Drilled
Episodes
S8 Ep2 | The Contract
21 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
After a year’s worth of pressure from local press and civil society groups, the Guyanese government released its contract with ExxonMobil to the pub...
S8 Ep1 | The Boom
14 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Five years ago, Kiana Wilburg was a new reporter when ExxonMobil executives and Guyanese government officials announced they had found oil 40 miles of...
New Season Coming Soon: Light, Sweet Crude
28 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
On paper, the small South American country of Guyana is the fastest-growing economy in the world, thanks to its oil boom. The country started shipping...
Life in a Ticking Carbon Bomb
10 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In this special sneak preview of our next season, we hear from Melinda Janki, a lawyer who's fighting to keep her home country of Guyana from becoming...
Rep Ro Khanna on the House Oversight Committee's Climate Disinfo Investigation and a Whole New Batch of Documents
20 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The House Oversight Committee wrapped up its investigation into climate disinformation earlier this month and published a second tranche of revealing ...
First Climate RICO Filed + James Hansen Sues EPA
06 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
November was a big month for climate litigation! The first-ever climate RICO was filed on behalf of 16 Puerto Rican municipalities, plus a cohort of s...
Loss and Damage, Minus the Fossil Fuels As Development Myth
22 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Loss and damage was a big focus of #COP27 and, ultimately, one of the few things global negotiators could agree on. But media coverage of loss and dam...
Why Is One of Big Oil's Top Greenwashing PR Firms Handling Media for COP27?
08 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
COP27 is underway in Egypt. Everyone agrees that the stakes have never been higher so why is longtime fossil fuel industry greenwasher Hill + Knowlton...
COP 27 Will Be a Climate Disinformation Inflection Point: Here's How to Neutralize It
26 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The annual Conference of the Parties —a global meeting of negotiators and heads of state to discuss a path forward on climate action—is coming up ...
Universities Are Starting to Say No to Fossil Fuel Funding
18 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Beginning with Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon) in the late 1940s, oil companies have invested heavily in universities, not just to fund enginee...
Widening the Lens of Accountability, with Naomi Oreskes, Jennifer Jacquet, Dr. David Michaels, Geoffrey Supran, and Jessica Wentz
07 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Taped live at the Harvard Faculty Club, an interview with Naomi Oreskes about her forthcoming book "The Big Myth," focused on the origin story behind ...
Three Congressional Hearings on Climate Disinfo Bring New Industry Documents to Light
20 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Three Congressional hearings shone a light on climate disinformation this week, with one looking at oil companies' role, another looking at the role o...
West Virginia Is Giving Texas a Run for Its Money on Climate Obstruction
13 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
From its state treasurer to its attorney general to its Senator, West Virginia is leading the charge on climate obstruction and dismantling environmen...
SCOTUS Will Continue to Weigh in On Climate: Here's What's Coming Next
23 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
West Virginia v EPA isn't the only big climate case before the Supreme Court this year, from questioning the SEC's disclosure rules to major Clean Wat...
A New Front in Climate Obstructionism: State Treasurers?
16 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jesse Coleman, senior investigator for Documented, joins to walk us through an eye-opening investigation into the State Financial Officers Federation,...
Here's What the IPCC Report Actually Said About Carbon Dioxide Removal
12 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Everyone else might have moved on but we're still plodding through the latest IPCC report over here. Carbon dioxide removal, or CDR, came up all over ...
West Virginia v EPA : Worst-Case Scenario and What Comes Next
28 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Supreme Court is dragging its feet releasing a ruling in the controversial West Virginia v EPA case. Today we look at the roots of that case, its ...
The "Culture War" Embraces Climate
21 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Jennie King, lead author of a new report on climate disinformation from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, joins to discuss the report's findings, ...
As a Supreme Court Decision Hanging in the Balance, a Novel Argument: Regulate Greenhouse Gases Under TSCA
16 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
As we wait to hear whether the Supreme Court will toss WV v EPA altogether or apply the major questions doctrine to broadly rule against the EPA regul...
