36. Who Do We Trust on Climate Change? Misinformation and Power with Amy Westervelt

In this episode, investigative journalist Amy Westervelt examines how climate misinformation takes hold, how media systems reward confusion over clarity, and why expertise is often challenged rather than centered in public climate conversations.

This discussion looks at power, incentives, and structural trust including how false balance, platform dynamics, and corporate interests shape what audiences see, hear, and believe about climate change.

04:12 – How misinformation differs from misunderstanding
09:30 – The media’s role in amplifying doubt and controversy
15:48 – False balance and why “both sides” framing fails
21:05 – Power, incentives, and who benefits from confusion
27:40 – What responsible climate journalism actually looks like
33:10 – Rebuilding trust in a fragmented media landscape
38:45 – What listeners can do to engage more critically with climate narratives

About Amy Westervelt:

Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative print and audio journalist. In 2015, she received a Rachel Carson award for women greening journalism for her role in creating a women-only climate journalism group syndicating longform climate reporting to The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and many more outlets. In 2017, she founded the independent podcast production company Critical Frequency, which specializes in reported narrative podcasts that The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Atlantic have described as "fascinating," "rigorously reported," and "the best." Westervelt has received an ONA award for excellence in audio storytelling, multiple Covering Climate Now awards for climate reporting, a Wilbur award for excellence in religion reporting, two Peabody nominations, and was named a 2023 Covering Climate Now "Journalist of the Year." A 20-year veteran investigative journalist, Westervelt's earlier work for NPR, The Guardian, The Wall Street Journal, Inside Climate News, and various other outlets earned her Edward R. Murrow, ONA, and Folio awards as well, and is often cited as amongst the earliest examples of accountability reporting on climate. 

Her book "Brought to You By: Inside Big Oil's Total Information War," is forthcoming from Bloomsbury.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywestervelt/

Drilled Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/drilled/id1439735906

Website: https://www.amywestervelt.com/

Book: Forget "Having It All": How America Messed Up Motherhood—and How to Fix It: https://www.amywestervelt.com/book

Connect with Dr. Anikó:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.aniko/

Website: https://www.draniko.com/

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Disclaimer:
The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the guidance of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding your health or a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you heard on this podcast.

Transcript

Dr. Anikó: [00:00:00] Hi, you are listening to Nourish with Dr. Ani Kreer. This podcast is all about the many, many ways you can support your health and your family's health. I'm an integrative physician and I am so passionate about helping people find their pathway to their very best life. I hope you enjoy.

Hello. Hello y'all and welcome back to another episode of Nourish with Dr. Aniko. Today is a really special day. I'm so, I really am so happy to be here with you today with all of you. But my very special guest today is Amy Westervelt, who is one of my oldest and dearest friends. Amy Westervelt is an award-winning 20 year veteran investigative journalist.

Her earlier work for NPR [00:01:00] The Guardian, the Wall Street Journal Inside Climate News and various other outlets earned her Edward r Morro, ONA, and Folio Awards. She has also received multiple covering Climate now awards for climate reporting. A Wilbur Award for Excellence in Religion reporting. Two Peabody nominations and she was named a 2023 covering Climate Now journalist of the year.

In 2015, she received a Rachel Carson Award for women greening journalism for her role in creating a women only climate journalism group, syndicating long form climate reporting to the Atlantic, the guardian, the economist, and many more outlets. She is often cited as amongst the earliest examples of accountability reporting on climate.

In 2017, she founded the independent podcast production Company, critical Frequency, which specializes in reported narrative podcasts that The New Yorker, the New York Times, and the Atlantic have described as fascinating, rigorously reported, and my personal favorite, [00:02:00] the best. She whoa. She is also the founder of Drilled a global multimedia investigative newsroom focused on climate drilled now has 12 reporters all over the world, and the Drilled podcast, which has been described as a true crime podcast about climate change, reaches a million listeners a year.

And she's also the author of two books, the most recent of which is coming out from Bloomsbury this year and focuses on the very relevant topics of misinformation and corporate accountability. And it is called, brought to You by Welcome, Amy. Hello. Thank you for reading my whole bio. I appreciate it. I like to say I'm a multi peabody losing journalist.

I mean, that's more impressive, frankly. I think you said, I didn't have to include it all, but I really just enjoyed it. I was like, too cute girl. Like I wanna read it off. You've done so much and I know it can feel weird to like toot your own [00:03:00] horn and that's why you have friends that are like, yes, sit up.

For you. Yes. Thank, um, so this is a really fun episode and I even texted you yesterday to be like, I'm having a terrible day. I'm so happy I'm gonna see you tomorrow. So it really is just like, oh, it's just so nice to hang with you and talk and talk on a podcast together. Um, yeah. And I wanted to give our listeners some background on how this episode even came to be.

Because when I first reached out to you, it was to be like, Hey, do you wanna be on my podcast? And we can talk about long-term friendship and how nourishing and amazing that is. And you were like, yeah, totally. And then we. Set up a call to talk about what we wanted to talk about on the episode and like catch up and all those things.

Yeah. And you were finishing your book on misinformation and corporate accountability. Yes. And you were about to go to the COP climate conference? Yeah. And then I was, I had, I think recently finished a series in my own episodes of correcting misinformation, medical misinformation about vaccines and [00:04:00] medicines taken, care taken during pregnancy.

And as we were talking, we were like, you know. Like maybe we really should talk about misinformation, this stuff too. Climate this and this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. It just felt like, it felt not just like a missed opportunity, but like irresponsible to not share your expertise and wisdom and experience with the world.

I mean like 20 year veteran investigative journalist to help people understand misinformation and also kind of how to combat it. So you and I came up with our short outline that was friendship. Climate. Climate and misinformation.

Yes. Which, which I feel like is not obviously connected, but, but as I started thinking about it, and I, I didn't tell you this before the episode, this is, this is gonna be surprise info for you, but I realized that they really are connected actually. So I was in Totally, yeah. Yeah, you tell me how you think it's connected because I have my phone.

Oh, well, I was just, I [00:05:00] weirdly, I feel like I end up talking about climate and misinformation with all of my friends just 'cause I'm like, I'm obsessed with it, but also because it's like around like. I don't know. And then actually, as you were talking about the vaccine thing, I remembered that one of the first interviews I ever did of like a, like a high profile person, was actually RFK Junior.

Oh yes. Because he was like, you know, he was a big environmental guy. He was like an environmental attorney for a long time, and he was really into all of this stuff. But then he was like the number one opponent to the first big offshore wind project in. Cape Wind, and um, so I wanted to like ask him why and whatever.

And it was a super weird experience. We can get into it later, but anyway, as you were talking, I was like, oh my God, I have this like whole weird RFK. Story. Yeah. Yeah. What a, what an introduction into interviewing too. [00:06:00] I know. Can you imagine? He hid from me. He tried to hide behind someone who was taller than him, and I went up behind him and was like, excuse me, Mr.

Kennedy, I have some questions for you. Can we do our interview now? He was all, oh, fine. He was not nice. I mean, I imagine he didn't wanna be asked the questions you were probably asking him, you know, I was not, and I was like a baby journal, so I wasn't asking like very hard questions, but, and at one point when I asked him about the Cape Wind stuff and then he was getting a little like.

I was like, oh, I gotta like throw him a softball to like calm him down a little bit, right? And so I was like, like what kinds of things do you do in your life that are like, you know, environmentally friendly? And anytime he went, Ugh, I let my wife handle that stuff. It's like, wow, okay. That's an, that's [00:07:00] an audience, sir.

I mean, that's a choice to make to say to a female reporter. Interesting. A lot of levels. Now we know. I guess I should be glad that he didn't try to start an affair with me. Sure. Yeah. That's the lemonade. That's the lemonade. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, and on that tip too, like. You are such a, you're, you're somebody that I've known obviously for a really long time, who I trust, and you have integrity, not just in your personality and your personal life, but in your work.

And so for me to have someone in my life that I can turn to and be like, Hey, Amy, like what's the real deal on this climate thing? You know, it's like. Friendship protects us, and this is the overlap. I'm talking about. Friendship and connect. Connect actually protect us from misinformation. Totally. Not just just about ourselves, because it's like our old friends, like when we're like spinning the story that we've polished over decades about like high school or [00:08:00] whatever.

Yeah. Yeah. And your friend's like, uh, excuse me, ma'am. This is a Costco? Yes. Mm-hmm. Totally. Because we have shared stories and shared facts, right? Because obviously in friendship as opposed to like the climate world, like there are just experiences that maybe we shared but experienced differently, but like whether we went to Paris or Wisconsin on vacation, like that's a fact.

You know that sometimes your friends are like, yeah. Yeah. That's not what happened. Yeah. 

Yeah. 

Dr. Anikó: And so it's this way that friendship like. Corrects you, in fact, checks you on your own life. And then also having a network of trusted people also helps you weather this environment of this like constant, very intentional misinformation campaign from so many directions.

And then this simultaneous dismantling of our trust in experts. And so what we have, yes. Wide friendship circles where we have friends that are experts in all kinds of things and just have different life [00:09:00] experiences. To me it feels like it makes us so much more resilient in the face of what totally feels like relentless misinformation.

Amy Westervelt: Mm-hmm. Totally. And I think that it's like within. That ecosystem. Hopefully you can make mistakes and your friends will be like, no, no, no. That's not what happened. Like actually this is what's going on, or whatever. Which I find to be another facet of like, I don't know, all of the, the online conversations that people are having, people are sort of like afraid to say what they really think or say what they have learned or what they believe or whatever, because they're afraid of that correction from a stranger, but like.

If it's within a trusted circle for me anyway, I'm like, oh, thanks for telling me that. Like, I'm gonna revise my perspective on this now that I have this new information from someone that I trust and like, um, I try to, I actually try to [00:10:00] model that publicly too, that like when I learn something new from about something that I talk about publicly, I try to be like, Hey, like I was like, this happened actually on climate stuff where.

For a long time I was very negative about the idea of like individual action being important to climate stuff. 'cause it was kind of like, well, like who cares if you recycle? If like Exxon is dumping oil everywhere or you know, messing with policy or whatever, you know, but. Because I happened to have friends who work in different, like academic research areas or whatever, that were kind well, A were, some of them were a little like, Hey, like you're not being super helpful on this front.

And I was like, oh, really? Okay. But then a few people too were like, look, like, you know, yes. We can't just like buy our way out of the climate crisis. Like we can't just buy different stuff and then that'll fix everything and it. [00:11:00] People being individually motivated to like reduce their own carbon footprint is very helpful to like influence other people in that direction.

