S2, Ep15 | 2020: The Shitshow

Amy [00:00:00] Hotcakes, welcome to Hot Take the podcast where we talk about how to talk about climate change. I'm Amy Westervelt.

Mary [00:00:06] And I'm Mary Annaise Heglar. This is the first episode of our Season three, our third season of this, right?

[00:00:16] Yeah.

[00:00:16] Kind of hard to believe that we we made it this far.

[00:00:19] But this episode, we're going to be looking back at the wild ride that was the year 2020. And we're going to hope that by the time we listen to this episode again, in a year that 20, 21 hasn't made, 20, 20 look adorable.

[00:00:36] Oh, Lord, yeah. Lordy, Lord. I know. Very, very possible. Very possible. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So our with someone like I saw someone who like was tweeting recently that like basically 20-20 is like won't really be over until like we until there's some sort of like accountability for the Trump administration.

[00:01:03] I mean, there is that we're going to be waiting a while. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So this this episode format is a little bit different. We're going to be looking back and it's just going to be me and Amy for this episode.

[00:01:17] That's right, and we're going to look at both how climate coverage changed overall in terms of how much or how little there was of it and some of the key themes that came out in the year.

[00:01:30] Exactly. Also, another disclaimer.

[00:01:33] We are recording this on Monday. Aw, shit. What what day is today?

[00:01:38] Tuesday. We are recording we're recording this on Tuesday, January the 5th.

[00:01:43] That means that we have no idea who won in Georgia and we have no idea what happened in Congress when the Electoral College reared its like came back from the casket. Like, I don't know I don't know what's supposed to be happening in Congress. I don't understand why we couldn't just have a regular ass election where you vote and the person who gets the most votes wins except.

[00:02:04] Oh, right. Is America and of course, why we do that. So I don't know exactly or if I know they have a say and they bring back everybody who was at the framers convention and they asked them to like play tic tac toe until they figure out who the winner is. I think that's what's happening. And then Trump is trying to like, I don't know, win some of them to his side, which is pretty possible because a lot of them were slave owners and they're like, yeah, build the wall. So, yeah, we'll see what happens then and we'll see if what we record today has any relevance.

[00:02:39] Oh, God.

[00:02:40] And apparently Trump was saying something at his rally recently about how, like, you know, hopefully Mike Pence will come through for us because, yeah, he I think, thinks that Mike Pence has an actual role in this and not a ceremonial role of just like overseeing the whole thing.

[00:03:01] But yeah. Anyway, yeah. And last disclaimer is that we're not sober for this episode. I don't know who you thought we were. If we were going to look back on twenty twenty stone sober. We're not doing dry January over here folks. Nope. No. Can you hear the ice in my glass. I don't know if I can hear it. Yeah. Because I've got better, I've got better headphones this time but yeah. What are you drinking Amy.

[00:03:28] I have a mix of tequila, a hollow Panio simple sirup that I made. Hmm. Some grapefruit juice and some lemon. So sort of like a citrusy spicy Maag.

[00:03:45] Oh that's kind of like the hot take, but you just don't have the ginger beer. I made a I made a hot take and I add a cucumber to it. Oh yum. Yeah. Sounds good. Yeah. It's really good. It sounds really necessary. And I brought the tequila in here with me just in case I need to freshen up.

[00:04:03] Exactly.

[00:04:05] So with that you're ready. Yes, I'm ready. You're supposed to say it's time to talk. Am I supposed to say yes. All right. All right. It's time to talk about Climate Guide. And are you ready? Yes, I am, Mary. I am ready.

[00:04:22] Where's the tag line?

[00:04:27] OK, so first we have to start with the climate coverage and how much it plummeted in 2020.

[00:04:36] It wasn't good and it was not good. Yeah, we ended 2019 thinking, wow, we've come so far. Close is here to stay. This is amazing.

[00:04:47] January still looking pretty good. January 2020, climate coverage had almost doubled from January 2019, the same again in February 2020. We're like, yes, this is looking good. And then Mark Korona happens March. And all the media institutions were like, no one can think about two things at one time that is literally impossible for the human brain. Only octopuses can do that. Yep. Yep, it's true. Yeah. So climate change coverage in March dropped 36 percent in April. It dropped 30 percent, 30 percent for a more. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So there was a fifty nine percent drop from January to April in coverage and then we started to dip down below twenty nineteen numbers. Yeah. So depressing. No, no, no.

[00:05:49] We were below twenty nineteen numbers in March or so. March twenty twenty compared to March twenty nineteen was drastically lower. Oh yeah. Yeah. Totally, totally. So the thing to remember like going back to that January twenty twenty number that you had talked about, like where climate coverage had doubled from a year before Australia was on fire, a whole continent was on fire. Like I think it's important to remember that that's how we started the year and that and that that was only last January.

[00:06:23] It was only last January.

[00:06:25] And the other thing to keep in mind is that even though the Australia fires pretty much double climate coverage, we weren't talking about the Australia fires nearly enough, like not even close. And there are also these horrible floods happening in Indonesia the exact same time. And you weren't hearing about them at all. And the locust swarms in Africa, in East Africa, you weren't hearing about them at all. So even though there was a huge jump in climate coverage in January, twenty twenty, it wasn't nearly enough and it was basically a double of the bare minimum.

[00:07:02] Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah, so I mean, on that note, fires in California brought coverage back up a little bit in sort of late summer, early fall, but we never did really catch up to 2019 numbers. And we're still quite a bit below them. Now, however, bright, bright side, climate coverage is rising month by month now. And people did find some creative ways to tell the climate story. We definitely saw a huge boom, I think, this year in climate media in general between, oh, we did all the newsletters and the podcast and like just lots of people kind of breaking out on their own and trying new things. And like we did. Like we did.

[00:07:48] Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:50] And and just to put this conversation to rest, no, we don't think the market is oversaturated. It's just that there's lots of different angles on climate and there's plenty of room for more a clarity of all kinds.

[00:08:06] Yeah, no, we talk about this a lot, you and I. We're thrilled to see so many new podcasts and newsletters coming up. Like Hatake isn't even that old. It's like a year and a couple of months old. And our newsletter is less than a year old.

[00:08:20] And there's so many old heads. All of us. All of it. Oh, yeah. With the podcast. Not quite with the newsletter yet. Yeah.

[00:08:27] But there's so many different ways to tell this story and there's no way for it to be too many people talking about it. Like you would never say that there's too many politics newsletters or too many like I don't know, feminism podcasts. Right. And like we need just as much media saturation on climate as there is on all of those other issues, because climate is just as big as all of those other issues. And I think this thing with, like people who have been in climate work for a long time, like feeling like they need to read and absorb every piece of climate media and we need to get to a place where that's physically impossible, where it's a really good point. You're not going to be able to read every newsletter. You're not going to be able to read every story. You're not going to be able to read listen to every podcast, because all of it is too much.

[00:09:19] And that's how we know if we, like, hit the hit the perfect pitch. When you can't keep up. Yep, that's exactly right. Right, and that was a big part of why we started our newsletter, was that we were starting to get to the point where you couldn't keep up with every single story. And so, you know, we have a Digest's in our newsletter to to keep it to just, like, keep track of all the climate stories. But there are definitely parts of this year where we were like, why is our Digest's so short?

[00:09:47] Because there wasn't enough people publishing on it.

[00:09:52] Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But There, did there there were still some some really stand out stories.

[00:10:00] We put a call out on Twitter this past week for people to send us some of their favorites and people really delivered. There were a bunch of stories in there that I had not seen when they first came out that were great. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. Make sure you check that out.

[00:10:14] Yeah. The other thing we saw in terms of like these broad over strokes is that a lot of a lot of these big media outlets who had made big commitments to climate really kind of dropped the ball and then renewed them later in the year when the West Coast was on fire. But then it turned out to be that, like a lot of these a lot of these magazines, especially their commitment to covering climate as the story of our time really just meant giving somebody a newsletter. And that's really what it turned into. And it was it was super disappointing. Like I felt like I stopped seeing as much climate coverage from The New Yorker in particular, and The Atlantic, too. And no shade on Bill McKibben and Rodemeyer, who both have newsletters there and our great writers, but they can't tell their whole story.

