For almost half a century, we have been trying to talk about climate change and make sure that people are aware that the climate is changing and the consequences that come along with that. But over those 50 years, we have seen a series of campaigns that feel relentless against scientists, against conservationists, against people who are trying to make sure that everybody you and I know about what the climate change will bring to us. And it's funded by people who have investments in oil. We've been talking about this for like I said half a century. But the people who have been funding this have been getting away with it even though we kind of knew who they were. There's an article that's now posted that shows what people and what companies are donating to these campaigns and why they benefit from the fossil fuel industry. And today we're going to be talking about the frustrations that I've felt and other people have felt about climate change and why people just aren't getting it. And now we even see even now to this day where we see the consequences that people are continuing to speak out against it and make sure that we can't do any more progress from a government standpoint as much as we need to do because of these misinformation campaigns. So we're going to talk about that on today's episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. Let's start the show. Hey everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the how to protect the ocean podcast. I'm your host Andrew Lewin and this is the podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean, how you can speak up for the ocean and what you can do to live for a better ocean by taking action. And if you're new here, don't worry. You're in the right place. If you want to know about ocean news, you want to know about what's happening with the ocean, you want to know how you can protect the ocean, this is the resource for you. Not only on this podcast, but you can head over to our website at www.speakupforblue.com. And even more, if you want to get information to your email Monday to Friday, every morning, you can find out not only about what's happening in the latest news, but you can find out our latest information that we provide on our podcasts and our YouTube videos, as well as you can find out if you're looking for to start a career in ocean conservation, you can get three jobs every day, Monday to Friday, right to your email. So, yeah, that's essentially it. If you want to get access to that, go to SpeakUpForBlue.com/newsletter. Now, speakupforblue.com/newsletter. Let's get into the episode. There is one of my new of this article that I was talking about earlier about how there are organizations that funded, that were funded to spread lies to the public. This article came from a new website that I really love called thecooldown.com. It's all about just sort of ways that we can help in terms of dealing with climate change. It has business, auto tech, outdoors, all this kind of stuff. And this is in the business section. I'm going to link to the article in the show notes or the description wherever you're watching. If you're watching on YouTube, it's in the description below. But check it out. Check out the site. Check out this article. It's a really interesting article that leads to a different article, which I'm actually going to highlight in the show notes because it's an article that will actually show the report, the fossil fuel philanthropy report, basically saying that there are companies and organizations, nonprofit organizations, organizations who get a tax rebate that are getting funded to spread lies, not only just lies, but to spread apathy. I'll take you back to a time where people started to talk about climate change. Scientists were starting to make people know. You saw scientists make people know about the ozone layer. They said, hey, you know what? There's a hole in the ozone layer. And this is what's costing it. It's like a bunch of CFCs. And if I was an 80s, I was a 70s baby, I grew up in the 80s and 90s. And I remember watching shows like cartoons, like G.I. Joe stuff, kind of stuff. And G.I. Joe used to have this little thing at the end. It was like a little segment called the more you know, and or knowing as half the battle, I think it was, it was what it was, the more you know, was an NBC thing. But knowing as half the battle was a G.I. Joe kind of saying, and it basically talked kids about a variety of different things. Don't take candy from strangers, know how to call 911 and who's a friend, who's not, all this kind of stuff. But they also talked about like the ozone layer and how the ozone layer, actually, I think it was one of the episodes was about the ozone layer, how there's like CFCs in the in aerosol cans that was causing the hole in the ozone layer. So back then the 80s, like 70s, 80s and 90s, we're like, oh, okay. So there's a hole in the ozone layer and it's caused by the CFCs. So governments got together and said, you know what, not only do we have to stop buying these aerosol cans, but we have to stop putting CFCs in these aerosol cans. So basically put the element or the chemical that was causing the hole in the ozone layer, we need to stop putting that in the aerosol cans, because that's what the scientists are saying is causing the hole in the ozone layer. And they did that. They actually took it out. And so aerosol cans didn't have that. And hey, guess what? The hole in the ozone layer got smaller, right? There you go. Scientists identify the problem. The policy goes in for the government. People are like, yeah, we can't do this. Let's listen to the scientists. Okay, let's put into policy, let's put into regulation and businesses stop putting it in there. Perfect. You know, problem pretty much solved. It closed, it's opened again, but they're for a different reason. But now we had in the 80s, we had acid rain. So basically the chemicals that were going into the atmosphere for a variety of different things, a lot of it was had to do with mining because I remember in Sudbury, Ontario, where near where I live, like just north of where I live, like four hours, five hours north, there was acid rain. So what was happening is there was chemicals that were getting the air from, I believe it was from mining, if I remember it correctly. And then it made the rain more acidic and it was causing devastation to the environment. So scientists identified that, governments got together and said, hey, you know what, we should stop this. So let's put on regulations of what was causing it and let's stop acid rain, acid rain went down. We don't hear about acid rain again because it's not that much of a problem as it was back in the 80s and 90s. And now, you know, because scientists identified it, that's great. Now come to climate change in the 70s, scientists started to talk about climate change 80s, 90s were starting to say, hey, you know what, we really need to look out for this because it's getting worse and it's caused by the chemicals that are put out for the fossil burning fossil fuels. So you're looking at carbon dioxide, you know, you're looking at methane gas and other greenhouse gases that were warming the atmosphere and that was causing changes and shifts in the environment. So it was warming the waters, it was causing the water to be more acidic, right? It was, and it was causing a lot of sea level to rise, it was causing the glaciers to melt. But all of a sudden, there started to be information being like, trying to get rid of that information, right? Trying to combat that information. Be like, no, no, scientists are just being, there's this is a bunch of hippies that are doing that are saying this and they want us to stop, but we don't really need to stop. It's okay, we could just continue. Don't believe in climate change. Climate change is not a thing. That was the messaging all throughout the 90s and probably most of the 2000s that we've had so far. And it wasn't until recently, like the last 10 years where we started to see campaigns and be like, you know what, like climate change is here. Yes, it's, it's here. Like it's caused, and it's a little bit caused by humans. Actually, for a while, they used to say, I remember, Oh man, I remember this, it was like, I think it was like in the late 90s, early 2000s. It was a senator, I think it was Ted Cruz that went on like David Letterman. And David, and he basically told David Letterman, because they're talking about climate change and how the, this atmosphere was warming. And he's like, yes, we had, he goes, we had a peak in 1998. And if you look at the rest of the, like the time after that, we haven't had temperatures higher than that, right? So we've only peaked and now we're going down. That's basically what he said on national TV. But if you looked at the entire graph, like from this 50s and 60s, even earlier, you start to see this exponential growth. And yes, there was a slight peak in 1998. And it did go down a little bit, but it was slowly starting to rise again each year, year after year after year. And it continued to rise and it continues to rise. And so when you have people saying, Oh yeah, well, peak, but now it's going down, people were like, Oh, that makes sense. Like there's this guy on TV who said it peaks and it goes down. But when you look at the actual graph and you take it into full context, you start to see like actually slowly rising again. So we're, and we're still very high compared to where we were 50 years ago, even longer, like 100 years ago, very, very different, right? So they're just looking at minuscule in a small period of time, but we had to do like, you know, we had to say the peak. And I remember talking to people, I was in university at this point, learning about climate change, learning about how it affects the ocean. But still, you didn't see here a lot of talk, but you hear the deny, I started to really, really sort of realize how many people were denying climate change on TV in conversations. And I remember talking, I remember talking to my dad about this, and my brother, and I was like, yeah, I'm like, look, the climate change is the big thing. And we have to be careful of it. Like, we got to change the way we live. It's like big, big change, because we were, you know, it's fossil fuels. We were relying on fossil fuels so much at that point. We were barely, barely going to windmills, barely going to solar. That was being talked about like, it can't sustain anything. The technology's not there yet. All that kind of stuff is late 90s, early 2000s. And I remember talking to my dad about it. He's like, well, we got to be careful, like we can't just change everything because the economy is dependent, especially in Canada, is dependent on fossil fuels. And it is, it is tied to oil