It sends a message to policymakers, it sends a cultural message. It does like. Voting with your wallet does reduce, you know, certain things. And especially for like very high profile or very public people, it matters a lot. Like there's a bunch of studies that show that if someone who, you know, like for example, if like Al Gore is flying around on his private jet all the time, that actually has like a huge, um, negative impact on people's willingness to understand that the climate.

Crisis is real, that we need to do something about it. Whatever. 'cause it's, 'cause it basically reads as like, oh, like the, this person who is the most convinced of this is not behaving in a way that is like consistent with that [00:12:00] belief. So therefore why should I, you know? Um, so anyway, I like, I kind of learned all this stuff.

Very publicly, it was like, Hey, like I was wrong about this. Actually, there are a bunch of ways that individual action does matter, and these don't need to be like pitted against each other. We should have both systemic action and individual action. The idea that like you can only have one of the other is silly, blah, blah, blah, whatever, and a bunch of people were like.

Hey, thanks for doing that. Like no one ever just admits when they're wrong or just like have learned new information. And I was like, yeah, it's true. Like I, and again, I feel like. It's this weird thing where people have less and less actual community and so then their community is like people they don't actually know online and then no one feels comfortable being wrong or making mistakes in front of them and like, Ugh.

I dunno. Yeah, because online you get, whereas obviously I feel comfortable making mistakes here because I'm currently. On video [00:13:00] wearing my son's t-shirt. So this is a safe space. I don't feel like that's a mistake. I feel like it's a win with a capital W, but I think that's also part of who you are and, and how you've always been like, I feel like you have been very.

I dunno if committed is the right word, but it's like you like to deal in the truth, like you don't like when Yes. People are pretending to be some other kind of way. Yes. And we're just like, pretending this thing never happened and I feel similarly, like I really, you know, it's not always easy to hear in the moment where somebody's like, um, not exactly but ultimately.

I want that and I welcome that. Yes. 'cause I want to see myself with as clear and as wide of a lens as I can. Yeah. And that applies to the world too. Like I wanna see things as they are not on, like how I'm pretending for them to be. And in that particular example, it is weird that like, you know, industrial.

You know, climate responsible behavior is being pitted against individual responsible [00:14:00] behavior. And then the end result is kind of like, well, then no one should do anything. And it's like, well, no one does anything. Exactly. Exactly. Like that's not the answer everybody. Yeah. I, I mean, it is the answer. If you're an industry that wants to continue to be unregulated and treat the planet like it's just there for you to consume instead of for you to be a steward of it.

Yes. Yes. Those people are really happy about that conclusion. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. In fact, like a lot of people were like, uh, you know, I think it, like several people came to me thinking like it might even be that fossil fuel companies like have, try, have like spent money to try to encourage that like argument because.

They are the big winners in that, you know, so, so yeah, I do feel like actually these things are very, very connected. Yeah. Same. And I also think climate's connected to friendship, because actually mm-hmm. The last time that I was in my hometown, I had a very long brunch where we talked about all the things with a couple women [00:15:00] from high school.

Mm-hmm. One of the reasons that we're so deeply connected is that we all went on this outdoor ed trip for our senior trip at the end of our senior year of high school. Oh, that's so cool. Yeah, and it was a three and a half week backpacking trip in the wilderness. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, that's true. At like, I was like 17 years old, and it's still like everybody who went on that trip, even not just in my group, but just like different, different years of high school that went on that trip, we still talk about it.

Yeah. And how formative it was. And for so many of us, it was one of the. Maybe not the first steps, but one of the deepest steps towards approaching the planet as our home, our origin, as a place that we need to take care of for all the generations versus just something to kind of plunder and then move on from like, who cares?

I'll be dead anyway. And so in that sense too, like our relationship, our friendship was deepened by our experience in the outdoors, like in the wilderness, and then our relationship with the planet was deepened. So that's another way that [00:16:00] it makes sense that we're talking about, yeah, friendship, misinformation, and climate.

I mean, the most obvious combination. You know, cliche at this point, right? Um, totally. No, it does. It makes sense. It does. It totally makes sense. It's weird, like the climate movement kind of went through this period that was good and necessary, but like an overcorrection in some ways where like people were kind of like.

It's about people, not polar bears. And we need to like, it's about like communities, not trees. We need to like remind people that this impacts them too. And in some ways it was just a way to like reintegrate the environmental justice movement and the climate movement, which had been weirdly split apart.

For a lot of different reasons I won't get into, but people kind of overcorrected to sort of a like, yeah, screw polar bears vibe. And I was like, no, no, that's not it. Like actually. We're all very, very connected to the [00:17:00] natural. We are part of the environment. It's not this thing that's over there that's separate from us.

It's very important for us to be connected and to like have those experiences of like being in nature. I dunno. I did a, I did a series on, um. Of nature, which is now we're getting into law too, ongo. Um, but it's like, it's this I idea that's based in indigenous law, which is basically that like. Ecosystems have legal rights too.

So it's, so the idea is to sort of like integrate indigenous thinking into western legal systems by giving ecosystems legal rights. And initially a lot of people will be really like, whoa, whoa, that's crazy. Like a tree has rights. And I'm like, well, a corporation has rights. So like. Is that like, does that make more sense?

