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What Exxon Knew About Global Warming · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Welcome to Conspiracy The Show, the world's most trusted conspiracy
0:16
Speaker 1: theory podcast, with your hosts Adam Todd Brown and Olivia Hidar.
0:32
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome to Conspiracy The Show. I'm Adam Todd
0:37
Speaker 2: Brown and I'm Olivia Hidar and that makes us your
0:40
Speaker 2: host's Olivia, how is it going?
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Speaker 3: You know, this is the last time we talked. Things
0:45
Speaker 3: are going a little better. I would say, you know,
0:47
Speaker 3: it's good. I kind of got the Charles Hall out
0:50
Speaker 3: of my system and I'm feeling good.
0:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, that last documentary we watched was a.
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Speaker 3: Whole lot well, it was a whole lot of not much.
0:58
Speaker 2: Yes, that's a better way to put it. This week, though,
1:02
Speaker 2: we're talking about some shit.
1:04
Speaker 3: Yeah.
1:04
Speaker 2: This is something I guess I knew in the broad sense,
1:09
Speaker 2: in the back of my mind forever that oil companies
1:14
Speaker 2: knew a little more about global warming and climate change
1:17
Speaker 2: than they let on, and that they didn't really do
1:19
Speaker 2: that much about it. But I never knew the specifics,
1:23
Speaker 2: and I never knew how specifically just one company really
1:28
Speaker 2: spearheaded all of that until I watched.
1:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's and specifically, like one dude in that company
1:35
Speaker 3: really obviously the entire company kind of you know, is
1:39
Speaker 3: fucked up, but there's mainly one central villain who is
1:42
Speaker 3: still active and well you know he's not anymore. But anyway,
1:47
Speaker 3: it's crazy. I've obviously known that the oil lobby is
1:51
Speaker 3: massive and that they are doing everything in their power
1:54
Speaker 3: to prevent regulation that could ease climate change. I just
1:58
Speaker 3: didn't know pacifically how fucked up what they were doing was.
2:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, same, And all of that is talked about in
2:07
Speaker 2: the three part Paramount Plus documentary Black Gold, which covers
2:14
Speaker 2: the story of how Exxon in particular and their eventual CEO,
2:21
Speaker 2: Lee Raymond, knew about things like the greenhouse effect in
2:25
Speaker 2: global warming decades before just kind of the general public
2:30
Speaker 2: before a lot of science knew about it, Like the
2:33
Speaker 2: absolute last group of people you would want to know
2:37
Speaker 2: about it first found out about it first, right, And
2:40
Speaker 2: that was and they actively tried to cover it all up.
2:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know, I just want to say, Paramount Plus,
2:47
Speaker 3: beyond how I could have ever predicted, has become like
2:50
Speaker 3: a really good network. There's a lot of really good
2:54
Speaker 3: shit on Paramount Plus. Right now.
2:56
Speaker 2: You know, we were talking about doing watch alongs. Have
2:59
Speaker 2: you watched the series on Paramount Plus?
3:02
Speaker 4: Oh?
3:02
Speaker 3: Shit, that would be the only way that I would Well.
3:06
Speaker 2: It's it's very good. For one thing, Taylor Kiss, I'm
3:09
Speaker 2: sure plays fucking David Koresh, and he is fantastic. It's
3:14
Speaker 2: a very lenient view toward the Branch Davidians. But here's
3:19
Speaker 2: the thing. The Branch Davidians were kind of mischaracterized in
3:25
Speaker 2: the media. They weren't white nationalists. David Koresh was a creep,
3:29
Speaker 2: and he did apparently marry a fourteen year old. But
3:33
Speaker 2: I think the reason it's so deferential to the Branch
3:36
Speaker 2: Davidians is because, in what world is the solution to, Hey,
3:41
Speaker 2: that guy married a fourteen year old, Let's burn down
3:43
Speaker 2: the compound with kids in it, right, A lot of
3:46
Speaker 2: questions that need to be answered there.
3:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean the ATF and the FBI are clearly
3:51
Speaker 3: the bad guys of that story. I mean, you know,
3:55
Speaker 3: that's how it goes.
3:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good though. The series is very I'm.
3:58
Speaker 3: Sure, I'm sure it's good. It's just not a show
4:00
Speaker 3: that I would ever seek out on my own. You know,
4:03
Speaker 3: I'm gonna watch something with like magic or something instead,
4:08
Speaker 3: you magic in.
4:09
Speaker 2: That it was a weird choice to like that series,
4:12
Speaker 2: like was the thing that was supposed to kick off
4:15
Speaker 2: the Paramount Plus network. Yeah, not a good choice, the
4:18
Speaker 2: Waco series. And not long after that was announced, all
4:23
Speaker 2: the Harvey Weinstein stuff happened. As if someone in the
4:27
Speaker 2: FBI was like, oh you think so, you think, yeah,
4:30
Speaker 2: the Waco series, we know what you've been up to.
4:35
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, you know, Star Trek was always going
4:37
Speaker 3: to be the major seller for the Paramount Plus. And
4:40
Speaker 3: you know, after three years they got a series that rules.
4:43
Speaker 3: Strange New Worlds is one of the best TV shows
4:47
Speaker 3: in a while.
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Speaker 2: Oh. I haven't watched it, but I should.
4:50
Speaker 3: It's so good. It's like a real TV show. That's
4:52
Speaker 3: the thing that I love the most about it is
4:55
Speaker 3: it doesn't feel like a streaming show.
4:57
Speaker 2: Yeah you mentioned that. So anyway, anyway, them out Plus.
5:00
Speaker 2: They're good. Check them out this documentary. It's very well done.
5:04
Speaker 2: It's like a CBS News production. You can tell they've
5:07
Speaker 2: got some money behind it because Yes, one of the
5:12
Speaker 2: issues with the documentary we covered on last week's Bonus
5:15
Speaker 2: episode is that it's kind of just one guy looking
5:18
Speaker 2: at the camera, rambling aimlessly for an hour and twenty minutes.
5:22
Speaker 3: Yes it is.
5:23
Speaker 2: There is an absolutely jaw dropping number of talking heads
5:29
Speaker 2: in this because they start coming in hot right away. Yeah,
5:33
Speaker 2: and so much so that I went back and started
5:36
Speaker 2: counting and writing all their names down. And now I
5:39
Speaker 2: don't remember the count, but we have Amy Westervelt, investigative journalist,
5:45
Speaker 2: ed Garby, Exon researcher, Richard Werkhammer, ex On corporate research manager,
5:49
Speaker 2: Jerry Te. I'm not going to read them all. I'm
5:51
Speaker 2: just joking. Yeah, just like five or thirty people, and
5:56
Speaker 2: every once in a while they're like, description will change, right,
6:00
Speaker 2: there's one guy Ben Franta, PhD. Applied Physics, Harvard University
6:04
Speaker 2: and Climate accountability researcher, Stanford University just changes.
6:09
Speaker 3: Yeah. I will say. If I have one gripe with
6:12
Speaker 3: the documentary, it's that it didn't bring their name up enough.
6:16
Speaker 3: I think when you have this many talking heads, you
6:19
Speaker 3: kind of have to have their name on screen whenever
6:22
Speaker 3: they're talking, Yes, anytime, because it's very difficult to remember
6:28
Speaker 3: who is who.
6:29
Speaker 2: And when they did show their name, it was very quick,
6:32
Speaker 2: very quick, because we do this a lot where we
6:34
Speaker 2: have to cover documentaries and like take notes about them. Yes,
6:38
Speaker 2: And it was a thing I noticed with this one,
6:40
Speaker 2: like when someone's name would come up. I'd try to
6:42
Speaker 2: just type it out and keep things moving, and it
6:45
Speaker 2: just popped up so quick that I would have to
6:48
Speaker 2: pause and rewind. Kind of my only gripe about this,
6:51
Speaker 2: I think they sort of overdid it with the amount
6:55
Speaker 2: of people telling a story that it really only needed
6:58
Speaker 2: a few people to tell it.
7:00
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, but I don't mind having this many
7:04
Speaker 3: people when they all have a different enough perspective on
7:08
Speaker 3: the events.
7:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
7:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, My only gripe is just that I couldn't remember
7:14
Speaker 3: who everybody was. Always. I remember the nun, and I
7:18
Speaker 3: remember Jim Hansen, and I remember Raymond Lee Raymond Lee
7:22
Speaker 3: Ray And that's about it.
7:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, Lee Raymond, that guy. You don't want to, you know,
7:28
Speaker 2: make fun of a person for having a cleft palette,
7:30
Speaker 2: which he has, no and I'm not going to, but
7:33
Speaker 2: I will say that it's very appropriate that his makes
7:38
Speaker 2: his mouth like permanent grumpy cat shape. Yes, he's got
7:44
Speaker 2: a pronounced frown all the time, and it's because of
7:48
Speaker 2: the cleft palate, but he should like he should frown
7:51
Speaker 2: all the time.
7:52
Speaker 3: I get the feeling that even if he did not
7:55
Speaker 3: have a cleft palate, he wouldn't smile a whole bunch.
7:59
Speaker 3: This is like when we were talking about the GM
8:01
Speaker 3: streetcar thing and whenever a GM guy would pop up
8:04
Speaker 3: on that and they just look like they don't even
8:07
Speaker 3: know what the word fun means. You know, that's just
8:11
Speaker 3: the vibe you get. Their whole life is money and
8:15
Speaker 3: that's it, and that destroys your body because you are
8:19
Speaker 3: unable to like Project humanity. I don't know I else
8:23
Speaker 3: to put it.
8:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, this guy is cartoon evil. Yes, he's movie evil.
8:28
Speaker 2: This should be a movie, absolutely, and I would be sure.
8:31
Speaker 3: There's definitely parts of it that could be. Absolutely.
8:33
Speaker 2: I'd be shocked if it's not. At some point.
8:37
Speaker 3: I wouldn't because the oil lobby, as we've learned through
8:40
Speaker 3: these three episodes, are exceptionally powerful and really good at
8:45
Speaker 3: media management, or at least used to be.
8:47
Speaker 2: They'll probably make the movie someday and will be the
8:50
Speaker 2: hero who fought global warming and what right.
8:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, he'll be played by Colin Farrell. So it's kind
8:58
Speaker 3: of looks like the penguin.
8:59
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he's got that kind of look too.
9:03
Speaker 2: So again, it's three parts. Part one is called Apocalypse Later,
9:07
Speaker 2: and it talks about how back in the late sixties
9:11
Speaker 2: early seventies, all these companies, like Bell Labs especially, We're
9:15
Speaker 2: just doing all this cool research. Technology had advanced to
9:18
Speaker 2: a point where we had a lot of stuff to
9:20
Speaker 2: work with and see what we could do with it.
9:22
Speaker 2: And Exon decides they want to be that. They don't
9:25
Speaker 2: just want to be an oil company. They want to
9:28
Speaker 2: be energy company. They want to be an engineering company.
9:31
Speaker 2: They want to be Bell Labs. So they were thinking, yeah,
9:34
Speaker 2: so they poach Bell Labs top researcher, and they set
9:39
Speaker 2: up their own version of Bell Labs and engineering and
9:42
Speaker 2: research wing of EGXON. And the point of the early
9:48
Speaker 2: part of this documentary seems to be to drive home
9:52
Speaker 2: how good Exon scientists were at this point, and I
9:57
Speaker 2: think that's important, Yeah.
9:58
Speaker 3: How good the scientists were, and how little direction they
10:02
Speaker 3: were given from the higher ups, like there was no
10:05
Speaker 3: pressure seemingly to make it look like oil was the
10:10
Speaker 3: way forward. The whole point was seeing what the options
10:15
Speaker 3: were for the future.
10:17
Speaker 2: Right, And some of those scientists were working on climate
10:22
Speaker 2: change and just like climate science and like just kind
10:26
Speaker 2: of casually looking into, you know, the impact of fossil
10:30
Speaker 2: fuels and burning oil on the environment and things and stuff.
10:35
Speaker 2: Like the greenhouse effect, global warming. None of that was
10:38
Speaker 2: really known at the time, right, And there's the senior scientist,
10:43
Speaker 2: James Black, considered the most distinguished of their senior scientists.
10:48
Speaker 2: He's given an assignment to write up a memo about
10:52
Speaker 2: climate change and carbon dioxide. And that memo is called
10:56
Speaker 2: the Greenhouse Effect. And that was in nineteen seven eight,
11:01
Speaker 2: so more than forty years ago.
11:03
Speaker 3: Now, yeah, a while back.
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Speaker 2: And he tells the company in this memo that they,
11:10
Speaker 2: along with humanity, basically have about a five year window
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Speaker 2: where we need to start addressing this before things get
11:19
Speaker 2: very bad.
11:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, well things are fine now.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a story about how Exon got ahead
11:24
Speaker 2: of that shit and global warming is a hoax, right,
11:27
Speaker 2: it's actually not that. Don't don't get excited Trump supporters.
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Speaker 2: So Jim Hanson, not the muppets guy, Jim Hanson, Jim
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Speaker 2: Hanson researcher and scientists from the University of Iowa. He
11:41
Speaker 2: comes to a similar conclusion around this time, and Exon
11:45
Speaker 2: starts looking into all of this, and they decide that
11:48
Speaker 2: if they're part of the discussion, they can help kind
11:52
Speaker 2: of dictate policy. Right, So they form all of these
11:56
Speaker 2: partnerships with scientists, and this one researcher in particular, Henry Shaw,
12:02
Speaker 2: finds out that scientists have two main questions, which is
12:05
Speaker 2: how much CO two can the ocean store? And what
12:08
Speaker 2: is the contribution of fossil fuels compared to deforestation in
12:14
Speaker 2: terms of contributing CO two to the environment. And I
12:18
Speaker 2: feel like I'm carrying on for a long time and
12:21
Speaker 2: getting a little sciencey and whatnot. The documentary kind of
12:25
Speaker 2: does the same, but the point is Exon at this
12:28
Speaker 2: point in history had really good scientists who found out
12:32
Speaker 2: the greenhouse effect and global warming were a thing right
12:36
Speaker 2: way back when your parents were in school, long long
12:39
Speaker 2: time ago.
12:40
Speaker 3: Right this being the seventies. They're like, well, let's tell
12:45
Speaker 3: the management about this, then they can do the right thing.
12:49
Speaker 3: And then you know, let's trust our corporation they know
12:54
Speaker 3: what's right, and unfortunately know.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's interesting because it seems like they maybe were
13:01
Speaker 2: on a path to that. And then Lee Raymond steps in.
13:06
Speaker 2: Yes he is again a movie villain. Yes there's a
13:11
Speaker 2: former Exon scientist in this who won doesn't even want
13:16
Speaker 2: to be identified on camera, and he says what Lee
13:20
Speaker 2: Raymond did the way he describes it is he moved
13:23
Speaker 2: the culture of Exxon to the right right, which is
13:27
Speaker 2: kind of terrifying to think that an oil company is
13:31
Speaker 2: being dictated by those same kind of fuck poor people
13:35
Speaker 2: type of politics.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, they described that, like the corporate atmosphere was mostly
13:41
Speaker 3: conservative anyway, because it's an oil company and it's the seventies,
13:47
Speaker 3: and you know, it's a bunch of white dudes mostly
13:49
Speaker 3: working there, but that it wasn't conservative in the way
13:53
Speaker 3: that we understand it. It was more of the old
13:55
Speaker 3: fashioned kind. And Lee Raymond comes in and he starts
13:59
Speaker 3: pushing it more into the far right area that we
14:02
Speaker 3: are more familiar with.
14:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think what he represents is that shift in
14:08
Speaker 2: corporate America that happened where it used to be that
14:12
Speaker 2: the employees of the corporation were what mattered, and you
14:15
Speaker 2: wanted to keep them happy. But then eventually it shifted
14:19
Speaker 2: to know, the shareholders are all that matters.
14:22
Speaker 3: Right, profits shareholders, that's it.
14:25
Speaker 2: Which is what like, that's the thinking that has been
14:27
Speaker 2: adopted in general when it comes to corporate America and
14:31
Speaker 2: just life in the United States in general.
14:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, that's the inevitable outcome of a free market,
14:39
Speaker 3: capitalist like system, and it just is unfortunate that in
14:44
Speaker 3: this case, that attitude is going to kill millions and
14:49
Speaker 3: millions and millions of people.
14:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, were you surprised to see al Gore in this?
14:54
Speaker 3: Not particularly like I wasn't expecting it necessarily, but I
14:57
Speaker 3: was pleasantly surprised.
14:59
Speaker 2: I was super I'm Cooper expecting it, Like, he's got
15:02
Speaker 2: to show up. That would be like a documentary about
15:05
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties crack Bill and Joe Biden doesn't show
15:08
Speaker 2: up for it. Sure, you are the mouthpiece of that, sir.
15:11
Speaker 2: You have to be there, And like, yeah, al Gore,
15:14
Speaker 2: this is the point in history where he starts cutting
15:17
Speaker 2: his teeth as an environmental activist, because it does start
15:22
Speaker 2: slowly trickling out that maybe all of this burning oil
15:27
Speaker 2: and sending that into the atmosphere might be bad.