[00:11:08] Like, yeah, just giving one dude a newsletter, it does not a content strategy make oh I know. And you're the fucking Atlantic, you're the New Yorker. You going to tell me that you can't cover this like the world's on fire? You can't find the resources to fucking cover it. Like Girl Holler at me commissioned me. I'll write it. Actually, don't actually don't I have enough shit to do but I don't have time.

[00:11:29] Yeah but no it's really wild. I know it is. It's really because I don't know especially because a lot of folks made those commitments right after they had pulled their climate reporters off of climate to cover covid and um. And it's like yeah I don't know. Yeah. I just, I don't understand why, you know, it's crazy. Like I not to like, toot my own horn here, but to indulge me for like maybe like ten or so years ago I partnered with a friend of mine to start like a crowd funded climate reporting collaborative, because we were annoyed by the fact that all these large national outlets did not have like in depth climate coverage. They were not running long form climate stories. There were hardly ever climate features. There were hardly there was just like, you know, it was sort of maybe like a news feed on like the biggest climate news. But that was about it. And so, you know, we started that and we syndicated content and ended up being like six of us to The Atlantic and The Guardian and all these places. And we ended up ending it because in part, like all of these places started to actually like have much better climate reporting and to really establish climate desk and all that. And then I feel like I don't know, I just I'm like, how many times are we going to go through this cycle?

[00:13:02] Why can't we just have people in the same way that there are like there's a business desk at every newspaper? Why is why is there not just always a climate desk? And like those reporters, you know, weigh in on a whole wide variety of stories.

[00:13:19] You know, like a lot of different things can be a story that a business reporter does, for example. Exactly. I don't know how why it's taken us so long to get to that point with climate.

[00:13:31] But I mean, I think it says a lot about what we value. Right. Like, you would never write a story about pretty much anything without talking about the economic impacts of it. But we feel like it's perfectly fine to write all of these stories about anything without the climate impacts or climate intersections taking front and center stage. And that says a lot about what we think is permanent and what we think is not. Yeah, and that's like a major freaking problem. Like like I read all these stories about the refugee crisis, for example. Hardly ever does it mention climate change. But every single time it talks about how much money it takes to feed a refugee family, how much money it takes to build a refugee facility and write like how much like the economic impact of it is always included in the story, because without that, it would be considered incomplete. Well, how is it complete without talking about the climate implications of, first of all, why folks are are moving in the first place? Like what are the climate implications of taking a boat full of refugees and casting them out to sea indefinitely? Like what does that mean in a hotter summer, in a hotter sun on acidic oceans? Right. So I don't know. I could talk about this forever.

[00:14:46] Yeah. Yeah. No, I know it's really it's really frustrating. And I do hope I mean, we are hearing more of these kind of climate commitments. So hopefully, you know, we'll see more coming from them this year. And I do feel like I mean, there are some some pretty heavy hitters that have left the kind of, you know, quote unquote mainstream and started their own thing. Yeah. Too. So they have I think that's actually, you know, that's not a bad thing. I think that helps to like spur the bigger outlets to realize, like, oh, actually there's an audience for this stuff. Know that. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:15:25] And we'll be keeping an eye on this. Yes. This is what we do here.

[00:15:31] So if they're keeping their commitments, we will be happy to congratulate. And if not, we will be happy to drag that. Right.

[00:15:38] Correct. So, yeah, I next I want to talk about the first big thing that we've already talked about that kicked climate out of the headlines, and that was the covid-19. And I was just re listening to our episode after like like the covid-19. Lockdown's became real in early March. I think we had we had David Wallace Wells on and and. Right. Yeah. And we were supposed to have a. That one in person and weren't able to, because obviously and it still felt so bizarre, like just listening to that podcast, all we were talking about was like washing your hands, washing your hands, washing your hands and like, you know nothing about mass.

[00:16:25] Oh, my gosh.

[00:16:26] Well, we were like talking about like, oh, this can't last that long. Like, this will be crazy if it's still going on by summer. It would be so crazy. It is still going on by May, you know, like we said.

[00:16:39] Oh Yog.

[00:16:43] Oh good. We just cut. Wow. It was so surreal at that point. It's like believe that this was real. And you know what's so fucked up is like I look back at that sometimes fondly, like I look back on. Yeah, I have fond memories. I have nostalgia.

[00:17:04] Yes. Early we are like remember.

[00:17:07] I just remember like how fucking weird I thought it was when I like the first few times I went to the grocery store and like everyone was bragging about how unsettling that was. And now it just it feels like it's going to be unsettling when it's not that.

[00:17:22] Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the things that, like I still have the nostalgia for it, too, is like during that time we still had the primaries going on. Yeah. And like it didn't feel like Joe Biden was inevitable.

[00:17:41] Yes, that's right. In fact, it seemed very it seemed like that really kind of came out of nowhere. I was just remembering that about Whited that everybody no one expected him to do anything. He was a laughing stock. It was like, yeah, right. He was a straight up laughing stock.

[00:17:58] And then he was inevitable and was like, how did that happen? But yeah, in early quarantine, he was still going up against Bernie. And I don't know, maybe that was like what made those early days not feel as bad to me. And look, I'm very glad that Joe Biden won like I cried tears of relief.

[00:18:17] But, you know, I want to Bernie instead or I went to Elizabeth Warren instead of doing at least one of those. Yeah, he wasn't much. Yeah, he wasn't. I don't think he was very many people's top choice. Yeah. Yeah. But you.

[00:18:35] Yeah. Going back to to covid-19. So when this really took off in mid-March, a lot of climate stories got postponed and then killed all together and it became pretty much impossible to pitch them unless there was a hook between climate and and covid, because we talked about this a little bit earlier this week, like in the early days of covered. The other thing that was kind of happening was like if you were a climate person, people who didn't know anything about climate or covid were rushed to you and be like, So what is this? I don't like can you explain this to me? And blah, blah, blah. And all the climate people were like, I don't know either.

[00:19:17] I'm no public health person. I'm like, what do you think? Yeah.

[00:19:20] And what that says to me is that climate is way to tether to science. So people think that if you care about climate, you must be like a science geek. No shade on science geeks. I have lots of scientist friends. They're great people. Lots of them are very funny. And but like not everyone who's into climate is into science. Right. And that is like a perception that we need to shift. But I yeah, I remember that.

[00:19:47] And being like, I don't know, they said wash your hands, wash your hands.

[00:19:50] I don't know what to tell you. I can't even calculate time zones. You think I can figure out a virus.

[00:19:58] Yeah, yes, yes. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. And then hot.

[00:20:05] You know, the other bonkers way that people try to make it a climate story was this eco fascist myth, mythmaking that drove all of us crazy that the earth is healing. Amy. Yeah, and we are at the virus like all of these pictures and meme labels are, right? Yeah, exactly. There were like whales in New Orleans and it was like, oh, this is like whales.

[00:20:31] And then like, remember that was you remember the fake dot, the fake pictures of dolphins in Venice? That's what I was alluding to. That's what I was alluding to. Yeah, yeah, yes. And then everyone was like, it's fake. And then it was like, oh well. But still the earth is healing and like, oh I don't know. Yeah I, yeah I, I was talking to someone about this the other day because they were like, but I don't understand how that ties into eco fascism. So like real quick, basically, you know, if humans are the virus, then what that quickly leads to is like which humans are the virus. Right. And like Bagli. Yeah. And also like, you know, if nature can only be healed by people dying, then like which people should be the ones that die or that like have fewer kids or, you know, any of those things, it just kind of leads to this whole, you know, we need to protect our natural resources from humans versus like, you know, humans need to learn how to live in balance with nature, which is a little less less fashi right.

[00:21:40] And also, like, think about the people who were suffering the worst from this pandemic and it was black and indigenous and those are the people who have contributed the least to climate change.

[00:21:51] So again, with this whole who's the virus thing here. Mm hmm. Right. Like we want to be real about it.

[00:21:58] Rich people are the virus. Yes. Yes. And you know what?

[00:22:02] covid in slow them down at all. No, no. It's set them up running to New Zealand.