No. No, it doesn't. You know, we don't depend on a corporation for drinking water. So in many ways I would say it's like more important to give the ecosystem [00:18:00] rights. But anyway, I was talking to this indigenous lawyer about it and she was like, yeah, like the way we see it is that. We're all related. And so she's like, you know, in my community, we think about it more as responsibilities versus rights, which I think is such an interesting way to think about it, where it's like instead of every single person being concerned about like their individual rights, we all think about our responsibility to the broader community, which includes the ecosystem and.

Because of that, like a, everyone's being taken, taken care of, you know? 'cause it's not this thing of like, well I need like my thing and whatever. It's like we all are responsible to each other and like, yes, that comes back to you too. It's not just like you have to take care of the environment and you don't get anything for it.

It's like, you know, it's reciprocal. But like when I was working on that story, she kind of was like, yeah, I how [00:19:00] people. Have almost moved like away from connecting it to nature. 'cause I feel like as humans, that is a way that a lot of us feel connected to this work and to each other and to something beyond ourselves and like all of that stuff.

So. It's cool that you got to do that as a teenager. That's awesome. Yeah. We even spent three, we had a three day solo where we were just by ourselves. Wow. In the wilderness. I mean, we weren't allowed to like leave that spot. Everybody got a spot and they would come visit us, like our leaders would come visit us once a day and just make sure everything's cool.

But yeah, as you were talking, I, I mean that makes, so the rights of ecosystems makes so much sense to me because we are interdependent. We are not, yeah. Yes. How discreet beings where we're just humans existing in this bubble, you know? Yeah. If the world, if the planet doesn't do well, we don't do well. You know, we can't live without a happy planet.

Yeah. In fact, a lot of [00:20:00] times, like when I talk to climate scientists about this, they're really quick to say like, look, the planet will be okay. Like what we're often talking about is actually the survival of the human species. And it's bizarre that people don't realize that, that it's like, yeah, the planet has like gone through many iterations of things and like there have been other species that have like not made it, you know?

So this. This idea that like we can just keep doing whatever we want to, the ecosystem that we depend on and everything will be fine, is not borne out by any kind of evidence or data or history or anything we know about how the planet works. You know Right. Says the 20 year veteran investigative climate journalist.

Um, yeah. Yeah. No, and I mean, as a scientist myself, it's, it's, yes. It's an undisputed thing. Yeah. And, well, one thing I wanted [00:21:00] to say, well, two things I wanted to say really quickly, just that. As you were talking about, talking to the, to the woman who is indigenous and the lawyer, and I don't know if you've ever read the book, braiding Sweetgrass by Robin er.

Yes. I love it. And she talked like that. I'm turning it into a film. Ooh, there's, there's like a Yes. I'm so excited. Yes, so good. I'm, yeah, I'm interested to see how they're gonna do that. No, it's, I mean, obviously a really beautiful book. If you haven't read it, listeners go read it. But there's this part that I was thinking about where she talks about how in indigenous cultures they'll say, you know.

You need to learn from the beaver people. You know, you need to go watch the beaver people and see how they work. Like we're not separate from all these beings in the world. Yeah, and another thing that I kind of started doing with my kids is that everything that is part of the natural world is talked about as a who.

You know, instead of a what? Oh, I love that. Yes. You know, like, like, like the rock over there is a who instead of a what, and it really changes. Just like you were talking about that contrast between rights and [00:22:00] responsibility. It really expands your sense of the living beings that you are sharing this world with.

It's not like your world and you're doling it out to other beings as you see fit, which is kind of what's been happening, which is why yeah. It's been going so poorly. It's really us sharing resources and taking care of one another. Through that sharing, you know? Yeah. And then the other piece that I just wanted to acknowledge that I am very highly aware that in terms of, you know, climate protection, we're not just talking about like, I wanna go camping.

It's like, I wanna breathe clean. Of course, you know, I wanna have clean water and soil that isn't contaminated, like I wanna be able to sustain life. But I do think that that connection. Yeah. That innate human connection that we have with the outdoors, with nature, because we are a part of nature Yeah. Can be that, that entrance into the world where you start seeing the natural world Totally.

As something that you are a part of and have a responsibility to. Yeah. [00:23:00] Instead of something that you can just take from however you feel like, you know. Totally, totally. Yeah. And we feel it. I mean, you feel it anytime you're in a forest. Or a body of water or, you know, it's like you, I don't know. I hope that every person gets to experience that in some small way at some point in their life.

That like, you do feel that sort of like, oh, this is like a, a more basic. State of being. Yeah. You know, where you're like, oh, this is like a human thing across the board. I do talk to though, I have a couple of climate reporter friends who are total, they're just like hardcore city people. They're like, like this one, there's.

I won't say his because he is very well known and I think, I don't, I don't want it to sound like I'm criticizing him, but I was surprised. You know, he had been a reporter for a long time and he worked for all of these big outlets, but he'd never focused on climate stuff until. I think it was [00:24:00] wildfires in LA that got him starting to look at it and stuff.

And I was like, oh, that's interesting. Like how did your path just never cross that realm? He said, I dunno, I kind of like, just like, I hate nature. I'm not just like in, I'm just like, not that into nature. And I was like, what? What? That's the weirdest thing I've ever heard. How do you hate nature? Okay. It's like a different shows like a, like a fifth generation New Yorker who's just like, I love cities, you know?

