AMY WESTERVELT on Uncovering Extraction /334

For The Wild

Philosophy, Society & Culture, For The Wild, Anthropocene, Story Telling, Religion & Spirituality, Decolonization, Progressive, Liberation, Land, Media

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 17 May 2023

⏱️ 62 minutes

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Summary

How do we face the scope of global extraction in the name of oil and gas production? Guest Amy Westervelt joins us this week to consider the full story behind these extractive industries and the role they play in shaping global structures from shipping ports, to government policies, to media talking points. Together, Amy and Ayana consider what it might mean for these organizations to be held accountable to the local and global disasters they have wrought in pursuit of profit. Amy brings specific insight to ExxonMobil’s rapid development of oil production in Guyana, which she investigated for season eight of her podcast, Drilled. Discussing this specific case and extraction across the world, Amy details the global complications and power dynamics at play, and considers the obscene level of influence huge corporations have in perpetuating global injustice.

Understanding the contours of power as it works now, this conversation also invites dreams of how we may change these systems. A world in which we hold corporations accountable and curb energy consumption in just and accessible ways is possible. How might we shift the narrative to bring visions into action?

Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative climate journalist. She writes regularly for The Guardian and The Intercept. Westervelt also runs the independent podcast production company and network Critical Frequency, where she reports and hosts Drilled, a true-crime podcast about climate change, and runs the company’s production team on other shows, like the Peabody-nominated This Land.

Music by Jonathan Yonts, Hana Shin, and Charles Rumback and Ryley Walker.

Visit our website at forthewild.world for the full episode description, references, and action points.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to For the Wild Podcast. I'm Ayanna Young. Today we are speaking with Amy
0:10.8	Westervilt. Since around 1980, no global South country that has gotten into the oil business
0:19.9	has wound up better off for it. Not one. People sometimes think or talk about colonization as this
0:25.7	thing that happened in the past and really these companies have become the new colonizer.
0:33.7	Amy Westervilt is an award-winning investigative climate journalist. She writes regularly for the
0:39.6	Guardian and the Intercept. Westervilt also runs the independent podcast production company and
0:45.7	network critical frequency, where she reports and hosts drilled. A true crime podcast about climate
0:53.3	change and runs the company's production team on other shows like the Peabody nominated this land.
1:06.3	Oh Amy, I am so excited to have you here today. Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
1:13.9	I really respect your work and have learned so much from listening to drilled and I just as another
1:24.8	female podcaster, audio storyteller in the world, I really am excited to connect with you and share
1:36.7	your work with our listeners. So thanks for joining us. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. I'm
1:43.4	excited to. Awesome. So as we open, I would really love to dive into a topic so much of your work
1:53.5	deals with, which is holding corporations accountable for the climate crisis and many of us understand
2:02.1	the realities of a changing climate and continued extraction. But I think when it comes to
2:09.1	accountability for the crisis, things get a bit more hazy. And so what does accountability actually
2:18.3	look like when it comes to facing the systems and organizations most responsible for climate change?
2:25.7	Yeah, yeah. It's a great question and I often will have people be like, oh, we should stop focusing on
2:34.4	who's to blame and just focus on the solutions. And I'm kind of like, I don't really think you can
2:41.9	have effective solutions if you don't understand where the problem comes from and if there's never
2:48.1	any kind of accountability along the way. So for me, that looks like, you know, eventually
2:55.4	land back reparations like all of these things. And along the way, I think that the corporations
	...

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