S1, Ep1 | Fangirl v Fangirl

Mary [00:00:13] Welcome to Hot Take, where we talk about talking about climate is very matter. You're gonna love it. I'm Mary Annaise Heglar.

Amy [00:00:21] And I'm Amy Westervelt. In this podcast. We're going to take an intersectional crack at media criticism for the climate era because it is the story of our time.

Mary [00:00:30] Right. But we felt first there's a lot of base setting to do because we don't really give ourselves enough time to think about it. But climate storytelling has changed dramatically in the past few years.

Amy [00:00:42] It really has, especially in the Trump era. So our next couple of episodes are going to take a look back at 2016 to 2019 in review. I've been going back and reading some of those articles and it's fascinating how much has changed in just a couple of years. So I can't wait to talk about it.

Mary [00:00:58] Well, I can wait because I have a lot of reading to catch up on. But I'm excited, too.

Mary [00:01:04] On this episode, though, we wanted to take a minute to talk through our own work. So Amy and I are friends now, but we met a few months ago as fans of each other, actually.

Amy [00:01:13] That's right. So we thought we'd just do an episode where we fangirl out on each other and, you know, get that out of the way. Yeah. And we kind of I would be a good way for ya'll to get to know us to.

Mary [00:01:33] Amy, how about we start with you, since you've been doing this for quite a while. I saw you recently say on Twitter that, you know, you've been hearing a lot of people say like, wow. Amy, you're suddenly everywhere in in the climate space and you just got started writing recently. And how much that bugs you because you've really been doing this for like, OK, more than a decade.

Amy [00:01:57] Yeah, yeah, I know. It's funny. I think, you know, if you're a freelancer, you sort of end up writing about everything. But the thing that I've written about the longest and most consistently is actually climate. And I've been writing about it for maybe 16, 17 years now. Well, yeah. But then I had sort of like a little break in the middle, which is that was sort of what I got into that thread. Was that like, you know, I didn't actually come from nowhere. I, you know, started a long time ago, but then had various sort of career diversions foisted upon me by the caregiving roles that are often assigned to women in our society. And so I ended up taking, you know, three or four years out, which is like an eternity in media years. It's like if you come back after four years, it's like you basically are just starting over. So there's this weird thing that happens there.

Mary [00:02:57] And that's another thing that you write about as well. That's another theme of your writing.

Amy [00:03:04] That's true. Yeah. I do write about American ideas about motherhood and how those ideas impact women, whether they have kids or not. So how those ideas kind of shape everything from societal expectations of women to workplace policies, health insurance policies. There's a bunch of ways that, like our weird ideas about family and motherhood in particular, sort of infiltrate everyone's life, whether they choose to have kids. Right.

Mary [00:03:35] So that reminds me of a piece that you wrote, I believe it was in The Guardian. Of course, U.S. birth rates are falling from May of 2018.

Amy [00:03:47] Mm hmm.

Mary [00:03:48] I have a passage and I'd love it if you could read it.

Amy [00:03:51] Yeah, totally. My big claim to fame here is that Bernie Sanders shared this story across all of his social media.

Mary [00:04:02] Nice. Yes.

Amy [00:04:05] Feeling the Bern. OK, so the story was called, Of course, U.S. birth rates are falling. This is a harsh place to have a family.

Mary [00:04:13] And this story makes that very clear!

Amy [00:04:17] It's it's ridiculous. Yeah.

Amy [00:04:20] In the midst of the harsh economic reality, facing parents and would be parents in America is a looming physical threat, climate change. As the president and his EPA head parrot talking points from the fossil fuel industry, pointing to volcanoes and natural temperature cycles as the culprits for warming temperatures. The global scientific community tells us that we have essentially run out of time to do anything about it, that any children we have will be at a higher risk of dying in a superstorm or a massive fire. That because a small handful of men decided that their own profits and comfort were more important than the rest of the world's safety. Any new humans that join the world will face greater challenges than the generations that came before. A few months ago, Paul Ryan asked Americans to have more children and said he had, quote, done his part by fathering three. I would argue that his part is creating an America that's truly family friendly and he hasn't done it at all.

Amy [00:05:17] Very true. Suck it, Paul Ryan!

Mary [00:05:20] (laughing) No, but it's also just so well-written.

Mary [00:05:25] Like, I just I mean, for the bigger piece. Write us about all of these reasons. U.S. birth rates are probably like housing crises, unemployment or underemployment, the gig economy. But you ended it with the problem of all problems being climate change. And yeah, I was just wondering if you could talk a little bit about how this piece came to be.

Amy [00:05:49] It kind of came out of the research that I did for my book, which came out last year, which was about all of this motherhood stuff. And I you know, I I really what happened was I was seeing all of these pundits on social media kind of wringing their hands about the falling birth rate. And then I had also gone back and forth on Twitter with this guy who claimed to be just like an objective, you know, sociology researcher just looking at the data. And he had somehow. Yeah, he had like somehow gotten a piece in The New York Times, not in their op ed section, but in There, like regular newspaper section where he claimed that the following. He basically claimed that the falling birth rate was due to like women being selfish and like modern women were suing like careers and family and like shirking their reproductive duties like it was insane.

Amy [00:06:43] And I was like, how did this get printed in the newspaper?

Amy [00:06:47] And so I kind of went back and forth with him for a while to see what what exactly was the data that he had gathered and whether he had looked at like, you know, wealth inequality or stagnant wages or the impacts of climate change on all of these things. And of course, the answer was no. So that was kind of like the genesis of this piece. I was just like, I'm mad, you know? Yeah, like most of my pieces.

Mary [00:07:16] Yeah. I think some of the best pieces come out of angry writing.

Amy [00:07:25] Totally. Yes.

Mary [00:07:27] Like, if I'm honest, the vast majority of my pieces that like are the most lovey dovey– I think I talked about this a little bit on Drilled– like the ones that are the most like woo woo and hippy start out angry.

Amy [00:07:39] You did! You totally talked about that. Actually I thought that was so interesting that you said that like you will sort of start out with the angry version and then be like OK, is this might not be productive. Maybe I should soften this approach a little bit.

Mary [00:07:56] Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Amy [00:07:59] Okay. Actually, that makes me want to have you read from one of your pieces that came out in the last couple years.

Mary [00:08:07] And this is let's see if you pick one of the ones that actually started angry.

Amy [00:08:12] Well, I think you talk about anger in this and how and how sort of like productive it can be. So this one is called the big lie, we're told about climate change is that it's our own fault. And it appeared on VOX. And I have a little excerpt from here for you to read. You're talking a little bit about when you first started to read a lot of studies about climate change and got really involved in the movement and kind of experienced your first brush with climate grief.

Mary [00:08:44] Right. Sure.

Mary [00:08:46] And actually, this is one of the ones that started very angry.

Amy [00:08:56] Yes! You talked about this on Drilled where you said that it started out you started out being like mad that people kind of read the recent CCC report and that they just realized that this was a serious problem. And then you realize that like getting mad at people for being slow to realize was probably not great, or telling them to like grow up.

Mary [00:09:17] Right. Yeah. That was originally the title in my head set.

Mary [00:09:27] I came to the organization as an editor, not as an environmentalist. I cared about the Earth. Of course, I knew climate change was real. I knew it was dire. I had an inkling that it was not far away. But I did know just how bad it was. I didn't know how many innocent, and I mean, innocent people were already suffering hideously. I didn't know how many people had been marked as allowable casualties simply because they were born in the wrong places under the wrong circumstances. Right. At that very moment, I knew I would see bad things in my lifetime, but I didn't know I would see them before 50. Nor did I realize how many of them I'd actually already seen. I was in both Sandy and Katrina. After all, I didn't know it then, but I went into mourning. I skipped denial and went right to shock. I floated around on a dark, dark cloud. I frequently and randomly burst into tears, and I refused to admit to myself that I knew exactly why I was crying. Where other people saw bustling crowds of people, I saw death and destruction. Even as I walked on dry land, I saw floods. I imagined wild animals, especially snakes getting out of the zoos in the aftermath of natural disasters. I worried about how we would treat each other in the face of such calamity. I doubted it would be kind. I still doubt that, actually. I kept editing, but I tried to dissociated as ridiculous as it sounds. It didn't work either. The craft of editing demands empathy. You have to be present. Then I went into depression. My social life turned into fits and spurts of intense engagement, followed by equally intense withdrawal. I was deeply afraid of telling even the people closest to me what I knew and why I was so scared. I couldn't sleep. The crying fits continued. They didn't become more predictable.

Amy [00:11:23] I have to say, when I was reading this, it just felt so familiar and so like. That's how I felt.

Amy [00:11:30] And like I said, I feel like I still cycle through that sometimes because it's…

Mary [00:11:34] Yeah. Oh my God. Me too.

Amy [00:11:36] You go on in this essay to talk about how Wen Stevenson's book, What We're Fighting For Now Is Each Other, helped to pull you out of that depression. Can you talk about that book a bit and and how it got you from like, you know, kind of despair and shock to righteous anger?

Mary [00:11:55] Mm hmm. [00:11:56]So there is a quote from James Baldwin that I love where he says, you think you're alone until you read and then you find out just how big the world is. And I think reading that book, which I highly recommend, is it sort of showed me that I wasn't crazy. [21.7s] So like the opening the introduction to it is really beautifully written. I'm gonna start reading now:.

Mary [00:12:24] The question now is not whether we're going to stop global warming or solve the climate crisis. It is whether humanity will act quickly and decisively enough to salvage civilization itself in any form worth salvaging. Whether any kind of stable, humane and just future, any kind of just society is still possible. We know that if the governments of the world actually want it to address the situation in a serious way, they could finally acting as though we accept what the science is telling us. And as though we actually care for our fellow human beings. But isn't that a bit extreme? Really extreme business as usual is extreme. Just ask climate scientists. The building is burning the innocence. The poor or the oppressed? The children, your own children are inside. And the American petro state, which under the all of the above energy policies has overtaken Saudi Arabia as the largest producer of oil and gas on the planet. It is spraying fuel, not water, on the flames. That's more than extreme. It's homicidal, is psychopathic, is fucking insane.

Amy [00:13:32] That's great. Yeah, it IS psychopathic.

Mary [00:13:37] Yeah. Yes. So during my experience, like first coming to terms with this, you kind of feel like you're crazy because everybody around you is just acting like this is normal.

