Drilled Podcast To Focus On "New Climate Villains"

 As much of the world currently works to reduce dependency on Russian gas - and as Earth Day approaches - the podcast Drilled is preparing to launch part two of its season about the gas industry, this part focusing on the industry's role as the "New Climate Villains."

For decades, gas was accepted as a part of the solution on climate, a "bridge fuel," but in recent years advocates and policymakers have remembered that gas is also a fossil fuel and that its primary emission (methane) is a potent greenhouse gas. It's a new role for gas--part of the problem--and the companies that stand to lose as gas becomes less preferable are not taking it lying down.

This series upcoming on the Drilled podcast takes an investigative look at the largest gas utility in the country, SoCal Gas, and the lengths it has gone to try to maintain gas's grip on the energy industry, from hiring actors to protest at city council meetings to threatening to deliberately cause Covid superspreader events.

 

The launches April 19.

Drilled is the most-listened-to climate change podcast and is hosted by independent investigative journalist Amy Westervelt, who also hosts the podcasts Damages (which wrapped up its first season this week) and Rigged, and co-hosts the podcast Hot Take (recently acquired by Crooked Media). Past seasons of Drilled have won the 2019 Online News Association award for “Excellence in Audio Storytelling" and the 2020 iHeartRadio Podcast Award for "Best Green Podcast."

Drilled "New Climate Villains" Episodes

• A busload of Covid - 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 SoCal Gas--the largest gas utility in the country--sprung into action, threatening among other things to bus in large numbers of protestors to crowd the town and city hall, refusing to mask or social distance just as the pandemic was taking hold in the U.S.
• The new climate villains - In tape from various industry meetings leaked to Drilled, we hear about the industry's struggle to adapt to its new role as a climate villain, and get a window into its strategy to fight the "electrify everything" movement.
• Anatomy of a front group - A year after San Luis Obispo took the lead on a gas ban, the coastal town of Santa Barbara is evaluating a similar proposal, and residents are being spammed with texts encouraging opposition to the ban and offering information through a new "grassroots" group: Citizens for Balanced Energy Solutions. Except it's not a citizens group at all, it's a front group started by SoCal Gas.
• Epic Astroturfing - It's not just the front group. SoCal Gas has been hiring actors to show up at city council meetings too. In one case they even advertise the gig as an "environmental fellowship."
• Bans on Bans - The most effective part of the industry's strategy has been passing preemptive laws that prohibit any sort of electrification policy from being considered in the first place. In this episode we look at how that took off, how it's worked, and what pro-electrification folks are doing to deal with it.

Check out Drilled on April 19.