[00:22:09] And actually, that's another way that this was actually a climate story that didn't get a lot of attention. So when Colbert really kicked off a lot of rich people headed to their bunkers, bunkers, Zelin and other places, too, but mostly New Zealand. And it was like I think a lot of people outside of climate didn't quite realize that the super rich have these bunkers and they've had them because they've been like, well, when climate gets really bad, I'll just go to New Zealand, to my bunker. That was like stocked with everything they. And they're actually quite nice and and write it out, right, and they were like, well, good thing I invested in that because now there's a pandemic and I can just write it out in my book. And so, yeah. And also New Zealand now, like, people are having parties like There,. They're doing good. So are doing great. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that eco fascists mythmaking was pretty quickly follow with the. Oh you think covid is bad. Where do you get a load of climate change like that little false dichotomy like this drove me crazy. I saw so many political cartoons where it was like, look, you know, coronavirus is this big thing beating up this guy. And then right behind him is an even bigger, even angrier guy labeled climate change ready to, like, beat the guy up again. And then behind him, the biodiversity crisis. That's an even bigger, even angrier guy. And it was just like, dude, like, that's not they're not going to take turns first.

[00:23:49] Right. Right. Exactly.

[00:23:51] Exactly. Yeah, they're going to come all at once. And you know that also, I just feel like in the same way that people were doing the whole leg nature is healing thing. A lot of people were really framing like this sort of self imposed, you know, quarantine stuff and whatever as like, you know, as kind of like the same as a climate solution. I was like, OK, yeah. Like, it's not either or problem. They're they're not you know, they're not totally similar problems and the solutions are not similar. Like why why can't we just talk about these things as like, you know, side by side complex issues. Why do we have to, you know, do this thing where we're like comparing and contrasting all of them? Yeah, I don't know.

[00:24:41] Yeah, it was interesting, too, because Republicans Republicans kind of latched on it to it as like this is what the Green New Deal would do, like it would deprive you of, oh, do you hate quarantine?

[00:24:52] Just wait till you see the New Deal. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. When actually the reality is more like, you know, if you hate quarantine, just wait till you get a hold of, like, not acting on climate, you know. Right.

[00:25:10] Honestly, the real thing should be, oh, if you hate it, wildfires in 2020. Where do you see them in twenty twenty five. Oh God. Yeah I know. Too soon. Too soon. It's never not going to be too soon for that Friday one in California. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. Yeah I know. OK, so you know eventually there was quite a bit of very good climate writing on climate and covid. Yeah.

[00:25:37] And like in particular kind of debunking all of these myths that you just talked about.

[00:25:43] Yeah. Yeah. So what were some of your fav my favorites about this myth in particular, if we are the virus came from Cape Marvel Briancon Cape wrote a piece called I Am a Mad Scientist that you published on Drilled.

[00:26:01] So yeah, which was fantastic.

[00:26:04] And Brian wrote two articles on Earth There, about basically how. How craven the Republicans are and how like they actually want you to become accustomed to mass death, and then later on he had a follow up essay that was like, oh, they want you to become comfortable with mass death of people of color in particular. And because they are they're becoming like me, Catley. Eco fascists, like when they like, as Republicans accept climate change, they are becoming more and more eco fascists and is super fucking gross. Another one, David Wallace Wells wrote about how Korona teaches us what happens when you ignore a problem.

[00:26:59] Know. Here you go. Yeah.

[00:27:01] And how like, oh, you don't want to get alarmed. You don't want to get alarmed because there was also this.

[00:27:06] Another big parallel between climate change and covid is like not wanting to be hysterical, which I think speaks to misogyny. Really like nobody wants to overreact. Right. And then turns out everybody is fucking underreacting and that that comes into play with both climate change and our reaction to Karradah. And so David was writing about like you could have been in way, better shape, like this was going to suck either way. But this aversion to overreacting is a big part of why you have a huge problem. And then you wrote a fantastic piece in Huffington Post about individual actions.

[00:27:48] Yes. Because, again, people were like, oh, see, if we each, you know, chose to do without, we could tackle climate change. And it was like, no, OK, first of all, we're not all and none of us are choosing this.

[00:28:03] No, not a choice. Yeah, it's not a choice.

[00:28:06] And also, like, actually look at what has happened with everybody choosing their own personalized covid guidelines. It has not done well. Right? It's not working. Right. And also, people have been enabled to make those choices by government policies. Right. Like it wasn't like if I if my company had not say you can work from home, I wouldn't have been able to work from home, you know, likely. Yeah. Things have enabled that. Right, exactly. Yep, yep, yep. And then you wrote, speaking of which, a great piece about Korona and climate change, making us feel a lot of the same things which I thought was so smart because it's true that. Oh, my God. Yeah. It's like this kind of like paralysis of like grief and anxiety that is very similar. Yeah, but I got to tell you, looking back at that piece for March, like, I can't help but laugh.

[00:29:06] It makes you naive. Little from right. Blumer memory.

[00:29:13] Like, I was so dramatic. Like the opening line is I've been crying a lot lately and I'm like, girl, you know what the fuck the rest of this year's Garretti Mary?

[00:29:24] It's like, oh really? You'll be crying from laughing, delirious, maniacal tears by the end of this year. You're going to be in a corner.

[00:29:34] Yeah. Yeah. Seriously, March feels like a really long time.

[00:29:39] It's like ages ago, so.

[00:29:41] Yeah, no, I mean, I'm glad I wrote it, but I also look back at it like, oh God, girl, you are adorable, pull yourself together.

[00:29:53] But it was very real at the time. At the time was super real. Yeah. So yeah. The other very big thing that not climbing out of the headlines this year was it feels weird to say it, but it was racism.

[00:30:10] Racism. Yeah it's not. Yeah. You know, the reason it feels weird to say that is because when do we ever not have racism around these. Exactly.

[00:30:22] But this summer there was a huge and overdue eruption around Black Lives Matter in in the immediate wake of George Foley's murder. And it was about much more than the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota. It was about Brianna Taylor. It was about a Montabaur. It was about plenty of other people going back to slave ships.

[00:30:45] Right. But that was that seemed to be like a very galvanizing moment. And I just want to say, like, I knew that that moment was very different. Because in the wake of every other police murder that I can invest in my recent memory, people started to attack the place where it happened, like when Eric Garner was killed, it became all about like, fuck Staten Island. And when Trayvon Martin was killed, it was fuck Florida. And like even with Orlando, Castille was killed. It was like, fuck Minnesota. But this time nobody, like, named a locality.

[00:31:24] I was fuck the police. Right. So it was fuck America really and fuck America. Right. And it was everywhere.

[00:31:31] It was seriously everywhere. Nobody localized it at all. And I was like, oh, this is different. And the other thing is that that same week there was a black man in Central Park named Christian Cooper, who know a white lady named Brittany. I know about Amy that Amy threatened to call the police on him, which is basically threatening his life. And that happened like within days of each other. And it's hard to believe that that was the same frickin week. Yeah, I didn't even remember that those two things were side by side like that. Yes.

[00:32:05] And that's what I did feel. It felt really it felt like, well, just seeing it was it was especially because it was, you know, a couple of months into quarantine and and everything like it it was it did it felt like a kind of a heartening movement to see so many people get out and protest. Yeah. Like keep and really like keep protesting for. Yeah. Long time, you know, like it wasn't one day or even one week, so.

[00:32:34] Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that that was super in encouraging. And I also felt like the reason so many people poured out into the streets in that way was because when we had been deprived of social interaction for so long, that's true. And also because it was really fucking hot this summer. Every big moment of huge like social unrest has been when it was really, really hot, like Bastille Day, the L.A. riots from the 90s, because there have been many L.A. riots, the Watts riots, rather, the Detroit riots, Newark riots, every single time that there's been a huge social upheaval, it has been when it was really fucking hot.

[00:33:21] And so climate serial killers to all the worst serial killer sprees were like during heat waves. Isn't that creepy?

[00:33:29] Yeah, that is very creepy. I don't know that I really want to put that conversation was like a protest for racial justice, right? Yeah, it's true. I hope I was more thinking about, like, what happens when it's hot, people become more violent, including the police.

[00:33:44] So the other thing that was crazy about these protests was how brazenly and indiscriminately violent the police were toward the protesters. The medics, the press. Yeah, just anybody out on the street. They were like absurdly like, astonishingly violent, knowing they were being taped. So, yeah, like this summer was unlike, you know, unprecedented is a word that's been overused. But that's because all the presidents are in the garbage.

[00:34:18] You see, there's no more press. Yeah, it's true. It's true. Yeah.

[00:34:24] So it didn't take long for oil and gas companies to, like, trot out some of their own bullshit squashing Black Lives Matter squares.