and gas. That's what our economy is tied to. If the oil goes down, the price of oil goes down, our economy goes down because we're so focused on natural resources, especially oil and gas. Regardless of that, that deniability just kept coming into play. And then we started to hear the apathy, basically saying, hey, you know what? Yes, climate changes here. We recognize that the climate is changing. Then they're saying, but it's not by us. Climate just changes over like a lot of over the time period. And it's just a natural thing. We saw ebbs and flows in over time. And we just saw that, but we don't have to worry about it. It's not human related. Then, you know, more evidence comes out that it's human related and more and more people are believing that. And then they started to say, you know what? Sure, it's here. I think now it's like, we just can't do anything about it. It's just the earth. The earth is just changes. Yes. So we make a little bit of a minuscule disturbance. We just can't do anything about you might as well just enjoy the ride and let's just see what happens. And over this time, we keep continuing to reveal that there are companies out there who are spending money to PR firms, who are spending money on nonprofit organizations like the Fraser Institute here in Canada, to proliferate all this garbage science that says, hey, you know what? Like we have so many science, hundreds of scientists have signed on saying climate change doesn't exist. Not true. If you actually scour and look at the peer-reviewed journal articles, where the science happens, like where all everything is agreed upon and debated on. And, you know, there's there's rival reason stuff like that. You see a lot happening, a lot of critique about science in the peer-reviewed journals. You see it, not only just, you know, journals, journal articles of science that are saying that, yes, climate change is getting worse and we're still here. And, you know, even if we stop everything now, we're still going to feel it for like the next 50 to 100 years. All that's in there. But there's also a lot of scientists that are just talking about climate change in general. They may not be focused. Their study may not be focused on climate change. But overall, there is climate change. Like it's it's it's in there. Just like, oh, yeah, and climate change is affecting this. So it's a cumulative effect on a disturbance for nutrients or whatever. There's always that added factor. Their scientists continue to sort of like enforce the fact that climate change changes everything. Climate change changes everything. And when the United States had Obama as as their president, Obama came out and said climate change is the number one threat to the U.S. And then the Navy came out and said climate change is the number one threat to the U.S. And then NASA came out and said climate change is the number one threat to the U.S. You had all these people coming out and saying it that we're backed by science. And then all of a sudden that messaging disappeared because you had another president who came in who was just basically all for drilling oil and gas and continuing to move that even with the other president Joe Biden coming in still say, hey, we need to put this plan together about climate change and to reduce climate change still approving projects for oil and gas that will continue to develop oil and gas reserves into the fuel well into the future like 30, 40, 50 years into the future. And it's just perpetuated by this misinformation that we keep seeing every time. And a lot of my fellow science communicators will be able to attest to this. A lot of times. And for me, it's like every time I talk about climate change, there is somebody who's going to write a comment that denies climate change. And the best my favorite is like, watch this YouTube video. This YouTube video will will tear every scientist that has that has talked about that has talked about climate change, how it's affecting the world. It's going to tear them down. All the arguments are going to tore down. Forget the peer reviewed scientists. Just listen to this YouTube person. And I fully aware that I am a person who's listening to you who's telling you on YouTube that climate change is real. And we're facing the consequence. I understand that. But I'm backed by peer reviewed science. I'm backed by all those scientists who are saying, Hey, we have a problem here that's affecting our entire planet. Now, not in the future, but now it's going to get worse if we continue on this path. But now we are being affected. But then you continue to have these ideas by high level officials in government who continue to say, Hey, the weather's being controlled by the government to stop an election from happening that will go the opposite way. You know, you have people who are out there, like these organizations that are being funded by oil and gas through nonprofit organizations, almost like laundering money in a way. But I don't know, you know, if this is illegal, but you're starting to have this like the Koch brothers are the ones like that are part of this. If you look at this fossil fuel philanthropy report that's in this article that I'll put in the show notes, you'll see that a lot of like Charles cock is the guy who or coke or cock. I don't know how to pronounce it. But they're like, they're the organizations that are funding this