15:30
Speaker 3: Al Gore is extremely charismatic in all of his clips.
15:33
Speaker 3: In this he has such a bad rap for being
15:36
Speaker 3: a extremely boring guy, but like in his talking head
15:41
Speaker 3: interviews and in all of the archive clips, he like
15:45
Speaker 3: is very funny and knows what he's talking about and
15:48
Speaker 3: comes off as a really charming and intelligent man.
15:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've always liked al Gore. I do legitimately think
15:56
Speaker 2: things would have been a little better if he won
15:59
Speaker 2: in two thousand.
16:01
Speaker 3: At least on climate, at the very least right.
16:04
Speaker 2: And there's a very funny SNL clip he went back
16:09
Speaker 2: and hosted SNL at some point after losing the two
16:12
Speaker 2: thousand election, and the opening bit, like the cold open
16:17
Speaker 2: is him imagining he won, and he's just like talking about.
16:21
Speaker 3: The cutest remember one.
16:23
Speaker 2: I think he mentions that nine to eleven happened, and
16:25
Speaker 2: he's like, glad we didn't do anything rash, very fun
16:30
Speaker 2: but uh, yeah, al Gore is in this a lot.
16:32
Speaker 3: Yeah.
16:33
Speaker 2: I wasn't surprised by it. I went and saw an
16:34
Speaker 2: inconvenient truth in theaters me too. Yeah, I really liked
16:38
Speaker 2: al Gore. I respected him a lot. I like that
16:40
Speaker 2: he had a stance on the environment. And this is
16:44
Speaker 2: the point in history where that all starts. If people
16:47
Speaker 2: don't recall or no, the late seventies early eighties were
16:50
Speaker 2: a tense time for gas in oil. We were having
16:53
Speaker 2: gas and oil shortages in this country. It was a
16:57
Speaker 2: whole thing. So people were really folkocused on the impact
17:01
Speaker 2: of oil in general on our well being, and as
17:05
Speaker 2: a result of that, oil prices drop in the eighties,
17:08
Speaker 2: and Exon decides that to keep quarterly profits going, they
17:13
Speaker 2: have to cut all of those research projects that they
17:17
Speaker 2: were doing publicly and you know, spend all that money
17:21
Speaker 2: just on oil and also black ops to keep people
17:24
Speaker 2: from finding out about global.
17:26
Speaker 3: Warm Well, that's to come.
17:29
Speaker 2: And it seems like this was almost totally Lee Raymond's decision.
17:34
Speaker 2: They were at a crossroads and he decides, well, all right,
17:38
Speaker 2: we have to get profits back up, so let's dance
17:41
Speaker 2: with the partner we brought. We are no longer an
17:43
Speaker 2: energy company, we are no longer a research company. We
17:46
Speaker 2: are an oil company, and our job is to make profits.
17:50
Speaker 2: It's not to find an alternative for our own business model.
17:54
Speaker 3: Which again is you know, a deeply im moral philosophy
17:58
Speaker 3: that will destroy the planet, but makes sense if you're
18:02
Speaker 3: a capitalist, and if you're like a corporation, that is logical.
18:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guarantee. Lee Raymond is a legend within Exxon.
18:12
Speaker 3: He got like a half a billion dollar severance. He's
18:15
Speaker 3: a hero. He was a good CEO, even though he
18:19
Speaker 3: was an evil CEO.
18:21
Speaker 2: Right, And it's also mentioned that around this time, most
18:26
Speaker 2: of the research that science was doing in general was
18:30
Speaker 2: showing that climate change was the fault in large part
18:34
Speaker 2: oil companies and burning fossil fuels. So it makes sense
18:39
Speaker 2: that Exon would kind of step back from that research
18:43
Speaker 2: a little bit because by this point in history, Exon
18:46
Speaker 2: kind of knew everything they needed to know. Yeah, Like
18:49
Speaker 2: they knew the science wasn't wrong, and they knew what
18:52
Speaker 2: it was going to do to them as a company,
18:55
Speaker 2: and they and Lee Raymond made a choice. It really
19:00
Speaker 2: reminds me a lot of the opioid crisis in this country,
19:06
Speaker 2: and that that is also kind of just like one
19:09
Speaker 2: family making a decision that, all right, we know what
19:13
Speaker 2: the truth is, but also we have this one thing
19:16
Speaker 2: that if we want, we can go a different way
19:18
Speaker 2: and pretend that opioids aren't addictive and that people should
19:21
Speaker 2: be taking them every day, And that decision has such
19:26
Speaker 2: dramatic consequences on the rest of the world. This is
19:30
Speaker 2: the same thing. Yeah, Exon could have been the company
19:33
Speaker 2: at the fucking cutting edge of climate change research, and
19:38
Speaker 2: instead they actively decided kind of to make it worse.
19:42
Speaker 3: They could have been making money, lots of money by
19:48
Speaker 3: investing in and creating really good versions of renewable energy sources. Right,
19:55
Speaker 3: it might not be as much as what you would
19:58
Speaker 3: get from oil. And then this this is the part
20:00
Speaker 3: where someone from the company goes, Okay, that's all we
20:03
Speaker 3: need to hear. It's not as much as we'd get
20:05
Speaker 3: from boil. Thank you, That's all it is. And this
20:08
Speaker 3: is something Outbore harps on a lot for good reason.
20:11
Speaker 3: Is like all of this is just done for a
20:14
Speaker 3: little bit more money, right in the grand scheme. And
20:18
Speaker 3: that's it.
20:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's evil, it is. It was an evil decision
20:23
Speaker 2: on this company's part. And that's yes, that's not a
20:25
Speaker 2: word I use a lot, but no.
20:27
Speaker 3: And it's not the last evil decision, no, that they
20:30
Speaker 3: will make.
20:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of that, on to part two. This is
20:35
Speaker 2: called black Ops is the name of episode two. Uh oh,
20:38
Speaker 2: starts with scenes from the Exxon Valdi's oil spill. Yeah,
20:43
Speaker 2: which that happened in March nineteen eighty nine. I don't
20:47
Speaker 2: think I had ever heard this, but it's mentioned that
20:50
Speaker 2: when that oil spill happened, it would have taken an
20:53
Speaker 2: entire day to fly from one side of that oil
20:57
Speaker 2: spill to the other. That is banana.
21:00
Speaker 3: It's inconceivable, Like my brain is not evolved to picture
21:05
Speaker 3: something that large, which is why I think most people
21:08
Speaker 3: just kind of shrink it in their.
21:10
Speaker 2: Minds and it's one of those things that we think of, well,
21:14
Speaker 2: that happened in nineteen eighty nine, I bet it's fine
21:17
Speaker 2: up there now. And it's not like they say it's
21:20
Speaker 2: cleaned up. And they show footage in this documentary of
21:23
Speaker 2: people on beaches where that happened and they dig their
21:27
Speaker 2: hand in the rocks and it's just all oil and gross.
21:31
Speaker 2: But it's disgusting to hear Exon tell it. They cleaned
21:34
Speaker 2: it up, it's fine. And so when this happens for
21:38
Speaker 2: some reason, the first person they send out oh to
21:41
Speaker 2: deal with this is this guy named Lawrence Rawls. I
21:44
Speaker 2: think he's the CEO. Yeah, And there's this clip of
21:48
Speaker 2: him being interviewed about it and they're like, well, what
21:51
Speaker 2: are the plans to fix this? And he's like, I'm
21:53
Speaker 2: a CEO. I don't need to know the plans. They'll
21:56
Speaker 2: call me when it's fixed.
21:58
Speaker 3: Right, They explain it, and I think it makes sense
22:01
Speaker 3: when they say, like he is from the old school,
22:05
Speaker 3: even at that time of corporate management, where he just
22:10
Speaker 3: is only focused on the absolute specifics of his job
22:15
Speaker 3: and can't conceive of why anybody would want to know
22:20
Speaker 3: what the CEO of the company thinks about this on
22:25
Speaker 3: the ground matter, Like he doesn't have any sort of
22:28
Speaker 3: idea of being a public facing individual. Yeah, they show
22:33
Speaker 3: a couple clips of him, and it's fucking wild. He's
22:37
Speaker 3: like yelling at people and shit, it's insane, Like he
22:40
Speaker 3: is an idiot in an asshole.
22:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like those clips of Reagan on the campaign trail,
22:46
Speaker 2: just like screaming at black people for not listening to him. Yeah,
22:51
Speaker 2: very awkward stuff. So I get why they replaced this guy.