[00:34:34] Yeah, well, actually not many of them did, but Chevron did.

[00:34:38] And that Chevron people off. Yes. Of oil companies.

[00:34:44] Chevron has been embroiled in this case with Ecuador over basically oil colonialism for the last 30, 40 years. And on top of that, they fund the fucking police directly in Richmond.

[00:34:56] Where exactly is and Amy is at the top of both of those stories.

[00:35:02] If you want to hear more about the Ecuador story, listen to Drilled Season five, which you can listen to all the episodes now. And in our newsletter, you broke the story. Well, not necessarily broke it because it's like I think I don't know.

[00:35:19] Did people know this before?

[00:35:21] I don't think people knew because it was. Well, the thing that like the thing that I found was that there really there was an agreement, like I had heard for a long time, that Chevron funds the police in Richmond. So as soon as they put up that square, I was like, wait a minute, don't they fund the police? That's weird. So I started looking into it and I found all these old interviews with the chief of police there who was saying, like, if it weren't for Chevron, we'd have like twenty five percent fewer policemen and Richman's. And I was like, what? And then I looked into it more and a. Realize that basically when Chevron wanted to expand its refinery in Richmond, they cut a deal with the city of Richmond that included close to like 10 million dollars for how specifically police funding. Yeah, which I don't think that had actually been reported because it was kind of buried in a like a weird, you know, city planning report somewhere. But then I also found out that that they were that they also are like a major donor to a big civil rights group. Yeah. That like was the same I don't know, that has has been a little bit like shady on a few different environmental issues. So they just Chevron is definitely not, you know, a good neighbor to know their people in Richmond.

[00:36:47] You know, they really fucking suck.

[00:36:48] And so then that sparked another investigation that revealed that, like, oil companies have their tentacles all up in the police forces. Right. Like, of course they do. And a lot of these places like New Orleans, like Richmond, like other places, There,, like company towns, the oil industry owns everything. Like they fund the museum. They fund the roads. They of course, they fund the police and they need the police, especially as they have pushed for it. These laws that make it more and more illegal to protest their infrastructure. Right. So they have a vested interest in propping up the police. And that has a lot to do with the way that the protests this summer where police. Yes, very much.

[00:37:33] I mean, I think I can't I cannot talk about this enough that there are now more than 20 states have passed laws to either criminalize or increase the criminal penalties for protesting around, quote, unquote, critical infrastructure, which oil companies have worked really hard to expand the definition of to include basically anything. So, like, it's it's crazy to me that Republicans who are supposedly big free speech warriors are not up in arms about this because it's really bad.

[00:38:07] And they have been pushing for a national law for a while, too. That has not so far been effective. But and we know for a fact from, you know, like leaked tapes and documents and all that kind of stuff, that that was 100 percent kicked off by the standing rock protests. This is the industry's reaction to standing rock. Within a few months, they had drafted legislation around this criminalization of protest stuff. And they have now in the last, you know, three or four years passed that legislation in. Yeah, like more than 20 states.

[00:38:44] It's very concerning. And I believe if you want to know more about the stenographic relationship to this sort of stuff, you should be reading Unicorn.

[00:38:55] You should be writing Unicorn. Right. In general, they're great.

[00:38:58] They're really fearless media collective. But I think they did a lot of the reporting around this. Right.

[00:39:05] They did and around like every pipeline, protest and jail those guys are so good at, just like being on the ground and yakking there and talking to all of, like, the real kind of like local organizers and yeah, for a first year actually, that they started in Minnesota.

[00:39:22] So they did quite a bit around the George Floyd protests there, too. Yeah. This past year. Yeah. So huge. Actually there are protests or sorry, there, coverage of Standing Rock really informed their coverage of the George Foy protests this summer. So that's another. And they talk about that too, on their site, like their ability to like be on the ground that way. So, like, that's yet another connection between climate and, you know, race. I mean, climate is inextricable from racism, but from like climate and police brutality that we saw this summer. Right. So that's right. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:40:04] Well, and I mean, I feel like you did such a great job of of breaking down that, like, those two things are not distinct.

[00:40:11] Oh, my God. No. No. Because people did they started to say like climate people who thought that they were being like good progressives started to say that climate needed to take a backseat to the fight for racial justice, which is, you know, a totally false dichotomy. And, you know, yeah, it drove me crazy. Yeah. It was like, who did you say that? Yeah, exactly. Like, yeah. Well, yeah, this this I love this line where you talked about how climate change is not the great equalizer. It's the great multiplier. Yeah, it is. And like. Yeah, and I also I thought you made a really good point in that essay, too, about how it's sort of. Patronizing and insulting to act like, you know, anyone, and especially black people can't think about climate and race at the same time, they definitely do.

[00:41:07] And I will say that at the protest that I went to this summer, people were very concerned about climate and very concerned about like for the lack of a better term Mother Earth. Right. Like they were like, make sure that you don't throw your mask on the ground, like we have to take care of our planet. This is our home livable. Like people were like they don't see these things as separate things like black people don't think that way. Also, while we're giving out shout outs, I want to give out one to Drew, costly for his piece on media about like police bringing more and more pollution into communities of color in terms of their car, their cars and in terms of there, like noise pollution. So, yes, that really just like I hadn't thought of it that way and it really challenged my thinking. And also Drilled was one of my favorite guests on the show.

[00:42:00] I was just going to say that Drew is one of my one of our favorite twenty twenty guests. I, I really I have to say, like, he's one of those writers where I like everything he writes. Yeah. Always I'm like, oh, that's such an interesting take, you know. So yeah he's great. Yeah he is great.

[00:42:19] Yeah. And just we talk about this like almost every time you give me an opportunity, but it was a big thing for me in twenty twenty is this this collision between white nationalism and the climate crisis and in particular the boogaloo boys like those sorts of malicious seeing the climate crisis as their opportunity to enact some of their more extreme ideals. Right.

[00:42:51] Like these are people who have for generations and I'm not exaggerating for generations, want a second civil war and being gearing up for it and building the arsenal for it and looking for any sort of moment of chaos which what is climate change, if not chaos, to bring that to life.

[00:43:11] And that should scare the shit out of us. And in particular, we saw it take off the summer with like, yes, they co-opted and sort of infiltrated a lot of protests. Like I've heard that from many, many people who were on the very front lines of organizing those protests. And they also took advantage of the wildfires on the West Coast and set up these, like, roadblocks that you had to go through, like, what are you going to do, call the cops? Like there's a roadblock and everything's on fire? No, you're going to comply with the fucking roadblock. And these people have guns. What are you going to do? And they they specifically harass black and brown people trying to get through those roadblocks. And what do we do? What do we do when that becomes the norm?

[00:43:57] Right. When they self a point. I mean, you saw that with the Kenosha shooting two. You saw it in response to some of the hurricanes, to this idea of like not only does chaos give them an opportunity to do whatever it also is like when it's a natural disaster or civil unrest or things like that.

[00:44:18] A lot of these guys sort of self a point as like peacekeepers. Right. Or as like militia. Like they see themselves as they immediately grab authority when there's a vacuum of authority. Right. So like that is is very, very scary. It is. As things get more and more chaotic.

[00:44:39] Exactly. So, yeah. Well, we'll talk more about that in the WISH-LIST section.

[00:44:46] This is something we're going to have to be comfortable talking about more and more. Yeah, totally. Totally. So I do want to talk about both the crazy amounts of fire and hurricanes this year or this past year. And we you know, we saw in California, I mean, it was like record setting seems like a tame way to put it because it was double the previous record of acres burned. Yeah.

[00:45:16] How about record burning? How that record burning?

[00:45:20] It was just unbelievable. The like the amount of time that it went on and the number of sort of new things that we saw, including our first gig of fire. So that's like, say what? Are you insane? You know, in saying that, I think I need to look up. What is it like a gig, a gig or something?

[00:45:41] I figure the math question, Mary, we're not good at this. You're good at math. What the fuck are you talking about? You're always sending me charts.

[00:45:49] I can't read books.

[00:45:53] All right. Giga Fire. What?

[00:45:56] Is the theory what is gig is a good thing. OK, it's above a mega fire, which is very odd. Why are there fired me in the gig of fire?

[00:46:12] There can be, but that was another new thing.

[00:46:14] OK, so first of all, I just want to let everybody know that I actually live like about 10 miles from where the fucking fire nado happens, which fernado there were multiple fire in the very first one.

[00:46:31] Mary Zorrilla, real moment in fire history. So you going to get you a chopper? Yeah, we saw fire tornadoes for the first time in this fire season and we saw. Wait, no, that's not true. That's not true, is it? No. The first fire tornado was in twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen. It wasn't into any, Tony. I thought it was, you know, twenty, twenty twenty year fire. Yeah. Twenty twenty was the first Gigafactory. I remember that because I remember it being like OK, so fire could turn into a tornado and y'all still not shook.

[00:47:09] It's crazy, it's what the fuck is it going to say? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, OK, so in this fire season we saw many more fire tornadoes, which like in twenty eighteen when it first happened, people thought like this is just going to be a total anomaly. Right. Not so. And we also got the first Gigha fire, which means that it burned at least a million acres of land. That's insane.

[00:47:38] That is I mean, that's a lot of acres, that's a lot of acres.

[00:47:45] It really was like the entire state was on fire at a certain point. And then that just lasted for ages and ages. I would say the only good thing that came out of this fire season is that the media covered the shit out of it.

[00:47:59] I mean, it was on the West Coast, on the West Coast in particular. But even the national media, like, really kind of got their shit together, especially by, you know, like a month into it. You were seeing multiple cover stories on fire. You were seeing coverage of like how the wildfires were intersecting with protests and with covid and with prisons and with like the prison firefighting system and all kinds of stuff that like we just like really had not seen before this season. And then there was this moment where where, like, people were saying on Twitter that like, oh, the national media should should be covering the West Coast fires every day. And of course, the Los Angeles Times was like, hello, we are also a national media.

[00:48:51] Yeah, buddy. But it was true that The New York Times and The Washington Post and the cable news stations were extremely slow to covering the bay or wildfires. It was very weird that like half the goddamn country, like the state with like the fifth biggest economy in the world is on fire. Ingall aren't talking about like what? How is this how is this reality?

[00:49:19] And so and like, despite a lot of buzz, despite, you know, a fair amount of media coverage, there still was like rampant disinformation happening around, you know, what was supposed to happen with evacuation. Who had, like, how these fires had started in Oregon in particular, there was like this crazy rumor that Antifa had started the fires, which kicked off this whole, you know, self-appointed militia run checkpoint problem that you were talking before. Yeah. And then there was also a rumor that Sierra Club had started fires, which I actually think was a people getting confused about the idea of forest management and fire. Yeah. And blaming Sierra Club for a relaxation of fire management policies, a.k.a. logging and logging. And somehow that became like Sierra Club or arsonists. Yeah, yeah. And it was wild. It was totally wild. And then, of course, like not like around the same time there were these horrendous record setting hurricanes. You just weren't seeing coverage went wavelike. It was. Yeah, but I want to go back to the fires real quick before we get into the hurricanes.

[00:50:42] Like, I feel like, first of all, I had a big problem with the way that we talked about prison firefighters. Yeah. One was that we talked about prison firefighters only in terms of their ability to fight the fire. Right. Like it was like, oh, my guy isn't this crazy because like, the prison firefighters can't fight the fires because there's so much covid in the prisons and all the people who had who were going to fight the fire now have covered. It was like, wait a minute. But you're not worried about the well-being of the prisoners in the fires. Like no one's talking about evacuating the prisons in the fire. Right. Like the story that I was more concerned about was what happens when you have to evacuate a prison? Who decides when you evacuate, evacuate a prison like prisoners can't decide. And yeah, who make the people who make that decision don't value their lives. We know that from a million pieces of evidence. So I remember and and this was hardly covered. I had to really search for people talking about, like, are they going to evacuate the prisons or not? And I never saw anything about a California prison being evacuated. I did see something about an Oregon prison being evacuated and they were evacuated to another already overcrowded prison that was already overrun with covid. So, like, yeah. What happens to these folks in a fire?

[00:52:04] Yeah, no, it was it was crazy. It was like, yeah, I just well. The idea you wrote about this in the newsletter, and I don't remember the exact line, but you referenced this idea of of people who cannot choose when to evacuate themselves. So, like, it was such a gut punch because it's like, yeah, I'm like. It's not up to you whether you like when you get to evacuate or whether you get to evacuate. Exactly. It's just. And if they don't evacuate you in time because fires move fast, you just that's burn you. You just burn. That's right. Yeah. I just think about it in terms of like all those pictures that we always see right. During fire season of, like, people running from their cars or like, you know, cars being left on the freeway and whatever. And it's like, well, yeah, like that could happen near a prison. The wind the thing like the thing about California fire seasons, it's like usually made exponentially worse by crazy wind and rain and wind also makes fires do like very uncomfortable things very quickly. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, it's really it's gross. And then I do think, though, that the one good thing about coverage of the prison firefighters this year was that like so I mean, this is a thing I've seen for at least the last 10 or so years, ever since, like the national media discovered that California uses prison firefighters, which, by the way, all five of the major fire Western states do this. And we definitely should be putting some attention on all the other states to do. Yeah, but California, the biggest the big, big problem. Well, there are many big problems with the prison firefighting system, but one of the many is that people can't go get a job as a firefighter when they leave prison.

[00:54:04] Yeah, yeah.

[00:54:05] And that was one very successful push this year, was that there was enough critical coverage that by the end of fire season, Governor Newsom announced a change in the law, that at least people who do get trained as firefighters while they're incarcerated can have that on their resume and get hired as a firefighter when they leave.

[00:54:29] So it's very small but but meaningful like, you know, shift.

[00:54:34] Yeah. Good job, media on that one. Yeah, exactly. And that is the power of the media. Right. Like that is the power of having these conversations. And how much do we lose when we refuse to have them because there's some other crisis going on? Yeah, I don't know.

[00:54:52] Speaking of other crises. Yeah. Hurricanes, we didn't. Yeah.

[00:54:57] We didn't see any of this kind of coverage of the hurricanes. I actually was like really shocked. And I'm not even you know, I'm not I'm not from a state that has hurricanes. I'm not. I haven't. I am. I've been in one hurricane. Yeah. And I like moving from over here. And I was in Hurricane Iniki in Hawaii. But yeah, it's like, you know, I like way over here in Fire Island.

[00:55:24] I was like, why why am I not seeing more about these hurricanes? Right. I remember you saying something about like if what if, like the East Coast was on fire. And I think there's a couple of things about that this year.

[00:55:36] So, like, first of all, just like set the record, this was the busiest hurricane season on in on record, right? Mm hmm. And like we went deep into the Greek alphabet and Louisiana was hit with the strongest storm since 1856. Hurricane Laura and New Orleans was hit with the strongest storm ever to hit it dead on, which was Hurricane Zeta. I think a lot of people don't quite realize that Hurricane Katrina did not hit New Orleans dead on. So this is an even bigger impact actually to the city. I have I have a lot of theories on why we didn't talk about this. One is that these hurricanes were mostly in the Gulf Coast and mostly the United States. We have considered the Gulf Coast a sacrifice zone, like I remember very vividly after Katrina. People being like, well, is it worth it to build back there or are they silly or do they deserve what they get or blah, blah, blah? Like it's kind of like the way people talk about people who live in Tornado Alley, like, well, it's called Tornado Alley. You move there anyway, right? Mm hmm. And so and a lot of these hurricanes didn't go up the Atlantic coast. Right. Like it was it wasn't like Sandy. It wasn't like, you know, even the storms that kind of threaten cities like New York. So there was that. And also the media industry in the south has been like super decimated. So we yeah, I think we talked about this in a previous episode how like there are news deserts all over the country and in particular in the South and in particular in black communities at the time of Hurricane Katrina. The New Orleans Times-Picayune was. You know, it's never been not struggling, I don't think, but it was still a strong paper with a strong newsroom that like I think they won the Nobel Prize for journalism that year because but I think, like, they were looking at layoffs ahead of that. But then that like that saved them. But now it's been through like major layoffs and switch over ownership over and over again.

[00:57:49] And so I think they had the still doing a print version that the Times-Picayune or is it just all online now? You know, I don't know. Online. Yeah, it's it's really sad.