misinformation. And you're starting to see the ramifications of the misinformation too, because there are organizations out there who are suing oil companies for perpetuating all this misinformation in the past. And for causing delays in action by governments. And to be honest, this is my personal feeling until we get money out of election campaigns and having businesses, even people being able to donate to specific candidates for money, then we are not going to see a change in this. But until then, which will be a long time if it ever happens until then, it's good to have this report. Because if you want to take action against climate change, you want to stop the companies who are fueling this misinformation, these misinformation campaigns by not buying from what they sell or what they own. That could be difficult because you might have to go like tangle in the weeds. But the number the person that the name that I keep seeing is Charles Koch or Koch, whatever, however you pronounce it, that person that name continues to come up as part of an organization is part of a nonprofit is part of everything. And they're tied to multiple, multiple corporations that probably own multiple corporations. So if you want to do the research, if you really want to take action and you want to boycott what they sell and what they do, if it's possible, because they are entrenched in our world. They own chemical companies, they own oil and gas companies, we may not be able to get out of it right off the bat. But you can actually identify the people who are causing this misinformation, who are causing the delays in you know, drastic action that needs to be taken to help not only save people's lives, but save our economy in the future from having to spend trillions of dollars into cleaning up the consequences of climate change. That's what it comes down to folks. Like we talk about the economy and how we need to save the economy. Think about every time we have to spend money on cleaning up a hurricane that's a category five in June, floods that we don't normally see unprecedented floods, hurricanes that are getting bigger and stronger and faster that we're seeing in October, late October, right? We are starting to see all these storms come to a head. We're starting to see sea level rise and increase storm surges because the sea level is higher. We're starting to see that the water is getting fresher. We're starting to see that major current system systems are actually changing or slowing down that will eventually shut down and cause a drastic change in our weather patterns around the globe. Yet we continue to let these companies control the information that goes through and think about it with all the way information is spread today in terms of technology and into our phones and into our brains. We are the most susceptible to misinformation. That is probably a big threat to us right now because what you see is what you get on different, you know, social media platforms. And let's just be honest, no matter what side you are of an issue, both sides are on those platforms trying to put together information that will allow you to make a decision. Whether that information is correct or not, that is up for that is up to you to decide a scientist to tell, right? And for you to believe, you got to know who you can believe because the climate like just cluster F that we have seen in terms of a PR campaign to do something about climate change is absolutely off its rocker. You know, we've failed as scientists. We failed as communicators to ensure that the right information gets to the right people at the right time. And that's on us because like scientists, we never talked about climate change that much or we never talked about science that much before all this technology can't even then we relate because we were worried that our information would not get to the right people or would be manipulated to show something else because that's happened in the past. And that's because, you know, sometimes when there's big business involved, we are going up against, you know, a lot of money. And a lot of money can do a lot of bad things in the wrong hands. And that's what we've seen. And hopefully this fossil fuel philanthropy report can actually get out to the right people and we can actually take action is getting out to the people. It's out there. We can make a difference. Just how do we do that is the next question, right? That's that's really what it comes down to. How do we do that? I actually recently did, I was on Instagram and a survey came up by Meta, right? The company that owns, you know, Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp and so forth. And it asked me a number of questions about the perception of the company and Meta itself and said, how do you feel about Meta when it comes to misinformation? And I was just like, is the worst, is the worst company for it? Right? And how do you feel about, you know, Meta as a company? I'm like, I don't like that. And I even respond, like, I don't like the fact that you manipulate other companies, like the government to go after other companies like TikTok because you're afraid that they're putting a dent in your profits and your share of the attention that you know, you used to get from Instagram and from Facebook because TikTok is pretty much taken over. You can, it's almost rivaling Google at some point, right? I think