22:55
Speaker 2: I don't get why they never replaced Reagan. But wellman,
22:58
Speaker 2: this is how evil this company is, is to lessen
23:01
Speaker 2: the pr impact. Because they've sent Lawrence Rawls out and
23:05
Speaker 2: he's made a mockery of everything, next they send out
23:08
Speaker 2: Lee Raymond. It's like that he's playing good cop here.
23:12
Speaker 3: That's nuts. I mean, he is at least not actively
23:17
Speaker 3: hostile to anybody asking him a question. You know, he
23:21
Speaker 3: at least is like, I'll answer your questions. So I
23:24
Speaker 3: guess that's a step up.
23:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like if Lawrence Rawls was Trump, Lee Raymond
23:30
Speaker 2: is like Jaiir Bolsonaro, where he's like legitimately kind of
23:35
Speaker 2: handsome and fucking talks fine and like doesn't say crazy.
23:39
Speaker 2: I mean he says crazy shit, but it's just in
23:41
Speaker 2: a better package somehow. Lee Raymond is the better package
23:45
Speaker 2: to Lawrence Rawls. And this is like his Russian apartment bombings,
23:51
Speaker 2: like that's what got putin in charge of Russia. Like
23:55
Speaker 2: that's how he ascended from No. One to the presidency.
23:59
Speaker 2: And the Exon Valdese oil spill is kind of how
24:04
Speaker 2: Lee Raymond starts making his ascent to CEO of Exon,
24:07
Speaker 2: which I think he becomes by like ninety two, so.
24:11
Speaker 3: Few short in the eighties nineties.
24:13
Speaker 2: And Exon really really swings into action at this point
24:18
Speaker 2: when it comes to pr I would argue, just based
24:21
Speaker 2: on what you see in the documentary, they almost become
24:24
Speaker 2: as much a propaganda company as they are in an
24:28
Speaker 2: oil company, which makes sense.
24:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, Even beyond the propaganda aspect, it's that classic reputation
24:35
Speaker 3: laundering that you see a lot, where in addition to
24:40
Speaker 3: all of their weird cartoons and shit, they're also like
24:43
Speaker 3: donating to the arts and donating to like all of
24:47
Speaker 3: these good organizations or seemingly good organizations, but.
24:52
Speaker 2: Also contributing to classroom curriculums.
24:56
Speaker 3: Right, But I mean, and again, this is the fucking
24:59
Speaker 3: con conservative playbook. And you know this is Lee going
25:03
Speaker 3: by the book, you know, the modern conservative book, Like
25:06
Speaker 3: you go after the kids, you indoctrinate them in schools,
25:10
Speaker 3: and you make it so that it doesn't seem weird
25:14
Speaker 3: that any of these evil things are happening. It's just normal.
25:17
Speaker 2: Yeah. And speaking of conservatives, the documentary at this point
25:21
Speaker 2: hits on something I don't think I realized. I definitely
25:25
Speaker 2: didn't remember it. I'm not a climate scholar. It's not
25:28
Speaker 2: my favorite right conspiracy topic by any stretch of the imagination.
25:34
Speaker 2: But I didn't realize there was a point where the
25:37
Speaker 2: right we're not climate deniers. Like they show George Bush
25:42
Speaker 2: campaigning and he's like hw Yeah, George hw Bush campaigning
25:46
Speaker 2: on this. Yeah, important distinction when it comes to oil
25:50
Speaker 2: in the environment. And he's like, listen, we're going to
25:53
Speaker 2: be the leaders on this, we're going to get ahead
25:55
Speaker 2: of this, we're going to fix this. And in nineteen
25:58
Speaker 2: ninety two Bush a treaty that kind of defines the
26:03
Speaker 2: UN framework on climate change.
26:06
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I found that fascinating.
26:08
Speaker 2: I did not know any of that.
26:11
Speaker 3: No, I mean in my entire well, not my entire life,
26:14
Speaker 3: because this was happening in my life, but you know,
26:16
Speaker 3: like my adult life, teenage life, it's always been a
26:20
Speaker 3: very partisan issue.
26:22
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I would have been, you know, very
26:24
Speaker 2: young when this chart, so I wouldn't have remembered it.
26:27
Speaker 2: But I also found it fascinating that when the American
26:31
Speaker 2: government voted on that, it was just a unanimous vote.
26:34
Speaker 2: They didn't even do a roll call, So we were
26:37
Speaker 2: that close to be in the country that was like, fuck, yeah,
26:41
Speaker 2: let's fix the climate. And then Exxon swoops in and
26:45
Speaker 2: they talked to an investigative journalist at this point, and
26:48
Speaker 2: at this point in history, he starts looking into Exxon's
26:52
Speaker 2: media and financial dealings and finds that they've given something
26:56
Speaker 2: like sixteen million dollars, which is just the amount he
26:59
Speaker 2: can trade to all of these different media outlets and
27:04
Speaker 2: think tanks, all in an effort to get them to
27:07
Speaker 2: put out information that questions the science behind right climate change.
27:12
Speaker 2: So outfits like the Cato Institute, which is described in
27:15
Speaker 2: this documentary as a place for libertarian minded Republicans like
27:20
Speaker 2: fucking great, Oh sounds nice.
27:23
Speaker 3: The guy I really wanted to talk about was in
27:26
Speaker 3: this section, not the Cato Institute guy, but the guy
27:29
Speaker 3: who was like a professional climate denier pundit. Like they
27:34
Speaker 3: get him as like an interview and he's like talking
27:37
Speaker 3: about how easy it was for him to do his
27:40
Speaker 3: job because you know, he talks about the climate scientists
27:44
Speaker 3: are like they're relying on fear and scare tactics because
27:49
Speaker 3: it's a scary thing, climate change. And he's like, you know,
27:53
Speaker 3: Jim Hansen, he's doing his favors. At one point he's
27:57
Speaker 3: talking about like the oceans are gonna boil or something,
28:00
Speaker 3: you know, And I love this quote. He says, you know,
28:04
Speaker 3: it sounds like something out of the film Ghostbusters. You
28:07
Speaker 3: know what's gonna happen if the Staypuff marshmallow Man doesn't
28:11
Speaker 3: save you at the end. And I'm like, that's not
28:14
Speaker 3: what happens in Ghostbusters. You're right, the staypuff marshmallow Man
28:19
Speaker 3: is not the good guy. Did you are you sure
28:22
Speaker 3: you watched Ghostbusters?
28:24
Speaker 2: Yeah? That guy was a piece of shit.
28:26
Speaker 3: He was a real piece of shit, like the worst.
28:32
Speaker 2: And someone makes a really good point in this section
28:35
Speaker 2: that when it comes to convincing these right wing politicians that, oh, yeah,
28:41
Speaker 2: you should be fighting against global warming, right, Like, there's
28:45
Speaker 2: going to be a couple smart guys in that room,
28:47
Speaker 2: but there's also going to be a lot of dumb
28:50
Speaker 2: idiots who have no background in science at all. And
28:55
Speaker 2: if you get conservatives, yeah, exactly, and if you get
28:59
Speaker 2: an actual scientists in front of them to say, listen,
29:03
Speaker 2: none of this is as bad as they're making it
29:05
Speaker 2: out to be, which is great because it would cost
29:08
Speaker 2: you a lot of money if it was. Of course,
29:12
Speaker 2: they're going to side with the person that's not going
29:14
Speaker 2: to cost them a lot of money. That's how our
29:17
Speaker 2: government works. Now, we side with corporate America. Yes, that's
29:20
Speaker 2: kind of what happened when we were that close to
29:24
Speaker 2: being proactive on the environment. Yeah, it's documented extensively in
29:28
Speaker 2: this series. But Exxon went on this massive pr campaign
29:33
Speaker 2: where they reach out to all of these think tanks, academics,
29:37
Speaker 2: anyone they can get to say, well, the science isn't certain,
29:41
Speaker 2: it's not one hundred percent.
29:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a classic case of you know, lobbying special
29:47
Speaker 3: interests dictating government policy.
29:50
Speaker 2: And with that the science isn't one hundred percent, it's
29:54
Speaker 2: not confirmed. That's the same route the tobacco industry took,
29:58
Speaker 2: of course, because The thing about science is it's never certain.
30:03
Speaker 3: No, that's the point. It's all you are as certain
30:07
Speaker 3: as you are able to be with the information that
30:09
Speaker 3: you have.
