The Troll Army of Big Oil | Climate Town

I have an apology to make see lately I've been coming down pretty hard

on the oil and gas industry

and I didn't realize that my bad attitude was having a negative impact on

real people like Natalie

Smith and Carrie White see

they're part of a Grassroots

movement known as women for natural gas while I'm taking cheap shots they're out

here every day supporting

their fuel of choice and they're hoping they can set an example for women

all over the world and

I would just like to tell Natalie and Carrie that I am sorry

I really would like to

but I can't because Natalie

Smith and Carrie White are

not real people they were made up by a massive consulting firm hired by

a bunch of oil and gas companies

who were concerned that some upcoming regulations

might have a negative impact on their bottom line in

this case FTI did the totally normal not

at all insane thing of setting up a group called Texans

for natural gas which then gave birth to women for natural gas the group

then posted two extremely

fake sounding quotes praising

the virtues of natural gas then attributed

these quotes to at least five completely

different women of the women who supposedly said the quotes three are stock photographs

available here one was taken without permission from a random photographer

in the Philippines and one was the picture of an editor at LinkedIn who

had no idea women for natural gas existed

or that they were using her picture and just as a quick side note

in order to get this particular version of Natalie Smith on Shutterstock

someone would have had to search something like positive

African-American healthy skin and then buy the photo and then put it next to

a quote that this woman did

not say but you don't have to take my word for it for the

price of a shutter stock subscription I got a whole Army of Natalie Smith's

backing me up right now and this is not an isolated incident this is

a classic example of an absolutely unhinged

practice known as Astro

turfing astroturfing of course is where a corporation or interest group creates

and funds a separate organization

that's meant to look like a Grassroots movement but it's really just a puppet

that blasts out whatever dumbass

talking points the parent company wants

it's the kind of practice that leads to gas companies paying

real actual money to

fund a folksy sounding group called Texans

for natural gas and

to produce the single most pandering

ad in history Cowboys

Texas barbecue Texas football

Texas Texas led the American Energy Revolution

Texans for natural gas

well toss me another cool one fellow Texans and make it a Frac juice

and if you thought their videos were a straight fire why don't you check

out some of their memes my fellow

Edge Lords and while oil and gas companies

throwing cash at a consulting firm full of tone deaf grifters trying to impersonate

Millennials might sound like a hilarious waste of fossil fuel money they

do it because sometimes

it actually works yeah

in multiple instances AstroTurf

front groups have successfully

tricked legislators and citizens into voting down legitimate

environmental and climate policy they're also more prone to lying

and manipulating data because the parent company has

maximum deniability over the actions of their subsidiaries

and front groups kind of like the time a Coal Company hired some Consultants

to forge a letter from a deceased member of the NAACP

to try to trick a congressman into voting down some climate legislation that inconvenienced

the coal company a

thing that really happened they

got caught blamed it on the consultants and got out of the whole thing

with some nice cheap sorry about that and

if you think that's a pretty whack-ass

way for a country to work I'm

right there with you but

maybe there's actually something we can all do about it maybe

hi I'm Riley Williams the

stock photography model for recklessly

pale healthy skin mustache

man and a climate science and policy master's

degree recipient and this is a video about the fossil fuel industry

buying fake public support for

Fun and Profit welcome

to climate town astroturfing

as a deception technique was not new it had been bumming around the minor

leagues for decades but our good friends at Big tobacco decided to call it

up to the majors when they needed a little help in the second hand

smoke debate in 1992

the EPA released a real page Turner of a 500 page report that showed

that even if you weren't smoking

simply being in a smoke-filled

room was actually not

good for your lungs the report also noted that secondhand smoke was probably responsible

for hundreds of thousands of cases of lower respiratory

disease in infants every

single year so you know

not great and big tobacco

was terrified that the public would start to believe all this new credible

thoroughly backed up science so

they decided to make some science of their own and created a fake Grassroots

organization called the advancement of sound science Coalition

and yes you can expect a lot of these front groups to have names

that sound like they got caught up in some kind of Google translate accident

anyway an elite internal Memo from 1993

the plan to leverage Philip Morris's new front group is explicitly

detailed including their strategy of crafting a fake Grassroots

mobilization effort to help they also created a group called The National smokers