S6 Bonus: Why Is a California Air Board Funding Natural Gas Expansion?
14 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Floodlight's Miranda Green is back with a new story about the push for natural gas in southern California. This time an air board tasked with cleaning...
False Friends of the Court: Why Every Rightwing Think Tank Has an Amicus Program, with Senator Whitehouse
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
I have been wondering for months what possible sense it makes for every right-wing think tank to have an amicus program. I mean...is any judge really ...
S6, Part2 | Ep 5: The Disaster Capitalist Response to Russia-Ukraine
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In the response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the gas industry is now fully embracing it's new role. Right alongside the API, Chevron, and the U.S....
Bonus: As Australia Heads to the Polls, a Look at Morrison's "Gas-Fired Recovery," Carbon Capture, and Greenwashing
19 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This weekend Australians will vote in the first national election since catastrophic bushfires burned tens of millions of acres and blanketed the coun...
S6, Part 2 | Ep 4: Epic Astroturfing
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Even before the gas industry got into the front group business it was using some questionable tactics to stave off electrification. In this episode, L...
S6, Part2 | Ep3: Anatomy of a Front Group
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A year after San Luis Obispo took the lead in Southern California on a gas ban, the coastal town of Santa Barbara was evaluating a similar proposal, ...
S6, Part 2 | Ep 2: The New Climate Villains
26 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For more than a decade, even environmental advocates promoted the idea of fossil gas as part of the solution on climate change. But while it did help ...
S6, Part 2 | Ep 1: A Busload of COVID
19 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In April 2020 when San Luis Obispo announced a plan to become the first city in Southern California to ban gas in new buildings, the region's utility ...
Climate One Collaboration: Breaking Down Climate Misinformation
15 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Fossil fuel companies and others have spent decades casting doubt on climate science to allow them to continue to profit. As documented by climate com...
Conflicts of Interest, Debunking Demand, Media Manipulation & More | IPCC Report, Part One
09 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The IPCC mitigation report dropped this week and it is a *doozy*. We'll be digging into it throughout the month of April to help you make sense of it ...
Responsibilities Not Rights: A Tuhoe Perspective
31 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When Tūhoe negotiated legal personhood for their homeland Te Urewera, the global rights of nature community cheered. But in this conversation about h...
A Landmark Ruling in Ecuador
17 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Last episode we told the story of Ecuador's rights-of-nature journey, today Melissa Troutman and Joshua Pribanic, directors of Invisible Hand and co-f...
Los Cedros: The Cloud Forest v. The Mine
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Ecuador was the first country to adopt rights of nature into its constitution, but its Constitutional Court (Ecuador’s equivalent to the U.S. Supr...
West Virginia v EPA and What It Means for Climate Policy
03 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A case argued at the Supreme Court this week—West Virginia v EPA—has potentially huge implications for regulating greenhouse gas emissions. NYU la...
A Brief History of Rights of Nature in the U.S.
24 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Rights of nature first started making its way into U.S. courtrooms via an unlikely source: Disney. Today it's a huge threat to the fossil fuel industr...
Drilled Presents: Damages
18 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Damages is following the hundreds of climate lawsuits currently happening all over the country. First up, in Season 1, a look at rights of nature case...
The Right-Wing Web of Climate Delay, with Lisa Graves
12 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Right-wing funders don't just work on climate change, or voter suppression, or attacks on public schools, they tackle all of it together. In this epis...
An Update on the Big U.S. Youth Climate Lawsuit
28 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Back in 2015, twenty-one young people sued the United States for its actions to drive and exacerbate climate change. The case, Juliana v. United State...
Exxon Takes Its First Amendment Battle to Texas Supreme Court
21 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Guardian journalist Chris McGreary joins to discuss ExxonMobil's attempts in Texas to cast litigation against it as a conspiracy to muzzle its free sp...
Redefining Environmentalists
14 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, the fossil fuel industry has successfully framed environmentalists as silly, elitist, radical, and out of touch. And for a long time the ...