30:10
Speaker 2: Right, And tobacco and oil companies both seize on that,
30:14
Speaker 2: and that's where these claims about, well, there's no definitive
30:19
Speaker 2: evidence that either of these products are harmful, tobacco or oil,
30:24
Speaker 2: and it's like, yes, there is. There obviously is. And
30:27
Speaker 2: there's a great quote, doubt is the product. That was
30:30
Speaker 2: a quote from I think a tobacco executive. And that's
30:34
Speaker 2: all they need. They just need that one little opening
30:37
Speaker 2: to say, well, science isn't conclusive, so we don't.
30:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you're never like any of the climate scientists,
30:43
Speaker 3: You're never going to get them to say, well, it's
30:46
Speaker 3: definitely one hundred percent this or this is going to
30:49
Speaker 3: happen one hundred percent. If they're a good scientists, they
30:53
Speaker 3: can just say, based on the data that we have,
30:56
Speaker 3: this is the most likely outcome of our current course, right,
31:00
Speaker 3: And that's not super persuasive to idiots.
31:06
Speaker 2: So yeah, And it's pointed out in this section of
31:09
Speaker 2: the documentary that this was kind of a criminal act
31:13
Speaker 2: on Exxon's part. It's absolutely a thing they should be
31:18
Speaker 2: held accountable for it. People are trying. It's certainly a
31:22
Speaker 2: thing that's in progress. But again, this does feel like
31:26
Speaker 2: big tobacco. It feels like the opioid crisis. It feels
31:30
Speaker 2: like the exact same thing, where it's people lying in
31:34
Speaker 2: the name of making more money even though they know
31:36
Speaker 2: it's going to cost people their lives.
31:38
Speaker 3: Yes, it's this fundamental sickness of our country.
31:43
Speaker 2: And so around nineteen ninety one is when climate denial
31:48
Speaker 2: kind of becomes a core belief of the Republican Party.
31:52
Speaker 2: In that short amount of time, George Bush the first
31:55
Speaker 2: campaigning on it, signing this historic treaty, and then in
31:59
Speaker 2: the matter of like thirty six months, the Republican parties like, Nope,
32:03
Speaker 2: science is stupid. If global warming's real, how come it's
32:06
Speaker 2: snowing outside.
32:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, love that argument. Definitely love that. Also, it barely
32:13
Speaker 3: snows anymore, So how does that argument working out for
32:16
Speaker 3: you guys?
32:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. I think it's the Cato Institute guy that
32:20
Speaker 2: they're interviewing in this His quote is that the plan
32:24
Speaker 2: when it came to kind of injecting climate skepticism into
32:29
Speaker 2: the political debate was to appeal to the Republican right
32:33
Speaker 2: and mobilize them for war. That's his actual quote. And
32:37
Speaker 2: it feels like that's exactly what happened. Yeah, it's not
32:41
Speaker 2: feels like it is like that's what happened.
32:44
Speaker 3: I mean, this is the play that we've seen over
32:47
Speaker 3: and over again since then in all sorts of different issues.
32:50
Speaker 3: It's just you are able to rally the right around
32:55
Speaker 3: your cause because it's easy to rally the right around things.
33:00
Speaker 3: They're very manipulatable, they're stupid, so you can just say, look,
33:05
Speaker 3: the Libs want to take away your snow and make
33:09
Speaker 3: oil illegal, and then that's it. That's all it takes.
33:13
Speaker 2: And that's exactly what happens. Because around this time, the
33:17
Speaker 2: Kyoto Protocol starts being debated, which was kind of another
33:23
Speaker 2: attempt at a UN framework around global warming, and that's
33:28
Speaker 2: when this war really swings into high gear. Commercials start
33:33
Speaker 2: popping up about how this climate agreement is going to
33:36
Speaker 2: force American farmers to spend lots of money on new
33:41
Speaker 2: equipment that will put them out of business and drive
33:45
Speaker 2: up prices, and Exxon around this point sets up something
33:49
Speaker 2: called the Global Climate Coalition, which is just a conglomerate
33:54
Speaker 2: of every corporate entity that is going to be impacted
33:59
Speaker 2: by climate change regulation. They're just all pulling their money
34:03
Speaker 2: together to tell anyone who will listen that climate change
34:07
Speaker 2: and global warming are things we need not worry about.
34:12
Speaker 2: They in the documentary call the Kyoto Protocol the super
34:16
Speaker 2: Bowl of the climate change fight, and sure, I think
34:20
Speaker 2: that's accurate.
34:21
Speaker 4: Yeah.
34:21
Speaker 2: And there's this really I think kind of typical of
34:24
Speaker 2: corporate America moment in this documentary where Lee Raymond, during
34:29
Speaker 2: all of the debate about the Kyoto Protocol, he goes
34:33
Speaker 2: to China and talks to business leaders there and is like, listen,
34:38
Speaker 2: do not join this Kyoto Protocol. It's going to wreck
34:41
Speaker 2: your business. It's going to cost you so much money.
34:43
Speaker 2: We wouldn't want you to be a part of it. Meanwhile,
34:47
Speaker 2: in the United States, Exon is running commercials about how
34:50
Speaker 2: the Kyoto Protocol is not fair because China's not part
34:54
Speaker 2: of it. So they're very much playing both sides of
34:58
Speaker 2: the fence.
35:00
Speaker 3: They use this really mature argument in these ads. If
35:04
Speaker 3: it's not everyone, it won't work. Great, guys, Yeah, it
35:09
Speaker 3: has to be the entire world for it to work.
35:12
Speaker 3: That's how that would work.
35:13
Speaker 2: And it is such a silly argument because the countries
35:17
Speaker 2: that are excluded are developing nations, which means in large
35:23
Speaker 2: part they don't have the infrastructure that causes pollution yet. Right,
35:28
Speaker 2: And that's not to say it's all just like fucking
35:30
Speaker 2: desert and dust. No, they're partially developed, but they're not
35:35
Speaker 2: contributing to climate change the way the United States is.
35:40
Speaker 3: One of their propaganda ads say that developing nations account
35:43
Speaker 3: for like fifty percent of greenhouse gas emissions. And I
35:47
Speaker 3: would bet every cent that I have that almost all
35:51
Speaker 3: of those greenhouse gas emissions come from multinational corporations that
35:56
Speaker 3: use these developing countries as like wastefills. Oh their shit,
36:00
Speaker 3: Like they have factories, they have shipping all this stuff.
36:05
Speaker 2: So, against all odds, the Kyoto Protocol passes and the
36:11
Speaker 2: United States signs it, and everyone's really excited. But they
36:17
Speaker 2: note in the documentary that after that happened, the climate
36:21
Speaker 2: skeptics and like the pro oil lobby types did not
36:25
Speaker 2: seem concerned at all. Yeah, and someone says they basically
36:30
Speaker 2: overheard Lee Raymond say, I can't wait to get back
36:34
Speaker 2: to the United States so we can have a sensible
36:36
Speaker 2: conversation about this, right, and what he means in a
36:40
Speaker 2: nutshell is the United States never ratified the Kyoto Protocol. Right,
36:45
Speaker 2: we are one of those holdouts that just like we
36:48
Speaker 2: signed it, but then we were like, nah, not for us.
36:52
Speaker 3: It's a classic American We're gonna spearhead this thing. We're
36:55
Speaker 3: gonna pressure a bunch of other countries into joining this
36:58
Speaker 3: thing with us, and then we're not going to really
37:01
Speaker 3: commit fully. We'll make you guys commit, but we're fine.
37:05
Speaker 2: And now fast forward to the two thousand election, which
37:08
Speaker 2: George Bush totally won, fair and.
37:10
Speaker 3: Square, absolutely no question. There was definitely no interference from
37:15
Speaker 3: the Supreme Court in that election.
37:16
Speaker 2: And it's you know, him versus climate warrior al Gore.
37:22
Speaker 2: So the Kyoto Protocol was about to get ratified if
37:26
Speaker 2: al Gore won, There's no doubt about that.
37:29
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
37:30
Speaker 2: So, if anyone did intervene to help George Bush steal
37:35
Speaker 2: the election, I'm going to assume it was Exxon, sure,
37:39
Speaker 2: because it just seems like they had the wherewithal and
37:43
Speaker 2: the connections to do it.
37:45
Speaker 3: But I mean, it's not like Exxon had any direct
37:48
Speaker 3: connections to anyone in the Bush administration.
37:51
Speaker 2: Right Olivia, they had a few, a.
37:53
Speaker 3: Few, yeah, familiar, but no one.
37:55
Speaker 2: Important well, you know there was Dick Cheney.
37:58
Speaker 3: Oh sure, the vice president.
38:00
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, he had some connections to big oil.
38:07
Speaker 2: Like that election was essentially big oil versus climate change
38:12
Speaker 2: research and big oil one and now big oil is
38:16
Speaker 2: our president.