And I'm like, I, I, okay, but like, okay, but you still need drinking water and like. Air and you know, all of these things. I don't know. Anyway, I mean, I guess he likes that part. That's really funny. You said he's also a climate journalist now? He's, yes. Yes. Well, I'm glad that he feels they walk amongst us, these people.

Yes. I mean, I kind of love that he, he sees the value and importance even though he personally. [00:25:00] Hey, it's nature. Yeah. Like, yeah, everybody's different, but I say, he's like, I'm not a big nature guy. I'm like, okay. I dunno what that means. For sure. I also wonder too, because I, I just feel like that experience is pretty universal.

If you are introduced and you're having the experiences that feel right to you. I mean, I imagine if you're like, 

yeah. 

Amy Westervelt: Taking camping and you don't know what you're doing and you're terrified of bugs, like, yeah, you might hate nature. Yeah. But if you're taken out in a way that fits you and is the right match for you, it's hard for me to even wrap my head around somebody not feeling more regulated.

Because even in medical research what shown that it has positive effect on blood pressure and heart rate and stress levels and all kinds of things. Yeah. But I guess not if you are panicking about being outside. I don't know. I feel like, I feel like, I feel like this guy just needs a better, like a good nature experience.

I know I totally not my responsibility, but I, I want that for him. I know I was, I was like, have you been here? But he's like, no, listen, don't do that thing. [00:26:00] Everyone tries to find. The one experience is gonna make me love nature. I'm like, you're an interesting person.

Oh, that's so funny. Yeah. Well, on the journalism tip, before we get into like more structured kind of questiony kind of things, I did wanna get to a few things that I don't wanna miss. But yeah, I, I just wanted to like, highlight and thank you for the work that you have done and you continue to do in investigative journalism.

Like it is not easy. Thank you. It is often not. Yes. You don't get showered with gratitude. A lot of times you get a lot of like ornery people that you have to interview that aren't welcoming to you and mm-hmm. And this work that you're doing. Is enabling us to have access to actual information and knowledge and power in a world where we are getting sold, like editorials and opinion pieces, and then like marketing pieces that are being framed, being shown to us as articles that were actually paid for and created by the very groups that they're, you know, purporting [00:27:00] to report on.

Yeah. And so to have an actual trustworthy voice in that bad wilderness, not the good kind of wilderness in that world. Mm-hmm. It's just so meaningful. So thank you because I'm sure you don't get thanked that often 'cause people are Thank you. Always. No. Yeah. But most, most of the time it's either people are mad or I do, I, I am like the receptacle of a lot of.

Really wild conspiracy theories. I bet people are like, whoa, I know what you should look into aliens. And I'm like, um, it's not really my beat, but okay. Like, thanks for reaching out. You would hear a lot, a lot of stuff. Well, and on the, sometimes it's real. Like every once in a while I get a lot of people who show up.

Like either, you know, they leave me a voicemail or. They, I, I'm like very easy to find, so like, there's lots of ways that people reach out and nine times out of 10 I'm like, this isn't real. But [00:28:00] every, then, every once in a while it's someone who like, is a genuine whistleblower and like, and or just like some horrible thing happened to their family.

And so I talk to all of them. Yeah, well that's what journalists do. You don't just dismiss it. 'cause you're like, that's what scientists do, right? You investigate it, you research it, you figure out what it is. You don't decide what the outcome is before you've done the research, which is happening a lot right now.

And it really is. It's so concerning even with like very good. Very legit outlets. I'm really shocked. Like we do a lot of partnerships with much like bigger, more established outlets, and I always assume that they're gonna be like, more rigorous than we are. You know, I'm like, oh, like, they obviously, like, they've won all these Pulitzers, so they're gonna be, and I'm, I'm really, really, really shocked at how many times people are like.

Oh no, we don't. Like, [00:29:00] I'll say, yeah. And then when it gets to the fact checking process, like we have our fact checker, but I'm sure you guys have one too, and they're like, oh, we don't actually do fact checking and.

That's really concerning. 'cause right now you're talking about outlets that are bigger than you, that have a much larger reach. Yeah. So maybe that can be the first place that we start. 'cause I wanted to talk about misinformation kind of. Yeah. How it kind of started in many ways in the climate world and then kind of spread everywhere and why.

Yeah. And also I do wanna talk just some like climate. For anybody that's still feeling like, mm-hmm. I don't know. It feels like not the, the scientific community is not totally in agreement about what's happening. That's not, you're so in agreement guys. They're so in agreement. Yes. They're so in agreement.

So I wanna state that with some facts and clarity and then I think maybe the. First part, 'cause you just started talking about this is how like the average person can try to distinguish, not try, can [00:30:00] distinguish between Yeah. Actual quality journalism. Yeah. And then this sort of opiniony, marketingy, almost like propaganda at points.

Yeah. It's propaganda that's that we're getting mm-hmm. That is getting so hard to tell the difference, and that of course is the point to make it really hard to tell the difference. Yeah. And then erode our trust in the experts that could tell us what the difference is. That could tell us, like our friend circle that, you know, could tell us what the facts are.

