Drilled
Episodes
S14, Ep12 | How Litigation Works to Fight Obstruction
10 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We’ve never lied to you on Drilled and we’re not going to start now. It’s bleak out there. But some efforts to fight back against obstruction ar...
Drilling Deep: The Way Things Are Is Not the Way They Have to Be, with Natasha Hakimi Zapata
02 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
More than a decade ago—when wind and solar power were far more expensive than they are today—the nation of Uruguay, long plagued by droughts and e...
COP Out: What the Heck Happened at COP30?
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We're bringing you episode 5 of Dana R. Fisher's COP Out podcast, from the Center for Environment, Equity and Community at American University, featur...
S14, Ep11 | How and Why Climate Adaptation Measures Get Blocked
25 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Working against regulations on emissions might make a certain amount of sense for those with money to lose, but why would anyone fight against adaptin...
Carbon Bros Mailbag: On Vocational Therapy, Navigating Traditional Male Spaces, and the Benefits of Solidarity
24 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel and I are back after a little hiatus to bring you our long awaited Carbon Bros mailbag episode. We received so many interesting responses fr...
Drilling Deep: Jessica Green on Why We Need More Confrontation at COP
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The COP is in its fourth decade. If it were capable, in its current form, of achieving its stated aim of tackling climate change, it would probably ha...
S14, Ep10 | The Corruption of COP
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The UN processes created to deal with climate change have been infiltrated by obstructive forces since jump. In this episode, as COP 30 begins, Kari d...
The Black Thread, Ep4 | Norway Beyond Oil
05 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the final episode of The Black Thread, we look forwards, imagining Norway’s future. We explore how Norway might begin to loosen oil’s grip on i...
S14, Ep9 | How Climate Obstruction Works at the Local Level
04 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Local governments are double-edged swords on climate, capable of either doing far more or far less than national governments and acting as either an...
S14, Ep8 | Climate Obstruction in the Global South
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. is a global leader on climate obstruction, but they’re not the only ones. In this episode, M. Omar Faruque, from Queen’s University in Ca...
The Black Thread, Ep 3: Challenging the Narratives
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the third episode of The Black Thread, we explore where the facts do and don’t match up to the stories being told by Norway’s fossil fuel indus...
Drilling Deep: Karen House on How Saudi Arabia Has Changed Under MBS and What Those Changes Mean for the World
25 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and former Wall Street Journal publisher Karen Elliott House, author of the new book The Man Who Would Be King: Moh...
Carbon Bros: Abdul El-Sayed on Climate Complexities and Benevolent Masculinity
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We heard a little bit from El-Sayed in the final episode of our Carbon Bros miniseries, and today we're bringing you the full conversation. Learn mor...
The Black Thread, Ep 2 | Petroganda
22 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the second episode of The Black Thread, we drill into “petroganda” – the pervasive phenomenon of oil industry manipulation that a growing num...
S14, Ep7 | How the Animal Ag Industry Obstructs Climate Policy
21 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, the meat and dairy industries managed to successfully avoid any attention for the planet-heating emissions they pump into the atmosphere;...
S14, Ep 6 | How the Coal, Utilities and Transportation Industries Obstruct Climate Policy
14 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The coal, utilities, and transportation industries have all mounted efforts to stop governments from regulating emissions or transitioning to cleaner ...
The Black Thread, Ep 1 | Meet the Norwegians
13 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this first episode of The Black Thread, we meet the Norwegians and explore how social norms and cultural values shape their identity as a good, car...
What Should You Do With Climate Despair? A Conversation with Wen Stephenson
12 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
There’s no avoiding it: Things feel pretty bleak. To witness venture-capital-fueled AI domination, democracy’s steady drift toward authoritarianis...
S14, Ep5 | How the Fossil Fuel Industry Sabotages Climate Action
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Climate obstruction isn’t just something the fossil fuel industry does, but they’ve certainly spearheaded and masterminded a lot of efforts. In th...