38:17
Speaker 3: But in the end, climate change is always going to
38:20
Speaker 3: win because it's common.
38:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, climate change is gonna win. Climate change
38:26
Speaker 2: research doing things about it. Yeah, so much so.
38:29
Speaker 4: Yeah.
38:30
Speaker 2: Around this time, Exon feels emboldened enough that they start
38:33
Speaker 2: calling journalists and researchers and being like, listen, we got
38:37
Speaker 2: big oil in the White House. Now you should probably
38:40
Speaker 2: shape up and act right. It's a new day, baby,
38:43
Speaker 2: we love oil again. And like there's Freedom of Information
38:47
Speaker 2: Act requests that show Exon was meeting directly with the
38:50
Speaker 2: White House. They only oil company meeting directly with the
38:54
Speaker 2: White House. None of the others, of course. And it's
38:57
Speaker 2: to the point that they actually start suggest sting to
39:00
Speaker 2: the administration which people in the government should be fired
39:04
Speaker 2: and replaced with people who were more in line with
39:07
Speaker 2: their beliefs. And yeah, eventually the Bush administration officially rejects
39:13
Speaker 2: the Kyoto Protocol. We still have not ratified it.
39:16
Speaker 3: Nope.
39:17
Speaker 2: I do feel like they skipped over some pretty important
39:21
Speaker 2: years in this documentary. For one thing, they go from
39:24
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two when the Kyoto Protocol is signed, which
39:29
Speaker 2: I'm assuming that is the framework in question that George HW.
39:33
Speaker 2: Bush signed, which means there were about eight years between
39:39
Speaker 2: that and the two thousand election. What happened to the
39:44
Speaker 2: Kyoto protocols getting ratified during those eight years?
39:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I'm pretty sure Al Gore was vice president
39:54
Speaker 3: during that time.
39:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, he had some sway And like, I don't
39:59
Speaker 2: know if is fair, you got to at least mention
40:02
Speaker 2: what did Bill Clinton try to do to get this done?
40:06
Speaker 2: What did old Obama do? Because they also cut from
40:11
Speaker 2: George Bush kind of to Trump. It would be like
40:14
Speaker 2: a Guantanamo Bay documentary leaving Obama out. It's like, right,
40:19
Speaker 2: he ran on shutting down Guantanamo Bay, Right, you have
40:24
Speaker 2: to ask him some questions. And I do think it's
40:27
Speaker 2: a little bit of a knock against this documentary that
40:29
Speaker 2: they just completely gloss over that in a basically three
40:34
Speaker 2: hour documentary. Yes they had time.
40:37
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, I mean, I guess there's just nothing happened
40:40
Speaker 3: that has to be it. The Clinton administration and the
40:43
Speaker 3: Obama administration didn't make any significant forward motion on it,
40:47
Speaker 3: and so Exon didn't need to go on the offensive
40:50
Speaker 3: during that time or at least change their strategy.
40:53
Speaker 2: And I'm sure some of it had to do with
40:55
Speaker 2: the makeup of like the House and Senate and majorities
40:58
Speaker 2: and things.
40:59
Speaker 3: Sure everything is always complicated, yeah, but still, but still.
41:03
Speaker 2: I think it would have been to their benefit to
41:06
Speaker 2: at least touch on the fact that no administration has
41:09
Speaker 2: really done that much about climate change. So yeah, that
41:15
Speaker 2: brings us to part three, the reckoning, which I didn't
41:18
Speaker 2: realize a reckoning had happened, and uh oh, turns out
41:22
Speaker 2: it hasn't.
41:22
Speaker 3: But no, I mean they're trying, yeah, and like public
41:27
Speaker 3: opinion is I think almost. I mean, you know, it's
41:31
Speaker 3: America in twenty twenty one, so like nothing's going to
41:34
Speaker 3: be a majority of the country believing in it. But like, yeah,
41:38
Speaker 3: feels like most people, even most conservatives, when they're behind
41:43
Speaker 3: closed doors, know that climate change is happening right now.
41:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the same thing with guns, Like people know
41:50
Speaker 2: it's real most of the country once it dealt with
41:53
Speaker 2: in some manner, but this small group of corporate America
41:58
Speaker 2: teit suckling conservatives keep winning elections and imposing their will
42:05
Speaker 2: on the rest of the country and it's gross and
42:07
Speaker 2: it sucks.
42:08
Speaker 3: And yes, it is gross and it does suck.
42:10
Speaker 2: And that's what this documentary is about.
42:13
Speaker 3: Yep.
42:13
Speaker 2: So now we fast forward to October twenty twenty one,
42:17
Speaker 2: and Big Oil is about to get theirs. Yeah, there's
42:21
Speaker 2: video of like a Senate or congressional committee grilling a
42:25
Speaker 2: current exon executive about Lee Raymond's statement twenty five years
42:30
Speaker 2: ago that there is no link between the combustion of
42:33
Speaker 2: fossil fuels in greenhouse gases, right, and he admits that
42:37
Speaker 2: the two are linked, and society explodes in celebration. We've won.
42:41
Speaker 2: It's like a big deal, Like do something about it now,
42:44
Speaker 2: Like it's cool that he admitted it.
42:47
Speaker 3: But well, that video is also like the congressman is like, so,
42:52
Speaker 3: now that you've admitted that there's a link, will you
42:55
Speaker 3: admit that Lee Raymond's statement was a mistake and that
42:58
Speaker 3: the company has remard for that. And the guy just
43:02
Speaker 3: can't answer. He doesn't even try. He just stays silent.
43:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like that guy from the Iran Contra hearings
43:10
Speaker 2: who just was rendered speechless before he was supposed to testify. Yeah,
43:14
Speaker 2: I still need to know all the details about that guy.
43:18
Speaker 3: Would love to know, but he's just like, I don't
43:21
Speaker 3: know it. It was so sad. This whole thing is
43:23
Speaker 3: just very depressing because this is obviously stuff we're still
43:27
Speaker 3: dealing with.
43:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there is a little bit of progress that
43:32
Speaker 2: happens in twenty fifteen. So now we've rewound to twenty fifteen,
43:36
Speaker 2: a bunch of documents about Exxon's decades of climate Chaine
43:41
Speaker 2: shenanigans start surfacing, and researchers start doing unboxing videos combing
43:47
Speaker 2: through them, and they find that Exxon has been doing
43:52
Speaker 2: exactly what's described in this documentary. That's where a lot
43:54
Speaker 2: of this comes to light. These documents are what seem
43:59
Speaker 2: like they should set the stage for a lot of
44:02
Speaker 2: kind of big tobacco type lawsuits. That's what happened to
44:05
Speaker 2: the tobacco industry. Eventually, conclusive proof was found that they
44:10
Speaker 2: were lying. Because here's the thing, lying isn't science. You
44:14
Speaker 2: can prove when someone's lying conclusively, and evidence of that
44:19
Speaker 2: was found, and big tobacco, like their business was impacted
44:23
Speaker 2: by those lawsuits. And as smoking has decreased significantly in
44:29
Speaker 2: this country, I'm sure it's going to go back up
44:30
Speaker 2: now that we banned jewel and like flavored vapes. But
44:33
Speaker 2: it's fine whatever, But that kind of seems like we're
44:37
Speaker 2: on the cusp of that with big oil. That's what
44:40
Speaker 2: this documentary is getting at, because there's all of these
44:44
Speaker 2: states that are now filing lawsuits based on these documents
44:49
Speaker 2: against Exxon. New York is one of the first. They
44:53
Speaker 2: lost really quick, but they also lost because they went
44:57
Speaker 2: a really specific route with it that just didn't work right.
45:01
Speaker 2: I love the part where Exxon claims their First Amendment
45:05
Speaker 2: rights are being violated by people telling them they can't
45:08
Speaker 2: lie about climate change.
45:11
Speaker 3: I mean, look, our Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people,
45:16
Speaker 3: so they technically do have First Amendment rights. Now, whether
45:20
Speaker 3: they were being violated by these lawsuits, that's a different question.
45:24
Speaker 3: But that is, unfortunately, the state of our nation right now,
45:28
Speaker 3: is that a corporation could potentially claim that its First
45:32
Speaker 3: Amendment rights have been infringed.
45:35
Speaker 2: It's insane. Yeah, yeah, the Supreme Court, they're here in
45:38
Speaker 2: a lot of interesting cases here. Pretty soon, they i
45:42
Speaker 2: think just ruled on the one that basically makes it like,
45:47
Speaker 2: if you have a permit, you can conceal carry a
45:50
Speaker 2: gun anywhere. Yeah, establishments cannot tell you otherwise. Also, one
45:56
Speaker 2: that would clear the way for like states to just
45:59
Speaker 2: if an election doesn't go the way they thought it
46:01
Speaker 2: was going to go, they can just kind of blow
46:03
Speaker 2: it up and choose their own electors and decide it
46:06
Speaker 2: for themselves.
