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Climate Town
The Troll Army of Big Oil | Climate Town
The Troll Army of Big Oil | Climate Town
Climate Town
·
22:15 · Jan 30, 2023
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I
have
an
apology
to
make
see
lately
I've
been
coming
down
pretty
hard
Translating…
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Smart
Karaoke
Original
Line
1
/463
0:00
I have an apology to make see lately I've been coming down pretty hard
0:04
on the oil and gas industry
0:06
and I didn't realize that my bad attitude was having a negative impact on
0:10
real people like Natalie
0:12
Smith and Carrie White see
0:14
they're part of a Grassroots
0:15
movement known as women for natural gas while I'm taking cheap shots they're out
0:19
here every day supporting
0:21
their fuel of choice and they're hoping they can set an example for women
0:24
all over the world and
0:25
I would just like to tell Natalie and Carrie that I am sorry
0:30
I really would like to
0:33
but I can't because Natalie
0:35
Smith and Carrie White are
0:37
not real people they were made up by a massive consulting firm hired by
0:42
a bunch of oil and gas companies
0:43
who were concerned that some upcoming regulations
0:45
might have a negative impact on their bottom line in
0:49
this case FTI did the totally normal not
0:51
at all insane thing of setting up a group called Texans
0:55
for natural gas which then gave birth to women for natural gas the group
0:59
then posted two extremely
1:01
fake sounding quotes praising
1:02
the virtues of natural gas then attributed
1:04
these quotes to at least five completely
1:07
different women of the women who supposedly said the quotes three are stock photographs
1:11
available here one was taken without permission from a random photographer
1:15
in the Philippines and one was the picture of an editor at LinkedIn who
1:18
had no idea women for natural gas existed
1:21
or that they were using her picture and just as a quick side note
1:23
in order to get this particular version of Natalie Smith on Shutterstock
1:27
someone would have had to search something like positive
1:30
African-American healthy skin and then buy the photo and then put it next to
1:34
a quote that this woman did
1:36
not say but you don't have to take my word for it for the
1:38
price of a shutter stock subscription I got a whole Army of Natalie Smith's
1:42
backing me up right now and this is not an isolated incident this is
1:46
a classic example of an absolutely unhinged
1:50
practice known as Astro
1:51
turfing astroturfing of course is where a corporation or interest group creates
1:56
and funds a separate organization
1:58
that's meant to look like a Grassroots movement but it's really just a puppet
2:02
that blasts out whatever dumbass
2:03
talking points the parent company wants
2:06
it's the kind of practice that leads to gas companies paying
2:09
real actual money to
2:11
fund a folksy sounding group called Texans
2:13
for natural gas and
2:15
to produce the single most pandering
2:16
ad in history Cowboys
2:19
Texas barbecue Texas football
2:23
Texas Texas led the American Energy Revolution
2:27
Texans for natural gas
2:29
well toss me another cool one fellow Texans and make it a Frac juice
2:34
and if you thought their videos were a straight fire why don't you check
2:37
out some of their memes my fellow
2:39
Edge Lords and while oil and gas companies
2:47
throwing cash at a consulting firm full of tone deaf grifters trying to impersonate
2:52
Millennials might sound like a hilarious waste of fossil fuel money they
2:56
do it because sometimes
2:57
it actually works yeah
2:59
in multiple instances AstroTurf
3:01
front groups have successfully
3:03
tricked legislators and citizens into voting down legitimate
3:06
environmental and climate policy they're also more prone to lying
3:10
and manipulating data because the parent company has
3:13
maximum deniability over the actions of their subsidiaries
3:16
and front groups kind of like the time a Coal Company hired some Consultants
3:20
to forge a letter from a deceased member of the NAACP
3:23
to try to trick a congressman into voting down some climate legislation that inconvenienced
3:27
the coal company a
3:29
thing that really happened they
3:30
got caught blamed it on the consultants and got out of the whole thing
3:34
with some nice cheap sorry about that and
3:37
if you think that's a pretty whack-ass
3:38
way for a country to work I'm
3:40
right there with you but
3:42
maybe there's actually something we can all do about it maybe
3:45
hi I'm Riley Williams the
3:47
stock photography model for recklessly
3:49
pale healthy skin mustache
3:51
man and a climate science and policy master's
3:53
degree recipient and this is a video about the fossil fuel industry
3:57
buying fake public support for
3:59
Fun and Profit welcome
4:00
to climate town astroturfing
4:16
as a deception technique was not new it had been bumming around the minor
4:19
leagues for decades but our good friends at Big tobacco decided to call it
4:23
up to the majors when they needed a little help in the second hand
4:26
smoke debate in 1992
4:28
the EPA released a real page Turner of a 500 page report that showed
4:32
that even if you weren't smoking
4:34
simply being in a smoke-filled
4:36
room was actually not
4:37
good for your lungs the report also noted that secondhand smoke was probably responsible
4:42
for hundreds of thousands of cases of lower respiratory
4:45
disease in infants every
4:46
single year so you know
4:49
not great and big tobacco
4:51
was terrified that the public would start to believe all this new credible
4:55
thoroughly backed up science so
4:58
they decided to make some science of their own and created a fake Grassroots
5:02
organization called the advancement of sound science Coalition
5:05
and yes you can expect a lot of these front groups to have names
5:08
that sound like they got caught up in some kind of Google translate accident
5:12
anyway an elite internal Memo from 1993
5:15
the plan to leverage Philip Morris's new front group is explicitly
5:18
detailed including their strategy of crafting a fake Grassroots
5:22
mobilization effort to help they also created a group called The National smokers
5:26
Alliance which claimed to be mostly funded by just people who love cigarettes
5:30
being members until the president of the organization got called out on a radio
5:34
show for the group being almost entirely
5:36
big tobacco-funded percentage-wise what how much your money would you say actually comes from
5:41
your members dues uh
5:43
I'm not I I don't really know we
5:45
like any other don't
5:48
make our uh budgetary
5:50
uh facts but believe me I do know I mean this was this was
5:54
uh according to the IRS last
5:56
year six percent of your funding came from Members dues and 94
5:59
came from other sources like for example Philip Morris and as obviously
6:04
as these front groups were astroturfing
6:07
provided cover to the tobacco industry for years and
6:10
even allowed them to delay regulation
6:12
by inundating decision makers with cigarette friendly Talking Points
6:16
masquerading as public opinion
6:18
astroturfing has been popping up all over the place it's a popular technique
6:22
because it allows corporations
6:23
to trade their money for political influence
6:26
and they end up getting that money right back through regulations
6:29
or tax breaks John Oliver did an amazing episode on this it's fantastic you
6:34
should absolutely watch it Link in the bio but
6:36
nobody has the astroturfing
6:38
capabilities of the fossil fuel industry
6:40
and there's perhaps no better example
6:42
than when they set their sights on a regulation to
6:45
help us reduce our oil dependence
6:47
in the early 2000s
6:49
California was absolutely blasting
6:52
out environmental legislation we're
6:54
talking low emission Vehicles driving in the carpool lane stricter
6:57
pollution standards that got adopted by 13 other states and even the passage of
7:01
the 2006 global warming Solutions act giving the California air resources
7:05
board the go-ahead to regulate emissions and penalize the corporations
7:09
that weren't compliant enter
7:11
an increasingly nervous fossil
7:13
fuel industry and that's not exactly
7:15
right because the fossil fuel industry
7:17
had actually entered California over
7:19
a hundred years previously
7:20
in 1892 oil was successfully drilled in Los Angeles and
7:24
pretty soon you couldn't even take your horse to the beach without passing
7:27
by all those oil Derricks
7:29
so many in fact that major sections
7:31
of Los Angeles had to be built directly on top of abandoned oil fields
7:35
which eventually led to the explosion of a Roth Dress For Less in 1985.