S14, Ep4 | The Media As a Tool of Climate Obstruction
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Obstruction would never have been as effective as it has been without the help of the PR industry and the willful ignorance of the media. Today, Melis...
S14, Ep 3 | The Psychology of Misinformation: Why Does It Work So Well?
30 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
If you want to understand how misinformation works in general…and anyone who cares about democracy should right now…there’s no one better to tal...
S14, Ep2 | Welcome to the Rapture! How Rightwing Populism and Accelerationism Intersect with Climate
23 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jesse Bryant (Yale) and Dieter Plehwe (University of Kassel) join us for a look at the intersection between the rise of rightwing populism and increas...
S14, Ep1 | Welcome to the World of Obstruction
16 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
For at least a decade now, there’s been growing agreement around the fact that what’s stopping the world from addressing the climate crisis is not...
Drilling Deep: The Golden Age of Oil-Funded Influence, with Casey Michel
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Thanks to reporter Adam Lowenstein, we'll be bringing you lots more interviews with smart authors writing about climate, policy, democracy, and power....
The "Carbon Dominance" Strategy Driving Trump's Anti-Renewables Spree
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Killing an offshore wind farm that's nearly complete makes no sense, even for a climate denier who thinks windmills kill whales. In this episode, poli...
Carbon Bros, Ep 4: Integration
05 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The kings of the manosphere love to talk about “integrating” a man’s warrior and civilized self, but how about integrating men, and new ideas of...
Why Is the Fossil Fuel Industry Funding Anti-Trans Politics?
22 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In this eye-opening episode of Carbon Bros, we hear from special guest Vivian Taylor, a researcher on both trans rights and climate policy, on the sho...
S12, Ep6 | The SLAPP Heard 'Round the World
19 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The verdict comes through, more than doubling the damages, at a time when repression of protest is accelerating in the U.S., but somehow Energy Transf...
Carbon Bros, Ep 3: Climate Hysteria, Doomers, and Boy Math Solutions
17 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Stop listening to hysterical Swedish teenagers and start listening to reasonable men! Some dudes do have solutions to the climate crisis; they just do...
S12, Ep5: Sacred Sites
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
One of the charges Energy Transfer has made against Greenpeace is that the organization "defamed" the pipeline company by saying that construction of ...
Carbon Bros, Ep 2: Energy Dominance
01 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
When it comes to powering the US, “energy dominance” has become a favorite phrase of the Trump administration. But who or what are they trying to ...
Carbon Bros, Ep 1: The Testosterone Pipeline
27 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Manosphere figures like Andrew Tate, Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson aren’t just telling men how to treat their girlfriends or train for MMA fights; t...
S12, Ep4: Back to the Water
22 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Energy Transfer has successfully kept a lot of stuff out of the court, including the tribe's concerns about the pipeline's impact on their water sou...
Introducing: The Outlaw Ocean | A war on migration, funded by the EU (Libya Pt. 1)
08 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Where the law of the land ends, the story begins. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Ian Urbina returns with a new season of his riveting podcast antho...
Hanna E. Morris on Apocalyptic Authoritarianism.
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book Apocalyptic Authoritarianism: Climate Crisis, Media, and Power, University of Toronto media scholar Hanna E. Morris argues that whethe...
Coming Soon: Carbon Bros
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Coming at you July 25th, Carbon Bros, a cross-over miniseries from Drilled and Non-Toxic. You’ve heard it from cable news pundits, Democratic stra...
S12, Ep3: The Charge
25 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
By this point, Energy Transfer has quietly dropped both Cody Hall and the other Indigenous activist initially named in the suit, Krystal Two Bulls, ...
S12, Ep2: The Trial Begins
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alleen arrives in North Dakota for jury selection and is shocked watching it play out. The judge won't allow recording in the court, jurors who flat-o...
S12, Ep1: How did we get here?
03 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Greenpeace, which was only tangentially involved in the Standing Rock protests, has been slapped with a $666 million bill for damages...despite the fa...
