Introducing Drilled: Carbon Cowboys
Deep Background with Noah Feldman
Pushkin Industries
4.4 • 848 Ratings
🗓️ 12 May 2026
⏱️ 30 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Drilled is a true-crime climate change podcast exposing how corporate corruption and political operatives built decades of climate denial and delay. Hosted and reported by award-winning investigative climate journalists, led by Amy Westervelt, each season unravels new evidence of deception, disinformation, and the power structures keeping real climate solutions out of reach.
In September 2025, a group of Brazilian ministers trekked all the way to chilly North Dakota to see a presentation on a new type of clean energy project, one that promised to help them deliver Brazilian President Lula’s dream of turning Brazil into "the Saudi Arabia of sustainable aviation fuels." It was the latest in a string of projects from Midwest Republican kingmaker and corn ethanol magnate Bruce Rastetter, whose investments in Brazil might just transform him into a global carbon czar, even as his Summit pipeline carbon project faces fierce opposition from Iowa to North Dakota. The problem? It all requires loads of land and none of it does a thing about climate change.
Here's episode 1 of Drilled: Carbon Cowboys. Find Drilled wherever you get podcasts.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.3 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:04.3 | I've been hearing for decades that the markets can solve climate change. |
| 0:08.9 | Today, we have more incentives for market solutions than ever and emissions are rising. |
| 0:13.7 | On this season of drilled, Carbon Cowboys, the story of three market solutions colliding in one multinational boondoggle. |
| 0:22.4 | You got to give Bruce and the guy's credit. |
| 0:24.3 | They're Republican kids. |
| 0:25.3 | They don't give a shit about it. |
| 0:26.7 | It's now. |
| 0:27.4 | Listen anywhere you get podcasts and hear episodes early and ad-free with a Pushkin |
| 0:31.7 | Plus subscription. |
| 0:33.1 | Head to the drilled show page on Apple Podcasts or pushkin.fm slash plus to sign up. Thanks for supporting the show. |
| 0:44.5 | Pushkin. Hey listeners, Amy here. I'm dropping into your feed today to bring you a preview of the new season of my podcast Drilled. |
| 0:57.8 | As a long-time climate journalist, I've been hearing for at least 20 years that the markets will solve climate change. |
| 1:04.0 | On this season of Drilled, we look at where that approach has landed us following an ethanol, kingpin, and carbon entrepreneur from Iowa to Brazil and asking, |
| 1:13.8 | is this really helping anything? I hope you enjoy it. And if you do, find drilled carbon cowboys |
| 1:20.2 | wherever you listen to your podcasts. Pushkin Plus subscribers can hear episodes early and add free. |
| 1:26.2 | Sign up on the drilled show page on Apple or pushkin.fm. |
| 1:29.8 | slash plus. |
| 1:35.6 | In early September 2025, a handful of Brazilian government officials headed to North Dakota on a mission. |
| 1:46.4 | It was a technical mission. They were there to see a shiny new green technology in action. |
| 1:53.2 | The idea behind this new technology was simple. When you turn corn into ethanol, it generates |
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