7:39
the continuing fire indicated
7:41
that leaking gas still posed
7:43
a danger and when California decided
7:45
they wanted to cut their oil use in half by 2030
7:48
well that just wasn't going to work for Exxon Mobil
7:52
Chevron BP shell you know the
7:57
how's it going mom that is Rich and Mama good looking so
8:01
they turned to their friends over at a Trade Organization
8:04
they fund known as the western states petroleum
8:07
Association or WSPA or lispa
8:10
or west Matt Damon Goodwill Hunting The Departed park the car at Harvard Boston
8:16
baked beans in the Celtics go sucks
8:19
not that on the surface whisper looks like an everyday advocacy
8:23
group they care about social equality
8:25
and the health of our environment they're worried about climate change and they even
8:28
have a fun blog celebrating the women of oil and gas and
8:31
oh yeah oil companies
8:33
paid this little group of friends over 25
8:36
million dollars in just five years for
8:38
General advocacy stuff the
8:41
majority of that money is classified
8:43
under other and has no reported paper trail
8:46
huh and I'm sure this is unrelated
8:48
but whispa has also created and funded over a dozen subsidiary
8:52
front groups that just so happen to be obsessed
8:55
with the same things whispers
8:57
funders are interested in groups
8:59
like Californians for energy Independence
9:01
or oregonians for sound fuel policy
9:03
or concerned mineral owners of California and
9:07
about a dozen more all
9:09
quietly puppeted by Whisper
9:10
and by the way if it seems like these groups are bending over backwards
9:14
to get their names to be acronyms
9:16
that Spell actual words
9:18
they're not it's all osps
9:20
and kamaks it's insane it makes no sense actually here's a really good graphic
9:24
that shows a bunch of them everything inside the circle is a group that
9:28
looks like an independent Grassroots
9:29
organization but is actually controlled
9:32
or heavily influenced by the hard-working
9:34
folks over at Western States petroleum
9:36
Association and as much as I would like to take credit for putting together
9:39
just such a Fire graphic
9:41
I can't because whispa
9:44
themselves put this graphic together and
9:46
then put it in a PowerPoint presentation
9:48
bragging about how effective their astroturfing
9:51
techniques are and then accidentally
9:53
leaked it in a meeting with the Washington research
9:56
and now we got it
9:58
so that's pretty fun and it's even got the whole section that explicitly
10:02
States their financial stake
10:03
in Grassroots messages the
10:05
Internet is real people it
10:07
saves your documents you can't just go around saying whatever you want like a
10:11
bunch of Greeks I
10:12
just wanted to issue a quick apology to the nation of green
10:15
I am Greek so I felt it would be okay but I'm I'm hearing
10:18
that actually that's not okay to say anyway whispa
10:21
and their fake advocacy
10:22
groups went after the petroleum
10:24
reduction legislation like a pack of sneaky
10:27
hounds here's a clip from one of their front groups known simply as the
10:31
California drivers Alliance a very normal group of people who
10:35
are so passionate about driving
10:37
that they formed a completely Grassroots
10:40
group the gas restriction Act of 2015 will restrict the use of gas and
10:44
diesel in California by 50 percent this
10:46
law will limit how often we can drive our own cars rationing
10:49
gas increasing costs penalizing
10:51
finest if we drive too much or use too much gas oh come on
10:54
who can afford this well
10:56
I guess I can kiss my grape slushie
10:57
goodbye what are you doing down there
10:59
never mind me so tap the screen already you can afford a Tesla then
11:04
this message won't really matter to you
11:06
if you can afford a Tesla it's
11:08
all very sweaty but they're really trying to stake a claim to the hard-working
11:12
Americans demographic and are truly tripping over themselves trying to give off the semblance
11:17
of independent non-affiliated opinion
11:20
California drivers Alliance spokesperson Beth Miller even
11:23
admitted that the group specifically
11:25
targeted these ads to run in the districts of moderate Democratic
11:29
State lawmakers The Hope was to get legislators
11:32
who were on the fence about the policy to perceive it as being deeply
11:35
unpopular in reality the
11:38
vast majority of Californians
11:39
supported the bill and when specifically
11:41
asked about the 50 oil
11:43
reduction part 73 percent of voting age Californians
11:47
were in favor but
11:48
that didn't stop industry front groups from sending targeted mailers to vulnerable lawmakers
11:53
including a link to a website that
11:55
didn't actually exist which probably constituted
11:58
some kind of mail fraud according to Consumer
12:01
Watchdog and besides the obvious issue of creating deceitful
12:04
groups to trick voters and legislators into doing what you want surprise
12:08
happy birthday a lot of their claims are actually
12:11
data monitoring systems in all cars Regulators
12:15
limiting how far we can drive collecting
12:17
and monitoring our personal driving habits
12:19
and tracking how much gas we use but of course a perusal of the
12:22
actual text of all the different drafts of the legislation fails
12:26
to describe any kind of mandatory Mobility restrictions
12:28
or tracking devices but
12:31
the big Clincher and the centerpiece
12:33
of the California driver's
12:34
Alliance argument was that a 50 reduction
12:36
in petroleum would require cars
12:39
to average 50 miles per gallon by 2030
12:42
which is way too hot good
12:44
morning I am extraordinarily
12:46
proud to be here today with
12:48
the leaders of the world's largest
12:50
auto companies by 2025.