Climate Crisis, Meet Democracy Crisis
07 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A conversation with Max Berger, a longtime progressive organizer who helped incubate the Sunrise Movement and has also worked in the past for Cori Bus...
Drilled Presents | Scene on Radio, The Repair | Episode 9: Pachamama
17 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In several countries around the world, including Ecuador, New Zealand, and the U.S., some people are trying to protect the planet using a legal concep...
The Influence Industry and Climate Obstruction
10 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Groundbreaking new research from Brown University's Dr. Robert Brulle shows just how much oil companies have spent on PR in recent decades, and tracks...
One PR Firm Works on More Climate Obstruction Than Any Other
07 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In a new study, sociologist Robert Brulle examined which PR firms work for the various industries obstructing climate action. Only one firm was in the...
Fracking the Outback: Australia's Plan to Go Big on Fracking & Plastic
26 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
As the rest of the world is beginning to realize that fracking comes with more downsides than upsides, Australia is readying itself for a fracking boo...
Melissa Aronczyk on the History of Greenwashing
19 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Melissa Aronczyk, media studies scholar at Rutgers University, is one of my go-to sources on all things disinformation. In this episode, she walks us ...
The ABCs of Oil | Katie Worth on the State of Climate Education in the U.S.
05 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Reporter Katie Worth has been researching climate education in the U.S. for years and that research forms the basis of her new book Miseducation. In t...
The ABCs of Big Oil | So... What Do We Do About This?
29 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Over the last five episodes we've tracked how long the fossil fuel industry has been investing in schools, why, and what impact it's had. In this epis...
The ABCs of Big Oil | Ben Franta Talks to Us About Big Oil on Campus
22 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Bringing you our entire interview with Stanford researcher Ben Franta on fossil fuel influence at universities because it was just too good not to sha...
The ABCs of Big Oil | Ep 4: We're Going Streaking
15 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We're wrapping up our series with Earther this week, with a look at how fossil fuel companies influence curricula and research at the university level...
The ABCs of Big Oil | Ep 3: High School
08 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the third episode of our mini-series with Earther, we head to high school, where the fossil fuel industry's efforts to shape Americans' thinking on...
S5 Update: Donziger Sentenced to Six Months in Jail
03 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Donziger, the attorney who's been on house arrest for more than two years on a contempt charge that arose as a result of his work on the Chevro...
The ABCs of Big Oil | Ep 2: Elementary School
01 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Since the 1920s, oil companies have been creating music, activities, coloring books, comic books, movies and more to shape how American kids think abo...
The ABCs of Big Oil | Ep 1: First Day of School
24 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fossil fuel companies didn't start infiltrating schools when climate change appeared on the scene, they were there shaping the minds of future citizen...
Drilled + Earther Present: The ABCs of Big Oil
13 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In this collaboration with Earther, we look at the fossil fuel industry's influence in school—not just in shaping our understanding of environmental...
S6 Part 1 | Plastic Pipelines | Ep 5: Whack-a-Mole
13 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In the final episode of part 1 in our Bridge to Nowhere season, we look at the chronic whack-a-mole problem in frontline communities. Just as one faci...
S6 Part 1 | Plastic Pipelines | Ep 4: Keeping Oil Alive
06 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The team at UnEarthed, an investigative journalism project funded by Greenpeace in the UK, went undercover and got ExxonMobil execs on tape talking th...
S6 Part 1 | Plastic Pipelines | Ep 3: And Then There Was Covid...
30 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Just as the fossil fuel industry was starting to worry about demand for single use plastics, along comes a global pandemic that they could leverage to...
S6 Part 1 | Plastic Pipelines | Ep2: Erasing the Imaginary Line
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Diane Wilson couldn't keep Formosa out of her town, but down the coast in Louisiana the community in St. James Parish, led by Sharon Lavigne, is fight...
S6 Part 1 | Plastic Pipelines | Ep 1: Don't Mess with Texas
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This time we're doing something a little different: a season in three parts, all about the gas industry and how it's managed to embed itself into soci...
Welcome to S6: The Bridge to Nowhere
17 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A new season about the natural gas industry, presented in three parts. Coming soon, Part 1: Pipelines to Plastic about the direct connection between t...
Update: Donziger's Trial in New York
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Donziger went to trial for the criminal contempt charge that's kept him on house arrest for 600 days and counting. Paul Paz Y Mino of Amazon Wa...
Climate Guilt, Brought to You by Big Oil
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A new study from Harvard science historians Naomi Oreskes and Geoffrey Supran points to the use of language targeted specifically to downplay the real...
New Study: The Health Impacts of the Coal-to-Gas Transition
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
A new study out from Harvard University explores the health impacts of transitioning from coal to other combustible fuels. The findings are important ...
Rep Ro Khanna on Fossil Fuel Subsidies
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It's Earth Day 2021 and the first Congressional hearing of the day is focused on fossil fuel subsidies. Their elimination was written into Biden's inf...
S5 Update: Latest on Donziger's Case
17 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Steven Donziger, the American attorney we profiled in S5 is scheduled for trial May 10th, but his lawyers have filed another motion to dismiss, allegi...
Corporate Personhood? What About Ecosystem Personhood
10 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We talked about rights of nature a bit in the Ecuador-Chevron season, the Latin American country was the first in the world to integrate the concept o...
Infrastructure Week! Build Back Better, THRIVE, and More with Kaniela Ing
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Biden Administration has rolled out its Build Back Better plan and it includes a lot of progressive wishlist items, but the left is still pushing ...
All Eyes on Weymouth as FERC Signals Interest in Environmental Justice
27 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Local activists and legislators have been fighting the Enbridge natural gas compressor in Weymouth for years. It's too close to residents and business...
How the Fossil Fuel Industry Is Undermining Free Speech
20 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fossil fuel-backed anti-protest laws have been passed in 14 states and are making their way through statehouses in several more states, including six ...
Frackalachia and the Great Fracking Jobs Myth
12 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
When a report makes oil and gas companies—and the politicians they help elect—this mad, you know the author is on to something. Researcher Sean O'...
The API Was Pushing Climate Denial Way Earlier Than Anyone Thought
05 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Stanford researcher Ben Franta joins to talk about a bombshell new discovery: the American Petroleum Institute not only knew about climate change back...
S5 Ep 11 | ¿Ahora Que?
19 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Donziger is still on house arrest and disbarred, the settlement seems impossible to collect, now what? In this episode we look at what this case says ...
S5 Ep 10 | The Kill Step
11 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Chevron makes good on its promise to fight the Ecuadorian judgement until hell freezes over ... and then fight it out on the ice. Donziger loses his a...
S5 Ep9 | The Judge
04 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Corruption charges against both the Ecuadorian judge and the American judge fly as the RICO gets underway.Support our work: patreon.com/Drilled Learn ...
S5 Ep 8 | Damages
20 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Chevron's legal team shocks the Ecuadorian plaintiffs with a massive racketeering claim in the U.S. alleging fraud, witness tampering, and even briber...
S5 Ep7 | The Linchpin
13 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Chevron's attorneys go after Joe Berlinger, the filmmaker behind the documentary about the case, Crude. They subpoena his outtakes, kicking off a year...
Big Oil's Bad Bet on Plastic
06 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A new report from Carbon Tracker finds that the fossil fuel industry is pinning its hopes on a plastic boom—and try as it might to spur that demand,...
Update: Donziger Headed to Trial with No Representation
06 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
New York District Court Judge Loretta Preska has denied repeated requests to delay Donziger's criminal contempt trial until at least one of his lawyer...
S5 Ep6 | A Verdict and a New Charge
30 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The case takes a bizarre turn with a sting operation, U.S. subpoenas, accusations of fraud and bribery, and finally a verdict in Ecuador. Learn more a...
S5 Ep5 | The Big Guns
23 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
With the Ecuadorian plaintiffs racking up good press and an endorsement from the country's president, Chevron kicks things up a notch, bringing on new...
S5 Ep4 | The Secret Tribunal
16 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In September 2009, Chevron filed an international arbitration claim against the government of Ecuador over the Lago Agrio case. In the years since the...
S5 Ep3 | The Trial
09 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The trial gets underway in Ecuador, an election changes the calculus, and a global PR war kicks into high gear.Support our work: patreon.com/drilled L...
S5 Ep2 | The Colonizers
02 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
How did this case come about in the first place? We go back to the early days of oil colonialism in Ecuador, in the 1960s, the partnership between oil...
S5 Ep1 | Lockdown
25 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In August 2019, an American lawyer was put on house arrest as he awaited trial on criminal contempt charges. The charges stem from a decades-long case...
Big Oil Fighting Divestment + Sneak Preview of S5!
22 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A few weeks ago the Trump administration quietly proposed a rule that would make it harder for financial managers to investment retirement funds in en...
That Ohio Utility Corruption Scandal, with Leah Stokes
01 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The FBI arrested Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives, Larry Householder, this month for racketeering, or as the state attorney general put it...
A Proposed Fossil Fuel Ad Ban in The Netherlands
14 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
An advocacy group in The Netherlands began campaigning for a ban on fossil fuel ads, including event sponsorships, earlier this year. Campaigner Femke...
Pioneering Fracking Company Chesapeake Energy Goes Bust
30 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Despite tax breaks, royalty cuts, and other COVID-related incentives, Chesapeake Energy—a pioneer in the American shale gas (fracking) industry—de...
Minnesota and D.C. File Climate Fraud Suits
26 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Two big new suits, in Minnesota and D.C., were filed within 24 hours of each other and allege the same thing: that fossil fuel companies misled consum...
Big Oil's Multi-Billion-Dollar Blind Spot
18 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A new report from Carbon Tracker finds that not only have oil and gas companies not been budgeting for plugging and abandoning wells, they've been gro...
Yes, It's Still Time to Talk About Climate (from Hot Take)
14 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Amid nationwide Black Lives Matter protests, some climate activists have been saying "now's not the time to talk about climate." In this episode we br...
Naomi Klein and How the Shock Doctrine Applies to America Right Now
07 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine focused on what she calls "disaster capitalism," the sort of corporate feeding frenzy that happens in the wake o...
What Shell Knew: A Surprising Report from The Netherlands Finds that Shell Was Directly Funding Climate Denial in the 1990s
29 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Reporters Alexander Beunder and Jilles Mast have been combing through 150+ boxes of documents from the personal archive of one of the Netherlands' top...
No, Climate Action Will Not Be "Just Like Quarantine Only Worse" — Why Letting Go of the Climate Narrative Never Works, a Special Bonus Ep f
22 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Last week, The New York Times ran a story on the GOP's favorite new climate narrative: If you think quarantine is bad, just wait til the Dems impose c...
The Climate Deniers Have Lost Their King, and Still They Soldier On
19 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In April 2020, Fred Singer, longtime king of the climate deniers, died at the age of 95. In this episode, investigative reporter Dan Zegart, author of...
The U.S. Government Has Been Rubber-Stamping New Oil and Gas Projects—This Lawsuit Hopes to Change That
09 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
A lawsuit filed against the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) over a small project in Massachusetts could have big implications. It aims to ...
Old and Wrong: Leah Stokes on the Many Flaws of Michael Moore's Planet of The Humans
29 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Political scientist and environmental policy expert Leah Stokes joins us to discuss the many things the new film Planet of the Humans gets wrong about...
Earth Day in Louisiana: A Petro-state Fights Back
22 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day and the week of the 10-year anniversary of the BP Deepwater oil spill, we head to Louisiana to talk petrochemical...
Computer-Aided Destruction: Art, Autodesk, and What Accountability Looks Like for the Tech Industry
22 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
French artist Joanie Lemercier has been a thorn in Autodesk's side for more than a year now, since he first pointed out that the California software c...
How Big Oil Is Using the Pandemic to Push More Plastic
16 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In a new report, the Center for International Environmental Law looks at the way oil, gas and petrochemical companies are leveraging the pandemic to p...