is as a whole part of things that are woke, that make Canada weak, that undermine our proud European-influenced country. And so I don't think it's as extreme or obvious here in Canada as it is in the United States and some other places, but that's definitely where the trend lines are pointing.

Emiko Newman (23:58)
I think that brings up a question for me around how serious conferences like these are in terms of the risks they pose for those of us who do believe in the climate crisis and do advocate for human rights and social justice. Because you mentioned a moment ago, Geoff, that you know, it's harder these days to be an outright climate denialist, and yet we see conferences like these, which had thousands of people in attendance, and it sounds as if rhetoric around climate denialism was accepted, not only accepted, but promoted and taken for granted and perpetuated at this event. And so you're also saying how we're seeing that same sort of rhetoric being spoken by our own politicians here in Canada by Paliyev. And so, you know, do you think that this is something that we need to be concerned about and that conferences like these are going to just keep expanding and taking over?

Geoff Dembicki (25:06)
Well, I would say what a conference like this shows is that these anti-climate movements and political figures in the US, Canada, Europe, and other parts of the world, they're all comparing notes. They're strategizing, and they're trying to build the power of their networks together. And so I would say one lesson I take away from that is for climate advocates in Canada,

It's really good to observe how opposition to climate action looks in other parts of the world and how that influences Canada. And also to build links with movements and coalitions that are outside of the country and learn from groups in other parts of the world that are pushing a very transformative climate agenda. another big takeaway for me is that most of the speakers and the anti-climate activists at the art conference, they were all framing their opposition to climate action in terms of a critique of inequality, which

Which sounds sort of absolutely crazy when you consider the amount of like wealth and power and influence and privilege that was on display at the conference there. But I think it comes back to what we were talking about earlier in terms of Pierre Pollievre presenting himself as a member of Canada's working class who's going to battle against the political elites. And before Trump kind of upended the Canadian election, the slogan that

Pollievre was planning on to run his whole campaign on was Axe the Tax. And he portrayed this as sort of a gift to Canada's working classes that would make life more affordable to them. Of course, you know, Pauliev's whole shtick is really easy to see through and transparent. but I think he is speaking to some real, outrage among Canadians about the insane levels of inequality.

in this country and sort of the genuine material security challenges that a lot of people face in terms of being able to afford homes or groceries or provide for their families. And so I think any strong pushback in the direction of true climate action also needs to acknowledge this inequality. I think that's where we'll gain the sort of the depth and intensity to build an even stronger and more lasting climate movement than already exists right now.

Erin Blondeau (28:04)
Yeah, that is something that I've noticed too actually about the inequality piece where it feels like a lot of climate denial narratives, yeah, they really zero in on this kind of false narrative that climate, transformative climate policy or climate action would push more people into poverty, would harm more people, would bring forward all of these terrible things, know, like 15 minute cities or like different forms of oppression. And I find that really fascinating because, you know, we work at the climate emergency unit. We're a part of a movement trying to build towards climate justice. And that's not part of our narrative. We always lead with climate solutions need to be worker led. They need to center workers and indigenous rights and really be rooted in equity and equality. And so

I just find this a very interesting piece of the narrative. kind of goes to something that Naomi Klein writes about, which is the mirror world, which is where these topics get turned on their head and flipped around to mean something different than what we actually intend. So, and I guess this kind of comes to something else that I wanted to ask you about. A lot of these things are really high level. You know, we're looking at international conferences or federal party leaders.

But I'm wondering if in your reporting if you've also seen more grassroots climate denial popping up in communities that are more small scale but are still influential or do think that a lot of this is the high level that's trickling down?

Geoff Dembicki (29:46)
I mean, this all plays out at the local level too, because the local level is where you can actually start to get climate policy passed that has a real impact and that can then be leveraged into building provincial policies or federal policies. And one example of that is the recent effort in Vancouver City Council to ban on gas in new homes. And there was a very targeted disinformation campaign that was led by organizations, including Resource Works with the backing of major gas companies. we actually, at Desmog, obtained some really interesting notes that they were sending around to their supporters. And they were urging people to adopt the identities of quote, like small business owner or local chef and to submit tons and tons of comments to city council saying a gas ban would make Vancouver's culinary scene less diverse or hurt local restaurants and a whole variety of things. And that effort ultimately didn't pass, but that was a

An example to me of a very localized disinformation anti-climate campaign.

Emiko Newman (31:20)
That's a really good example and I remember watching the at City Hall and they were kind broadcasting the deputations and I was remember kind of feeling on the edge of my seat thinking, this vote going to pass? What's going to happen? And thankfully we saw a positive result and the gas ban was upheld, but it definitely was frustrating that we had to relitigate this thing that had already been determined. The gas ban had already been put in place and then here we were having to go through it all over again. But I want to move back to Jordan Peterson. We mentioned him a few times. He's one of the masterminds behind ARC in the ARC conference, and I'm sure many of our listeners are somewhat familiar with him. But can you give us just a bit of a history of how he became, as you call him, a global anti-net zero power broker?

Geoff Dembicki (32:17)
Yeah, he's been on a weird journey. That's for sure. So the really quick bio of him is University of Toronto psychology professor. And then I believe it was 2016, 2017, sometime around that. Peterson started recording these anti-trans videos and he said he would refuse to use his students' preferred gender pronouns in the classroom. And so there was a lot of reaction to that justified. But what happened was Peterson, instead of looking at the students in his classroom, he was hurting and sort of the harmful impact of all these things he was saying.

He kind of doubled down on it. He got more defiant. And then he started to build a name for himself in American conservative media. And around this same time, he published a book that ended up becoming an international bestseller. sort of overnight, Jordan Peterson became like a major global conservative influencer.

And a huge part of his demographic were kind of men under the age of 40. And so at one point there was, there was a ton of mainstream coverage of Jordan Peterson. He was getting profiled all the time in like the New York Times and BBC. And there was tons of Canadian attention to him, but eventually the media kind of got sick of covering him. And, Peterson himself, he developed this like crippling addiction to anti-anxiety medicine. He somehow ended up at this treatment center in Moscow. It's all sort of strange. And then he emerged from all of that. Apparently, with his addiction somewhat under control at one point, he said he was only going to be eating red meat.

And at this point, even though most traditional media wasn't paying attention to him, he'd built up this massive online following with millions of followers across YouTube and other platforms. And his podcast is one of the bigger political podcasts in the entire world. And so a couple of years ago, Jordan Peterson started featuring outright climate deniers on that podcast.

These are people whose views are sort of so far outside the mainstream that you would never see them on CBC or in the Globe and Mail, maybe in the National Post though. But these are people, before a podcast like Jordan Peterson's, which runs on YouTube, they wouldn't have been able to reach a really mainstream audience.

But Peterson started having people like this on this on his show getting the millions and millions of views And then with with the formation of this arc conference Peterson sort of moved from being an anti climate influencer through his podcast into someone who's actually like bringing together powerful politicians and like influencing global policy on climate change so one of the speakers at the art conference was this guy, Chris Wright, who's the U S energy secretary. And at the conference, Chris Wright used very aggressive words against climate change. he called, the net zero targets by 2050, a sinister plan for governments to control people's freedom all around the world. And then Chris Wright, he, he, he spoke to the conference via video, but he said he very much regretted that he wasn't able to attend in person and he considered it to be a great honor that he was invited to speak and be included in this. to sum it all up, you have this guy, Jordan Peterson. Not too long ago, he was just a subscure professor in Toronto and now he's being praised by one of the most powerful cabinet ministers in the entire world who's setting the direction for US energy policy.

Emiko Newman (36:56)
Yeah, well, thank you for that background on Peterson. And it's pretty wild to see how he was kind of catapulted to fame and prominence. And I think, as you mentioned, I think that was in large part due to YouTube, right? Due to social media. And I think that it's because of YouTube and his podcast that he has been able to achieve the level of power and influence that he currently has. And I think Peterson has been one of the major voices perpetuating this belief that quote woke ideology is a virus or an infection. And actually we're hearing that same language also coming from people like Paul Yev and other conservative politicians. So I think that it's the media ecosystem and including social media that's playing a really large role right now in spreading and normalizing these beliefs. I'm just wondering if you can speak a little bit more about the role of the media in spreading climate denialism and right-wing ideology.

Geoff Dembicki (38:06)
Yeah, absolutely. you know, it used to be that we had something we called mainstream media and then something we called like social media or alternative media. And I know I've even used those labels in the conversation, but at this point, we're kind of moving towards a media landscape where what we used to consider mainstream media is actually becoming, I wouldn't say alternative, but almost niche in compared to the amount of people that can be reached through YouTube and these other platforms. And so it's telling that one of the only long form interviews that Pierre Pollievre has done is with Jordan Peterson, his podcast. And then all of the legacy outlets had to write stories about it the next day. So in that sense, YouTube really was the mainstream and

Emiko Newman (38:49)
Yeah.

Geoff Dembicki (39:03)
All of these traditional outlets are kind of playing like a reactive supporting role. And that was even obvious in the recent US election where the biggest media appearances Trump made were on a series of mostly male-focused podcasts, including Joe Rogan and a few others. so these social media platforms are basically like the mainstream media of our day and the challenges that the loudest voices in this space tend to be the Jordan Petersons and others who have deeply reactionary views about a whole range of topics, including addressing climate change.

