Drilled

Michel Forst became the United Nations' first Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders in 2022, monitoring the increasingly onerous laws and aggressive tactics being used against climate protestors. France reporter Anna Pujol-Massini talks to Forst about his position, his urgent warnings about climate activism in the United Kingdom, and what power he has to do something about the crackdown on...

A decade after United Kingdom courts made history with the first "climate necessity" ruling in history, the UK government has passed new laws that not only restrict what protesters can do, but also how protesters are allowed to defend themselves in court. In some courtrooms, the climate necessity defense has been effectively outlawed. How did that happen, how did it happen so quickly, and what doe...

While protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline at the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation drew international attention, the southern end of the pipeline saw a quieter, but no less intense crackdown. Cops moonlighted as pipeline security while suppressing free speech and the right to protest. Reporter Karen Savage shares what happened at Bayou Bridge, and what lessons we can take away from th...

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers closes the comment period on its draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Dakota Access Pipeline, a 1,172-mile pipeline that’s been pumping 500,000 barrels of oil per day since May 2017. The pipeline runs from the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota to southern Illinois, crossing the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. Over the past six years, every court in t...

Reporter Martha Troian brings us to Canada, where the Wet'suwet'en people have been fighting for years against a gas pipeline they never authorized on their territory and examines how fossil fuel companies employ "redwashing" to manipulate public perception.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Abeer Butmeh , coordinator of the Palestinian NGOs Network, one of the most important Palestinian environmental organizations, spoke to senior editor Alleen Brown about battling for short-term and long-term survival when your identity itself is criminalized.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Magatte Wade of the Atlas Network’s Center for African Prosperity joins us to discuss the intersection of poverty, climate, and property rights. We also dive into the nuances that too often get left out of climate conversation. Additional resources: Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) DeSmog profile of ARC DeSmog coverage of ARC 2023 forum Narasimha Rao's Decent Living Energy Project...

Climate activism has shifted over the past few years—it's more constant now and includes more direct action than ever before. Some of that action has sparked backlash from critics, including climate scientists and advocates, worried that protest will turn the public away from the urgent need to act on the climate crisis. Social science researchers who study structural change and protest say...

From Ecuador to North Dakota, British Columbia to New Zealand, the backlash against Indigenous-led environmental protest is always particularly harsh, infused with colonialist entitlement to land, water, and other resources. Historian Nick Estes walks us through what that looks like in the United States, and the great team behind the documentary The Territory brings us a recent example from Brazil...

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 and finds mostly benefits for ExxonMobil and more debt for Guyana. Read the full report here .   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In April 2023, Joanna Oltman Smith walked into the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. with fellow activist Tim Martin, and smeared water-soluble kids' finger paint on the glass display case containing a Degas statue called "Little Dancer." The two read off a statement about the importance of protecting actual, living children as well as we do sculptures of them. Smith and Martin figured they wou...

Climate activists warn about the future—but for many communities, climate loss is already routine. Mo Isu from Inherited looks at the cycle of loss and rebuilding in the rural Niger Delta region of Nigeria as the country weathers extreme seasonal flooding. After meeting a flood survivor in his hometown of Lagos, Mo travels twelve hours to Lokoja—the town where Nigeria’s largest r...

Climate activists warn about the future—but for many communities, climate loss is already routine. Mo Isu from Inherited looks at the cycle of loss and rebuilding in the rural Niger Delta region of Nigeria as the country weathers extreme seasonal flooding. After meeting a flood survivor in his hometown of Lagos, Mo travels twelve hours to Lokoja—the town where Nigeria’s largest r...

President Biden made his first trip to Vietnam as President this week, with the intention of "upgrading" diplomatic relations between the United States and Vietnam. Not on the agenda? Vietnam's move to use trumped-up tax evasion charges to suppress civil society groups, including five climate activists that have been imprisoned since 2021. Read The 88 Project's report on this practice .   See...

Since Queensland passed the "Dangerous Attachment Devices" law in 2019 in response to anti-coal protests, Australian states have rapidly adopted similar measures targeting climate activism.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

At just 22 years old, climate activist Disha Ravi—co-founder of Fridays for Future India —was arrested, flown across the country, and jailed for her activism. She joins us to explain the night the police showed up at her home, how it's still impacting her two years later, and why she refuses to let it stop her activism or force her out of India. An extended version of this interview wi...

There's a lot of discourse happening about free speech in the context of "cancel culture", but precious little coverage of the global push to criminalize protest, particularly environmental and climate protest. We examine how extractive industries began agitating governments to crack down on protest, what tactics they use, and why they've been effective.   See omnystudio.com/listener for priv...

Media Matters senior researcher Evlondo Cooper breaks down how the media has covered climate activism, shaping mainstream perception and helping the fossil fuel industry in its quest to criminalize climate protest. Additional resources: National news' scant coverage of climate protests largely overlooked the scientific urgency driving controversial climate actions   See omnystudio.com/listene...

Around the world, environmental protesters are facing escalating repression—from harsh laws with life-altering prison sentences to fines to protesters arreseted near "critical infrastructure" to violent attacks. Corporations are suing protestors and NGOs, comparing protest to organized crime. Governments are growing increasingly comfortable branding environmental protestors as “domesti...

In more than 30 climate cases making their way through United States courts today, oil companies are using an argument they've been laying the legal groundwork for since the 1970s: that since everything they've ever said about climate change was in the interest of shaping policy or blocking regulation, it's protected speech, even if it was misleading. We explore how those cases are playing out and...

Mobil Oil worried that its advertorial campaigns positioning Mobil as a personality in and of itself might be labeled "propaganda" by TV networks and deemed unfit to run. In response, Herb Schmertz, VP of Public Affairs for Mobil Oil, looked to the courts for protection. The "corporate free speech" movement moved through the courts, getting a big assist from tobacco lobbyist-turned-Supreme Court J...

In the 1970s, Mobil Oil invented the advertorial and was aggressively pursuing an entirely new type of marketing, branding the company as a person itself with a unique personality and opinions that demanded attention. When public backlash threatened to undermine their approach, they launched a campaign that would change the course of United States culture, policy, advertising, and history. See omn...

Louisiana's "Cancer Alley"—a stretch along the Mississippi River where petrochemical plants have created some of the worst air and water pollution America—has become a battleground. ExxonMobil, Chevron and other petrochemical giants are increasingly organizing against grassroots environmental justice activism in Louisiana that are part of the Beyond Petrochemicals campaign. The compani...

Ever since the Securities and Exchange Commission announced its intention to make Environmental Social and Governance metrics actually meaningful to investors, polluting industries have suddenly turned on ESG. Now that fight has a legal strategy, being carried out by the Republican Attorneys General Association. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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 their state) to another. He talks through the complex web of factors that drive migration, and how policies might be changed to ease the burden on people and communities. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.