Mary [00:13:55] You know, and I I came to the Green Movement and in earnest in 2014 and 2015 was the Paris agreement. My first year it was like sort of like that year shock. And 2015 was my year of like, oh, coming back to life around it all. And that is right during Paris, while everybody was, you know, over there. That's when I was reading this book. And I remember like watching. All the preparations for the Paris Accord being like, wait a minute, but we're already too late, like that was when I found out that we had already warmed. That wasn't clear to me before.

Amy [00:14:36] Well, yeah, because I mean, I feel like honestly, before that most recent IPCC report. And like and David Wallace Wells story in New York magazine, scientists just were they had a it was kind of a weird, like closed ranks thing where it was like, we know this, but let's not tell anyone…

Mary [00:14:58] Exactly. Exactly. It was such a weird experience.

[00:15:03] And when I would like finally. So after I read that book, that was when I started to be like, oh, I'm not crazy. I'm not right. I'm not crazy. When I should talk to someone about this run and reached out to a couple of other people that, you know, we're doing similar work and it was like, no, I'm scared to death, too. And that sort of gave me a sense of security. It leaves her like a some sort of reassurance. Yeah. It didn't fix the problem, but it was like, at least now I have someone I can talk to and I know that I'm not alone.

[00:15:39] Yeah. And that really helped me. And that was what I was trying to do with this piece.

[00:15:45] And I was like I was saying before, like we were saying a minute ago that I didn't write this in the wake of the IPCC report of 2008 18, the one that I had way more alarmist language than I believe any other IPCC report. Right. Yeah.

[00:16:04] Which is probably evidenced by the fact it's the first one I had ever heard of.

Amy [00:16:08] Yeah.

Mary [00:16:09] And I think most people. And it's I just sort of felt like everybody was collectively in mourning and I felt like, you know, my first reaction was really frustrated. And I wanted to be like grow the fuck up. We've been trying to tell you this for ever. Like, yeah. Blah. And then I thought about my own coming to terms with it and I remembered the book that helped me come out of it. And this book did not approach me in that way. Like Wen's approach wasn't Grow the fuck up, you big baby. It was more like, no, you're right. The way you feel is right. And you probably haven't acted on it because everybody else is acting like, you know, let's just go along to get along.

Mary [00:16:54] And so. I decided that the best way to actually get someone to grow up, which is my goal, right. I do think we have to grow up as a society to deal with this problem. Yeah. The best way to do that is to give them a road map. And the best road map I can give anyone is my own experience.

Amy [00:17:12] Right.

Mary [00:17:13] So.

Mary [00:17:13] Right. Yeah, yeah.

Amy [00:17:16] I mean, that's a good point to cause Wen, you know, has been writing about and knowing about climate for like, yeah, I mean 20 plus years, so he definitely could have been like, yeah, guys we tried to tell you, but he didn't take it at all. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I want to talk to you. I think we should talk a little bit about anger because I know you and I both like to write a little hot

Mary [00:17:41] You know?

Mary [00:17:46] I mean, you wrote the anger essay of two thousand and nineteen and I had to stop myself from asking you to read the entire thing and like videotape yourself acting it out.

Amy [00:18:02] Just punching at things.

Mary [00:18:02] But I do have a generous excerpt. I'd love for you to read.

Amy [00:18:11] Okay. So this was called the case for Climate Rage.

Amy [00:18:17] And I feel like I had started working on this, like I had started working on it like months before it came out, because I just kept I kept having these experiences over and over again with specifically men in the climate movement where they would sort of like dismiss how I was feeling, especially if I was angry, like they. There was a really like consistent response of like, you know, like calm down, be practical. Yeah. You know, like this isn't going to help us. Why are you trying to point the finger at people that's unproductive? All of that. Like, I was like hearing these messages over and over again. And it kind of just reminded me of like experiences that I've had in the climate movement all along with like male editors and like, you know, like people that I'm on list serves with and all of that kind of stuff. And so I wanted to kind of combine it all together and also a little bit make the point that like, you know, people with different experiences than white men have different emotional reactions to climate change, and that is equally valid.

Mary [00:19:34] Oh, yeah, yeah. So they were against pointing the finger. Meanwhile, you know, we see this in so much climate writing. It's all about we.

Amy [00:19:45] Yes.

Mary [00:19:45] You know, like we did this. And it's very much an all that is pointing a giant finger.

Amy [00:19:51] Exactly. Well, and it's it's in this way that it's like, oh, if we if we can if we can make it a collective responsibility, then we don't have to look at the fact that the people, the very specific people who had a much bigger hand in this look just like us.

Mary [00:20:07] Yeah. You get into that in the in that excerpt. Yeah.

Amy [00:20:12] Yeah. Okay. So here I'll read from this case for Climate Rage. I think there have always been a lot of women covering environmental stories, but the breakout stars, the loudest voices have tended to be those of white men. More recently, there, specifically literary white men for whom climate change is the ultimate epic saga in which all of humanity is both villain and hero. We had a chance to act on climate. Decades ago and blew it. The story goes. And now we must rise to the challenge and save humanity. If we don't. And we're unlikely to. We only have ourselves to blame. These dominant voices are agreed that climate change stories can be serious. Sad, occasionally. Funny or hopeful? Always smart and knowledgeable. More recently, a bit alarmist, but never too emotional and especially not angry. For about two decades now, white male environmentalists and journalists have been telling me and other environmentalists and reporters who look like me, and especially those who are browner than me, that we doesn't quite include us or our anger. It is unseemly and certainly on intellectual to react this way. So is imagining a vastly different future that goes beyond technological solutions or new energy sources and fingerpointing, quote, playing the blame game. That is certainly not on the appropriate response is bemused detachment and plenty of charts followed by a book tour. But when women like my colleague's point the finger, it is not at one company or even one industry. The oil, coal and automotive industries all play a role. The utilities to the PR flacks and lobbyists who carry out their vision, the politicians who cave. It's a lot of people, but it's not all people. It's not humanity. The story of, quote, us consuming our way to oblivion with the oil companies innocently fulfilling our insatiable greed for fuel is just a lie. What does it matter who's at fault? We all need to come together to solve it. Shout men who look just like the men who are most to blame. Men who will suffer. Last and least it matters because the same patriarchal elites have remained comfortably in power for so long that their imaginations are unequal to the task we face. Arguments for civility, for forgiveness, for we're all in this together for a preservation of the status quo with just a few tweaks won't keep us all from going over the cliff.

Mary [00:22:44] Mm hmm. I love that, so. I remember after you posted this, it was just like all over the Twitter machine. Can you talk a little bit about what the reception was like for you?

Amy [00:22:59] Yeah, actually, I was kind of expecting to get a lot of angry emails from people.

Amy [00:23:06] You know, I was like I was like sort of, you know, preparing myself for, you know, like trolls and anger.

Amy [00:23:12] But actually, a lot of people were really supportive. And a lot of women in particular were like, yes, absolutely. And actually, quite a few white dudes were like, yeah, I've noticed this. And then, you know, the people the emails that I did get were mostly from men who who were really genuinely asking, like, how can I be a better ally, which I was like, really appreciative of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I really I.

Mary [00:23:41] Those are my favorite climate guys.

Amy [00:23:43] Yeah. But I do think that there's this thing that happens where a lot of us, like white men that I've talked to in the movement will sort of initially take this tack of. So what do you think? I should just not write about this? And it's weird to me that the choices are like I either have to dominate or not be involved at all. You know, like there's a huge middle there. And there's like many ways that you can both continue to say your piece and support other people, you know, expressing themselves, too.

Mary [00:24:16] Yeah, [00:24:17]right! The climate movement It does not do good with nuance. It's funny. It's just so much black and white thinking. Right. It's either individual or collective action is either hope or complete and total despair. It's just we can never the pendulum just keeps going all over the place. [20.4s]

Amy [00:24:38] Yeah. Yeah. That's actually a great segue into the next one I want you to read from, which I just loved this essay and especially this part of it where you talk about how like the "we must have hope" and "everything is doomed" things are basically like two sides of the same coin. So this one is called. Home Is Always Worth It. And this one also started out angry. It was like sort of an angry response to the Jonathan Franzen essay.

Mary [00:25:09] It's a little bit that, you know, I think I kind of let the Twitter machine get me a little more worked up over that piece than I wanted it to be. And so, yeah, when I sat down to write it, I sort of like I reread his teeth and was like, actually, I see, you know, I kind of see where he's coming from. And I kind of see what what could send someone like this over domination of the whole narrative, how that can send someone all the way to the other side, because the hope narrative is just like so incredibly out of touch at this point that I do see how someone can go all the way to the other end of the spectrum. Yeah. And I did think that a lot of the stuff he was saying were like he describes like, you know, climate action can be like voting rights action. Right. And I totally and completely agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. And he was talking about how it's too late to stop climate change. And he's right. And I also started to see a lot of blowback for this is why fiction writer shouldn't write about climate. Like, OK, hold on there. Put that pony back in the barn, you can't both say that we need everybody in the climate movement–why aren't more people engaged on this?– and be upset about that, and then when new people come and decide that they want to have not just a role but a speaking role and not just be an extra and take orders, right. Then, you know, tell them to get back in their lane like that's not cool. And I just thought that rage is not a good way to engage with those ideas, because I think people who have gone to this other side of the spectrum are in a lot of pain. Yeah, that is why I decided to take a more compassionate approach. So, OK, this is the part you want me to read.

Mary [00:26:57] What we used to know as potential impacts of global warming now have proper names. Dorian You two add a campfire. Maria In our context now, Rosie, hopefulness feels downright sociopathic as these tragedies fade and blend into a continuum. The climate community's insistence on hope everlasting begins to sound anything but realistic. It becomes emotionally immature, a hurdle unto itself. Not to mention that in order to have this type of pope, you have to be able to explain the solutions that would justify it. And that favors a certain type of expertise and rages raises the price of admission to the climate conversation to an astonishing astronomical rate. We can't afford to keep all these gates and all these gatekeepers again. We don't have time. Granted, this reflexive ness is a byproduct of decades of relentless bad faith attacks from both industry and government. But the result is the same. It's exhausting, it's ineffective and it's alienating. Honestly, it's not terribly unlike the doom or narrative. Both are mansplaining paradises, both smack of the privilege, right from the deluded belief that this world has ever been perfect and that therefore an imperfect version of it is not worth saving or fighting for. Both represent two sides of an overprivileged pendulum swung too far, and the swing is so unnecessary. Given the abundant room in the middle room for all of us. In fact, the community that prides itself on scientific nuance can learn to embrace emotional nuance. It is absolutely possible to prepare for the disasters already terrifyingly upon us, while also doing our damnedest to quit baking more than we can acknowledge. The storm of emotions that comes with watching our world unravel. Process those emotions pick ourselves up to protect what we can. Because it's worth it. Because we're worth it. We don't have to be Pollyannish or fatalistic. We can just be human.

Amy [00:29:03] I love it so much. It's so good. I love that when I read something that I feel like expresses what I've been thinking but unable to articulate. Yes. Yeah.

Mary [00:29:16] Yeah. That's kind of like, you know, always the goal. Because I think we've never really talked about the emotions of climate change. At least not at a large scale. I think we just like there's so many things swirling around it that we don't know how to talk about. And it just feels like you're trying to grasp at the air. Yeah. It doesn't have a form. You can't fully see it because you can't describe it. But the interesting experience of writing this essay was, as I wrote the hope section I was like, why does this feel redundant?

Mary [00:29:56] Like I got to, you know, like the editor in me sort of like, kicked in and I was like, you wrote this part already? Yeah. Why are you repeating yourself? And I scrolled up and was like, no, I didn't write this part.

Mary [00:30:06] And then I reread what I wrote about the doom narrative and how that made me feel. And I looked at what I wrote for the hope one and was like, oh, they both make me feel the same thing. They're the same thing. They're two sides of the same coin. And that was when I completely changed the entire frame of the piece.

Amy [00:30:21] The way you put it here is perfect, that it's the exact same kind of approach of like like sort of mansplaining. It's coming from this place of thinking that like things were perfect and that anything imperfect is like not worth fighting for.

Mary [00:30:35] All of that. Yep.

Amy [00:30:36] That's real good. Yeah. Okay. I feel like I want to have you read from the first essay of yours that I read, which was this Vox one that really just kind of debunks this whole, you know, individual responsibility narrative that we hear all the time and we see all these yelling fossil fuel ads like, you know, you need to get a handle on your carbon footprint or like you need to fly less or you need to go vegan.

Mary [00:31:03] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Amy [00:31:05] And I especially loved how you were very careful to make the point. And of course, this did not stop people who didn't actually read the essay from arguing with you. But I loved that you were careful to make the point that, you know, you're not saying that those actions are unnecessary or stupid or a waste of time or that people shouldn't do them or any of those things that just like they need to be combined with systemic action.

Mary [00:31:37] Yeah.

Amy [00:31:37] Okay I have this excerpt for you to read.

Mary [00:31:41] Yeah. OK.

Mary [00:31:43] Once upon a time perhaps. We need a strong grasp of science to understand climate change.

Mary [00:31:49] But now all we have to do is look at the date daily headlines or out of our windows from the campfire. A devastating California wildfire that was exacerbated by dry, hot weather to Hurricane Michael. A storm that rapidly intensified due to increased sea temperatures. Climate change is here.

[00:32:07] I don't blame anyone for wanting absolution. I can even understand abdication, which is its own form of absolution. But underneath all that is a far more insidious force. It's the narrative that is both driven and obstructed. The climate change conversation for the past several decades. It tells us. Climate change could have been fixed if we had all just ordered less takeout use, fewer plastic bags turned off some more lights, planted a few trees or driven an electric car. It says that if those adjustments can't do the trick. What's the point? The belief that this enormous existential problem could have been fixed if all of us had just tweaked our consumptive habits is not only preposterous. It's dangerous. It turns environmentalism into an individual choice defined as sin, defined as sin or virtue, convicting those who can't or don't uphold this ethics. When you consider that the same IPCC report outlined that the vast majority of global greenhouse gas emissions comes from just a handful of corporations aided and abetted by the world's most powerful governments, including the U.S., is victim blaming, plain and simple. When people come to me to confess their green sins as if I were some sort of eco nun, I want to tell them that they're carrying the guilt of the oil and gas industry's crimes, that the weight of our sickly planet is too much for any one person to shoulder, and that that blame paves the road to apathy, which can really seal our doom. But that doesn't mean we do nothing. Climate change is a vast and complicated problem. And that means that the answer is complicated, too. We need to let go of the idea that it's all of our individual faults, then take on the collective responsibility of holding the true culprits accountable. In other words, we need to become Mini Davis against one big bad Goliath.

Amy [00:34:00] Yes. Also, I love that you're. I love that you're like an eco nun that people confess their sins to (laughing)

Mary [00:34:08] (laughing) But I'm sure you have that experience.

Amy [00:34:11] Yes. It's so funny. Actually, it's really funny. Like I was talking to Anna Jane Joyner about this. That like every time in the past, like there's been many occasions where I have met up with someone who also works on climate. And I'm always a little bit unsure of like, you know, what I should or shouldn't do in front of them. Like, I'm like if I eat meat. Will, they like, think less of me Or if I have a to-go coffee cup will I get in trouble. Right?

Mary [00:34:40] Right. Or if I'm in town. And I know where they live. Do I. Do I let them know I'm in town or are they going to be mad that I flew?