Erin Blondeau (39:50)
Wow, I haven't actually thought of it that way that like, you know, this label that we use mainstream media is kind of outdated now because like you just said, in that instance, YouTube was the mainstream way to disseminate this information. That is so interesting and also concerning because when we look at meta, for example, we know that media, know, legacy media is banned on this social media app. So Canadians are not even seeing. you know, these legacy media that have to go through rigorous fact checking and, you know, they cannot just post outright lies or there would be consequences for that, but Canadians aren't getting that. So I think, you know, a lot of this can be very detrimental and on that I wanted to ask you how you think people can counter these narratives and get the truth out there, you know?

I think it's a lot more complicated than just telling truth. We know this through the decades of mis and disinformation that you can't just counter it with truth. It's something a lot deeper than that. But what can we do? Do we need more journalists out there? Do we need independent journalists? Maybe just communicators and bloggers. What can we do to counter this and to really bring the narrative back in terms of climate change about what's true and what matters?

Geoff Dembicki (41:13)
I mean, yeah, we could devote a whole podcast to this. But I'd say very briefly, you brought up Facebook and that's a really good example of where a lot of people are getting their media from these days. So Legacy Outlets can't publish on there, but groups like Canada Proud can. And that's an organization that's directly done communications for Pollievre and the Conservative Party.

And they basically blast people with anti-liberal, anti-climate, anti-progressive memes like 24-7. It's like a fire hose of them. And that's a loud megaphone for the entire conservative movement in the country. And so one way to push back on that is to actually go into these digital spaces like Facebook and YouTube.

and not shy away from them because, they're so dominated by conservatives, but using that as a place to meet a lot of people, who, who are being turned onto this aggressive right-wing messaging. And a lot of times people just accept those messages because there's no one else offering an alternative. And so I would say building a very loud pro climate megaphone across Facebook and other platforms is one way to do it. And then.

On the ground, there's often a critique anytime people try to link climate action to other issues like economic inequality or social justice. But I think that's misguided because the strongest climate movements that I've reported on have always had deep ties to a number of different constituencies, and that's what makes them so strong.

And to give one example really quickly, I used to live in Brooklyn and there was this really fascinating example of a climate movement which was led by a local neighborhood group in the Brooklyn neighborhood, Sunset Park. And they were opposed to a huge billion dollar gentrification project on the Brooklyn waterfront because it would drive out mostly low income Latino people who live nearby.

But this group, instead of fighting the project based on displacement and gentrification, they fought the project based on climate jobs. And they said, if you gentrify the entire waterfront, that's going to destroy this huge manufacturing center that we have. And instead of hotels for rich people, why don't we have factories where we can build wind turbines and other green energy technologies and then give jobs?

to people in the neighborhood. And they actually ended up winning that campaign and the project got canceled. And now there's a wind blade facility that's being constructed there. so that to me was like such a fascinating example of how social justice and immigrants rights and working class jobs.

and climate action can all be combined into a local on the ground movement that had a lot of legitimacy and political power.

Emiko Newman (44:37)
Yeah, I think that's basically a good definition of climate justice, right? You know, we're not just saying save the polar bears. All of this work is deeply connected to inequality and inequity and human rights and advocacy for the most vulnerable and et cetera, et cetera. That's what climate justice is all about. So thank you for sharing that story, Geoff. It's always important to hear.

Erin Blondeau (44:42)
Yeah, exactly.

Emiko Newman (45:06)
hopeful stories like that and examples where grassroots campaigns or campaigns run in small communities are successful. We need to really celebrate those wins. So we're reaching the end of this episode, Geoff. I just want to ask you, is there anything else that you would like to mention before we go?

Geoff Dembicki (45:23)
cannot think of anything. think we've covered a lot. So thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate it.

Emiko Newman (45:28)
Great. Well, yeah, thank you so much for joining us. It was honestly a huge honor to have you on the podcast. And I think there's still so much that we could really dig into, both with the ARC conference and the implications of that and this mapping of Pollievre and all his connections there. So maybe you'll even be open to joining us again down the road for another episode.

Of course. Great. Well, for today, was so good to have you on. And to our listeners, thank you so much for listening. If you like what you hear, please, as always, rate and review and subscribe and share this with a friend or family. And we'll see you next time.

Erin Blondeau (46:14)
Thanks everyone, thanks so much for coming on, Geoff.

Geoff Dembicki (46:17)
Thank you.

Shine, shine, shine, shine