Yeah. So, and, and then also talk about friendship. Yes. Um, okay. Well, so I mean, the. The, the total breakdown of like the information ecosystem is really, it's very concerning and like what's been happening with media. This is, this is actually like, this is like the topic of my book, so I will try not to get into every single rabbit hole, but like I see it as basically even before climate.

There were people, there have always been people who are [00:31:00] against democracy, right? And it's usually the people who have power and money in all of the systems that are not democracy, right? So, so like, you know, the aristocrats weren't like, yeah, cool, let's not have Kings anymore. You know, like, no, they were very, you know, a lot of the, you know.

First the aristocrats and then sort of like the landed gentry and like the people who have like had a lot of power. Concentrated power in various societies have never been like, yeah, let's just let the people decide. You know, like, it's not, it's not an idea that they love. So there have always been these attempts to shape, um, d well first to stop democracy, and then as democracy started to sort of like gain traction as an idea to warp it, you know, to shape public opinion in the direction of.[00:32:00] 

Industrialists or of, you know, certain wealthy families or politicians or whatever. So like I always look at kind of the progressive era in the United States as a really kind of key moment of this. And this is where oil companies start to get in on this like very, very early. Where you have, you know, what I call creeping democracy happening in the United States.

The United States is like, you know, we're a young country. We're the first totally new country created after the enlightenment. So after this idea that we should have democracy and that, you know. People should be able to, um, amass wealth based on their own skills and talent and, you know, some of like the good ideas from capitalism, not necessarily the bad ones, but the bad ones are there too.

And like, you know, it's, it's a pretty new idea when the United States is, is being born and when. [00:33:00] These, these governing documents are being written like it's very new to have in there that we're gonna be, you know, by the people, for the people that all men are created equal, all of that stuff, right? And then, you know, they start to, in like the late 18 hundreds, there start to actually be more laws that make those things true.

Like we start to actually get more and more people getting access to the vote at the, at the beginning. Like people need to remember that, you know. People like, I don't know, the only the people who had had power and land and money already were even allowed to vote. So like, so it was pretty much like the people ruling the country were also the only people that were allowed to vote.

And they were just like keeping things going in a way that benefited them. And then all of a sudden, at the end of, of the 18 hundreds, you get like labor unions, you get. White women and black men getting access to the vote. You get, um, white men [00:34:00] without land getting, you get journalists actually. Doing a lot of like investigative reporting.

This is when you get like Ida Tarbell and Ida B Wells and Upton Sinclair, and a lot of like stuff coming out about how people are actually being treated and how bad the American industrialists actually are. And these are guys who had been sort of like heralded as. You know, captains of industry and pioneers and whatever.

So they were kind of caught off guard by like, wait, what? You guys don't like us now? What's happening? And also they now have to worry about the fact that not everybody who gets who's voting agrees with what they want. So they need a way to shape the public's ideas about things. And that's where you get the birth of the modern PR industry.

These guys are like, Hey, like I can help you. Get the unwashed masses thinking and voting in [00:35:00] similar ways to like how you think and how you want things to be and whatever. And obviously like governments have used propaganda for a long time to like, you know, trick the people into doing various things or get backing for different wars or, you know, things like that.

But this is like. It's the first corporate PR because it's the first time they need it. You know, like corporations really didn't need to sell them, you know, the idea of themselves before, because, you know, they were either like friends with the king or they were like early industrialists who, you know, were doing whatever they wanted.

We didn't even have regulation on business until the end of the 18 hundreds. There was the very first regulation on business. Gets passed in the late 18 hundreds too. So you suddenly, they have laws that are not what they want. They've got journalists talking about them in ways that they do not like, and they have all these people who now have the vote who do not agree with them, and they have [00:36:00] labor unions striking constantly.

I mean like the, there were constant. Labor strikes, um, at this period of time. This is like, as we're getting into the progressive era too, so you needed some way to message around all of that stuff and kind of like get people back on board with aligning themselves with people's interests that really are not aligned with them.

You know, I mean, when you think about it, it's like, yeah. How do you get people to vote against their own interests? That is like the name of the game from like that moment all the way up to now where you're like, why on earth would all of these people vote against having healthcare coverage? It's like.

You know, but it's very, very smart people who are very good at convincing a lot of the public that they're just, you know, temporarily broke millionaires who will one day benefit from, you know, all of these tax [00:37:00] breaks and whatever. And it's just like, I mean, I hope that's true for you because otherwise you're at L, you know, so anyway, the oil companies are very early movers on this.

They are. Some of the first clients of the early PR guys, they spent like standard oil spent. More than a million dollars a year in like the early 19 hundreds, which by today's standards is like hundreds of millions to do market research. Like there were early, they were like early beta users of focus groups and market research and all of this stuff to like understand, you know, how people are thinking, what people think of them.

They were doing early, early opinion polling before anyone was doing it. They were super, super ahead of the game on this and they've just kind of stayed that way. So like by the time climate comes around, and this is actually like what got me thinking about all of this stuff in the first place was that I had the first like [00:38:00] big project I did on corporate accountability and climate was looking into how climate denial got so entrenched in the first place.

I came away from it being like, I still don't understand why it worked so well, because it's a really dumb strategy. Like, just to be like, nuh, like why would that work? You know? Because you, you had this thing happening where it's like in the seventies and eighties there's this huge momentum towards doing something about this problem.