Amy [00:34:49] I know. I know. Yeah, right. That's right. With myself sometimes, too. Yes. Yes.

Mary [00:34:56] And it's just so incredibly unproductive. Yeah. And you know, I. So this piece came out of two main places. There was the piece you that I read from a minute ago, the big lie, we're told about climate change is our own fault. I got a lot of blowback from that. A lot.

[00:35:15] I got some blowback from that piece because, you know, people were saying that I was anti individual action and that you because in that piece, I also say that like the oil and gas industry is gaslighting you and it's not your fault and all. That's bullshit, right? Right. And of course, here comes, you know, the individual action lobby.

Amy [00:35:36] Right.

Mary [00:35:39] My favorite comment was somebody who was who was saying like this is just what upper class white people and the coastal elites say to themselves.

[00:35:48] And I was like, I'm not going to comment on any of the criticism, but when I saw that, it was like I'm a black woman from Mississippi. So you might want to back that shit up.

[00:35:59] Yes. So I started writing it in my head after that. And then it kind of came into more focus when I was on this panel in March.

[00:36:08] And one of the questions was about our individual action is like boycotting toilet paper companies enough?

[00:36:17] But like, is that useful? Is that meaningful, honestly? Yes, your individual actions are definitely meaningful.

Mary [00:36:23] But the goal should always be to make your your individual actions something bigger than yourself. And I just wasn't as satisfied with that answer. And I wanted to really try to break this dichotomy, because I just saw when she asked that question. I saw how broken she felt. I saw how puny she felt. And you know, I've been talking about this a lot on Twitter lately. I think the reason really that people shut down around climate is not because the problem is so big, even though it is. I think it's more that the solutions we give them are so puny.

Amy [00:37:01] Right. Right. You know, it's well, it's like either like puny or overwhelming, because I think that the appeal of the individual action thing is also that like it's a thing I can do. You know, and so I want to believe that that will make a dent in some ways, you know.

Mary [00:37:18] Right. Right.

Amy [00:37:21] Then you get into this like, well, what how do I what am I going to do to, like, change the entire system we live in? You know?

Mary [00:37:30] Right. Yeah. Anyway, so you wall yourself around off of it. Yeah. So yeah, I started it start formulating in my head. This was one of the ones where I'm so grateful I had an editor, the editor I worked with that box was, you know, she also was the one who picked up when climate change broke my heart and republished it as like. The big lie, we're told, about climate change is our fault. So like I already had a working relationship with her and I knew her going in to be a good editor. If you read one of my medium posts and then the one she put there, you'll see a big difference.

[00:38:06] So, yes, she really helped me get this idea out.

[00:38:12] And I what I loved is also when I first start talking about it, I know it probably sounded to her kind of hazy, but she licks stuck with me and took a chance with me. And I think that is something that I'm sure you know about this like women and women of color in this field. We kind of don't always get that chance. Yeah. You know, like you I've had this experience. I'm sure you have to have like pitching idea after idea or idea. And they're all like, yeah, I don't think that's real. I don't think that's what I think anybody experiences.

[00:38:39] And you're like, yeah, it's like, this is actually my experience. I'm telling you, it happens. And that is why I like a lot of my stuff is on medium. Yeah.

[00:38:48] You know, it was like I'll be like, yeah, I actually think my idea is good and I believe it. So I'm going to go write it and I do it anyway.

Amy [00:38:58] Yeah! You know, that's actually the genesis of Drilled too. Like I had this idea of doing, you know, like almost like a legal procedural framework for the whole creation and spread of climate denial. And everywhere I pitched it to was like, I don't know, like the Exxon Knew story has been told or like, you know, if we frame it as a legal thing, then, you know, it it makes it look like we're trying to make them villains. I'm like I'm not trying to make them anything. I'm literally using documents from them with their own internal documents. It's them who Make them look like villains. It's not me.

Mary [00:39:42] Right. Right.

Amy [00:39:43] So I was like, fine, fine. I'm going to do it myself. I'm going to do it as a true crime podcast. And like, yeah, you know, I'm going to do it the way I want to do it.

[00:39:54] And like, yeah, I had this experience trying to write about the media's role in this stuff, too.  I realized at a certain point that The Washington Post and The New York Times were making fossil fuel company ads for them like they weren't just. They weren't just, you know, distributing them. They were actually making them through their advertising department.

Mary [00:40:19] Yeah.

Amy [00:40:19] And like no one would take the frickin story because it's like, you know, obviously, like The New York Times isn't gonna write a story about itself doing that. Neither is The Washington Post. And then like the other papers kind of didn't want to get into like they're like, oh, like they didn't want to, you know, I guess it's like saying, yeah, something bad about their colleagues. I don't know. Anyway, the only place that would take it was The Nation.

Mary [00:40:43] Mm hmm. Oh really?

Amy [00:40:44] Yeah.

Mary [00:40:45] That's a perfect segue way into the piece that I wanted you to read from, actually. Why are New York Times and Washington Post producing ads for Big Oil?

Amy [00:40:55] Yes. Why, indeed. It's just so crazy to me!

[00:41:53] Numerous top news organizations, including The Times, Politico and The Washington Post, have pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars from Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron and organizations such as the American Petroleum Institute to create the companies. Advertorial ads call it greenwashing with a twist. The twist being that the fossil fuel companies claims of good corporate citizenship are now being supported by respected news organizations at a time when the same news organizations must dramatically improve their coverage of the climate crisis. Such a financial relationship with the very companies that are helping drive the crisis is problematic at best.

Amy [00:42:32] It's like insane to me that we've gone from, you know, the 80s and 90s where Exxon Mobile. Well, first Mobile and then Exxon and then Exxon Mobile, we're taking out, you know, weekly advertorial ads in The New York Times, which like it's pretty bad to this, which is not an improvement. It's actually worse at a time when we're more aware about climate change, we're more aware about the impacts that climate denial and that influence campaigns have had on our ability to act on climate. And they would do this is just like, come on, like I understand that, you know, you're a for profit business and you need money and all of that stuff. But like, it just feels like this is not that hard of a line to draw.

Mary [00:43:14] Yeah. I want to go back to to Drilled for a second because that is how I first first heard of you.

Amy [00:43:44] Oh yeah!

Mary [00:43:44] I thought Drilled was when it first came into my world last spring, it was just like such  a welcome addition to my life. I I couldn't I couldn't stop listening to it.

[00:43:59] Like I just spent a whole day listening to those episodes because they're so brilliantly put together of I think I saw you say this somewhere, that not all crimes are against the law.

[00:44:13] And you really do like make it creepy. It's creepy.

[00:44:17] But, you know, it wasn't a lot of stuff that I knew already. And that was surprising to me. But it was a lot I didn't know. Like I didn't know the full extent of how far they went. So can you talk a little bit about your experience putting a show together and what the response to it has been?

Amy [00:44:35] Yeah. Yes. So I like I maybe five or six years ago was driving around listening to NPR and thinking like, oh, I wish I could do radio. And then I thought, well, I probably could. Like, I'm sure there's a member station around here. I could like, you know, I could spend a few hours a week learning how to do it or whatever.

[00:44:56] And so I contacted my local NPR station and I offered myself as like an over-aged intern. And they were like, yeah, actually, it's a lot harder for us to teach people reporting than it is to teach people audio equipment handling. So I went in and I did like a month long internship there, and learned how to do audio and then started doing some reporting for them. And this whole time I was trying to think of like, what would a good climate change podcast be like? There,. You know, there were podcasts that existed, but they were all pretty much focused on the science and or on energy technology. Those were the two realms. And I kept trying to come up with like a more narrative story. And then I started covering the sort of latest round of climate cases and I was in a courtroom in San Francisco. And like, I just like was like, oh, this is it. It's like law and order meets climate change. All the characters are here. There's this eccentric judge. The lawyers, the activists..

[00:45:59] I was just like, oh, my God, this is it. So then from that point on, I was like, I think this is a good way to tell the story because I had read all of the coverage that Inside Climate News had done and the L.A. Times, and they partnered with the Columbia Journalism School. And there had been some stuff in The Guardian, too. And I felt like people hadn't absorbed it. And that, like, there just was not an understanding of how bad this was and how how extreme it was. And I thought, if I can get some of these old scientists to talk to me and people can hear them talking about like I was there and we knew exactly what was going to happen, you know, that that will be more compelling.

[00:46:48] And I feel like I was right. I mean, I think a lot of people you know, a lot of people who kind of  really just didn't even notice the Exxon Knew story when it first came out have been like, holy crap, I had no idea. And I think too that, you know, there's a bunch of there's a bunch of market research that's been done around, you know, what people do and don't react to in the climate story.

[00:47:14] And the thing that has the most sort of breakthrough power for both conservatives and liberals and my kind of every demographic is this whole idea of fairness, which makes sense because it's like kind of the first, you know, narrative we absorb as toddlers.

Mary [00:47:34] Exactly. Exactly.

Mary [00:47:35] That's why I'm always saying to make it about justice.

Amy [00:47:39] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway. Yeah. So it's you know, I was only ever intending to do one limited run season but then I found so many crimes. Well, you know, there's so many ways that the story can go

[00:47:54] During the first season, I talked to these crab fishermen and they told me all about their stories. So that became the second season. And then in the course of researching Season 2, I found all of this sort of historical information and have continued to build on that. So the third season we're calling it the Mad Men of Climate Denial because it's like, oh my God, these very specific dudes who created this whole PR apparatus that like we're still dealing with now. Yeah.

Mary [00:48:25] Mm hmm. You talked about this, I believe, in the Nation piece. Or was it The Washington Post piece where they there, the exact same people who did big tobacco?

Amy [00:48:35] Yes, in a lot of cases. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of them were.

[00:48:42] There's a huge amount of crossover between like the U.S. military and these guys, like most of them were U.S. military intelligence. Then they got into the private sector. The story that's been told a lot is that it's like, oh, tobacco figured this out. And then the oil companies like used their playbook but i haven't found that to be quite right..

Mary [00:49:08] Mm hmm.

Amy [00:49:09] Like what I've seen, at least on the PR side. I think on the science side, like Naomi Oreskes has done a great job of tracking specific fake scientists from tobacco to oil. You know, it's like the same guys who were like, did this whole strategy of of basically like doing all these studies around all the other causes of lung cancer, like went on and did all the studies around like all the other causes of climate change, you know?

Mary [00:49:37] Yeah.

Amy [00:49:38] But on the PR side, actually, like the like oil and coal were basically like the first industries that ever used PR. And so yeah. Anyway there's a lot to unpack there.

Mary [00:49:54] Yeah. But what it makes me think about is that, [00:49:57]you know, the fossil fuel industry really takes storytelling seriously. Yeah. And I'm I don't know if you feel this way. But in the climate space, in the environmental space, it sort of feels like storytelling was a nice to have for a really long time. [15.3s]

[00:50:13] [00:50:13]And there was a, you know, reluctance to play with it, to try different narratives, to be creative with it. And the fossil fuel industry, like, you know, sort of got into this whole hog, it has from the very beginning, because they know that that is where manipulation lives. [16.2s] That is where, you know, all the power is in. I've been seeing this as you know, I troll fossil fuel companies on on Twitter is kind of my thing. My dream is to get blocked by one of the big ones.

[00:50:46] You know, I I got a lot of folks being like, I don't know if this is the right way

Mary [00:50:57] And oh, actually, when I started, someone responded like actually, I kind of feel bad for the poor intern doing their social media, getting attacked with this. And I was like, what makes you think that that that that's how they run their social media?

Amy [00:51:09] Right.

Mary [00:51:10] They know how much power is is in storytelling. They invest in their communications opps like crazy, actually would be interested to see like the stats on on what their communications apparatus looks like.

Amy [00:51:21] Oh, yeah. It's very obvious that they invest heavily. Yeah.

Amy [00:51:25] So yeah, it's I mean, I can almost guarantee you that they invest more in that than they do in all their bullshit like algae, biofuels and carbon capture programs.

Mary [00:51:35] Exactly. The stuff that they're telling these stories about like you know.

Mary [00:51:40] You know what's crazy. Like I only watch cable news when I am traveling because I hate myself and when I see him I must say I don't know why I have to tell them like that.

[00:51:52] I better watch some cable news so I can see what kind of crazy bullshit is happening there now. Yes. Oh, my God.

[00:51:59] And they advertise like fucking crazy. Like I was in a hotel room and I fell asleep with it like an idiot. And I was like having dreams about algae because of all the fucking oil ads about algae.

Amy [00:52:14] Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I fell like it's a lot of like Exxon algae fuels and like catheter kits.

Mary [00:52:26] Exactly. It is so weird. I think you said this at some point. Like they're not advertising their actual product.

Amy [00:52:35] No. No one cares what gas they buy!

Mary [00:52:39] Yeah, exactly. Nobody's watching TV and be like, OMG. I better get some Chevron in my car

Amy [00:52:45] Yeah, it's crazy.

Amy [00:52:46] This is why actually the new Twitter policy around political issue ads is gonna be really interesting to see like how it shakes down because the oil companies for years have very effectively gotten around various rules on political issue advertising by claiming that they're advertising their product.

Amy [00:53:07] But they're not. You know, they're clearly not. So, yes.

[00:53:14] Oh, I know what I was going to say, too, about the storytelling thing is that, you know, it's like kind of parallels the whole emotion thing [00:53:24]too. For years, the climate movement has been sort of scared of tapping into emotions like fear and anger and sadness and whatever. But those are like exactly what the fossil fuel industry goes for. Like they're all about that Lizard, brain, gut punch, all that stuff. [16.5s]

[00:53:41] [00:53:41]Exactly. [0.0s]

[00:53:41] [00:53:41]And like, you know, we've been  trying to combat that with fucking charts. Like, it doesn't work![6.4s]

Mary [00:53:49] Exactly.

Amy [00:54:02] Well, we could talk forever about this stuff, and I can't wait to bring all of this to the Frump episodes.

Mary [00:54:07] Oh, my God, you're really going to let me call it Frump? I've been trying to make that happen for ever!

Amy [00:54:12] Yes. Yes. Why not? Why not?

Mary [00:54:14] I love you. And to our listeners, all the articles we talked about in this episode will be in our show notes, if you want to read.

Amy [00:54:21] Right. And they'll also be posted on our Twitter, which you can and should follow at at hot take casts going for it. We'll be sharing the links to the articles up for discussion the night before the episode releases. So definitely make sure you follow and please tweet at us with your article suggestions, especially for the year in review episodes. You can also follow us on Twitter individually. I'm at Amy WESTERVELT and Mary is at Mary Heglar, that's H-E-G-L-A-R.

Mary [00:54:45] So I have one announcement for folks in New York. I'm gonna be doing a Story Collider event on December 2nd, which is a Monday with my friends Kate Marvel and Martha Jeffries and a couple of other folks. You can find those details on my Twitter and the show's Twitter, but please do come out if you want to hear me talk more about my granddaddy and Hurricane Katrina.

Amy [00:55:08] That sounds so awesome. I'm bummed that I don't live in New York now.

Mary [00:55:13] You could! You could just move your entire life out here.

Amy [00:55:22] I know, I know. I have one quick announcement, too, that the next season of Drilled is coming out December 16th. So check your feeds for that.

Mary [00:55:30] That's so exciting.

Amy [00:55:32] Yeah.

Mary [00:55:32] All right. Well, we've got a lot of reading to do and we're sure you're gonna send us more of it. So we'll talk to y'all soon.

Amy [00:55:40] Bye bye.