it was higher at one point. And now you're seeing it banned at a certain time if that ever will happen in the US. Because let's be honest, Meta did that. Right? They wanted to do that. They did that. And so the other ones who started all this inquiry. So like, it's, it's really scary when this happens. But the fact that we have access now to this information where there's people who are donating and companies who are donating to these nonprofit organizations that are just there to misinform you is really powerful. And I'm glad this came up. And I'm surprised as not being talked about more because a couple of months ago, I did a story on how there were a hunt over 120 senators and Congress people who were being paid by fossil fuel companies or fossil fuel packs that would allow them to support oil and gas rather than the environment rather than the country that they serve in the US. Right? We're starting to see this information come out. It's in there. It's for us. And there's a huge election coming to the US. This is it. This is the time where you say who's involved with getting funded by the Koch brothers, the Koch brothers. This is called the Koch brothers. The Koch brothers. Who is involved? Right? Then if they're, if they're funding certain people who are trying to get elected, maybe if you're, if the environment's important to you, if the economy's important to you, maybe don't vote them in. It doesn't matter what side they're on because they're both being funded by the same people. It doesn't matter what side they're on. Vote somebody who's independent or vote somebody who's not being funded by them or funded less by them. Right? Somebody who will represent more about you, the people who they are there to represent rather than the companies that are donating that, you know, they end up representing in place of you. So that's just like this article just kind of got me going because I was like, I can't believe this isn't being talked about a lot. It's probably because the Koch brothers own a lot of media outlets. Right? Like, let's be honest here. You know, there's, there's a reason why the Washington Post this year didn't, or this election term didn't say they chose, they didn't choose a candidate they want to support. They've chosen a candidate all this other time, but now that, you know, Amazon donor Jeff Bezos owns them, he's like, we're not going to choose a candidate because we're going to stay in the middle. You know, we're going to be journalists, we're going to stay in the middle. Funny how most of the articles are supporting like democratic party sort of policies and making and sort of criticizing Republicans, but all of a sudden now you decide to stay in the middle. Maybe it's because that when if Kamala Harris gets in as a president, you're going to see a lot of taxes come to billionaires and he's a multi billionaire and he doesn't want to give up some of his money. That's just me going off on a tangent, but that's what's happening here. Right? When these companies, these big billionaires own all these different companies at a powerful level, then all of a sudden they're like, Hey, you know what? Yeah, we could do whatever we want. We're not going to decide not to take a stand. We're not going to support either candidate. Well, there's a reason for that. There's always a reason for that. And unfortunately, that's just how we have to deal with it. But we have to press the press. We have to press the government to say, Hey, you're supposed to be representing us, not these companies that are supporting you. And this, this report allows us to get more information on who's being supported by this and allowing this misinformation coming and allowing the government not to go further into supporting us and by protecting citizens. This is all governments, not just the US, this is Canada is everything to protect their citizens against environmental damage that we're causing to ourselves. So that's what I had to say. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Am I off the rocker here? Should this be more and more in the news and be covered more by multiple outlets or, you know, I find this election cycle, it's being ignored climate change in general is just being ignored. I don't know why it's a big division between the two. The one thing I could say why is because human rights are at at stake here when you're talking about women's rights to choose and women's rights to health care and so forth and being controlled by, you know, a bunch of people who who don't want abortions, but other things are happening in the meantime, it's pretty scary out there. So I can understand why climate change is taking a back seat. So hopefully everything goes well this week, but I do recommend that you go out and vote. I suggest strongly suggest that, you know, and for whatever part you're going for, just go out and vote. It's your right. It's something you deserve to do and everybody deserves to do that. And so hopefully the environment will come out ahead. But that's it for me today. I would love to hear from you. You can leave a comment on YouTube or Spotify or you can hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean. That's at how to protect the ocean. All one word. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean Podcast. I'm your host, Angela. Have a great day. We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.