There's really like. Increasing awareness and you know, by like the end of the eighties, I think it's something like 70% of people are like, we gotta do something about this. Even if it costs me a little bit of money, I don't mind 'cause obvi, this is a huge threat. We need to do something about it. And by like the end of the nineties, so with in one decade.

People think it's even a real thing that kind of like shift in public thinking is unheard of. It's [00:39:00] just like, no, like it, nothing happens that quickly. Without there being like more behind it. So I was like, what's going on? That made this like pretty silly strategy work so well, other than of course it is more appealing to tell people that nothing has to change than that.

Everything has to change. So like, there's that of course. But what I realized was like, oh. They didn't just start this with climate, they started shaping how people think about the envi. Even this idea of the environment as being something separate from us that's over there that like there were like they really like, they were very involved in that.

They set up this idea of nature as being either something you plunder from or specific pieces of very beautiful nature being things. Look at and enjoy as humans, but that's it. Those were the only two options [00:40:00] and like they started doing that, like I said, in the early 19 hundreds all the way through the thirties and forties, like you have, it's oil companies that actually fund most of the first nature documentaries in the us.

Just wild to me because, and again, I'm like, these people are geniuses. Like I wish that they were working on good things because this is so. Like next level smart, where they're like, we need to a position ourselves as being like protectors of na. Of course we all love nature. We're protecting it too, and like this and that and the other.

And also reinforce this idea of like, it's okay to extract from some places as long as we're preserving other ones. Very smart and just all of this stuff. I'm like, wow, these guys were like. Had a thinking like very deeply about this very early on, and spending an [00:41:00] enormous amount of money to shape how we think about all of these things.

How we think about the trade-offs between the environment and the economy. Constantly reinforcing that you have to always be making a trade off. Totally eliminating the idea that many parts of the economy are themselves dependent on. Certain natural resources above and beyond just like extraction. I don't know, it's, it's really like, it's really something.

So, you know, then I started to look at like, okay, well what are all the areas that they were, they were doing this in? 'cause I started out looking at PR and media, but it's really like they were so invested in shaping like. All of the information around us, you know, it's like they are, they're funding university research into certain things, so that.

All of like the policy based on that research is being warped early on. [00:42:00] They're funding a lot of like movies and TV and all of that kind of stuff to try to like get people thinking about, you know, bigger cars are associated with larger penises, for example. That's PR guys. That's a PR guy. The PR there, there's a guy named Edward Bernas who was Sigmund Freud's nephew.

Who is like, totally the guy that was like, what if we just make people think that their car is an extension of their penis is, and, and you're just like, oh my God. Why, why did you not use your brain for good, sir? Um, and like, why does this work so well? Uh, it works really well because actually a lot of the guys who built who were like the early PR guys from, you know, the early 19 hundreds up.

Forties, a lot of. Came from military intelligence. I sound like I'm wearing a tinfoil hat, but it's true. [00:43:00] A lot of them, like that's where their training is from. And then, you know, like there's this one guy, Daniel Edelman, the firm that he started is called Edelman. It's now the world's largest PR firm.

They're global, they work for everyone. You know, they were involved with tobacco stuff as well, but also oil and cars and all of these things. And he. Worked in military intelligence during World War ii. His whole job was combating Nazi propaganda with American propaganda. And, and, and then after the war, you know, I mean he had, he said this in various interviews that he was kind of like, I, you know, realized that I could like put this to work.

On behalf of American companies, which is a very great PR guy way of saying against American citizens. So anyway, then I was like, oh, well of course by the time you get to climate, all you have to say is like, we're not sure the science is true, and also it might be bad for the economy. And it works [00:44:00] like magic.

Um, and you see it now, it's like, I see it in so many things too. You see it, you see it in the tobacco stuff. You see it in a lot of, um, really any industry that like I. Is worried that it might have to actually pay for its waste product or its impact on society or any of those things, you know, and a lot of these, again, are like companies that are making a lot of money off of the commons, you know, off of the natural environment that we all share, you know, and that we all need.

To be functional, to like, for us to survive and, um, and to make money off of too. Like this idea that like only these companies are allowed to, to like have economic concerns related to the environment is something that they put out there as well. It's like, okay, well what about small businesses that rely on [00:45:00] clean water?

You know, or, or, or actually there was, there was a, a climate lawsuit that I covered where it was a bunch of crab fishermen from the west coast. So like up and down the west coast is where most of the crab in the country, well, not most, a lot of the crab in the country comes from. There's also like Maryland and a few other places, but the west coast of the US and Canada is like.

Especially dungeon is crab. That's where it comes from and they have a very specific season and they test every year for this like weird stomach acid. This is where I'm just like, nature blows my mind. Right? They're like, whenever a certain type of algae grows, which is when the ocean is warmer, crab really like to eat this particular algae.

But when they eat it, they produce this toxin in their stomach that is poisonous to humans. So if they've eaten too much of that stuff, if you eat the crab, you could get really violently ill and even potentially die. It's not a good [00:46:00] time for anybody. So every year before they open up the fishing season for crab, they'd spot test crabs for the stuff.

And if enough of them have this toxin, they won't open the fishing season. So in California, for a couple years running, they didn't have any crab season at all. Which decimated a bunch of towns up and down the coast that are fishing towns. Some people had licenses to fish, other types of fish, but a lot of people, if you're a crab fisherman, you have a license for crab and that's it.