“All Hell Breaks Loose”: How Big Oil Ruined a Small Texas Town
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This week we're thrilled to be re-publishing a series on our site from The Xylom about a small town in Texas that happens to be the country's top oil ...
New Season: SLAPP'd
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
This season on Drilled, investigative reporter Alleen Brown brings us the story of an Indigenous nation fighting for its water, an international envir...
Malcolm Harris on the Radical, Liberating Possibilities of Realism
20 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In his latest book, What's Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis, Malcolm Harris encourages us to see the climate crisis for the complicated ...
Damages: New Evidence and an Update on Climate Liability Cases
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists compiles in one place all the documentary evidence on the role of fossil fuel companies in obstruc...
How the U.S. Got the World to View Environmentalists as "Terrorists"
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In the finale of our Real Free Speech Threat season, we look at how the U.S. military and its national security agencies have helped stoke a global cr...
Coming Soon: The Man-o-Sphere
29 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Introducing…our first podcast crossover season! Later this year we’ll be bringing you a season in collaboration with the podcast Non-Toxic, hosted...
New Research: The Advertorials Many Media Outlets Make for Oil Companies Are Misleading, But They Don't Have to Be
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We have covered before how the fossil fuel industry created the advertorial and how it continues work with media on the modern incarnation: sponsored ...
The Massive Climate Case that Shell Both Won and Lost, and What It Means for the Future of Global Climate Litigation
02 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In November, a Dutch court ruled in Shell's favor on an appeal in a big international climate case. It got loads of headlines around the world, but it...
Fuel to Fork: The Role the Oil and Gas Industry Plays in Food-based Emissions
12 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
From October-December 2024, Fuel to Fork is taking over the Feed podcast with a 7-episode series exposing the hidden role fossil fuels play in the foo...
Genevieve Guenther on the Language of Climate Politics
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, The Language of Climate Politics, Guenther digs into six key rhetorical devices that are being used to slow or block climate action. ...
Climate Week 2024: Finally Tackling the Mad Men of Big Oil
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We first released our "Mad Men of Big Oil" season on all the pro-fossil fuel propaganda that came before climate denial, and the role the PR industry ...
Denial to Delay: How Fossil-Funded University Research Lays the Foundation for Fossil-Friendly Policy
20 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Drilled reporter Molly Taft joins us to talk about newly released research on fossil fuel funding of university research, and share interviews with cl...
Drilled Presents...Spill: Mary Annaise Heglar & Amy Westervelt on climate in this week's debate, Project 2025, and a whole lot more
09 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week we bring you an episode of our climate talk show, Spill, for a deep dive from Mary Annaïse Heglar and Amy Westervelt on what Project 2025 l...
Denial to Delay: The Battle Over the Clean Air Act
15 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled in Massachusetts vs. EPA that when the U.S. Congress passed the Clean Air Act in 1970, climate science was “in its ...
Denial to Delay: How the Fossil Fuel Industry Rebranded an Oil Production Technique as a "Climate Solution" and Got Taxpayers to Foot the Bill
30 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Carbon capture has always seemed a little scammy, but in a blockbuster investigation co-published with Vox this week, we discovered just *how* scammy....
In El Salvador a Cold Case Murder Has Become a Weapon for Silencing Environmental Activists
17 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In 2017, El Salvador became the first country in the world to pass an outright ban on mining. It was an effort to protect the country's water, and its...
Could You Really Charge Oil Companies with Murder? Plus: Supreme Court Climate Update
09 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we bring you an episode from our climate litigation podcast, Damages, because we've been getting SO MANY emails about what sorts of legal s...
Denial to Delay: The Great "Greening" of LNG
03 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As part of our ongoing series looking into new climate problems the fossil fuel industry is peddling as solutions, we did a deep dive into the push to...
Denial to Delay: How Management Consultancies Data-Wash False Solutions and the Great Gas Lock-In
25 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Fossil fuel companies can't push ideas like "low carbon gas" or overstate the emissions-reduction potential of technologies like carbon capture withou...
