frontline pbs

belated 3/17 see pbs

pbs 10 25

https://video.kqed.org/video/the-rise-of-rfk-jr-ulnu0y/

The Rise of RFK Jr.

Season 2025 Episode 12 | 1h 54m 23sVideo has Closed Captions|CC

The dramatic and controversial rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. How the scion of a storied dynasty endured tragedy and scandal, broke with the Democratic Party and his family, stoked conspiracy theories, and is reshaping government and public health.

10/21/2025

in collab w/ preserving democ

Clarence and Ginni Thomas: Politics, Power and the Supreme Court }:}:

As controversy erupts around Clarence and Ginni Thomas, FRONTLINE tells the inside story of their path to power. Tune in or stream Tuesday, May 9 2023

5 22 frontline

power of big oil

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/documentary/the-power-of-big-oil/transcript/

https://climateinvestigations.org/pbs-frontline-the-power-of-big-oil-viewers-guide-documents-and-reference-material/

denier showed TP FF [STEVE lonegan afp in pt 2) guy using flank as deliberate preferred tool?

part 1:

...JAMES HANSEN:

I realized I was going out on a limb. Not all scientists agreed with me that we were ready to say those things. But they were based on sound physics and observations and models.

DAVID HARWOOD:

It was as if the rocket had lifted off. I wrote on the hearing transcript, "historic."

MALE NEWSREADER:

Some experts are saying now that the whole world is heating up because of a global greenhouse effect.

MALE NEWSREADER:

And in the long run that could mean devastating changes to all life on Earth.

DAVID HARWOOD:

By the next morning, the story was on the front page of The New York Times.

MALE REPORTER:

There are no easy solutions. We’re talking here about the use of gas and coal and oil.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Scientists urge heavy conservation, a switch to solar energy and a search for new power sources. Pragmatists would argue that we cannot change our energy habits overnight. Scientists say we had better get going.

SEN. AL GORE, D-Tennessee, 1985-1993:

In those years there was still a spirit of bipartisanship. When really important challenges to the public interest appeared, you could work across the political aisle.

DAVID HARWOOD:

I felt like tremendous progress was being made. There was greater awareness. There was public policy emerging. There was international negotiations developing.

TIMOTHY WIRTH:

Momentum is on our side. And it kind of opened up the world, the feeling of "Wow, this is really going to change." But the minute targets and timetables began to appear, those were magic signals to the industry. "Uh-oh, this is serious." Little did we know how devastating the counterattack was going to be.

TERRY YOSIE, SVP, E. Bruce Harrison PR firm, 1992-1997 :

I've collected documents from every place where I've worked. My basement looks like a trash bin and a fire hazard. But nevertheless!

I knew that having access to original documents, that were, in my view critical to certain decisions being made would be enormously valuable.

[Archive]I’m Terry Yosie, vice president for health and environment at the American Petroleum Institute. I want to thank you—

API at that time was tremendously influential. It was the chief lobbying organization for the petroleum industry and had representation from some of the major oil companies—Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP. Companies like that.

By early 1989, the newspapers, the television networks were bombarding API with questions such as, "What do you think of Hansen's testimony?" "What is your view of climate change in general?" "What do you think needs to be done about climate change?" "Terry, what do you make of all of this?"

The decision was made that a briefing needed to be prepared for industry CEOs.

[Reading] “Global Warming: The Knowns and Unknowns. By Terry F. Yosie, American Petroleum Institute."

[Reading] “There is scientific consensus that the atmosphere is changing due to human activities. There are three schools of thought that characterize the scientific and public debate over global warming. The first is that a crisis exists and that immediate measures are needed to ameliorate it through strong government actions. The second school of thought is that the problem will go away by itself. The third school of thought, and one that reflects API's present thinking, was expressed by a scientist named Patrick Michaels in a recent article in The Washington Post. ‘Our policies,’ noted Michaels, ‘should be no more drastic than the scientific conclusions they are based upon.’"

PROF. PATRICK MICHAELS, Univ. of Virginia, 1980-2007:

I’m not—I hate this word—I'm not a denier. I'm a lukewarmer. Totally different. And people get that wrong. The lukewarm view on climate change, which means climate change is real, people have something to do with it, but it's probably not the end of the world. I'm probably a lukewarm libertarian, too.

[Archive] There is a real problem with this so-called global warming apocalypse projection. The Earth may in fact be going in the other direction, and until we solve that, it seems to me that we ought not take any very expensive remuneration.

TERRY YOSIE:

Pat Michaels was not a major voice in the scientific community on climate change. But I think he was primarily useful to the industry as an external voice of doubt creating more skepticism about policymakers taking action.

[Reading] “In that vein, API must become an active participant in the scientific and policy debate. We are well on our way to doing that. We must make policymakers fully aware of the uncertainty surrounding the global warming issue.”

KERT DAVIES:

It's amazing. I mean, it's a call to action. They're realizing it's going down, we need to be in the room talking about uncertainty and downplaying the urgency, effectively. That that is the call.

JANE McMULLEN, FRONTLINE producer/director:

Can I ask you to take a look at the document in front of you?

KERT DAVIES:

This thing?

JANE McMULLEN:

Yeah, which we found in the Exxon archives.

KERT DAVIES:

This says it all right here. This paragraph starts, "Exxon’s long-term public presence and contributions to the scientific field give us unique credibility within the petroleum industry. We served on a task force of the American Petroleum Institute and contributed significantly to the development of the API position on climate change.”

So essentially what we see as the API position is the Exxon position on climate change.

[Reading] "Our advice and input influenced the positions of NAM—the National Association of Manufacturers—CMA—the Chemical Manufacturers Association—and the Global Change Coalition," which is probably the Global Climate Coalition.

These trade associations are key. They are working with other shields and other umbrellas. Their focus is trying to emphasize uncertainty. And we can show that they pretty much did that in following years.

NARRATION:

In response to questions, API said critics were "cherry-picking information from decades ago to support a misleading predetermined narrative," and that as climate science has evolved, so has the industry.

Exxon Mobil has denied that its policy at that time was to emphasize uncertainty.

1992...

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film**/the-power-of-big-oil**/#video-2

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/the-power-of-big-oil/transcript/

...Exxon Mobil declined to give us any interviews. In a written response to questions, the company said, "For more than 40 years, we have supported development of climate science in partnership with governments and academic institutions" and "Exxon Mobil has never had any unique or superior knowledge about climate science, let alone any that was unavailable to policymakers or the public."

...

TIMOTHY WIRTH:

TERRY YOSIE, SVP, E. Bruce Harrison PR firm, 1992-1997 :

I've collected documents from every place where I've worked. My basement looks like a trash bin and a fire hazard. But nevertheless!

I knew that having access to original documents, that were, in my view critical to certain decisions being made would be enormously valuable.

[Archive] I’m Terry Yosie, vice president for health and environment at the American Petroleum Institute. I want to thank you—

The decision was made that a briefing needed to be prepared for industry CEOs.

[Reading] “Global Warming: The Knowns and Unknowns. By Terry F. Yosie, American Petroleum Institute."

PROF. PATRICK MICHAELS, Univ. of Virginia, 1980-2007:

I’m not—I hate this word—I'm not a denier. I'm a lukewarmer. Totally different. And people get that wrong

...

1992

Chapter iii. The Environmental Presidency

GOV. BILL CLINTON, Arkansas, 1983-1992:

The man standing beside me today has what it takes to lead this nation from the day we take office. Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee.

MARC CHUPKA, White House economist, 1993-94:

When Bill Clinton announced that his running mate was going to be Al Gore, that was very exciting.

There was an anticipation of a much greater effort to tackle climate change.

BILL CLINTON:

We will finally give the United States a real environmental presidency.

AL GORE:

Then President-elect Clinton understood clearly that that's why I was on the ticket. That's why I agreed to run as vice president.

MALE NEWSREADER:

He has won this presidential race, along with Sen. Al Gore, now the vice president-elect.

JANE McMULLEN:

Now you’re in the White House—

AL GORE:

Yeah.

JANE McMULLEN:

—to tackle it. Did you feel a sense of responsibility?

AL GORE:

Oh, absolutely. That was the principal task that I set for myself entering the White House. And I went to work right away to try to get a carbon tax in our first budget plan.

MARC CHUPKA:

Sen. Gore asked me to produce some quantitative results of how much various energy taxes would reduce emissions.

Feb. 17, 1993

PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON:

Our plan does include a broad-based tax on energy, and it is environmentally responsible. It will help us in the future as well as in the present with the deficit.

MARC CHUPKA:

I was excited that a fairly bold step had been proposed.

MALE NEWSREADER:

It’s called a "BTU tax."

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The tax is likely to be levied at the producer or distributor level, though consumers would feel it as energy companies passed it along in their prices.

MARC CHUPKA:

It’s a tax policy. You don’t expect everyone to love it. But the opposition to this particular proposal was very strong, very strident, very aggressive.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Koch Industries has been called the biggest company you never heard of. The sprawling giant includes pipelines, petrochemicals, asphalt plants, trading floors. Based in Wichita, Kansas, it sells everything from gasoline to beef.

JEFF NESBIT, Comms. Dir., Citizens for a Sound Economy, 1993:

I would say that virtually no one in the early 1990s had ever heard of Koch Industries.

MALE NEWSREADER:

Koch's core business is distribution. It owns 37,000 miles of international pipeline.

JEFF NESBIT:

They can take the heaviest oil, the dirtiest oil, the hardest to turn into a useful product and refine it. And they became the best in the world at doing that. I think it's still probably the second-largest privately held company in the world.

The two brothers who ran Koch Industries were Charles and David Koch. They had their sights set on how they were going to deal with issues that were existential to their industry. It's the heart of what they do, so they're going to fight and hang on to that till the bitter end.

JERRY TAYLOR, Cato Institute, 1991-2014:

The Cato Institute was a public policy think tank. It was founded by Charles Koch. And Charles was heavily invested in energy policy discussions back in that time, particularly the emergence of climate change.

The Cato Institute position was that climate change is real, but the climate change that we're seeing today is far, far more modest than what the computer models say we should have seen by now. We need to know a lot more before we should be spending trillions of dollars to address it.

JEFF NESBIT:

So the Kochs had funding directed at the Cato Institute as a libertarian think tank; they also had funding that went to Citizens for a Sound Economy, which was built for a slightly different purpose, which was to be a quote, grassroots mobilizer.

JERRY TAYLOR:

Coming out of the gate, we then get served up with a proposed BTU tax. It was obvious to us at the Cato Institute that once that tax is in place, it's going to be very hard to get rid of.

JEFF NESBIT:

We walked over from Citizens for a Sound Economy over to the American Petroleum Institute, and we met with the entire leadership of API. And the meeting was all about, let's just knock out the BTU tax in its infancy.

JERRY TAYLOR:

We would be meeting in various locales in Washington with over 100 people in the room. It was a real war room situation.

JERRY JASINOWSKI, President of the National Association of Manufacturers :

[Archive] This coalition is one of the fastest growing and strongest that I've seen. We will stop the BTU tax and I believe substitute spending cuts in its place. Thank you very much for coming.

Oklahoma

RON HOWELL, Former consultant, Koch Industries:

We were known, and I think we made ourselves known that way, as the oil capital of the world. Almost everywhere you'd look had behind it oil industry dollars.

I thought that the tax was a bad idea for America, but predominantly a bad idea for Oklahoma. Oklahoma was not in a good spot at that time at all. Oil wells were being shut. That meant a lot of lost jobs, a lot of lost companies. And this was putting the heel of the boot down hard.

I got a call from Koch Industries telling me the industry is very concerned about this, but we're worried that this word isn't getting out. Our particular goal was to focus on Sen. Boren.

JEFF NESBIT:

David Boren was a moderate Democrat who chaired the relevant committee that would deal with the Clinton budget.

RON HOWELL:

We were hearing that he wanted to be left to do his own revising of it behind closed doors.

JEFF NESBIT:

They basically said if we can get David Boren to flip, we win. So they said, we're going to do whatever it takes.

RON HOWELL:

We set about what I would call a grasstops and a grassroots campaign. The grassroots were encouraged to call Sen. Boren and let him know that you do not want a tax, after seeing an ad that showed "take shower, pay a tax; start your car, pay a tax."

JEFF NESBIT:

Everybody was given their marching orders out of this playbook. People would stand up behind politicians with signs about no BTU tax. There were rallies.

ENERGY INDUSTRY SPOKESMAN:

—cost to the average household in Oklahoma is going to be roughly about $500 a year.

RON HOWELL:

My main role was what I would call the grasstops. You may be a civic leader, you may be a CEO. Often it would be Mr. Koch would call them, or myself, and talk them through "Did you know it does this, this, this and this?" Encourage strongly Sen. Boren kill it.

JEFF NESBIT:

What they told the public and what the policymakers were led to believe was that there was an army of folks who were ready to march in the streets. Maybe there were a handful of folks who thought, "Oh, gosh, I should call my senator and register my complaint," but they had no such grassroots army. It was funded and fueled by the corporate interests.

MALE NEWSREADER:

CSE says its work isn’t done yet. It’s joined forces with other lobbying groups, stoking the flames of the prairie fire, hoping they’ll spread and burn the BTU tax for good.

RON HOWELL:

I remember a very late night or early morning phone call, and it was actually Sen. Boren's communications guy. "We want those ads to stop. And we want the CEOs to quit calling us, and in return, Sen. Boren’s going to announce his intentions to vote against it."

SEN. DAVID BOREN, D-Oklahoma, 1979-94 :

Our proposal is fairer than that put forward by the administration—that is the BTU tax, which is the tax which is a part of the administration's plan that does hit lower- and middle-income Americans.

JEFF NESBIT:

He folded right away. It’s like wow, this can really work. We can pick our targets strategically and win, even when we’re not in political power.

NARRATOR:

At the time, David Boren disputed he was influenced by the oil industry. He said he was responding to concerns from the American public, and he opposed the tax because it would hurt consumers and businesspeople.

MALE NEWSREADER:

President Clinton has pulled the plug on his proposed BTU energy tax.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

Critics said it would cost jobs and devastate the economy, and there weren't enough votes in the Senate to pass it. Besides, who the heck knew what it was?

MALE NEWSREADER:

This is after all a nation addicted to its cars and to the idea of driving down the open road.

AL GORE:

It was extremely disappointing to not get the votes. It was just the raw power of all the money that they threw into this. But we just decided to regroup and try to skin the cat a different way.

MARC CHUPKA:

They never proposed another energy tax. It was just considered radioactive.

JEFF NESBIT:

I think some of the leadership of the Koch network were really quite excited that it worked so well. So that's how that playbook first began. It was developed right then. What I didn’t know at the time was that it would become the beginning of something much bigger. And that playbook is still in use today.

I don't feel embarrassed or regretful. In hindsight, I shouldn't have done that. There's no question I shouldn't have done that. But they were my client. I was a contractor. I was paid, I'm going to do my job. And my job was to do that.

NARRATOR:

Charles Koch did not respond to questions about the campaign against the BTU tax. In 1994, a top Koch executive said, "Our belief is that the tax, over time, may have destroyed our business."

...

JERRY SEINFELD:

And the Oscar goes to An Inconvenient Truth, Davis Guggenheim.

NARRATOR:

In 2006, Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth, sounded the alarm to a widening audience, warning of a "planetary emergency."

“An Inconvenient Truth” trailer

VICE PRESIDENT AL GORE, 1993-2001:

[Archive] All over the world we need to solve the climate crisis. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act. That’s a renewable resource. Let's renew it.

We had reality on our side. And tragically, the felt consequences of the climate crisis were growing in intensity and frequency and severity. It was time to regroup again and double down.

NARRATOR:

The president wasn’t persuaded to pursue legislative action but by now had publicly stated that humans were causing climate change. Other Republicans were shifting their positions, too.

REP. BOB INGLIS, R-SC, 1993-99, 2005-11:

For my first six years in Congress, I said that climate change was nonsense. I didn't know anything about it except that Al Gore was for it. That was the end of the inquiry. But then our son, the eldest of our five kids, had just turned 18, so he was voting for the first time. And he came to me and he said, "Dad, I'll vote for you, but you're going to clean up your act on the environment." So that was step one of a metamorphosis for me. Step two was going to Antarctica with the Science Committee, seeing the evidence in the ice core drillings. In that mile of ice is an amazing record of the Earth's atmosphere. What it shows is stable levels of CO2 and then an uptick that coincides with the Industrial Revolution.

We make climate science sound so complicated. It's really not.

JONATHAN PHILLIPS, Congressional staff, 2007-14:

In 2007, climate change was at its most bipartisan level that I think it ever was. You had Republican members of Congress introducing bills about it. Politically, sort of public awareness-wise, this was a bit of a golden era in the United States.

Alliance for Climate Protection promotional video

NANCY PELOSI:

Hi, I'm Nancy Pelosi, lifelong Democrat and speaker of the House.

NEWT GINGRICH:

And I'm Newt Gingrich, lifelong Republican, and I used to be speaker.

NANCY PELOSI:

We don’t always see eye to eye, do we, Newt?

NEWT GINGRICH:

No, but we do agree our country must take action to address climate change.

NANCY PELOSI:

We need cleaner forms of energy, and we need them fast.

JONATHAN PHILLIPS:

One of the first things that Nancy Pelosi did as speaker was to create the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, and I was lucky enough to land my dream job and be a staffer on this committee. This is where laws would be made to deal with what I believed was an existential crisis for humanity.

NARRATOR:

The committee picked up the idea of a carbon cap that the Bush administration had rejected years earlier. They wanted to set a national limit on greenhouse gas emissions and require companies to trade amongst themselves for how much each could emit.

JONATHAN PHILLIPS:

The ultimate goal of the bill was to reduce carbon emissions by 80% below 2005 levels by 2050. And that's a lot of fossil industry. A lot of oil and gas producers—the coal miners, the coal companies, refineries. It was going to hit someone’s pocketbook.

NARRATOR:

The plan emerged as the 2008 presidential campaign was ramping up. Republican candidate John McCain came out in support of the cap and trade approach.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN, R-Arizona:

The facts of global warming demand our urgent attention, especially in Washington.

NARRATOR:

So did his opponent, Democrat Barack Obama.

SEN. BARACK OBAMA, D-Illinois:

I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.

HEATHER ZICHAL, Environmental policy director, Obama campaign:

Having worked on many presidential races and around presidential politics, that was the first year where we really saw climate change as something that American voters really wanted to hear from candidates on. It was interesting, because we were not necessarily having a debate about whether or not climate change was real. It was really, "How collectively can we make a meaningful contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the economy?"

NARRATOR:

Shortly before the presidential election, Exxon Mobil contacted corporate responsibility specialist Bennett Freeman.

BENNETT FREEMAN, SVP, Calvert Investments, 2006-15:

I had an informal conversation in the back of a limousine with Ken Cohen at Exxon Mobil, who was essentially their chief policymaker and public affairs officer. I think the observation that got Ken Cohen's attention was that we had this unprecedented situation where both the Republican and the Democratic nominee for president both committed to the climate agenda. And we had a pretty frank conversation about the implications for the company, particularly on climate.

I thought that Exxon was shamefully out of the action because it had become so apparent that climate science was real. So my advice to Ken was for the company to finally take a public position on climate policy. To make an unequivocal statement accepting the reality of climate science. To make a unequivocal commitment to not fund any more climate denial research, which Exxon was infamous for supporting, for funding directly. And to take a positive, proactive position supporting action at the U.S. federal level.

NARRATOR:

Two weeks before President Obama was inaugurated, Exxon Mobil CEO Tillerson would give a speech that went farther than the company had ever gone on the urgency of the climate change issue.

BENNETT FREEMAN:

Amazingly, that speech happened.

January 2009

REX TILLERSON:

Globally, the outlook for energy expects energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to rise by an average of 1% per year through the year 2030. These two fundamental realities, meeting enormous demand growth and managing the risk of greenhouse gas emissions, are the twin challenges of our time.

BENNETT FREEMAN:

It was, I think, the first time that at least at the CEO level, they started, just started to take a policy position that was potentially constructive. It's important to acknowledge that this was an initial step. But it's equally important, even more important, in my opinion, to emphasize that it was a step that was little and late.

RUSSELL GOLD, FRONTLINE consultant:

I covered Exxon Mobil at The Wall Street Journal at that time, and Rex Tillerson was a breath of fresh air. He starts talking about the importance of pursuing a lower carbon path. But at the end of the day, I can't really point to anything substantive that changed.

NARRATOR:

Rex Tillerson did not respond to interview requests.

Despite his speech, Exxon Mobil did not endorse cap and trade. The bill, sponsored by Democrats Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, narrowly passed the House.

MALE SPEAKER:

Yeas are 219, nays are 212. [Applause] The bill is passed.

FEMALE NEWSREADER:

The president won a victory in the House of Representatives on a sweeping climate bill.

JONATHAN PHILLIPS:

June 26, 2009. It was a big day. It was the culmination of years of work. Inside, I think there was a lot of relieved and happy people, because this was the end of a very long road. It was a huge moment.

NARRATOR:

It was the first legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions to pass the House of Representatives. Now the bill needed to get through the Senate.

JONATHAN PHILLIPS:

We were optimistic that the Senate would pick up the bill that summer. And I think we were a little bit naive about that.

HEATHER ZICHAL, Obama adviser on climate & energy, 2009-13:

When somebody's business model is deeply affected or felt to be affected, there are always going to be well-funded interests that make the case "don’t take any action, do not regulate us."

Promotional video

KOCH INDUSTRIES PROMOTIONAL AD:

One of our nation’s largest private companies is proudly built on American values and skill. Koch Industries started in the heartland—

NARRATOR:

Exxon Mobil and other companies continued their opposition to cap and trade, but the fiercest pushback came from another powerful force in the industry.

KOCH INDUSTRIES PROMOTIONAL AD:

You may not always see our name on the products you use—

CHRISTOPHER LEONARD, Author, Kochland:

In 2009 Koch Industries is the second largest privately held company in the United States, whose annual sales are bigger than that of Goldman Sachs, U.S. Steel and Facebook combined.

Koch is just deeply embedded in the fossil fuel infrastructure. It trades, ships and transports natural gas, oil, gasoline. So when you think about anything that would reduce demand or increase the price for fossil fuels, it's a tremendous threat to Koch's business.

This was a moment when the potential for passing climate change regulation was more real than it has ever been in U.S. history, full stop. That's why you saw the Koch political machine kick into high gear.

MALE VOICE:

Do you believe in anthropogenic climate change?

CHARLES KOCH, Chairman & CEO, Koch Industries:

[Archive] I mean, there are such a thing as greenhouse gasses, and they're contributing to that, but I don't think anybody knows how much. I don’t think science is settled. I mean, how could it be? As a matter of fact, science is never settled.

NARRATOR:

David Hoffmann was an environmental lawyer at Koch Industries. This is the first time he has spoken on camera about his work there.

DAVID HOFFMANN, Senior counsel, Koch Industries, 2005-10:

My father-in-law, basically his message to me was, "Don't work for the devil. This is a company that doesn't care about the impact they're having on the world, in the world." It encouraged me even more to work for Koch Industries, because I felt like, maybe I can convince people within Koch Industries that environmental compliance is not such a bad thing.

NARRATOR:

Hoffmann was given the job of assessing what the cap and trade bill would mean for Koch Industries. He met with a team of senior Koch lobbyists.

DAVID HOFFMANN:

I was invited to this meeting. The discussion quickly turned from the possibility that this bill might pass and what we should be doing to prepare for it to a discussion about how are we going to prevent it from passing, who are vulnerable Republicans that we need to target to make sure that they don't vote for this bill. We cannot let this bill pass. We won't let this bill pass, and we have to do everything in our power to prevent it from passing.

MALE ANNOUNCER:

Welcome to Americans for Prosperity Foundation's "Defending the American Dream" summit.

NARRATOR:

The Koch-funded organization Americans for Prosperity spearheaded the effort to stop the bill in the Senate.

DAVID KOCH, Former EVP, Koch Industries:

I can’t tell you what a thrill it is for me to be here this morning. Five years ago my brother, Charles, and I provided the funds to start Americans for Prosperity. And it’s beyond my wildest dreams how AFP has grown into this enormous organization—800,000 activists from nothing five years ago.

NARRATOR:

AFP had begun rallying opposition on the ground across the country. Steve Lonegan, a senior staffer at AFP, helped mobilize the movement.

STEVE LONEGAN, Americans for Prosperity, 2006-13:

[Archive] This country is heading in the wrong direction. But like Americans have always done, we're going to rise to the occasion. You know that. We're not going to let this cap and trade bill pass. Each and every day, I urge every single one of you to get up and think about what you can do that day, what action you can take to change the course of history.

Americans for Prosperity emerged at a time when America was being challenged by the climate change argument. It became very obvious that the Republican Party was not prepared or willing to fight the fight. And Charles Koch, who in my opinion is a hero and a visionary, saw this problem.

[Archive] We as Americans have reached a moment of realization that the very core values and principles are under attack like never before in our lifetime.

We had a multifaceted, hard-hitting approach, pressuring Republicans who were weak-kneed

and Democrats who were vulnerable whose states would be impacted by this.

If you're going to go into a war, like this was, the first thing you need to do is get your troops marching, get them energized. And that's what we did in that summer.

CHRISTOPHER LEONARD:

very good 2022 BBC doc big oil v world 3 hrs // frontline?

ep 1 https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8clxva

taylor boast of role/ success, bill O; says sci made harder, wishs had time machine wrestle self BA PR hack 32 min

Big Oil v the World episode 1: The story of what the fossil fuel industry knew about climate change more than four decades ago, as scientists working for Exxon reveal how they sounded the alarm about the effects of fossil fuels.

pt 2 raymond confronted (shareholder mtg? by cli sci) reads oregon?! 15 min https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8cnif4

sci heins sp? Arthur Green geosci BS denier ppt, culture polite.

200m$ on BP PR 2x solar John Browne raymond furious brk ranks, exxon ppl ha grnwash

mccraken gore clinton holdover w aggressive agenda sci bias randy randol

ipcc watson

mcc resignation ltr?

37 min BO ocean slow planet heal bennet Freeman PR corp hu rights?

EXXON KNEW icn

frontline: https://insideclimatenews.org/news/15092015/frontline-video

3 min clip? raymond sp, "data monster" 1m$/yr co2 ocean atmos meas 3 oceans; knew truth at least 15 yrs before fork/180 neela?

5/20 covid

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/podcast/dispatch/united-states-of-conspiracy/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=coveringcoronavirus_episode10_main

Smith pulled up to another mine, which was also closed but had no guards in its weed-choked parking lot. This Solid Energy mine, along with the Rockhouse mine he drove by earlier, was operated byMassey Energy, now a defunct company with deadly mine disasters in its history and a CEO who went to prison for conspiracy to violate mine safety laws.

Smith got out and walked up to a rusted fence with a padlock. A ball cap shaded his face. Sunglasses hid his tears.

“It’s [been] eating at me for the last two years,” he said, “that I’m going to die over this. … Of all the things that could’ve killed me while I did work there, the rockfalls and all that stuff, I lived through all of that. And I find out years later I’m going to die over black lung. And it’s heartbreaking.”

Smith then mentioned his wife and two daughters and wondered what will happen to them when he’s gone. He wondered about the grandchildren he may never see. His voice breaking again, he talked about the excitement of being a young miner, about the hope and promise of good pay and good lives.

“We was all young and strong and stout and they took advantage of us. Every one of us is either crippled or dead. We was all young men,” he said, crying softly.

Back at his house in a narrow valley — a holler — in Canada, Ky., Smith pointed to a family cemetery on a knoll at the edge of the lawn he has so much difficulty mowing. It features a single gravestone with bright flowers and the names of his parents. Behind it, Smith told us, in the shade, is the burial plot he has picked out for himself. He’s 46 years old.

NPR’s Adelina Lancianese, Barbara Van Woerkom, Katie Lawrie and Cat Schuknecht; Elaine McMillion Sheldon of FRONTLINE; Benny Becker and Jeff Young of Ohio Valley ReSource; and Ellen Smith of Mine Safety and Health News contributed to this story.

alt rt

anniv charlottesville pbs nsnbc; one msnbc showed interview w/ kessler, called him the happy face on nazi hate; suit coat at podium

called heyer fat commie pig? spread lie that she died of heart attack, med report blunt force trauma to abdomen

https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/notorious-hate-group-includes-active-duty-military-among-members

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/climate-change-skeptic-group-seeks-to-influence-200000-teachers/

Twenty-five thousand science teachers opened their mailboxes this month and found a package from the Heartland Institute, a libertarian think tank that rejects the scientific consensus on climate change.

It contained the organization’s book “Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming,” as well as a DVD rejecting the human role in climate change and arguing instead that rising temperatures have been caused primarily by natural phenomena. The material will be sent to an additional 25,000 teachers every two weeks until every public-school science teacher in the nation has a copy, Heartland president and CEO Joseph Bast said in an interview last week. If so, the campaign would reach more than 200,000 K-12 science teachers.

Accompanying the materials is a cover letter from Lennie Jarratt, project manager of Heartland’s Center for Transforming Education. He asks teachers to “consider the possibility” that the science is not settled. “If that’s the case, then students would be better served by letting them know a vibrant debate is taking place among scientists,” he writes. The letter also points teachers to an online guide to using the DVD in their classrooms.

The Heartland initiative dismisses multiple studies showing scientists are in near unanimous agreement that humans are changing the climate. Even if human activity is contributing to climate change, the book argues, it “would probably not be harmful, because many areas of the world would benefit from or adjust to climate change.”

The campaign elicited immediate derision from the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a nonprofit in Oakland, California that monitors climate change education in classrooms.

“It’s not science, but it’s dressed up to look like science,” said NCSE executive director Ann Reid. “It’s clearly intended to confuse teachers.”

It’s too early to know how the materials will be used in schools around the country. There aren’t uniform standards for teaching climate change, and the subject has caused rigorous debate in some states. Even when it is taught, Reid says, “what goes on behind the classroom door is really up to the teacher.”

The campaign comes at a time when Heartland’s influence on national climate policy is at an apex. Myron Ebell, a leading climate change skeptic and a longtime ally of the Heartland Institute, ran President Donald Trump’s transition efforts for the Environmental Protection Agency. That process led to the appointment ofclimate change skeptic Scott Pruitt as administrator of the EPA. Pruitt, a former Oklahoma attorney general, has publicly questioned the scientific consensus around climate change, and has brought in like-minded officials who support dismantling policies that curb fossil fuel emissions.

Trump took a major step toward that goal on Tuesday when he signed an executive order rolling back the Clean Power Plan, an Obama administration initiative that aimed to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

“We’re getting a lot of requests for expert opinion from the White House,” said Bast. “That’s very new. We haven’t had those calls for eight years. Even 12 years.”

Last week in Washington, D.C., Heartland held its annual conference challenging the idea that there is a scientific consensus on climate change. The conference focused on the future of energy and climate policy under Trump. Bast opened the meeting by saying, “This is a wonderful time to be a global warming realist,” using the term that those in the movement use to describe themselves.

“Those of us in the room who have been working on this issue for a decade or longer can finally stand up and say hallelujah and welcome to the party,” said Bast. He was met with applause from the 200 or so people in the audience.

This isn’t the first time the movement has targeted teachers. As early as 1998, a group of fossil fuel officials, lobbyists and conservative think tanks planned to distribute climate-change skeptical curricula for classrooms nationwide. In 2012, an internal Heartland document outlined plans to do the same.

Their message has been embraced by some educators. A survey of 1,500 science teachers nationwide, funded by NCSE andpublished in the journal :{Science:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}: last year, found more than half taught their students that humans are unequivocally causing climate change. But 31 percent of teachers told their students that the cause of climate change is still being debated. About one in 10 teachers teach children that humans had no significant role in climate change, the study showed.

The author of the survey, Eric Plutzer, professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University, said those results reflect the fact that climate change can be challenging to teach: It doesn’t slide neatly into any of the required sciences, comprising some biology, some chemistry and some physics. Science teachers themselves may not have encountered the science of climate change much in their own education.

Bast said he was not shocked that four in 10 teachers mention or advocate contrarian views, though he hesitated to take credit for it.

“Science teachers are smart. Smarter than the average reporter. Smarter than the average environmental activist,” he said.

Heartland’s mailing campaign began in mid-March. Bast declined to disclose the project cost; the book’s suggested retail price is $6.95. He said the group has been actively fundraising around educational initiatives. The organization’s total budget in 2015, the most recent year available through public filings, was $5.3 million.

Bast said the organization has already received several messages from teachers who appreciated the information, or asked for a Heartland speaker to come to class.

But the campaign is not being well received by everyone.

Lori Baker, a sixth-grade science teacher at North Putnam Middle School in Roachdale, Indiana, found the package in her school mailbox and was dismayed by its contents. “I read quite a bit of the book, actually, and it was extremely frustrating. It’s an attempt to sound science literate, but there’s very little actual data,” she said.

Baker pointed to the first paragraph of the foreword, written by Marita Noon, executive director of Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy, a nonprofit and lobbying group that advocates for the use of fossil fuels. In it, Noon writes that Obama’s description of climate change as the greatest threat facing mankind is “laughable” at a time when “ISIS is beheading innocent people.”

“That as a foreword to something claiming to be scientific is pretty shocking,” said Baker.

Plutzer said the Heartland book is likely to be dismissed out of hand by teachers like Baker, who already view climate change denial as a fringe movement. But it may be welcomed by those already skeptical of the scientific consensus. “This could increase polarization within the science teaching profession, though probably not a great deal.”

That polarization could easily be exacerbated at South Whidbey High School in Washington state, where biology and physics teacher Greg Ballog received the material. Ballog said that one of his colleagues is a “borderline climate denier,” which has already caused tensions in the school’s science department.

“I’m not going to show this stuff to him,” he said. “It’s pretty slick. I think he might use it.”

This story was produced as part of a collaboration between FRONTLINE and The GroundTruth Project examining climate change and its impact on women and children.

Correction: An earlier version of this story mistakenly said that a 2012 Heartland strategy document was leaked to the press. Rather, the document was acquired from Heartland under false pretenses before being publicly released.

http://www.ecowatch.com/heartland-institute-climate-science-2334892782.html

Koch-Funded Group Tries to Persuade 200,000 Science Teachers That Climate Change Is Debatable

The Heartland Institute is trying to nurture the next generation of climate change deniers.

The conservative and libertarian think tank has sent out 25,000 copies of the organization's book, Why Scientists Disagree About Global Warming,and an accompanying 10-minute DVD to 25,000 science teachers this month, according to a Frontline report. The book argues that climate change is not settled science.

Katie Worth, who authored the Frontline report, called the effort a "massive propaganda campaign by the nation's leading climate change skeptical think tank."

The Heartland Institute, which has received funding from polluting industries such as Exxon and the Koch family, rejectsthe scientific community's widespread consensus that human activity causes climate change.

The organization plans to send the materials to another 25,000 teachers every two weeks until every public-school science teacher in the nation has a copy, Heartland president and CEO Joseph Bast said.

This means the book and DVD could end up in the mailboxes of more than 200,000 K-12 science teachers in the country. The campaign began in mid-March.

Frontline also published a cover letter of the materials from Lennie Jarratt, project manager of Heartland's Center for Transforming Education, who asks that the teacher "consider the possibility" that climate science is not settled.

img

The 2015 book is coauthored by Drs. Craig D. Idso, Robert M. Carter and S. Fred Singer, who have been heavily involved in the "debate" over global warming.

Here are some tidbits about the authors:

According to DeSmog, Idso believes that "CO2 is not a pollutant" and is the chairman and former resident of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, which has a mission is to "separate reality from rhetoric in the emotionally-charged debate that swirls around the subject of carbon dioxide and global change."

Carter, who passed away last year, was an Australian marine geologist and a paid climate change denier, SourceWatch noted. He once asserted that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has not found evidence that global warming was caused by human activity.

Singer, a former space scientist and government scientific administrator, founded the Science & Environmental Policy Project in 1990, a 501(c)(3) "educational group" focusing on global warming denial, according to DeSmog. Idso and Singer helped develop the Heartland Institute's "Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change. Singer said in Jan. 2016 that "the real threat to humanity comes not from any (trivial) greenhouse warming but from cooling periods creating food shortages and famines."

The letter directs teachers to visit Izzit.org to access an online guide to using the DVD. Izzit.org is a "right-wing advocacy organization" that provides free educational videos to U.S. educators and homeschoolers.

The National Center for Science Education, an Oakland, California nonprofit that monitors climate change education in classrooms criticized the mailing campaign.

"It's not science, but it's dressed up to look like science," NCSE executive director Ann Reid told Frontline. "It's clearly intended to confuse teachers."

Climatologist Michael Mann also tweeted that the Heartland Institute is trying to "indoctrinate children with climate denial propaganda."

Bast, Heartland's president, said that some teachers have appreciated the information and even asked for a Heartland speaker to visit a class.

However, many science teachers have not welcomed the campaign.

As Frontline wrote:

Lori Baker, a sixth-grade science teacher at North Putnam Middle School in Roachdale, Indiana, found the package in her school mailbox and was dismayed by its contents. "I read quite a bit of the book, actually, and it was extremely frustrating. It's an attempt to sound science literate, but there's very little actual data," she said.

Baker pointed to the first paragraph of the foreword, written by Marita Noon, executive director of Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy, a nonprofit and lobbying group that advocates for the use of fossil fuels. In it, Noon writes that Obama's description of climate change as the greatest threat facing mankind is "laughable" at a time when "ISIS is beheading innocent people."

"That as a foreword to something claiming to be scientific is pretty shocking," said Baker.