License for crab and that's it. You know, you have to pay money to get licenses for other places, plus like those. Fish are drifting into different areas too. So it's like all of a sudden, instead of, you know, fishing off the coast of where you live, you have to go up all the way to the Canadian border for.

To three weeks. Well that costs money too. And that's a whole other thing. And so anyway, it had this huge economic impact and some of the [00:47:00] fishermen ended up suing some of the oil companies over climate change. And this, I'm bringing it right back around to misinformation. 'cause this is where I got so interested in this topic, was that I interviewed, so I went out.

Went out on boats. I got so, so seasick. I went out on so many boats. I was like, I'm never gonna get good at this. Um, I'm never gonna gonna get my license to crab. Definitely not, no license to crab over here. But I hung out with all of these people, like in these towns and talked to them and a bunch of them.

Were climate deniers. They were like, I don't believe this is a problem. I don't believe. Well, if it is a problem, it's a natural thing that's been occurring for centuries and I don't think that humans have anything to do with it. And you know. If it's gonna happen, happen, it's gonna happen. And there's nothing that we can do.

So there's no sense in disrupting, you know, human [00:48:00] activity over it. That's so convenient. And I was like, convenient for the oil companies. I know. I was like, what? Like this is so I was like, huh. So I was like, this is really interesting. So tell me how you ended up being part of, these were people who are named plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the oil companies over climate change and there, and the argument in the case is that.

Companies knew what was happening and suppressed the information, and because of that, it has cost these fishermen their livelihood. So there's a specific financial damage attached to this. And they said, well. For me, it's about fairness. And I said, what do you mean? And they said, well, we were shown documents from the oil companies where they had applied for patents for all of this different equipment that was needed to operate in a warming.

World. So it was like, and this is in the eighties, which I've seen these patents, these exist. You can Google patent search 'em, which is [00:49:00] helpful too, because people are so distrustful. They're like, oh, did you Photoshop that? Did you this? No. Like we can sit down in front of the like computer and like bring up the patent database and look at it together.

And there it is. Exxon and Texaco and Shell and all of them are applying for things like, you know. Tankers that can navigate a melting arctic. So you need to be able to like go around ice flows differently, right? Offshore oil platforms that have been re-engineered to deal with sea level rise. Refineries that like can withstand sea level rise, all of this stuff, right?

And again, this is in the eighties when they're telling everybody else there's no problem, we don't have to do anything, whatever. So this one idea, this isn't happening, this isn't happening. Nothing to see here. Don't worry about it. They're preparing their own industry to deal with it. Nevermind that.

They're also the industry that has, you know, the most culpability for it. But, um, yeah, so this [00:50:00] lady was like, yeah, so I was shown all these documents and you know, it real, it actually like, really sh it shook me, you know, like, it shook me to my core because I, this, this lady is probably in her mid sixties.

She's like, you know, I had this Pollyanna belief that we're all operating on a level playing field and that we all have access to the same information, and that's just not true. They had access to this information and they made it so that we didn't have access. So she said, so for me, it doesn't matter what's causing it.

I can still disagree about that. They knew it was gonna be this much of a problem and they used that information to prepare and they didn't give us the same opportunity, and that's not fair. And I was like, wow. A, like the extent to that people will go to, to protect like their community identity, you know, because like for her it's like she's a conservative, she lives in this small town.

It's like for her to come to like sort [00:51:00] of go from that to be like I'm a climate activist would be like, she. Be losing her entire community, you know? Yeah. It's a lot to ask people to do that, but she found this way to like maintain that identity, but also take in this new information. And I also was like, I, I think about this all the time.

'cause I'm like, wow. Like, yeah, you're right. Just the. The basic fairness and the really simple like power imbalance, there is enough for people to, they don't need to understand how CO2 molecules interact with the atmosphere or. What parts per million means, you know, or any of these other things that I think a lot of times people get really bogged down with on climate where it's like, it's so, it's very, it gets messaged in this way that's very, very complicated and it's very science-based.

And if you're not a scientist or you're not super science literate, which the vast majority of this country is [00:52:00] not, that's not gonna convince you, you know? Especially at a time when people are being messaged to over and over again that like you can't trust these scientists and you can't trust science in general and experts in general and whatever.

So bringing it back to. These companies had this information, you didn't have it. That's not fair. And that's what's not fair. And I think it's also, yeah, again, these brilliant minds, that man, so smart. You can use it to serve like the good of everybody, but they went from hiding the information. This isn't happening.

Two, well, this is happening, but it's not our fault. Which, you know, that's the question of, well, if you knew it was happening and it's not your fault, then why were you hiding the information from everybody? You know? Yes. Like, makes sense. Yes. And yet the narrative. And again, because of factors, like you said, that identity of like truly kind of losing your community and your identity, your sense of who you [00:53:00] are.

Yeah. If you quote unquote switch teams, although for me, the idea, yes. Like we're all on the climate team guys, because like we're all on humanity survives, right? Like come on. Yeah. Most of us, right. You know? Yeah. So you're not only gonna like lose that, but then you're. You're willing to believe this like narrative that no longer makes sense, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Especially like as time has gone on and it's become more and more clear that like something is up. We are going to stop here for today. Obviously there is so much more to talk about and so much more to this conversation and we will continue this conversation on the next episode of Nourished.

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