The Coordinated Attack on Shareholder Activism
18 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The backlash against ESG is continuing, with a string of lawsuits aimed at shutting down shareholder activism. We don't often talk about shareholder a...
Climate News Update: The New Carbon Majors + Swiss Elders Win Landmark Climate Case
16 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Lots of news lately on stories we've been following, so in today's episode: an update! The landmark Carbon Majors report has been updated with some su...
Sainte-Soline, the Government Effort to Disband a Movement in France, and the Radical Solidarity of the Earth Uprisings
03 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In France, the unthinkable has happened for polluting industries: the working-class Yellow Vest movement, racial equity movements, and progressive cli...
The U.S. Anti-Renewables Movement, Explained
20 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Late last year, Brown University's Climate and Development Lab put out a comprehensive report looking at the opposition to wind energy on the east coa...
Nearly 30 Years After the Ogoni 9 Tragedy, Nigerians Are Still Resisting Oil Colonialism
05 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Shell announced in late 2023 that it would be shutting down all of its onshore activities in Nigeria and concentrating its efforts offshore. It leaves...
What Ecuador's Yasuní Referendum Really Means for Oil, in Yasuní and Beyond
20 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Last year, headlines all over the world proclaimed victory for the environment: finally, after more than a decade of promises, there would be no more ...
Introducing: Hazard NYC
19 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Check out the limited-run series Hazard NYC from The City, all about how climate change intersects with Superfund sites in New York City. Start with e...
Dana R. Fisher on the Past, Present and Future of Climate Protest
13 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book Saving Ourselves, Dana R. Fisher compiles years worth of research on protest in general and climate protest in particular for a compre...
Department of Homeland Security, the Manufactured "EcoTerrorist" Panic, and Cop City
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The U.S. government's definition of what constitutes an "ecoterrorist" has long driven backlash against environmental activists and in recent years th...
Meet the UN's First Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders
23 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In June 2022, Michel Forst became the first UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders. In that role he has spent the past year visiting various...
How UK Courts Became the New Climate Protest Battleground
16 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
About a decade after UK courts made history with the first "climate necessity" ruling in history, the UK government has passed new laws that not only ...
What Happened At Bayou Bridge? The Other End of the Dakota Access Pipeline
19 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
While protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation garnered international news coverage, at the southern ...
Seven Years Later, an Environmental Impact Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline
07 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
This month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers closes the comment period on its draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1...
Modern-Day Bead Trading: The Fossil Fuel Industry Meets Indigenous Protest with "Redwashing" and Repression in Canada
05 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
As we resume our season focused on the global criminalization of climate protest, reporter Martha Troian brings us to Canada, where the Wet'suwet'en p...
Abeer Butmeh: Living on the Front Lines of a War and the Climate Crisis, in Palestine
14 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Abeer Butmeh, coordinator of the Palestinian NGOs Network, one of the most important Palestinian environmental organizations, spoke to senior editor A...
Messy Conversations: Magatte Wade, Atlas Network's Center for African Prosperity
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We'll be back with the rest of our anti-protest season soon, but in the meantime, welcome to a new Drilled miniseries we're calling "Messy Conversatio...
The Tomato Soup "Controversy"
17 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Globally, climate activism has shifted over the past few years. It’s more constant now and includes more direct action than ever before. Some of tha...
In Brazil, A Tale as Old as Colonization: Why Indigenous Land Defenders Are Particularly Targeted by Extractive Industries
10 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From Ecuador to North Dakota, British Columbia to New Zealand, the backlash against Indigenous-led environmental protest is always particularly harsh,...
Guyana Update: Gas to Energy for Guyana, or Problem to Profit for Exxon?
09 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
A new report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) looks at the details of Guyana's planned "Gas to Energy" project a...
Joanna Smith on "Conspiring Against the United States" with Fingerpaint
03 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In April 2023, Joanna Oltman Smith walked into the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. with fellow activist Tim Martin, and smeared water-soluble kid...
Loss Is on the Calendar in Nigeria
26 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From our pals over at Inherited, in today’s episode, Mo Isu looks at one of the reasons climate activists all over the world are protesting: they're...
How Think Tanks Laid the Groundwork to Criminalize Protest
19 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It’s no coincidence that the backlash against climate protest looks the same from country to country. Not only is industry sharing tactics across bo...
In Vietnam, Tax Evasion Charges Help Lock Up Climate Activists
11 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
President Biden made his first trip to Vietnam as President this week, with the intention of "upgrading" diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Vie...
In Australia, A State-By-State Approach to Criminalizing Climate Protest
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Since the 2019 passage of the "Dangerous Attachment Devices" bill in response to anti-coal protests in Queensland, Australia's states have moved quick...
Disha Ravi on Becoming the Face of "Radical" Protest in India
29 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When she was just 22, Disha Ravi, co-founder of Fridays for Future in India, had police show up at her home, borrow a pen and paper to write an arrest...
The Corporate Push to Criminalize Speech
29 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
There's a lot of discourse happening about free speech in the context of "cancel culture" these days, but precious little coverage of the push all ove...
How the Media Has Helped to Criminalize Climate Protest, with Evlondo Cooper
22 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Media Matters senior researcher Evlondo Cooper put out a fascinating study earlier this month looking at how the media has covered climate activism. I...
Introducing Our New Season: The Real Free Speech Threat
15 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Around the world, climate and other environmental protestors are being harassed, attacked, and arrested at an alarming rate. Laws are being passed tha...
Herb, Ep 3: The Next Citizens United Will Be a Climate Case
01 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In more than 30 climate cases making their way through U.S. courts today, oil companies are using an argument they've been laying the legal groundwork...
Herb, Ep 2: A Legal Strategy
25 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Worried that all their work creating Mobil's personality and a multi-pronged issue advertising campaign to go with it would go to waste if the TV netw...
Herb, Ep 1: The Panic
18 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1970s, Mobil Oil had invented the advertorial and was aggressively pursuing an entirely new type of marketing, branding the company as a person...
Industry Backlash to Grassroots Organizing in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley"
20 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
ExxonMobil, Chevron and other petrochemical giants are increasingly organizing against grassroots environmental justice activism in Louisiana that are...
The Anti-ESG Campaign Gets a Boost from RAGA
13 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ever since the Securities and Exchange Commission announced its intention to make Environmental Social and Governance metrics actually mean something ...
Jake Bittle on the Complexities of Climate Migration
30 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jake Bittle's book The Great Displacement looks at how extreme weather events are likely to drive Americans to move from one part of the country (or t...
Thea Riofrancos on Tackling Transition and Consumption
23 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Electrification offers an opportunity to rethink how we use energy and how we get around. Researcher Thea Riofrancos wants to see the U.S. seize that ...
S8 Bonus: A Verdict
09 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The day after our season finale last week, we got some incredible news from Guyana: the High Court ruled against the oil company and the government in...
S8 Ep8 | The Turning Point
02 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In the last episode of our "Light, Sweet Crude" season we look at what's next for Guyana, and for other Global South countries grappling with poverty ...
S8 Ep7 | The Global Oil Rush
25 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What's happening in Guyana isn't just happening there. All over the globe, oil companies are racing to tap as many of the remaining fossil fuel reserv...
S8 Ep6 | Old-School Greenwashing
18 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
When we first started reporting this story, people unfamiliar with it would suggest talking to local environmental groups. Surely they would have some...
S8 Ep5 | On Global Poverty and Global Warming
11 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
The tension between addressing global poverty and acting on the climate crisis is one the fossil fuel industry, and those who carry water for it, have...
S8 Ep4 | Constitutional Violation
04 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Melinda Janki has filed seven separate cases aimed at blocking oil drilling in Guyana, but only one of them explicitly names climate change as a probl...
S8 Ep3 | Unlimited Liability
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
One person in Guyana knows both the inner workings of oil companies and the intricacies of Guyanese environmental law better than most. Melinda Janki ...