12:53
the average fuel economy
12:55
of their vehicles will
12:57
nearly double to almost 55
12:59
miles per gallon oh so this whole thing was just a ruse to get
13:03
people riled up against a bill that would eventually cost gas companies money oh
13:07
it was built on horseshit backed up by dog
13:10
awesome but luckily they didn't
13:16
what the of corpse by September 2015
13:19
the 50 reduction in oil had been removed from the bill completely
13:23
but then Governor Jerry Brown blaming
13:25
the intense campaign by the oil industry
13:27
these policies had a huge amount of popular support but all this pressure from
13:31
front groups parroting the same talking points
13:33
successfully tanked a step in the right direction these
13:36
guys are doing things you nailed it you nailed it
13:39
why does government have a double standard
13:42
it's not about Democrat
13:43
and Republic It's About Us
13:45
you me and that guy that guy that guy that guy that guy that
13:48
guy that died hell
13:58
yeah and Whisper is
14:00
still around as recently as 2019
14:02
they founded a quaint sounding group called Common Ground California
14:06
and they successfully tanked a proposed bill that would have required new oil industry
14:11
operations be built farther away from people's homes and
14:14
just so we don't forget how
14:15
sociopathic this behavior is oil
14:18
companies spent money to pretend a huge group of people wanted
14:22
oil wells to be built closer
14:24
to their homes and schools and this is just one group in
14:28
one state Coast to Coast the fossil fuel astroturfing
14:31
machine is working Round the Clock to make it seem like real warm
14:35
Americans not only share an oddly specific
14:38
Mutual affinity for rock juice and coal but are also staunchly
14:42
opposed to a clean energy transition
14:45
in 2018 when Arizona's
14:47
largest coal fire plant was set to be decommissioned
14:49
an initiative called life-powered
14:51
produced this very reasonable
14:53
not at all exploitative
14:55
ad in hopes of avoiding its closure from
14:58
my window I can see a castle with three chimneys
15:01
papa says it's the heart of the land sometimes
15:05
I think I can hear it
15:09
yeah if there's ever been an ad more obviously
15:12
written by a group of white men I
15:14
haven't seen it and this will come as a shock to exactly nobody but
15:18
the group that funded the initiative is the Texas public policy
15:21
Foundation a conservative think tank funded in part by Peabody
15:25
Coal who totally coincidentally
15:27
happened to supply a lot of the coal that was burned at that very
15:30
same power plant and these astroturfing
15:33
tactics are as pervasive
15:34
as they are clunky
15:35
ever heard of the American Coalition
15:37
for ocean protection or
15:39
a cop what their campaign to save the natural habitat
15:44
of the right whale sounds pretty climity right except uh-oh they're funded by a
15:48
Libertarian think tank from Delaware that's trying to kill an offshore Wind Farm or
15:52
how about that time New Orleans utility Entergy
15:54
hired a PR firm to pay literal
15:56
actors to attend a public hearing and voice their support for a new gas-fired
16:00
power plant crisis actor much the Hawthorne group released this statement saying they were
16:06
unaware crowds on demand would hire people to attend those meetings I could go
16:10
on but you get the point and the thing is the majority of Americans
16:14
believe that climate change is real and
16:17
happening people want to see laws passed that address the climate crisis but they
16:22
keep getting derailed by a bunch of Corporations
16:24
who want to make sure their profits
16:26
are okay rather than reckon with the negative effects of their products
16:30
luckily there is power in being part of the actual majority
16:34
because stock photographs have a really hard time doing the kinds of things you
16:38
can do speaking of which my number one suggestion
16:41
as always is to get more civically
16:43
engaged that means registering
16:45
to vote in voting but it also means getting more educated about issues that
16:49
actually interest you finding
16:51
Community meetings and going to talk about the issues at those meetings because right
16:55
now it's almost all
16:56
old people with a lot of get off my lawn energy so
16:59
if you've got some friends together and went down there I think it actually
17:02
might make a huge difference you
17:04
can also join some local climate
17:06
groups like 350.org Sunrise
17:08
movement nrdc climate change makers that kind of thing but if you're just spoiling
17:13
for something to do right now that's got an actual shot at making a
17:16
difference my friend you
17:18
are in luck because the sponsor of today's video is
17:22
Evergreen action their whole deal is that they help activate real
17:26
not stock photography people just
17:28
like you if you've watched climate town in the past you'll know that one
17:31
of the keys to decarbonizing
17:33
our economy is to get fossil fuels out of our electrical grid we just
17:37
did a goddamn 29
17:38
minute video about Coal
17:40
Power and you should totally watch because I spent a lot of time editing
17:43
it but the tldr
17:44
is that Coal fire power plants pollute like crazy or hemorrhaging
17:48
money and absolutely gotta
