For decades we’ve heard that “the markets” will solve the climate crisis. On Drilled: Carbon Cowboys, we put that theory to the test, following Bruce Rastetter, a corn ethanol kingpin-turned-carbon entrepreneur from Iowa to Brazil, and asking the big questions: Are these “climate solutions” actually reducing emissions? Is CO2 increasing or decreasing as carbon becomes a commodity? Or is green colonialism just as extractive as the regular sort? Drilled: Carbon Cowboys begins on April 21. Pushkin+ subscribers can hear episodes early and ad-free. Find Pushkin+ on the Drilled show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The U.S. invasions of Venezuela and Iran are more of the same imperialism in service of oil majors. As the climate crisis makes its presence more urgently felt, fossil fascism dictates a doubling-down on extraction and colonialism, and the vilification of those who oppose or stand in the way of that plan.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Repression of protest has ramped up in the U.S., but everything that's happening now began with the backlash to the Standing Rock protest back in 2016. In today's episode we look at the connections between fossil fascism, petromasculinity, and protest.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Lots of people are talking about the similarities between Iraq and Iran, but in this episode we place the two in the context of another war—World War I—and the historical arc of fossil fascism.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is “artificial intelligence”? Is it a fancy technology? A management consulting buzzword? A PR effort to inflate corporate share prices? A political project designed to shape the world more to the liking of the billionaire class? A way to replace needy human workers with machines? Perhaps it’s all of that—and more. In her groundbreaking book Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, award-winning journalist Karen Hao argues that AI—and the profit-driven infrastructure that surrounds it—is a colonial project. What OpenAI boss Altman and his fellow ideologues in Silicon Valley are pursuing, Hao says, is not just corporate power but imperial power. They are building empires. And as history shows, empires are built on resource extraction, particularly the old-fashioned kind: of labor, energy, minerals, land, water. Seemingly overnight, tech elites’ feel-good climate promises have evaporated, having been seamlessly swapped for slippery promises that so-called “artificial general intelligence” will save the planet for us. Never mind that AGI is a fantastical concept that has no agreed-upon definition, or that, more fundamentally, it appears nowhere close to existing. In Big Tech’s frenzied pursuit of the “hyperscale” AI dominance that evangelists claim will unlock AGI, as well as its expanding alliances with fossil fuel-backed petrostates and authoritarian political movements, the industry has become an increasingly central contributor to the climate crisis. In an October conversation with Drilled, Hao discussed how Silicon Valley giants appear to be following the oil and gas industry’s playbook of disinformation and deceit; how Altman and OpenAI’s secrecy and disingenuous rhetoric transformed the field of AI research into corporate PR; and why the destructive trajectory of AI scale and commercialization is not inevitable—no matter what its power-hungry proponents would have you believe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is “artificial intelligence”? Is it a fancy technology? A management consulting buzzword? A PR effort to inflate corporate share prices? A political project designed to shape the world more to the liking of the billionaire class? A way to replace needy human workers with machines? Perhaps it’s all of that—and more. In her groundbreaking book Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, award-winning journalist Karen Hao argues that AI—and the profit-driven infrastructure that surrounds it—is a colonial project. What OpenAI boss Altman and his fellow ideologues in Silicon Valley are pursuing, Hao says, is not just corporate power but imperial power. They are building empires. And as history shows, empires are built on resource extraction, particularly the old-fashioned kind: of labor, energy, minerals, land, water. Seemingly overnight, tech elites’ feel-good climate promises have evaporated, having been seamlessly swapped for slippery promises that so-called “artificial general intelligence” will save the planet for us. Never mind that AGI is a fantastical concept that has no agreed-upon definition, or that, more fundamentally, it appears nowhere close to existing. In Big Tech’s frenzied pursuit of the “hyperscale” AI dominance that evangelists claim will unlock AGI, as well as its expanding alliances with fossil fuel-backed petrostates and authoritarian political movements, the industry has become an increasingly central contributor to the climate crisis. In an October conversation with Drilled, Hao discussed how Silicon Valley giants appear to be following the oil and gas industry’s playbook of disinformation and deceit; how Altman and OpenAI’s secrecy and disingenuous rhetoric transformed the field of AI research into corporate PR; and why the destructive trajectory of AI scale and commercialization is not inevitable—no matter what its power-hungry proponents would have you believe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What is “artificial intelligence”? Is it a fancy technology? A management consulting buzzword? A PR effort to inflate corporate share prices? A political project designed to shape the world more to the liking of the billionaire class? A way to replace needy human workers with machines? Perhaps it’s all of that—and more. In her groundbreaking book Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI, award-winning journalist Karen Hao argues that AI—and the profit-driven infrastructure that surrounds it—is a colonial project. What OpenAI boss Altman and his fellow ideologues in Silicon Valley are pursuing, Hao says, is not just corporate power but imperial power. They are building empires. And as history shows, empires are built on resource extraction, particularly the old-fashioned kind: of labor, energy, minerals, land, water. Seemingly overnight, tech elites’ feel-good climate promises have evaporated, having been seamlessly swapped for slippery promises that so-called “artificial general intelligence” will save the planet for us. Never mind that AGI is a fantastical concept that has no agreed-upon definition, or that, more fundamentally, it appears nowhere close to existing. In Big Tech’s frenzied pursuit of the “hyperscale” AI dominance that evangelists claim will unlock AGI, as well as its expanding alliances with fossil fuel-backed petrostates and authoritarian political movements, the industry has become an increasingly central contributor to the climate crisis. In an October conversation with Drilled, Hao discussed how Silicon Valley giants appear to be following the oil and gas industry’s playbook of disinformation and deceit; how Altman and OpenAI’s secrecy and disingenuous rhetoric transformed the field of AI research into corporate PR; and why the destructive trajectory of AI scale and commercialization is not inevitable—no matter what its power-hungry proponents would have you believe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week