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| 2017–2021 | Returning the Favor | Host | Facebook Watch | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Six Degrees with Mike Rowe | Host | discovery+ | |
| 2021–present | How America Works | Host & narrator | Fox Business | Fox Business |
| 2024 | Tuttle Twins | Himself | Lbertas Institute | [51] |
| 2024 | Something to Stand For | Himself |
in 2018, @Discovery
CEO David Zaslav wrote to investors: "Nowhere is our mission to protect and preserve the natural world reflected more prominently than in our content."
Now Discovery wants you to pay to watch a show sponsored by the oil industry.
https://mikerowe.com/2014/04/the-blaze-on-mike-testifying-in-dc/
https://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/04/29/mike-rowe-tells-members-of-congress-why-hed-never-do-a-dirty-jobs-episode-about-them/
entyer news label
no lnx vid 404
Testifying Before Congress, Mike Rowe Tells Lawmakers Hysterical Reason He’d Never Do a ‘Dirty Jobs’ Episode About Them
Apr. 29, 2014 Elizabeth Kreft
Mike Rowe earned national recognition for sharing stories of hardworking Americans doing their dirty jobs.
And even though Americans clearly think Congress is dirty — polls gave the elected officials an approval rating in the single digits at the end of 2013 — when asked by one representative when viewers could expect to see a “Dirty Jobs” episode about a member of Congress, Rowe said he’d never do a show about it.
“With respect, some jobs are just too hideous to contemplate,” he said.
Rowe testified before the Natural Resources committee about the skills gap in America (Image source: Elizabeth Kreft).
The blue collar-friendly television personality was invited to speak to the House Natural Resources Committee about the nationwide skills gap. While unemployment numbers still linger in the double digits, several technical industries are having a hard time recruiting enough employees.
“In all 50 states, everybody I talked to who owned a small business said … ‘the single biggest challenge we’re facing right now is finding people who are willing to retool, retrain, reboot and learn a truly useful skill from the ground up — and work, show up early, stay late and work.’”
Rowe continued “I know that sounds old school… but it really did become a recurring theme.”
Democrats on the committee, including Rep. Tony Cardenas (D-Calif.) said the skill gap is a mobility problem. He said low income workers don’t have the money to move to states where there are an abundance of jobs — North Dakota being one. The shale industry has created such a boom in that state, businesses like McDonald’s are actually offering hiring bonuses to get employees in the door.
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Democrats suggested one solution is comprehensive immigration reform and a government subsidy to help families move to find jobs.
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“Comprehensive immigration reform, are you kidding me?” Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) asked. “The Bureau of Labor and Statistics reported that in 2013 … that one in five American families aren’t working. Let’s focus on putting Americans to work, and lets get them the training that might be necessary.”
Rowe pushed back, saying the biggest problem isn’t necessarily a shortage of skilled laborers, but an overall attitude in America towards “dirty” work.
“It’s social anthropology … we want our kids to have something better we did … and that’s perfectly normal,” he said. “The question is, what is that? What does that even mean?”
He continued: “That maybe is the most subjective question there is but it informs the way we present opportunities to our kids. For all the talk around the issue, the biggest conversation that I’ve seen, the one that really gets resonance, happens around the kitchen table.”
Rowe suggests one solution is a massive public relations campaign, modeled after the “Keep America Beautiful” campaign. He wants parents to rethink the idea of “what is possible” with their teenagers.
“You’ve gotta make skill cool,” he added.
