Inside the industry that made climate denial work

Zero: The Climate Race

Bloomberg

Technology, Business, Science

4.7 • 219 Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

True crime is one of the most popular genres in every form of storytelling. But can that pull be used to tell stories about the environment? This week, Akshat speaks with Amy Westervelt, a climate reporter for over twenty years, and the creator of the podcast Drilled - a true crime show about climate change. Westervelt launched it after being turned away by large production companies but found over a million listeners in the first season.

This is the second of three episodes talking with climate storytellers on Zero. Listen to hear why and how Westervelt decided to use “true crime” as a way to talk about Big Oil, the history of climate denial, and how reporting on the climate crisis has changed for the better.

Zero is a production of Bloomberg Green. Our producer is Oscar Boyd and our senior producer is Christine Driscoll. Special thanks to Kira Bindrim. Thoughts or suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. For more coverage of climate change and solutions, visit bloomberg.com/green

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Zero. I'm Akshadrati. This week, Oil, Origins and Old Tapes.
0:07.0	A critical part of any good story is the antagonist, the villain.
0:23.6	In stories about climate change, the villain can be something as abstract as human nature.
0:28.6	The short-term thinking that stops systemic changes are love of comfort and convenience.
0:34.6	Or the villain can be specific, China, the US, or oil companies. But the problem
0:40.6	with that is it's not always compelling to tell a story about a country or a company doing
0:46.2	something wrong. You've got to find the people doing it. And my guest today, Amy Westerwell,
0:52.5	has spent a lot of time in identifying individuals who have made outsized contributions to climate change.
0:59.2	In particular, the men who founded the public relations industry and their connection to Big Oil.
1:05.1	It helps to understand that, oh, there were specific companies that hired specific people to really convince the
1:12.4	public to think about things a certain way. It's not, like, impossible for us to think about
1:18.3	things differently. Amy has produced nine seasons of drill, what she calls a true crime
1:24.7	podcast about climate change. The oil industry and its lackeys appear frequently.
1:30.6	Amy's scrutiny of the PR guys has opened my eyes to just how long the oil industry has got
1:35.5	to tell its story with very little interruption.
1:38.8	This week in our climate storytelling series, I talked to Amy about how she researches
1:43.5	drilled, why she chose to style it as a true crime podcast, and how storytelling around climate has changed.
1:50.6	If you're joining the series for the first time, I recommend going back to the feed and adding my interview with climate fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson to your list.
1:59.3	Subscribe to make sure you get next week's episode where I talk about climate on TV
2:03.6	with Dorothy Fortonberry, an executive producer of the show, Extrapolations.
2:12.7	Amy, welcome to the show.
2:14.3	Thanks so much for having me.
	...

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