Alliance which claimed to be mostly funded by just people who love cigarettes

being members until the president of the organization got called out on a radio

show for the group being almost entirely

big tobacco-funded percentage-wise what how much your money would you say actually comes from

your members dues uh

I'm not I I don't really know we

like any other don't

make our uh budgetary

uh facts but believe me I do know I mean this was this was

uh according to the IRS last

year six percent of your funding came from Members dues and 94

came from other sources like for example Philip Morris and as obviously

as these front groups were astroturfing

provided cover to the tobacco industry for years and

even allowed them to delay regulation

by inundating decision makers with cigarette friendly Talking Points

masquerading as public opinion

astroturfing has been popping up all over the place it's a popular technique

because it allows corporations

to trade their money for political influence

and they end up getting that money right back through regulations

or tax breaks John Oliver did an amazing episode on this it's fantastic you

should absolutely watch it Link in the bio but

nobody has the astroturfing

capabilities of the fossil fuel industry

and there's perhaps no better example

than when they set their sights on a regulation to

help us reduce our oil dependence

in the early 2000s

California was absolutely blasting

out environmental legislation we're

talking low emission Vehicles driving in the carpool lane stricter

pollution standards that got adopted by 13 other states and even the passage of

the 2006 global warming Solutions act giving the California air resources

board the go-ahead to regulate emissions and penalize the corporations

that weren't compliant enter

an increasingly nervous fossil

fuel industry and that's not exactly

right because the fossil fuel industry

had actually entered California over

a hundred years previously

in 1892 oil was successfully drilled in Los Angeles and

pretty soon you couldn't even take your horse to the beach without passing

by all those oil Derricks

so many in fact that major sections

of Los Angeles had to be built directly on top of abandoned oil fields

which eventually led to the explosion of a Roth Dress For Less in 1985.

the continuing fire indicated

that leaking gas still posed

a danger and when California decided

they wanted to cut their oil use in half by 2030

well that just wasn't going to work for Exxon Mobil

Chevron BP shell you know the

how's it going mom that is Rich and Mama good looking so

they turned to their friends over at a Trade Organization

they fund known as the western states petroleum

Association or WSPA or lispa

or west Matt Damon Goodwill Hunting The Departed park the car at Harvard Boston

baked beans in the Celtics go sucks

not that on the surface whisper looks like an everyday advocacy

group they care about social equality

and the health of our environment they're worried about climate change and they even