46:07
Speaker 3: I just God bless America.
46:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, independent legislature doctrine. I think it's called Yeah, good times.
46:14
Speaker 2: We're doing it on Pops about it soon. So yeah,
46:17
Speaker 2: that New York case, it failed in part because it
46:20
Speaker 2: focused on whether Exon lied to their shareholders and not
46:25
Speaker 2: the general public. But there's other lawsuits that are progressing
46:29
Speaker 2: through the courts, and yeah, they're just you know, moving
46:33
Speaker 2: slowly because that's how the American court system works.
46:37
Speaker 3: But yes, indeed there have.
46:39
Speaker 2: Been successful lawsuits in other countries, so it's possible. Sure,
46:43
Speaker 2: how worried were you for Jim Hanson when they show
46:47
Speaker 2: that clip of him with al Gore back in like
46:50
Speaker 2: the late eighties and a reporter is like, aren't you
46:53
Speaker 2: worried about these oil companies retaliating against you in some way?
46:57
Speaker 2: And al Gore's like a guarantee if anyone comes after you,
47:02
Speaker 2: will you have our full protection of the American government,
47:06
Speaker 2: and I was sure they were going to cut to
47:07
Speaker 2: this guy in a wheelchair or something, right, and we
47:10
Speaker 2: were gonna hear about him being run off the road
47:13
Speaker 2: in March of nineteen ninety. But nope, seems fine. He's
47:18
Speaker 2: living in a nice house, got horses. He can't own
47:20
Speaker 2: horses and have a rough life. They're very right.
47:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I wasn't worried about him for that reason
47:27
Speaker 3: because we'd seen him in present day, so I knew
47:29
Speaker 3: he wasn't going to be hurt.
47:32
Speaker 2: But still we're doing the Lost podcast. Do you remember
47:34
Speaker 2: how the last veil happens?
47:36
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like, there's a documentary.
47:38
Speaker 2: Called Crazy Love, which spoiler fast forward if you don't
47:42
Speaker 2: want to know this, but it's about a woman who
47:44
Speaker 2: this guy was obsessed with her and he eventually threw
47:47
Speaker 2: acid in her face and god went to prison for it,
47:51
Speaker 2: but he started writing her letters in prison. And they're
47:54
Speaker 2: interviewing these two separately because they're both alive, and you
47:57
Speaker 2: get to about the halfway point and you're like, oh,
48:00
Speaker 2: they're married, aren't they? And they were. That's the crazy
48:04
Speaker 2: ass twist, And oh no, I was kind of afraid
48:09
Speaker 2: there was gonna be in the way. You can tell
48:12
Speaker 2: it first this guy, because they interview both of them,
48:14
Speaker 2: and he's a lawyer now, and like, right when you
48:17
Speaker 2: start getting that feeling, she takes a drink from her
48:21
Speaker 2: coffee cup and it says world's greatest lawyer on it
48:26
Speaker 2: and she's not a lawyer, but he was. And that's
48:28
Speaker 2: when I was like, fuck, she married the guy, and yep,
48:32
Speaker 2: that's so I was worried.
48:35
Speaker 3: That's so sad.
48:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was worried Jim Hansen was going to hold
48:39
Speaker 2: up a coffee mug that said world's greatest government harassment
48:43
Speaker 2: victim or something. He's good. He stopped doing as much
48:48
Speaker 2: science to do more activism though that's all that was buildings.
48:52
Speaker 3: I'm just never going to be able to get that
48:54
Speaker 3: acid story out of my head.
48:56
Speaker 2: It is a wild documentary. It's very good. It's called
49:00
Speaker 2: crazy Love. Watch it anyway, climate change. So yeah, Jim
49:06
Speaker 2: Hansen's fine. And do you know why he's fine, Olivia
49:09
Speaker 2: fossil fuels.
49:10
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, exactly.
49:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
49:12
Speaker 3: Of course we should stop and mention that this episode
49:15
Speaker 3: was sponsored by our good friends at Exon Mobile. Exon
49:19
Speaker 3: Mobile creating a better Future.
49:22
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. It could happen because you can exclude
49:26
Speaker 2: certain categories, like from ads running on your show, Like
49:29
Speaker 2: I've excluded politics and stuff like that. Right, I need
49:33
Speaker 2: to get in and find energy companies too exclude before
49:36
Speaker 2: this goes up. Otherwise that exact thing is gonna happen.
49:40
Speaker 3: That would be really funny.
49:42
Speaker 2: It would yeah, out of my hands if it happens.
49:44
Speaker 2: Just know that, everybody, You'll be fine. Fuck you. So
49:50
Speaker 2: what what did we think about sister Pat Daily?
49:53
Speaker 4: Lover?
49:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's best one in the doc.
49:56
Speaker 2: She's great. I was worried for a second because I
49:59
Speaker 2: couldn't make heads or tails about what she was talking about.
50:02
Speaker 2: Like they show like a TV interview with her back
50:04
Speaker 2: in the day, and it seemed like she was about
50:07
Speaker 2: to start defending Exxon.
50:09
Speaker 3: But no, well, because she's introduced as a shareholder of Exxon.
50:14
Speaker 2: Right, but what that means She is a shareholder of Exon.
50:18
Speaker 2: But sister Pat Daily is a nun who is in
50:22
Speaker 2: charge of this huge pension fund that covers clergy members.
50:27
Speaker 2: I think they said something like fifteen million or was
50:30
Speaker 2: it billion dollars?
50:32
Speaker 3: It was huge.
50:33
Speaker 2: It's a lot of money. Like at one point, the
50:36
Speaker 2: filmmaker is like, so you're pretty influential. Huh. And she's
50:39
Speaker 2: just like huh, yep, I sure am, And she.
50:43
Speaker 3: Has so much confidence it rules.
50:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great. That's gotta be a kind of confidence
50:49
Speaker 2: that comes with I don't know, just knowing that you've
50:52
Speaker 2: like lived a good life and no one can yeah,
50:56
Speaker 2: like no one can really say shit, right, which.
50:59
Speaker 3: They mentioned in the documentary, like she is unimpeachable that
51:03
Speaker 3: they can't attack her personally, it's impossible. She's a fucking nun,
51:08
Speaker 3: and like a good nun. She's not like corrupt or
51:11
Speaker 3: some shit. She's like just a good lady who like
51:15
Speaker 3: does things and it rules.
51:18
Speaker 2: And yeah, she's what they call an activist investor, which
51:21
Speaker 2: means she buys up enough shares in a company that
51:24
Speaker 2: she can put pressure on the board to make them
51:28
Speaker 2: start behaving the way they should behave yep.
51:31
Speaker 3: And that's a good way to influence an evil corporation
51:35
Speaker 3: because it's hard to do it from outside. It's just
51:39
Speaker 3: unfortunate that you do need to have an insane amount
51:44
Speaker 3: of money and so it's like limited the amount of
51:47
Speaker 3: people who can do this right.
51:49
Speaker 2: And at this point in history is when Lee Raymond
51:53
Speaker 2: resigns or at least at this point in the documentary
51:57
Speaker 2: is when they tell us that he resigned and yeah,
51:59
Speaker 2: we mentioned it earlier, nearly half a billion dollars in
52:04
Speaker 2: retirement benefits, including that willion dollar a year consulting fee.
52:09
Speaker 2: It's like, what is that his Starbucks money?
52:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's his stipend and that's four hundred million retirement
52:15
Speaker 3: that we know about, Like you know, that's recorded, and.
52:19
Speaker 2: It includes lots of stocks he gets, like use of
52:23
Speaker 2: the company plane.
52:24
Speaker 3: Of course, like they point out in the documentary, it
52:28
Speaker 3: makes sense that Exon would reward him this way because
52:33
Speaker 3: he steered their company through a difficult time and then
52:37
Speaker 3: made them a buttload of fucking money and they don't
52:41
Speaker 3: care because their corporation that the way he did all
52:44
Speaker 3: that was by being one of the most evil motherfuckers alive.
52:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. I thought the part at the end speaking of
52:52
Speaker 2: activist investors, Yeah, Charlie Penner thing was really interesting. He
52:58
Speaker 2: is also an activist in.
53:00
Speaker 3: Who Yeah, he's cool too.
53:02
Speaker 2: Works at a firm called Engine Number one.
53:05
Speaker 3: He like created it, right, yeah, yeah.