17:49
go and it turns out the
17:51
EPA has the explicit
17:53
authority to drastically cut pollution from the power sector you
17:57
may remember the EPA
17:58
as that government agency
17:59
that well unfortunately PA
18:05
has been a little timid in flexing its muscles lately which may have something
18:09
to do with fossil fuel money making
18:12
a very small number of people's
18:14
disproportionately loud our friends at Evergreen
18:17
have identified a bunch of rules that the EPA could update to have a
18:21
massive impact on emissions two of them specifically
18:24
sections 111 B and D are the Clean Air Act give the EPA the
18:28
authority to directly regulate
18:29
carbon pollution from new and existing power plants
18:32
and unless I'm forgetting how time works new and existing is basically every
18:37
major power plant these
18:39
rules updates combined with the inflation reduction act could actually get the US within
18:43
spitting distance of 80 clean
18:45
Power by 2030 which is something President Biden
18:48
pinky promised he would do I even went to his house leaned
18:52
into azir real close and said do
18:54
you really promise and
18:56
he said I do he's
18:59
doing a Clinton impression
19:01
but it was he's good he's pretty good Biden's
19:03
EPA has already committed
19:04
to finalizing these new rules but they still haven't put these safeguards
19:08
in place and we're kind of getting uncomfortably
19:11
close to the end of Biden's
19:12
first and possibly onlyest
19:14
term which means the EPA is now jeopardizing
19:18
our best shot at climate regulation and they need to be gently reminded
19:22
that securing these policies is officially a
19:25
time to take an Adderall and write that essay because it's due tomorrow kind
19:29
of priority the good news is that there are people working in the EPA
19:32
right now who also want to make this happen they just need a little
19:36
bit of help getting the top brass to appreciate
19:39
the true magnitude of public support there is for
19:42
Meaningful climate action so the thing you can do right now is
19:46
add your name to this demand letter that Evergreen
19:49
is setting to the EPA not only will this help impress upon Biden and
19:52
his staff just how many living breathing
19:54
people care about getting these very specific rules passed
19:58
but once you sign on with Evergreen they'll help keep you in 4 formed
20:01
on other ways you can help get your voice heard including
20:04
how and when to leave public comments
20:06
on the proposed rules as the EPA releases them
20:09
yeah apparently leaving public comments
20:11
is weirdly important to this process and it turns out the best way to
20:15
combat all this astroturfing
20:17
is with a real honest to God Grassroots
20:19
movement so if you want to be part of that sign
20:22
the demand letter and Evergreen will send you all the scintillating
20:25
details about how when and where you
20:28
can get involved in something that might really make a difference
20:31
and that's the end of the episode this
20:33
one is dedicated to
20:35
Natalie Smith and Carrie White
20:37
they're no longer with us
20:39
R.I.P wherever you are I
20:41
hope you're doing well
20:43
thanks so much for watching I really appreciate
20:45
it and if you want to support the channel you
20:47
can consider joining our patreon
20:49
page where for like five bucks a month you get access to a bunch
20:53
of deleted scenes cut
20:54
tape behind the scenes footage
20:56
we even do some songs sometimes
20:59
am I serious the only way to know is yes I am but you
21:02
could also join the patreon page to double check for yourself also
21:06
we have a very pop and Discord server
21:08
if you don't know what that is you
21:10
can Google it what am I you ask
21:12
Jeeves also also if
21:15
you haven't done this already consider
21:17
subscribing to the YouTube channel
21:18
and I honestly am trying to think of the person that would get 18
21:22
minutes deep into a
21:24
Environmental Policy monologue and
21:27
be down to listen to the whole thing but still be on the fence
21:30
about whether to hit a free subscribe
21:33
you know what maybe
21:34
don't subscribe if you're that person don't subscribe and make me earn it next
21:38
time actually okay I
21:40
take it back do subscribe
21:42
because that's how you we can tell you when a new video is out
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and then next time if you see the video you didn't like it unsubscribe
21:48
that'll really show me all
21:50
right thanks so much for watching I'll see you next time I
21:53
have not tried marijuana I
21:55
have never used it at any
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The Suburbs Are Bleeding America Dry | Climate Town (feat. @NotJustBikes)
Climate Town
B2
Environment
Karaoke
8:45
Plastic Recycling is an Actual Scam | Climate Town
Climate Town
B2
Environment
Karaoke
31:39
Parking Laws Are Strangling America | Climate Town
Climate Town
B2
Environment
23:12
Who Actually Controls Gas Prices? | Climate Town
Climate Town
B2
Environment
Karaoke
31:03
How Oil Propaganda Sneaks Into TV Shows | Climate Town
Climate Town
B2
Environment
Karaoke
30:55
Joe Rogan Doesn't Understand Graphs
Climate Town
B2
Environment
Karaoke
27:50
Your Food Is Lying To You | Climate Town
Climate Town