[00:58:01] Like, I have a number of friends who were reporters there who have all been laid off in the last five years or so. And like, they'll still freelance for them occasionally. But it's just yeah, you're right. It's been totally, totally decimated, which you made this point when we talked to Drew Costly, that not only are the local reporters so important for their own local papers, but they're also the conduit to national news. Mm hmm.

[00:58:29] Yeah. Yeah. Actually, post go back and listen to the episodes about local journalism, like we talked to Drew about local journalism and this impacts for climate. And yeah, it has a lot to do with this. Yeah. Yeah. And so another thing that I looked at around the hurricanes and Louisiana was like, so I tried to find prisons that had been evacuated and I didn't actually find them. What I found was refugee camps that had not been evacuated because there are like these ice detention centers, I shouldn't call them refugee camps, ice detention centers.

[00:59:06] This is basically jails for refugees and people who, like, lost power during Hurricane Laura waiting on. And these are people who, first of all, no human being deserves to be treated this way. I don't care what they did. No human being deserves to go through this. But these are folks who were coming to America because they thought they were coming to a better life and they wound up in these facilities where the toilet doesn't flush and they're like living with human waste and like there's no power because the hurricane knocked it out and they have no food and they have no water and they have no freedom of movement because they are in this ice facility waiting on some sort of trial. And there are people from all over the world from like the Congo, from the Middle East, from Latin America, obviously. And like all of them, I wondered how many of them, when I was reading this article, were actually climate refugees.

[01:00:04] Yeah, totally, totally, of course they were, because they've like migrated because of some kind of catastrophe, right.

[01:00:11] And then they lined up trapped in the shitty U.S. immigration system.

[01:00:16] Right. And facing a hurricane. Yeah.

[01:00:19] And speaking of that, I believe this, I think is Honduras. Mm hmm. And shoot, let me just Google real fast.

[01:00:31] Cut this like a massive the mass there were like hit by two major hurricanes. It was Honduras and Nicaragua. Yeah. I mean, it was crazy. Yeah. And El Salvador too. I think it was all three of them because it came well done.

[01:00:45] We wrote about this in a newsletter to.

[01:00:48] Um, yeah, so it looks like Honduras was the hardest hit with two giant hurricanes in a row where people from like, you know, development programs were used to going into disaster zones, being like, I've never seen anything like this. I have never seen devastation like this. Yeah, this is the headline even does even disaster veterans are stunned by what's happened in Honduras?

[01:01:21] Oh, awful. Yeah. Yeah. Because they were within a couple of days of each other and they were both category five. Right.

[01:01:28] I mean for unbelievable category four it was ETA Nyota years and. Yeah. So first of all, one, it's important to think about these storms outside of the United States and also it's important to consider the Gulf Coast part of this country, too. Right. And also it's important to think about cyclones and typhoons with the same level of empathy. Right. Like I remember writing at the start of the summer about like our apathy toward. Cyclone Amphion, victim Cyclone Often was this really fearsome storm to strike in India and Bangladesh and people in America could give a fuck. And the answer to that is not to also not give a fuck about people in America.

[01:02:23] Right. But to give more fucks, not fewer. It seems like we went are giving less of a fuck. It was like, wait, now we're doing the right. We're doing it wrong.

[01:02:34] Oh, God. Yeah, yeah. Totally, totally. It is it's really it's so disturbing. And I think I do think that there is this real danger of, you know, between the pandemic and. These sort of cascading crises happening, you know, faster, like everything is just happening faster, things are happening at the same time. There are these like layers of things happening all at once. I do think there's a real danger of people becoming sort of numb to a real devastation in a way that is is just kind of sad and scary.

[01:03:16] Yeah. Heather McTeer, Tony wrote about that in Day magazine.

[01:03:20] And like the price of normalizing climate disasters and climate apathy and how dangerous that that that can be and yeah. Is something to police within yourself, because human beings do become like empathy is a resource. Right. And you can't give it to everyone. So you have to actively look, even though you think you can never become that person who doesn't care, you do have to actively flex that muscle to make sure that you always remain the person that cares and is worth.

[01:03:51] That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Speaking of empathy, let's talk about some guys that lack it, shall we?

[01:04:02] Let's do it. I've had enough.

[01:04:08] Amy Oh, Lord, yes. So we in an episode with Kate Aronoff in twenty twenty, talked about all the various forms of Sad Boys and Mad Boys, including we also had boys. We had so many boys. We had so many boys.

[01:04:24] Yeah. And then we made a little chart for people in the newsletter of all the climate boys. But this really did seem to be the year that, like, you know, the Dumas kind of like really got on on steroids. And the what I've been calling the debate me brose, these sort of like very tech focused guys.

[01:04:43] You have an amazing essay by that name, by the way, in our newsletter that. Yeah, we got to make sure that link to that.

[01:04:50] Yes. Yes. They kind of joined forces. And then there were all of these guys that Emily Atkin calls the first time claimer climate dudes where like they just discovered that climate is a thing that they should be paying attention to. And they're here to tell us all what the real problem is, which often often it is, as Michael Moore said, population know.

[01:05:16] They're like, you know what, I've solved it. I've run the numbers. And it turns out it's just too many motherfuckers to be motherfuckers.

[01:05:24] Yeah, there's too many people. Too many people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and they all I just you know, I'm, you know, apologies to our white male listeners. These are all white guys and they mean no apologies. Go get your people no apology. Let go round them up, get them, get them. But I mean, there's this real I do really think that there's this huge kind of reaction happening among white men because climate change really is kind of the first sort of out of control, systemic change that's just coming at them. No one asked them about it and it doesn't give a shit about their lives. That is not something that you're used to as a straight white guy.

[01:06:09] And yeah, I think yeah, I think the year kind of started with the publication of all of these books from folks I actually would call the GLADD boys. Like these are people who framed themselves as reform climate activists. Right. Like these folks who are like, yeah, climate change is real, but like it's not that bad. You don't have to worry about it. It's fine. Yeah. Like we're going to adapt. It's going to be fine. And what they mean is that I'm going to be fine.

[01:06:40] Right. Correct me. Marijana is haggler with my black ass. It's not going to be not so fine. I'm not going to be like, oh no you will not be flying around in a Jetson's mobile with these guys. I'm checking it on Mars.

[01:06:57] Yeah. I finally make friends with Beyonce because I do believe she and I are best friends who are separated at birth.

[01:07:06] I think that we would be such good friends if we actually met in real life.

[01:07:11] It's going to be you and Beyonce in a bunker in New Zealand lodge.

[01:07:15] Yeah, it it's like, yeah, I'll be the nanny. Oh yeah.

[01:07:22] Yeah. So yeah, there was Michael Shellenberger book Apocalypse Never. Later in the year there was Bjorn Lomborg book. I don't even remember what it was called. Bjorn Lomborg has been around for a while. He's a big pal of Michael Shellenberger and they say this, this idea that, you know, actually the real problem is climate panic. Oh, OK. Yeah, sure. And then there was Michael Moore's movie Planet of the Humans, which made one very valid point, which was that, you know, we need to address some of the I like the the the kind of the resource and capitalism problems with the renewable energy and electric vehicle industries that, you know, we've talked about this before, too. Like the last thing you want to do is have like, just a different problem of the same magnitude, because now we're like running everything on batteries or, you know, whatever that like you have to address sort of these bigger power structure issues underneath. Unfortunately, that point was undermined by using a lot of very old tape, first of all, once then for one thing, and then ultimately coming to the conclusion that, yeah, the real problem is just that there's too many people which, you know, has had a long history of leading very quickly to eugenicist arguments about who should be having kids and how many and why and all. What kinds of things so that was a problem, and then we had the deep adaptation guys, so this was a manifesto always about the manifestoes and I would like to say that, like, I have also written a manifesto.

[01:09:10] Yes. Yes. Good. And I'm very proud of myself because it's always white guys writing a manifesto. So it always is. Yeah, always is.

[01:09:18] Yes. So the Deep Adaptation Manifesto actually just got a big write up in The New York Times. The manifesto itself came out earlier this year. There's quite a good detailed rundown of it in medium that will link to as well. And then this New York Times story. The gist of the deep adaptation theory is basically that, you know, it's too late to really do anything about climate change. Adaptation is our only avenue. And so we got to there's a whole. Yeah. Which, you know, yes, we do have to adapt. But like, there's a there's a whole kind of like there's a whole Doumar Dood lens on it. That's quite so. I don't know. Here's what I mean. It just kind of blocks action right out the gate, you know. Yeah.

[01:10:11] Like well I think adaptation is an action, right. Like I don't think there's not a climate action. So here's what I don't understand about climate adaptation versus mitigation. The thing about climate change is that it's a living thing, right? Like we're talking about a vast, not vast radical change to the climate that. Right. That we adapt it to as human beings. Right. So if left unchecked, that change will continue to deepen. It will continue to radicalize. So you can't it's not like you're adapting to something that's stagnant. You're adapting to a goalpost is constantly moving. So, yeah, you can't adapt without mitigating. Right. Like you write, we have to act like there's no baseline. You can't adapt to something that is unpredictable. That's right.

[01:11:04] Well, and like any adaptation that you make will be that much more effective if you've also, you know, reduce your consumption of resources and your emissions. Right.

[01:11:17] So exactly.

[01:11:18] It's like a thing that's been I, I feel like for 20 years or more there's been this sort of false dichotomy between mitigation and adaptation. You need both.

[01:11:28] You know, I think you need both. And and, you know, to to Michael Moore's point, you also need both, you know, sort of societal and structural change and technology and new ideas, you know. Yeah. Far from my things are not mutually exclusive.

[01:11:49] Yeah. Also, Michael Moore has zero people of color, like with any sort of. That's right. You know. Yeah. Heft in his in his movie. Right.

[01:12:01] And so I remember after that movie getting into a fight with a lot of people being like, actually population control is really fucking problematic. And then being like, I support population control in the form of birth control and access to it. And I was like, that is called reproductive freedom. That is not birth control. And words fucking matter, especially when you're talking about populations of color like Del. Right. Holler at me about population control because it brings back a lot of really problematic memories.

[01:12:32] Well, and there is actually like a bad history of, you know, American nonprofits saying that they're working on reproductive freedom in a lot of like African and Latin American countries when, like, really what they are doing is population control.

[01:12:51] So, like, it's just basically it's a it's a touchy subject. And you should probably talk to some people who aren't white guys about it in your you know what I mean?

[01:12:59] You know what I mean. Yeah.

[01:13:01] So, yeah. Yeah, that was that was hard. I was bad.

[01:13:05] Yeah. This was also the year that Elon Musk just went like full ego for me. Oh yeah.

[01:13:12] I've been telling people he's a jerk and I feel like I feel like people really finally got on board the fuck Elon Musk Drilled.

[01:13:18] Yeah.

[01:13:19] Yeah. So where should we start with Elon? Should we start with the Corvette or should we start with him naming his baby like a symbol?

[01:13:28] No, I think he named the baby Gigha Fire.

[01:13:31] Did he know that would be very funny.

[01:13:37] Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, Elon, I don't know. First he had this whole thing about like he was a covid truth or. Yeah. And then he was like, you know, if you're going to arrest anyone for for working when they shouldn't be, arrest me. And like then he. Remember the fake picture that he posted, he posted a fake picture of like an ice cream sundae to make it look like he was like defying the rules and going out to eat at a restaurant, which, first of all, like it's the restaurants that follow those rules, not the customers. But anyway, someone outed him because it was a photo from the Boogity Beppo website. I don't remember this because I'll fuck with you lot like that. It was so funny. It was so good anyway. Yeah. Then yes, he just. He just. Oh yeah. Now he's all like, fuck you, California. I'm moving to Texas. A lot of people think there's a conspiracy theory afoot right now that he's actually turned into a giant like right wing asshole this year in a bid to win over Republicans to electric cars, which is the most generous interpretation that's generating behavior.

[01:14:49] I also think that Joe Rogan has said, fuck California, I'm moving to Texas. That's right. Good riddance to both. You know, I would like for them to move somewhere else like Oklahoma. Yeah. You know, that's like solidly red, whereas Texas is on the verge of going blue.

[01:15:07] Hmm. That is true. You know, I like Texas too much for them to be like, cool, go to Texas. That is true. You know, my aunt lives in Houston, Texas, from Houston. Come on, show some. That's true. That's true. That's true. OK, perhaps we can start a campaign to get them to Oklahoma for Oklahoma.

[01:15:27] Yeah. Oklahoma's fine girl.

[01:15:30] The whole state of Oklahoma is fine.

[01:15:36] Yeah. Yeah. But no, he had one hell of a year. He really did. Yep. Yep. I didn't know.

[01:15:44] And he went to the moon or Mars. Mars. I don't know, you know he's another one of these. Him and Jeff Bezos have this whole like, you know, Mars plan. And I think it was said Jeff Bezos, one of them. They always whenever they're questioned about this whole thing of like, why are you trying to leave Earth? You know, they always are like, no, no, no. It has nothing to do with climate, this Brulle. But it does definitely seem like kind of an extension of the bunker plan. It totally is. It totally is. Yeah.

[01:16:21] Yeah. No, if you want to fuck fuck Mars, fuck Elon Musk tee shirt, go to our shop because we have them. Oh yes. Yeah, yes we do. Yes. This.

[01:16:31] Oh speaking of of population, at the other end of that spectrum we did have Matt Yglesias going batshit.

[01:16:38] Oh my God, I'm so disappointed in him because like I've looked back at some of Matt's articles, Matt is if you don't know who he is, he's one of the founders of Vox Dotcom. And, you know, he's been writing there forever. And a lot of his articles from like twenty, fifteen or so are talking about climate. It's this big threat. And I remember listening to him on a podcast in twenty twenty and he's like, you know, climate change is serious, but it's not that bad. And he, he wrote a book this year that was advocating for his big policy. And, you know, not a billion humans, a billion Americans like that's his big policy proposal was like, well China's got a billion people, India's got a billion people. Why can't the United States have a billion people?

[01:17:32] Why do you have a book deal? And I don't is the better fucking question. I could write a better book hopped up on melatonin. Oh, God, I know. It's just. Yeah, he basically, like he I think has followed the Michael Shellenberger trajectory, basically, where you're like really smart guy. Yeah. Like Michael Shellenberger was like a pretty hardcore environmentalist for a long time to that whole like to be an environmentalist thing is is not is no joke. He he really was. And I don't know what it is with these guys. I have a feeling that part of it is like it's like too scary maybe or like they can't deal with the fact that like there might not be a solution in their lifetime or that like they can't believe that people don't give a fuck about their lives.

[01:18:29] That's what I think it is.

[01:18:30] It's like so if you have if you are a white guy in Inkerman and if you know a white guy and climate and he's going just a little too far left and keep an eye on that motherfucker, OK, you may fuck around and turn out to be an alien.

[01:18:48] He might just go full circle on you. You know, you can go so far to the left that you turn right back around on the right, the. You know, the earth is round, it's true, you know, it's not flat.

[01:19:03] So, yeah, on that note, I want to talk about ending on a high note, because one thing that that dramatically changed about the climate discourse this year is that I think we have really let go of the individual action part of this. And one of the ways I see that manifesting is a little thing that we've come to call green trolling, which is where you basically cyberbully social or cyberbully fossil fuel companies online on Twitter, on Instagram or whiteouts or like you.

[01:19:42] It's something that we've had a big hand in here at Hatake encouraging ourselves on that. Yeah, yeah. Pretty fucking proud of this.

[01:19:51] Then folks are showing up in the mentions in the comment sections for BP and Shell and Exxon and Chevron and telling them to, in no uncertain terms, go fuck themselves up. And I think this is actually if you're not a social media person, this might sound frivolous to you, but I would challenge you that social media, especially in the climate times, has become the major form of media. And what happens there is not frivolous at all. It actually becomes the bigger piece of of of our discourse as a nation. And I will say to you, like as somebody who is on social media and on Twitter, things that people are catching up to three years later, I'm like three years ahead of you. So take that for whatever it's worth.

[01:20:41] And I think that once upon a time, not too long ago, it was all about fighting with climate deniers online or climate. People were fighting with other climate people who weren't, you know, woak enough or left enough. And now we're taking that anger and that rage and taking it out on the actual fossil fuel companies who propagate the misinformation, who try to make themselves seem like fucking climate organizations half the damn time and redirect and get where it's deserved.

[01:21:15] And it's a beautiful thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Well, and like, you know, the people have to realize that the thing that is the most important to fossil fuel companies is what they call the social license to operate. They're really worried that they're really worried what it's like they're going to catch on.

[01:21:37] It's kind of just that, you know, the public sort of looks the other way about some of their shortcomings, because overall, you know, they're seen as like a good a good actor or like an industry that provides enough benefits to society that like the downside is, OK, you know, and it's it's like There,.

[01:21:58] Yeah. And so it's There,. It's their sort of their license to keep doing what they're doing, you know, and yes, there are political, you know, policies involved in that and all that kind of stuff. But the public's perception of them is something that these companies care quite a bit about. Yeah. So and you know what? They don't have like some shlumpy in running their social. No, they do not. You're in fucking to you. They care a lot about it. I have seen internal marketing reports from oil companies. They track the shit out of this stuff and they come up with all kinds of ways to seem authentic on social media. So constantly pumping them when they do that is like A, really fun. And B, it actually does do something to erode that social license.

[01:22:46] It is actually important. So twenty, twenty, twenty is not the first year of green trolling. I remember at the end of twenty nineteen, the climate community trolled the living shit out of Exxon Australia because they wished everybody a happy new year while the whole continent was on fire. And we troll the shit out of BP when they ask people about their carbon footprints in twenty nineteen. So it's not the first time that we've done this, but twenty twenty. It's been like the toward the end of this year has been the year that really took off. And I'm excited to see people take it more on this year, like creating more memes and like trolling There, subsidiary accounts. Like I strongly encourage this to happen because this seems to be the first year this that it like stuck to them. And it's also the first year that fossil fuel company has become Twitter's main character.

[01:23:39] Shell decided to post some dumb shit the day before the U.S. election, which didn't work out for them.

[01:23:47] And Exxon has become has come very close to following into their footsteps. So let's keep it going. I want every single major Exxon or major oil company to become a main character on Twitter before the end of 2010. Anyway. That's right. Yeah, let's do it, yeah.

[01:24:04] So I think that we should probably talk about what else we want to see more in 2021.

[01:24:11] Yes, yes, yes, so I mean, we mentioned eco fascism before, I think we definitely need to see just more, more and better coverage of that particular threat. Yes, really tracking how it's rising and what's happening.

[01:24:30] Yes, I want to see more of white nationalism colliding with climate coverage because we can't look away. That's right. I also want to see the media actually honor its commitment to covering the climate crisis and making their coverage accessible on their home pages, accessible and findable.

[01:24:50] Because often you got to dig. That's right. It's true. I mean, that's a big part of why we started the whole hashtag digestives that we realize that, like, we knew where to look and it was still hard to find all the stories. Exactly. Mm hmm. That's right. We do want to see climate bleed out of the science section and really start to get infused into a lot of other types of stories. So I think actually we're starting to see that. Yeah. But like, let's see more of it in 2012. Put a lot more of it. We want to see the fossil fuel industry lose its social license to operate. That's right. I want to see them every single time they show up on Twitter or anywhere else. I want to see them immediately hit with an egg. Yes, exactly. Like if if like the head of Exxon, ExxonMobil was like out and about in New York all the time, for example, I feel like he would probably get heckled fairly regularly. And the same thing would happen on Twitter. Yeah, he should. Yeah, that's right. Yes. Yeah. Like, OK, you know, they might be able to operate for a while, but that doesn't mean that, like, we have to applaud them for it or know about it now. Yeah. We want to hear more voices from the global south. A lot more. A lot more like a lot more. Yes. I like writing the stories, but also being quoted and sourced for stories, too. I just really think we need to see more expertize from that part.

[01:26:26] Yeah, I would love a good newsletter from the Global South. I would sign up to that shit so fast. And that's why newsletters are actually really important outlets, because you don't have to get you don't have to pass by all these gatekeepers and you can monetize it. So, hey, that's right. I also we want to see the lens of climate accountability widened to include the industries, many enablers. And yes, sometimes that includes the media industry. Mm hmm.

[01:26:55] That is very, very right. Yeah. I think that, you know, oil companies make a fun and easy target. But let's not forget all the people that continue to prop them up, you know, and do continue tech companies, false narratives about this stuff. Tech companies, absolutely. Media companies, PR and advertising companies that a lot of of of folks there. Yes. I'd love to see climate policy coverage get past the sort of political horse racing push and actually look at like what will this policy do, right?

[01:27:33] Will it affect rates?

[01:27:35] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And get past like this narrative of loss and start talking about, like, actually the green new deal just to give people shit. Like, let's talk about that. Right. Yeah, that's right. I, I want to see the media learn how to tell fracking stories that aren't parodying the industry talking points.

[01:27:57] Yeah. They really suck it back. Yes.

[01:28:01] I swear. You know, it's really interesting. I kind of I heard some like behind the scenes media gossip lately that apparently FTI Consulting, which is like the main kind of PR consulting firm that a lot of the gas companies in particular use is sort of a gatekeeper to pipelines. So like, if you're a reporter and you're doing a story on a pipeline and you need to go out and, like, physically see the infrastructure, like you have to go through them. And I really feel like that fact has influenced a lot of fracking story. Yeah. And people don't know that. People don't know that. And like that firm in particular is batshit crazy. Like they're really they they really do like a full full court press on reporters. And they are they are totally the guys that will like call your editor and complain that you're biased if you criticize the industry at all. So I think that has had a big, big role in shaping how the media talks about fracking and why, like every single fracking story is like. But what about jobs? Yeah, but what about this, you know, and kind of like doesn't interrogate that stuff because actually like that industry claims a lot more jobs than they actually give to people. Yeah.

[01:29:20] Yeah, they do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we want to see climate make its way on the TV and film in a real way. Like there were two ways we saw this in the past year that we talked about on this show. There was the Netflix show, The Politician and the HBO show, I May Destroy You, that had really fantastic climate narratives, but I want to see more of that in 2020.

[01:29:45] Yeah, yeah. What I loved about both of those was that climate was like part of an existing show. It was like a storyline in an existing show. So it wasn't like a climate show, you know what I mean? Yeah. It was like, it was just like, oh yeah. Of course. Like people who are living in today's world would grapple with this subject in their lives. Like if yeah. If for, for like series and films and stuff that are set today. If people are not interacting with climate change in some way, it seems like bullshit. Exactly.

[01:30:20] And I think that they both kind of raised the bar and and set an example in a way that I hope can't be undone.

[01:30:30] So that's I wish they were so smart. They were smart and nuanced and like. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So so that's a wish list for twenty one.

[01:30:43] If we will be looking at this and seeing if folks live up to our goals that we set for you on this podcast and in our newsletter which you subscribe to.

[01:30:56] That's right. We'll have a link in the show notes, and we'll also include links to lots and lots of stories that we referenced in this episode and we'll be back with more guests in the next few weeks.

[01:31:10] Yeah. In the meantime, you should follow us on Twitter, where at real hot take I am at Mary Hechler. And Amy, where are you again?

[01:31:20] At Amy Westervelt oh, that's right.

[01:31:22] That's very, very creative. Both of us have very creative Twitter handles. So if you like what if you like the show, leave us a rating or review.

[01:31:32] If you do not like the show, email briancon at earthier dot com. That's Brian Brinsden that came in at Arthur dot com.

[01:31:43] You'll be glad to hear from you. Yeah, he will. Yes, right. And don't forget to leave us a reading or review on iTunes. It really helps people find the podcast. So thank you for doing that. And we'll see you next time.

[01:31:59] We'll see you next time. All right.

[01:32:03] Do we have time for you to do the the wacky headlines? Or do you need to go deal with your actions better? I'm your baby. Well, newsletter. Sorry. Yes, OK. I asked her to stay longer and then she's already stayed another 30 minutes past. OK, you know what you should do instead? Are you done soon? You know what you should do.

[01:32:29] Instead, you should have met record Scottish dad jokes.

[01:32:35] Oh, yeah, people loved that last year. Yeah, I'll do it. Yeah, he'll do it. Yeah, he'll totally do it, OK. He like he will jump at any chance to be on the mic. Oh really? I found that lives very cool because in my head I actually know what he looks like, but in my head he looks like he was a groundskeeper. Willie.

[01:32:59] Oh yeah I know it. Oh. Can I send him something to read. Yes, please do it. All right. All right. All right. Gotta run. This is good.

[01:33:12] OK, yeah. This was a good one. All I will get the transcript up and then we can edit that, get it to Maria NICE's.

[01:33:25] All right, by.