marks the 10-year anniversary of the hired hit that took Berta Cáceres’s life and robbed both the Honduran and global environmental movements of a uniquely effective leader. Cáceres was targeted by a dam company, with an assist from the police, military, government officials and international banks because of her effective organizing on behalf of her people, the Lenca. Nina Lakhani literally wrote the book on Cáceres’s killing, and in this episode she walks us through what happened then, what’s happening now, the role the U.S. played in all of it, and what Americans can learn from the way Honduran activists continue to show up in the face of violent repression. Read Nina’s story  Read Nina’s book Check out Berta’s organization, Copinh See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Last June, journalist Mario Guevara was arrested while covering an anti-ICE protest in Georgia, transferred to ICE detention, and locked up by the federal government for more than 100 days. But Mario is not the kind of ICE-criticizing reporter you might be picturing. He was a Trump-supporting, Republican-identifying, law-and-order-sympathizing immigration hawk, who knew ICE well and had covered them favorably for years. Why did the Trump administration still go after him? In this special two-part series from Question Everything, Brian Reed looks into. Mario Guevara. This is part one. Find part two, and more from Question Everything, wherever you get podcasts.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fernanda Hopenhaym, member of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights walks Drilled senior global climate justice reporter Nina Lakhani through the many legal pitfalls companies getting involved in the U.S. seizure of the Venezuelan oil industry might be facing. Check out the longer story on our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's easy to feel like climate "doesn't matter" as the U.S. descends into fascism. As if climate and democracy are somehow separate issues. In this episode, researcher Oscar Berglund and journalist Amy Westervelt connect the dots between the global backlash to climate protest and the broader repression we're seeing in supposedly democratic countries around the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In More and More and More, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz shows that the human history of energy is one of accumulation, not substitution. Here, he talks to reporter Adam Lowenstein about how the "energy transition" frame got so entrenched, why clean-energy innovation is not the same thing as decarbonization; how the fossil fuel industry helped launder pipe dreams of dysfunctional technologies into mainstream climate “solutions”; and much more (and more and more). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When activists Jessica Reznicek and Ruby Montoya take drastic measures to halt construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, they have no idea that a shadowy private security contractor called TigerSwan has them in its sights.  Special thanks to: Alleen Brown and The Intercept (https://theintercept.com/2018/12/30/tigerswan-infiltrator-dakota-access-pipeline-standing-rock/) You Strike A Match by Julia Shipley (https://grist.org/protest/dakota-access-pipeline-activists-property-destruction/) Democracy Now (https://www.democracynow.org/) Be the first to know about Wondery’s newest podcasts, curated recommendations, and more! Sign up now at https://wondery.fm/wonderynewsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With Australia once again facing a terrifying fire season, we bring you this conversation between Drilled reporter Royce Kurmelovs and Canadian author John Vallaint, who spoke at last year's Byron Writers Festival about his acclaimed book, Fire Weather. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this bonus episode of The Black Thread, we zoom in on a single case that distills the Norwegian paradox perfectly: the planned electrification of the gas processing plant on Melkøya. It’s a key conflict site where Norway’s net zero transformation collides with its fossil fuel industry, Indigenous rights, the youth climate movement, worker safety, and even criticism from the United Nations.  For more information and references: https://communicatingclimatechange.com/the-black-thread Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Despite increasing repression worldwide (as we’ve documented in previous seasons), activists have been pretty effective at sticking it to obstructionists too…which is probably why all that repression is happening in the first place. In our final episode, Jennie Stephens from the University of Ireland Maynooth and Sharon Yadin from University of Haifa take us through which tactics are working and why.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’ve never lied to you on Drilled and we’re not going to start now. It’s bleak out there. But some efforts to fight back against obstruction are working and litigation is one of them. In this episode we talk to London School of Economics' Joana Setzer about how courts around the world are getting involved and what that means for companies that keep reminding us they’re global. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

More than a decade ago—when wind and solar power were far more expensive than they are today—the nation of Uruguay, long plagued by droughts and energy shortages, transitioned its entire economy such that some 98 percent of its electricity now comes from renewable sources. And they did it in just two years. And they used the savings to slash the country’s poverty rate from 40 percent into the single digits. Uruguay’s conventional-wisdom-busting transformation is one of nine inspiring case studies in the journalist Natasha Hakimi Zapata’s Another World Is Possible: Lessons for America from Around the Globe. In August, Drilled spoke with Hakimi Zapata about what lessons climate advocates and policymakers around the world can learn from Uruguay’s remarkable transition, why the left should not shy away from articulating the economic case for clean energy, and how many of the progressive policies profiled in the book seem to emerge from moments of crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're bringing you episode 5 of Dana R. Fisher's COP Out podcast, from the Center for Environment, Equity and Community at American University, featuring our own Amy Westervelt and legendary climate scientist Dr. Katharine Hayhoe talking about what happened at this year's COP, whether the process is fixable, and how to get the benefits of global convenings without all the headaches. Check out the rest of Dana's series here: https://cece.american.edu/cece-launches-the-copout-podcast-for-apocalyptically-optimistic-climate-conversations/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Working against regulations on emissions might make a certain amount of sense for those with money to lose, but why would anyone fight against adapting to be able to survive climate disasters? In the negotiating rooms at COP30, adaptation was one of the biggest debate areas. In this episode, experts Laura Kuhl from Northeastern University and Stacy-Ann Robinson from Emory University explain why this area gets so contentious and how obstruction plays out around adaptation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices