Intro

• What we think we know — it’s all a lie
• Vested interests have so much leverage in the public space that you mayn’t even know when you’re being tricked

Problems

• Oil companies have massive marketing spend and they use it to try and sway public opinion
  • e.g. trying to appear climate positive by campaigning all about their positive impacts
    • Aramco ads about their technologies
    • BP invented carbon footprint
• Tactics:
  • Diversion — pointing out something else instead of their own problems
  • Setting targets rather than taking action
  • Funding climate projects (even though miniscule money spent)
  • Carbon capture rather than carbon not emitted
• Plastic companies
  • Plastic recycling (episode already available about this)
  • Lack of consumer choice — all products have plastic
  • Prices of mass goods are artificially lower
• Meat Industry
  • Use of media and leveraging public opinion
  • False images e.g. green fields
  • Buzzwords with no legal implications like ‘farm fresh’
• News Companies
  • Oil and tobacco pioneered the tactic of buying full-page ads and then putting news article lookalikes in them
  • Modern news companies (e.g. NYT) have advertisers studios that make content for brands
  • Most outlets don’t have policies against fossil fuel ads, despite most banning tobacco ads, and only a small number of sales coming from them
• Right-wing rhetoric
  • Especially in the US’ polarised media landscape, there is a hefty amount of criticism of climate movements
  • Notions of energy independence and ‘American energy’ etc. are used in place of climate denial

Guitar

You’re listening to Fighting Failure. This is episode 42, all about propaganda and how Big Oil uses it to subliminally influence you. If you like what we do, the best thing you can do is tell someone else about the show. We also have a Patreon linked below. Now, let’s move on to the solutions.

Solutions

• Be aware — practise mentally ‘debunking’ advertising that you see
• Sign up to newsletters / etc. with unfiltered pro-climate news
• Make good choices as always
• Support newspapers that don’t allow fossil fuel ads
• Support pro-climate ‘propaganda’
• Call out greenwashing

Outro