have a fun blog celebrating the women of oil and gas and

oh yeah oil companies

paid this little group of friends over 25

million dollars in just five years for

General advocacy stuff the

majority of that money is classified

under other and has no reported paper trail

huh and I'm sure this is unrelated

but whispa has also created and funded over a dozen subsidiary

front groups that just so happen to be obsessed

with the same things whispers

funders are interested in groups

like Californians for energy Independence

or oregonians for sound fuel policy

or concerned mineral owners of California and

about a dozen more all

quietly puppeted by Whisper

and by the way if it seems like these groups are bending over backwards

to get their names to be acronyms

that Spell actual words

they're not it's all osps

and kamaks it's insane it makes no sense actually here's a really good graphic

that shows a bunch of them everything inside the circle is a group that

looks like an independent Grassroots

organization but is actually controlled

or heavily influenced by the hard-working

folks over at Western States petroleum

Association and as much as I would like to take credit for putting together

just such a Fire graphic

I can't because whispa

themselves put this graphic together and

then put it in a PowerPoint presentation

bragging about how effective their astroturfing

techniques are and then accidentally

leaked it in a meeting with the Washington research

and now we got it

so that's pretty fun and it's even got the whole section that explicitly

States their financial stake

in Grassroots messages the

Internet is real people it

saves your documents you can't just go around saying whatever you want like a

bunch of Greeks I

just wanted to issue a quick apology to the nation of green

I am Greek so I felt it would be okay but I'm I'm hearing

that actually that's not okay to say anyway whispa

and their fake advocacy

groups went after the petroleum

reduction legislation like a pack of sneaky

hounds here's a clip from one of their front groups known simply as the

California drivers Alliance a very normal group of people who

are so passionate about driving

that they formed a completely Grassroots

group the gas restriction Act of 2015 will restrict the use of gas and

diesel in California by 50 percent this

law will limit how often we can drive our own cars rationing

gas increasing costs penalizing

finest if we drive too much or use too much gas oh come on

who can afford this well

I guess I can kiss my grape slushie

goodbye what are you doing down there

never mind me so tap the screen already you can afford a Tesla then

this message won't really matter to you

if you can afford a Tesla it's

all very sweaty but they're really trying to stake a claim to the hard-working

Americans demographic and are truly tripping over themselves trying to give off the semblance

of independent non-affiliated opinion

California drivers Alliance spokesperson Beth Miller even

admitted that the group specifically

targeted these ads to run in the districts of moderate Democratic

State lawmakers The Hope was to get legislators

who were on the fence about the policy to perceive it as being deeply

unpopular in reality the

vast majority of Californians

supported the bill and when specifically

asked about the 50 oil

reduction part 73 percent of voting age Californians

were in favor but

that didn't stop industry front groups from sending targeted mailers to vulnerable lawmakers

including a link to a website that

didn't actually exist which probably constituted

some kind of mail fraud according to Consumer

Watchdog and besides the obvious issue of creating deceitful

groups to trick voters and legislators into doing what you want surprise

happy birthday a lot of their claims are actually

data monitoring systems in all cars Regulators

limiting how far we can drive collecting

and monitoring our personal driving habits

and tracking how much gas we use but of course a perusal of the

actual text of all the different drafts of the legislation fails

to describe any kind of mandatory Mobility restrictions

or tracking devices but

the big Clincher and the centerpiece

of the California driver's

Alliance argument was that a 50 reduction

in petroleum would require cars

to average 50 miles per gallon by 2030

which is way too hot good

morning I am extraordinarily

proud to be here today with

the leaders of the world's largest

auto companies by 2025.

the average fuel economy

of their vehicles will

nearly double to almost 55

miles per gallon oh so this whole thing was just a ruse to get

people riled up against a bill that would eventually cost gas companies money oh

it was built on horseshit backed up by dog

awesome but luckily they didn't

what the of corpse by September 2015

the 50 reduction in oil had been removed from the bill completely

but then Governor Jerry Brown blaming

the intense campaign by the oil industry

these policies had a huge amount of popular support but all this pressure from

front groups parroting the same talking points

successfully tanked a step in the right direction these

guys are doing things you nailed it you nailed it

why does government have a double standard

it's not about Democrat

and Republic It's About Us

you me and that guy that guy that guy that guy that guy that

guy that died hell

yeah and Whisper is

still around as recently as 2019

they founded a quaint sounding group called Common Ground California

and they successfully tanked a proposed bill that would have required new oil industry

operations be built farther away from people's homes and

just so we don't forget how

sociopathic this behavior is oil

companies spent money to pretend a huge group of people wanted

oil wells to be built closer

to their homes and schools and this is just one group in

one state Coast to Coast the fossil fuel astroturfing

machine is working Round the Clock to make it seem like real warm

Americans not only share an oddly specific

Mutual affinity for rock juice and coal but are also staunchly

opposed to a clean energy transition

in 2018 when Arizona's

largest coal fire plant was set to be decommissioned

an initiative called life-powered

produced this very reasonable

not at all exploitative

ad in hopes of avoiding its closure from

my window I can see a castle with three chimneys

papa says it's the heart of the land sometimes

I think I can hear it

yeah if there's ever been an ad more obviously

written by a group of white men I

haven't seen it and this will come as a shock to exactly nobody but

the group that funded the initiative is the Texas public policy

Foundation a conservative think tank funded in part by Peabody

Coal who totally coincidentally

happened to supply a lot of the coal that was burned at that very

same power plant and these astroturfing

tactics are as pervasive

as they are clunky

ever heard of the American Coalition

for ocean protection or

a cop what their campaign to save the natural habitat

of the right whale sounds pretty climity right except uh-oh they're funded by a

Libertarian think tank from Delaware that's trying to kill an offshore Wind Farm or

how about that time New Orleans utility Entergy

hired a PR firm to pay literal

actors to attend a public hearing and voice their support for a new gas-fired

power plant crisis actor much the Hawthorne group released this statement saying they were

unaware crowds on demand would hire people to attend those meetings I could go

on but you get the point and the thing is the majority of Americans

believe that climate change is real and

happening people want to see laws passed that address the climate crisis but they

keep getting derailed by a bunch of Corporations

who want to make sure their profits

are okay rather than reckon with the negative effects of their products

luckily there is power in being part of the actual majority

because stock photographs have a really hard time doing the kinds of things you

can do speaking of which my number one suggestion

as always is to get more civically

engaged that means registering

to vote in voting but it also means getting more educated about issues that

actually interest you finding

Community meetings and going to talk about the issues at those meetings because right

now it's almost all

old people with a lot of get off my lawn energy so

if you've got some friends together and went down there I think it actually

might make a huge difference you

can also join some local climate

groups like 350.org Sunrise

movement nrdc climate change makers that kind of thing but if you're just spoiling

for something to do right now that's got an actual shot at making a

difference my friend you

are in luck because the sponsor of today's video is

Evergreen action their whole deal is that they help activate real

not stock photography people just

like you if you've watched climate town in the past you'll know that one

of the keys to decarbonizing

our economy is to get fossil fuels out of our electrical grid we just

did a goddamn 29

minute video about Coal

Power and you should totally watch because I spent a lot of time editing

it but the tldr

is that Coal fire power plants pollute like crazy or hemorrhaging

money and absolutely gotta

go and it turns out the

EPA has the explicit

authority to drastically cut pollution from the power sector you

may remember the EPA

as that government agency

that well unfortunately PA

has been a little timid in flexing its muscles lately which may have something

to do with fossil fuel money making

a very small number of people's

disproportionately loud our friends at Evergreen

have identified a bunch of rules that the EPA could update to have a

massive impact on emissions two of them specifically

sections 111 B and D are the Clean Air Act give the EPA the

authority to directly regulate

carbon pollution from new and existing power plants

and unless I'm forgetting how time works new and existing is basically every

major power plant these

rules updates combined with the inflation reduction act could actually get the US within

spitting distance of 80 clean

Power by 2030 which is something President Biden

pinky promised he would do I even went to his house leaned

into azir real close and said do

you really promise and

he said I do he's

doing a Clinton impression

but it was he's good he's pretty good Biden's

EPA has already committed

to finalizing these new rules but they still haven't put these safeguards

in place and we're kind of getting uncomfortably

close to the end of Biden's

first and possibly onlyest

term which means the EPA is now jeopardizing

our best shot at climate regulation and they need to be gently reminded

that securing these policies is officially a

time to take an Adderall and write that essay because it's due tomorrow kind

of priority the good news is that there are people working in the EPA

right now who also want to make this happen they just need a little

bit of help getting the top brass to appreciate

the true magnitude of public support there is for

Meaningful climate action so the thing you can do right now is

add your name to this demand letter that Evergreen

is setting to the EPA not only will this help impress upon Biden and

his staff just how many living breathing

people care about getting these very specific rules passed

but once you sign on with Evergreen they'll help keep you in 4 formed

on other ways you can help get your voice heard including

how and when to leave public comments

on the proposed rules as the EPA releases them

yeah apparently leaving public comments

is weirdly important to this process and it turns out the best way to

combat all this astroturfing

is with a real honest to God Grassroots

movement so if you want to be part of that sign

the demand letter and Evergreen will send you all the scintillating

details about how when and where you

can get involved in something that might really make a difference

and that's the end of the episode this

one is dedicated to

Natalie Smith and Carrie White

they're no longer with us

R.I.P wherever you are I

hope you're doing well

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right thanks so much for watching I'll see you next time I

have not tried marijuana I

have never used it at any