The Black Thread, Ep 3: Challenging the Narratives

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 industry, amplified by it’s government, and legitimised through a wealth of public outreach.  We hear experts challenge some of the most familiar narratives that keep Norwegian oil and gas pumping, while industry voices will explain the logic behind their rhetoric. For more information and references: https://communicatingclimatechange.com/the-black-thread Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and former Wall Street Journal publisher Karen Elliott House, author of the new book The Man Who Would Be King: Mohammed bin Salman and the Transformation of Saudi Arabia, talks to Adam Lowenstein about how Saudi Arabia has changed under the crown prince; whether MBS’s gamble on economic and social freedoms alongside civil and political repression is politically—or environmentally—sustainable; how Saudi Arabia’s oil and petrochemical industries serve its geopolitical interests; and why the kingdom’s promises about transitioning away from fossil fuels might be a bit less green than climate advocates would hope. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the second episode of The Black Thread, we drill into “petroganda” – the pervasive phenomenon of oil industry manipulation that a growing number of experts and commentators suggest is at work in Norway – shaping support for the country’s oil industry, influencing culture and politics, and guiding the information that the public receives, or doesn’t receive, about the relationship between oil and climate change. We’ll explore these claims, hearing from those who study and observe the industry, as well as those working within it, about how the story of oil in Norway is told – and who is shaping it.  For more information and references: https://communicatingclimatechange.com/the-black-thread Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For decades, the meat and dairy industries managed to successfully avoid any attention for the planet-heating emissions they pump into the atmosphere; once governments started talking about regulating methane, though, they started working on efforts to avoid them. In today's episode, Silvia Secchi (University of Iowa) and Kathrin Lauber (University of Edinburgh) join us to walk through "agricultural exceptionalism" and the strategies the animal ag industry uses to keep regulation and climate policy at bay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The coal, utilities, and transportation industries have all mounted efforts to stop governments from regulating emissions or transitioning to cleaner energy. In this episode we look at how those efforts took shape around the world, and what tactics they used to block progress. Jen Schneider, at Boise State University and Gregory Trencher, at Kyoto University, join us to walk through the peer-reviewed research on these efforts. You can now download a FREE copy of the book Climate Obstruction: A Global Survey here! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, caring, and nature-loving people. We also learn what happens when those values come into conflict with the reality of Norway’s outsized impact on climate change, and discover how and why oil influences peoples’ response to this dilemma.  For more information and references: https://communicatingclimatechange.com/the-black-thread Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s no avoiding it: Things feel pretty bleak. To witness venture-capital-fueled AI domination, democracy’s steady drift toward authoritarianism, state-sanctioned genocide, and, of course, the collapse of one climate boundary after another, is to encounter a profound, at times overwhelming, sense of despair. But what if the path forward lies in accepting, rather than resisting, this despair? In his new book, Learning to Live in the Dark: Essays in a Time of Catastrophe, climate activist and journalist Wen Stephenson argues that the only way to confront the crises of our time is to meet this despair head-on—to see it for what it is, to feel it, and to accept what it means about where we are and where we must go. In this episode, Wen discusses how he's dealt with his own climate despair and how we can all "live into this era of climate and political and social catastrophe…while holding on to our humanity.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Climate obstruction isn’t just something the fossil fuel industry does, but they’ve certainly spearheaded and masterminded a lot of efforts. In this ep, an academic (Kristoffer Ekberg, from the University of Lund in Sweden), a nonprofit researcher (the legendary Kert Davies, of the Center for Climate Integrity), and a journalist (Geoff Dembicki, global managing editor of DeSmog) walk us through what we know so far about those efforts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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, Melissa Aronczyk, of Rutgers University, and Max Boykoff, of the University of Colorado, join us to walk through why getting a handle on the media's role in climate obstruction is critical to solving the problem. The book Climate Obstruction: A Global Survey, is available from Oxford University Press here, and will be available for free download beginning October 14th. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices