In October, Popular Information reported that Semafor — a high-profile new media company — launched a climate newsletter sponsored by Chevron. Chevron is not only one of the world's largest producers of climate emissions but also is notorious for spreading climate disinformation. Chevron is currently being sued by 20 cities and states for
This worthy piece reminded me of how much I miss and appreciate the late Eric Boehlert and how vital calling out hypocrisy in the media is to every aspect of our lives. Thank you.
It is atrocious that cigarettes are not yet banned. They ARE a health hazard and while walking outside, I am always exposed to smokers walking along the sidewalk in front of me. The smell even infiltrates masks! It’s disgusting and we aren’t given a choice to protect our health. Like the oil industry, this is a multi-billion dollar business. And as I say repeatedly, the US political system is solely based on money.
Without honest widely available news and journalism, we will not progress. Just as we must address guns and not make bullet proof shields for school children, we must remove the sources!
We need to start evaluating our leaders based on how they handle State and National critical challenges, especially when tax revenues are historically inadequate given the risks and threats. The costs of deferred maintenance can be estimated and quantified. Not addressing our critical challenges makes them prohibitively more expensive to resolve, or impossible to remedy.
Many of our problems are Global in scope, and require our leaders to be intelligent, informed, diplomatic, persistent, skilled in working cooperatively, and adequately funded. This requires returning to the progressive income tax system without exemptions for those 10% who own 90% of America's corporate wealth, and even higher rates for the .0001 - 1%. Financing politicians who spread misinformation or mislabel existential threats as a "hoax" only delays the inevitable higher mitigation costs and accelerates more dire consequences. At some point a small roof leak can lead inexorably and irreversibly into a demolition of the entire structure, when it is purposefully ignored.
When the scale of justice is tipped in favor of a plutocracy, their personal, ideological, and corporate interests will ultimately override the interests of most citizens. After the Republican SCOTUS majority declared money is speech, it's only a matter of time until our democracy is insidiously undermined.
and when those 20 lawsuits get to the Supreme Court, how do you think they will vote? I think we are screwed, all of us who live on this big round ball. I guess the Leonard Leo's, the Charles Kochs etc. etc. etc. will find a way to live while the rest of us just vanish.
Interesting analogy between cigarette smoking and fossil fuel pollution...in so many ways.
Kudos to Bill Spindle for discernment and courage.
Can we be hopeful that Gavin Newsom will curtail oil companies' greed?
“California’s price-gouging penalty is simple — either Big Oil reins in the profits and prices, or they’ll pay a penalty,” Newsom said in a statement Monday afternoon. “Big Oil has been lying and gouging Californians to line their own pockets long enough. I look forward to the work ahead with our partners in the Legislature to get this done.”
Thanks for this. Would just note that although the major newspapers stopped accepting cigarette ads decades ago (as noted), many of those newspapers (Washington Post, Boston Globe, NY Times, WSJ, etc) regularly accept payment from tobacco companies for "advertorials" (part of the industry's PR rehab campaign), which raise all of the same problems you discuss.
I’m not going to defend Chevron, but I do want to stress that bio-methane has a place in our energy policy. The waste from livestock has to be treated to avoid serious water pollution. Storage and handling of manure can be big sources of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas. The manure can instead be processed to produce bio-methane. Done right, the cycle from grazing to burning bio-methane can be greenhouse neutral, and better than allowing methane from manure ponds to escape into the air.
For the good of the Earth, we should probably eat less meat, but that’s a different issue. Capturing methane from agriculture for fuel, instead of letting it escape to the atmosphere makes sense from a climate perspective.
I'm shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, to not only discover that Big Oil would include anything in its advertising that wasn't 100% accurate, honest and credible, but that Big Media would be the least bit willing to profit from that advertising. Next thing you know, Big Media will be accepting advertising dollars from other sources not completely forthright and truthful in their ad copy either.
Oh. Wait. They already accept ads from political campaigns and turn a tidy little profit from them, don't they?
Hello Judd. This is an important story! Thanks to you and your staff for working on it. But why are there only 6 comments (+ one trailer for disinformation from the FL lady)? Could this dearth of activity be traced back to the twit running Twitters' maladroit moves and the resultant fallout?
Climate change is a pseudo cult-religion adopted by the Godless left and pushed by the corporatist globalist empire that wants to destroy small business industrialism so they can achieve complete consolidated political and economic power. Those that buy into it are either clones of the empire, or are duped cultists.
Chevron (then Texaco) destroyed the environment and health of inhabitants of Guatemala and have never cleaned up their mess or paid restitution (if that’s possible when talking about people’s lives.) BP’s negligence in the gulf cost lives and livelihoods and destroyed the marine and estuarine environment for decades and paid out a negligible pittance in damages. Exxon did the same in Prince William Sound and fought tooth and nail for 30 (? I think) years until their damages they paid to those affected were whittled down to chump change and some of the plaintiffs had died while waiting. And I know they’re not a fossil fuel company but Dow (bought Union Carbide) has never paid a dime to the victims or cleaned up the detritus of Bohpal. Vulture capitalism. But, hey, someone shoplifted at a retailer. There’s a crime to rage about.
What a sleazy little act from Petroleum Corporations . They insist on attempting to instill lies that are dangerous in many ways , chiefly insisting that people adopt ignorance as their shield.
These companies insult us by assuming their corporate propaganda will be received at face value.
Ive, personally
had enough of these corporate terrorists and their pollution of the truth .
My guess is that most people are sick of being lied to by these money grubbing liars.
This worthy piece reminded me of how much I miss and appreciate the late Eric Boehlert and how vital calling out hypocrisy in the media is to every aspect of our lives. Thank you.
Excellent parallelism, Judd.
It is atrocious that cigarettes are not yet banned. They ARE a health hazard and while walking outside, I am always exposed to smokers walking along the sidewalk in front of me. The smell even infiltrates masks! It’s disgusting and we aren’t given a choice to protect our health. Like the oil industry, this is a multi-billion dollar business. And as I say repeatedly, the US political system is solely based on money.
Without honest widely available news and journalism, we will not progress. Just as we must address guns and not make bullet proof shields for school children, we must remove the sources!
We need to start evaluating our leaders based on how they handle State and National critical challenges, especially when tax revenues are historically inadequate given the risks and threats. The costs of deferred maintenance can be estimated and quantified. Not addressing our critical challenges makes them prohibitively more expensive to resolve, or impossible to remedy.
Many of our problems are Global in scope, and require our leaders to be intelligent, informed, diplomatic, persistent, skilled in working cooperatively, and adequately funded. This requires returning to the progressive income tax system without exemptions for those 10% who own 90% of America's corporate wealth, and even higher rates for the .0001 - 1%. Financing politicians who spread misinformation or mislabel existential threats as a "hoax" only delays the inevitable higher mitigation costs and accelerates more dire consequences. At some point a small roof leak can lead inexorably and irreversibly into a demolition of the entire structure, when it is purposefully ignored.
When the scale of justice is tipped in favor of a plutocracy, their personal, ideological, and corporate interests will ultimately override the interests of most citizens. After the Republican SCOTUS majority declared money is speech, it's only a matter of time until our democracy is insidiously undermined.
and when those 20 lawsuits get to the Supreme Court, how do you think they will vote? I think we are screwed, all of us who live on this big round ball. I guess the Leonard Leo's, the Charles Kochs etc. etc. etc. will find a way to live while the rest of us just vanish.
Interesting analogy between cigarette smoking and fossil fuel pollution...in so many ways.
Kudos to Bill Spindle for discernment and courage.
Can we be hopeful that Gavin Newsom will curtail oil companies' greed?
“California’s price-gouging penalty is simple — either Big Oil reins in the profits and prices, or they’ll pay a penalty,” Newsom said in a statement Monday afternoon. “Big Oil has been lying and gouging Californians to line their own pockets long enough. I look forward to the work ahead with our partners in the Legislature to get this done.”
Thanks for this. Would just note that although the major newspapers stopped accepting cigarette ads decades ago (as noted), many of those newspapers (Washington Post, Boston Globe, NY Times, WSJ, etc) regularly accept payment from tobacco companies for "advertorials" (part of the industry's PR rehab campaign), which raise all of the same problems you discuss.
https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/tobacco-industry-marketing/how-tobacco-industry-uses-sponsored-content-major
I’m not going to defend Chevron, but I do want to stress that bio-methane has a place in our energy policy. The waste from livestock has to be treated to avoid serious water pollution. Storage and handling of manure can be big sources of methane, which is a potent greenhouse gas. The manure can instead be processed to produce bio-methane. Done right, the cycle from grazing to burning bio-methane can be greenhouse neutral, and better than allowing methane from manure ponds to escape into the air.
For the good of the Earth, we should probably eat less meat, but that’s a different issue. Capturing methane from agriculture for fuel, instead of letting it escape to the atmosphere makes sense from a climate perspective.
I'm shocked, SHOCKED, I tell you, to not only discover that Big Oil would include anything in its advertising that wasn't 100% accurate, honest and credible, but that Big Media would be the least bit willing to profit from that advertising. Next thing you know, Big Media will be accepting advertising dollars from other sources not completely forthright and truthful in their ad copy either.
Oh. Wait. They already accept ads from political campaigns and turn a tidy little profit from them, don't they?
Hello Judd. This is an important story! Thanks to you and your staff for working on it. But why are there only 6 comments (+ one trailer for disinformation from the FL lady)? Could this dearth of activity be traced back to the twit running Twitters' maladroit moves and the resultant fallout?
Climate change is a pseudo cult-religion adopted by the Godless left and pushed by the corporatist globalist empire that wants to destroy small business industrialism so they can achieve complete consolidated political and economic power. Those that buy into it are either clones of the empire, or are duped cultists.
Chevron (then Texaco) destroyed the environment and health of inhabitants of Guatemala and have never cleaned up their mess or paid restitution (if that’s possible when talking about people’s lives.) BP’s negligence in the gulf cost lives and livelihoods and destroyed the marine and estuarine environment for decades and paid out a negligible pittance in damages. Exxon did the same in Prince William Sound and fought tooth and nail for 30 (? I think) years until their damages they paid to those affected were whittled down to chump change and some of the plaintiffs had died while waiting. And I know they’re not a fossil fuel company but Dow (bought Union Carbide) has never paid a dime to the victims or cleaned up the detritus of Bohpal. Vulture capitalism. But, hey, someone shoplifted at a retailer. There’s a crime to rage about.
What a sleazy little act from Petroleum Corporations . They insist on attempting to instill lies that are dangerous in many ways , chiefly insisting that people adopt ignorance as their shield.
These companies insult us by assuming their corporate propaganda will be received at face value.
Ive, personally
had enough of these corporate terrorists and their pollution of the truth .
My guess is that most people are sick of being lied to by these money grubbing liars.