Drilled
Pushkin Industries
Drilled is a true-crime climate change podcast exposing how corporate corruption and political operatives built decades of climate denial and delay. Hosted and reported by award-winning investigative climate journalists and led by Amy Westervelt, each season unravels new evidence of deception, disinformation, and the power structures keeping real climate solutions out of reach.
In September 2025, a group of Brazilian ministers trekked all the way to chilly North Dakota to see a presentation on a new type of clean energy project, one that promised to help them deliver Brazilian President Lula’s dream of turning Brazil into “the Saudi Arabia of sustainable aviation fuels.” It was the latest in a string of projects from Midwest Republican kingmaker and corn ethanol magnate Bruce Rastetter, whose investments in Brazil might just transform him into a global carbon czar, even as his Summit pipeline carbon project faces fierce opposition from Iowa to North Dakota. The problem? It all requires loads of land and none of it does a thing about climate change.
In September 2025, a group of Brazilian ministers trekked all the way to chilly North Dakota to see a presentation on a new type of clean energy project, one that promised to help them deliver Brazilian President Lula’s dream of turning Brazil into “the Saudi Arabia of sustainable aviation fuels.” It was the latest in a string of projects from Midwest Republican kingmaker and corn ethanol magnate Bruce Rastetter, whose investments in Brazil might just transform him into a global carbon czar, even as his Summit pipeline carbon project faces fierce opposition from Iowa to North Dakota. The problem? It all requires loads of land and none of it does a thing about climate change.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Sep 5, 2023 • 29min
Australia’s State-by-State Crackdown on Climate Protest
The podcast discusses the criminalization of environmental protest in Australia, the expansion of fossil fuel projects, and the tactics employed by the industry to hinder climate action. It also highlights the introduction of new laws targeting environmental activists and the dangerous consequences of increasing fossil fuel production.
Aug 29, 2023 • 32min
Disha Ravi on Becoming the Face of "Radical" Protest in India
Disha Ravi, co-founder of Fridays for Future India, talks about her arrest at 22, the criminalization of protest, and the suppression of environmental activism in India. She reflects on her journey as a climate activist, the formation of coalitions, and her determination to continue her work for climate justice despite the challenges she faces.
Aug 29, 2023 • 33min
The Corporate Push to Criminalize Speech
Explore the push to criminalize environmental and climate protest, the tactics used by extractive industries and the framing of opponents as criminal threats. Learn about the redefinition of violence to include harm to property, the chilling effect on environmental activism, and the criminalization of activists opposing oil pipelines.
Aug 22, 2023 • 23min
How the Media Has Helped to Criminalize Climate Protest with Evlondo Cooper
Evlondo Cooper, Media Matters senior researcher, discusses how flawed media coverage has helped the fossil fuel industry criminalize climate protest. The podcast explores the influence of media on public perception of climate activism, the lack of coverage on the criminalization of climate protests, and the media's role in overlooking the funding and influence of the fossil fuel industry. It emphasizes the need for understanding, context, and rapid improvement in media reporting on climate change and environmental issues.
Aug 15, 2023 • 3min
Coming Soon: The Real Free Speech Threat
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 “domestic terrorists.” The media is largely participating in the rhetorical “othering” of protestors, opting in most cases to focus on the disruption that protest causes rather than the change it seeks. In our new season, we take an an in-depth look at how climate protest has evolved in recent years, where this backlash is coming from, how it’s grown so quickly, and what it feels like to be someone who’s concerned enough about the future of humanity to join a protest, only to find themselves facing violence and legal ramifications. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Aug 1, 2023 • 25min
The Next Citizens United Will Be a Climate Case
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 the likelihood that this new take on "corporate free speech" could make its way all the way to the Supreme Court.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
5 snips
Jul 25, 2023 • 29min
A Legal Strategy: How Mobil Oil Fought for Corporate Free Speech
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 Justice Lewis F. Powell and reshaped legal protections for corporations. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
4 snips
Jul 18, 2023 • 33min
The Panic: How Mobil Oil Changed Advertising Forever
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 omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jun 20, 2023 • 24min
"Cancer Alley" Fiights Back
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 companies have joined with pro-industry politicians and local Chambers of Commerce to form a “sustainability council,” focused not on environmental sustainability but on the longevity of the petrochemical industry on Louisiana's Gulf Coast. Jo Banner of The Descendants Project and Shamyra Lavigne of RISE St. James, two key organizers in the area, join us to talk about why the industry is suddenly organizing against them.Read more in The Guardian and Floodlight News exposé.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Jun 13, 2023 • 19min
The Anti-ESG Campaign Gets a Boost from RAGA
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.