53:07
Speaker 2: And he gets on a call at Exon and is like, listen,
53:11
Speaker 2: I'm an investor in this company. I'm a significant investor
53:14
Speaker 2: in this company, and you got to fix your shit.
53:16
Speaker 2: What I like about it is it's still a business decision,
53:20
Speaker 2: Like he's still thinking from a business perspective, and his
53:24
Speaker 2: argument is just, well, your business model is oil, oil oil.
53:28
Speaker 2: The demand for oil is never going to decrease at
53:31
Speaker 2: all over the next however many decades, and Charlie Penner's
53:35
Speaker 2: view on it is that's dumb. Of course, demand for
53:38
Speaker 2: oil is going to decrease, and you need to start
53:41
Speaker 2: looking into other shit. And that whole part is fascinating.
53:45
Speaker 2: It happens on a call when they're trying to appoint
53:48
Speaker 2: board members, I believe.
53:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're like voting on new members of the board,
53:52
Speaker 3: and yeah, that is a really good tactic, and like
53:57
Speaker 3: that's the tactic to approach again when you're dealing with
54:00
Speaker 3: most corporate malfeasance and that sort of thing is most
54:05
Speaker 3: of the time, the evil shit is actually not really
54:08
Speaker 3: a good business strategy. It's just the only thing they
54:12
Speaker 3: know how to do.
54:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, And they also show a clip near the end.
54:16
Speaker 2: I feel like they didn't give enough context for what
54:19
Speaker 2: was going on. But this Climate group basically tricks an
54:23
Speaker 2: excellent guy into admitting that they've just been lying about
54:27
Speaker 2: global warming forever.
54:29
Speaker 3: Which that was wild.
54:30
Speaker 2: That's cute, but also we know by now.
54:34
Speaker 3: Right, Well, I don't think we had anybody who'd ever
54:37
Speaker 3: like from the inside stated it so bluntly, I will say,
54:41
Speaker 3: don't divulge your corporate secrets over zoom like.
54:46
Speaker 2: That's stupid, especially not to like a new person who
54:49
Speaker 2: just showed up in your life.
54:50
Speaker 3: Yeah. The only thing I wanted to say about Charlie
54:53
Speaker 3: Pinner though, is that he got four seats on their board, Yeah,
54:56
Speaker 3: which is crazy and really good.
54:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it does seem like he is putting some
55:02
Speaker 2: mechanisms in place to change their business model and hopefully yeah,
55:07
Speaker 2: move away from oil eventually. Because there is that part
55:10
Speaker 2: at the end where they mentioned that they reached out
55:14
Speaker 2: to Lee Raymond and Exon both for comment, and Eggxon
55:19
Speaker 2: refused to comment, but just directed the filmmakers to Eggxon's
55:23
Speaker 2: own Climate Solutions report, and they mentioned that this report
55:28
Speaker 2: says that Exon plans to be net zero in terms
55:32
Speaker 2: of carbon emissions as a company by twenty fifty, which
55:37
Speaker 2: that's a pretty lofty goal. But then they also point
55:40
Speaker 2: out that in the fine print it says that that
55:42
Speaker 2: pledge does not apply to carbon emissions caused by burning fuel,
55:47
Speaker 2: which is the ninety percent of their carbon emissions. To
55:52
Speaker 2: give Charlie Penner the benefit of the doubt, they could
55:55
Speaker 2: have put that in place, and you know, by twenty fifty,
55:58
Speaker 2: maybe burning fuel is twenty percent of their carbon emissions
56:03
Speaker 2: and everything else like that would still be an improvement.
56:06
Speaker 3: I got the sense that this climate report was from
56:09
Speaker 3: before Charlie Penner was on the board, Like.
56:12
Speaker 2: Oh sure, sure you know.
56:14
Speaker 3: And again like, who knows. Even if he's got good monovations,
56:17
Speaker 3: it sucks that we have to rely on like one
56:21
Speaker 3: super rich guy to help in the situation. But I mean,
56:24
Speaker 3: I do think that hopefully he'll push things in the
56:28
Speaker 3: right direction. I guess it's the most we can hope for.
56:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing. He's probably still going to be
56:34
Speaker 2: a huge monster about it.
56:36
Speaker 3: But maybe. I mean, I don't know. I don't know
56:39
Speaker 3: him at all. I've never heard of him before this.
56:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, they don't speak to him in this. But I mean,
56:45
Speaker 2: now he's on Axon's board. He's not is he on
56:47
Speaker 2: the board?
56:48
Speaker 3: I know he got his firm has four seats. I
56:51
Speaker 3: don't know what that entails. I don't know. Look, I'm
56:54
Speaker 3: not a corporate horror so I don't know how idea
56:57
Speaker 3: that shit works.
56:58
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but uh uh yeah, so there's you know,
57:02
Speaker 2: there's hope, I guess especially sure, you know, really yeah,
57:05
Speaker 2: I mean there is no hope.
57:07
Speaker 3: But we're still going to be underwater in forty years,
57:10
Speaker 3: so who cares.
57:11
Speaker 2: But to hear this documentary tell it progress is being made?
57:15
Speaker 3: Doesn't that feel good? You can't end your documentary on
57:19
Speaker 3: and yeah we're still doing so.
57:21
Speaker 2: The end bye, yeah, but we are, so yes the end,
57:26
Speaker 2: by do we?
57:27
Speaker 3: You know, I'm just glad that, you know, I'm living
57:29
Speaker 3: in this house in Indiana, and I'm just really glad
57:32
Speaker 3: that if I hang on to it, i'll have beach
57:33
Speaker 3: front property.
57:34
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
57:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's the upside.
57:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm excited to see the Indianapolis coast someday.
57:41
Speaker 3: Oh it'll be beautiful. Look at what we did to
57:44
Speaker 3: the Lake Michigan coast exactly. Yeah, it'll be just like Gary.
57:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was driving from Indianapolis actually to Janesville, Wisconsin
57:58
Speaker 2: once in my genes at one point was like, hey,
58:02
Speaker 2: you want to save twelve minutes, And I was like, fuck, yeah,
58:05
Speaker 2: I want to save twelve minutes. Accept got off the
58:08
Speaker 2: highway and realized immediately I was in Gary, Indiana because
58:12
Speaker 2: I was in a quaint small town and a police
58:15
Speaker 2: gang unit car pulled up next to me.
58:17
Speaker 3: I was like, oh no, yeah, it's really unfortunate. What
58:22
Speaker 3: happened to that city?
58:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a fucking nightmare. So do we have anything
58:27
Speaker 2: to plug before we get out of here? This is
58:29
Speaker 2: a free episode. If you were a subscriber, you would
58:32
Speaker 2: have already heard going back our lost Rewatch podcast.
58:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you're not on Patreon, do that. Get on
58:40
Speaker 3: Patreon one show, it's fun, we watch lost it rules.
58:44
Speaker 2: Get on your Spotify app. You can subscribe there. You
58:47
Speaker 2: can subscribe on super cast. I keep promising you're going
58:50
Speaker 2: to be able to subscribe in the Apple Music app someday.
58:53
Speaker 3: Uh, it happened, eventually.
58:55
Speaker 2: Dad's gotta upload a lot of episodes manually for that
58:58
Speaker 2: to happen. So I'll find time someday.
59:02
Speaker 4: Uh.
59:02
Speaker 2: Yes, I did hear your question. Can't someone on five
59:05
Speaker 2: or do it?
59:06
Speaker 4: No?
59:06
Speaker 2: I'm not giving them access to my fucking iCloud account because.
59:09
Speaker 3: Yeah Jesus, no, oh my god.
59:13
Speaker 2: So hold your damn horses if you're chomping at the
59:16
Speaker 2: bits to hear bonus episodes in your app music podcast,
59:20
Speaker 2: and also thank you so much for looking forward to course.
59:23
Speaker 3: The appreciates so wild that that's where podcasts began, and
59:30
Speaker 3: it's the worst place to find and listen to podcasts. Yeah,
59:35
Speaker 3: and also to publish them.
59:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. They are quickly becoming the friends to of podcasts
59:41
Speaker 2: where it's like, you got in so early, how are
59:43
Speaker 2: you not dominating?
59:44
Speaker 3: I know, it's wild like YouTube, and they are dominating.
59:48
Speaker 3: They're Apple, right.
59:50
Speaker 2: They're generally yeah, So yeah, I think that's it. Yeah,
59:55
Speaker 2: let's get out of here, Olivia say goodbye, bye, goodbye everybody.
59:59
Speaker 3: We love you.
1:00:04
Speaker 4: People of Earth. Your planets have to be destroyed, strict, strict.
1:00:18
Speaker 4: Your family is not to be destroyed.