Check out TheBlaze’s exclusive interview below:
https://www.desmog.com/mike-rowe/
many lnx docs
Credentials
Rowe graduated from high school in 1980 and went on to study theater at Essex Community College in 1982. He later transferred to Towson State University in Towson, Maryland where he studied English, communications, speech, and music. He graduated from Towson State in 1985. [1], [2], [3]
Background
Mike G. Rowe is the creator, executive producer, and star of the Discovery Channel series Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe which initially ran for eight seasons from 2005 until 2012. [4], [5]
In 2014, Rowe created another series titled Somebody’s Gotta Do It, and the show aired on CNN. [6]
Rowe returned to the Discovery Channel in July 2020 in a four-part series Dirty Jobs: Rowe’d Trip and Discovery also announced a return of Dirty Jobs in 2021. [7]
Another program with Mike Rowe, Six Degrees, premiered on the streaming service Discovery+ in January 2021. The program purports to “prove once and for all that everything in the world is connected.” Notably, Rowe’s show is sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute (API), the largest trade association for the oil and gas industry. [8]
Heated‘s Emily Atkin reported that Rowe’s show on Discovery+ called Six Degrees is sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute (API), the largest trade association for the oil and gas industry. Rowe “shouts out the oil and gas industry in some capacity in every episode,” journalist Dharna Noor wrote in an article in Earther [9], [10]
Since Six Degrees began airing, Rowe made multiple appearances on Fox News where he spoke out against President Biden’s decision to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline, pointing to impacts on oil and gas industry workers. [11], [12]
Mike Rowe & Charles Koch
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Screenshot from Mike Rowe’s Interview with Charles Koch via YouTube
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Rowe has defended his association with the billionaire Koch brothers. Rowe commented of the Koch brothers that “our foundations are aligned on a number of issues important to me.” Rowe added, “Over the last few years, the Charles Koch Foundation has supported mikeroweWORKS in a meaningful way, and together, we’ve made a positive impact on hundreds of people. I’m proud of that, and grateful for the support.” [13]
Rowe wrote that Charles Koch had been in the audience at a speech he made in California: [13]
“We met a few years ago in California. I had just given a speech about the disastrous consequences of removing vocational education from high schools, and Charles was in the audience. One of his people invited me to lunch, and I said sure. I was eager to see the horns and smell the sulphur for myself. Surprisingly, I found neither. What I found, was a 78-year-old man with more energy and enthusiasm than I could match. We spoke at length, and I learned a number of surprising things. […]I learned for instance, about his passion for criminal justice reform.”
“But I was most surprised by his commitment to reinvigorate the skilled trades. I knew his foundation focused on many forms of higher education, but I had no idea we shared a common view regarding the skills gap. He pointed out that countless small businesses begin with a tradesperson who learned a skill that was in demand. I shared my belief that a chronic skills gap was more troubling than chronic unemployment, because the existence of opportunity that people don’t care about is more alarming than a lack of opportunity overall.
“In short, we found ourselves in violent agreement on a number of things important to us both, and after lunch, he told me to let him know if mikeroweWORKS could ever use his help. (In hindsight, it’s entirely possible he was just being polite, but he would soon learn just how literal I can be.)”
In addition to supporting Rowe’s foundation, the Kochs helped support mikeroweWORKS in the national SkillsUSA competition. They also partnered with mikeroweWORKS on Project Jumpstart. [14]
Rowe included a personal interview with Charles Koch that “explains in more detail why our foundations are aligned on the importance of work ethic”: [15]
mikeroweWORKS Foundation
Mike Rowe created the 501(c)(3) mikeroweWORKS Foundation in 2008 “to launch a national PR campaign for skilled labor.” He now serves as president of the foundation. [16]
“Our crumbling infrastructure, our widening skills gap, the disappearance of vocational education, and the stratospheric rise in college tuition—these are not problems,” Rowe said. “These are symptoms of what we value. And right now, we have to reconnect the average American with the value of a skilled workforce. Only then, will the next generation aspire to do the work at hand.”
In 2020, Rowe put Koch Industries at the top of a list of companies who had provided support for scholarships. Rowe described the purpose of scholarships as follows: [17]
“I’m not looking for people who wish to earn a four-year degree, or individuals in pursuit of their ‘dream job.’ With respect, I don’t care about your dreams. Nor do I care about you IQ, your test scores, your athletic prowess, your artistic ability, or any of the other things most other scholarship programs concern themselves with. I care about your attitude, your work ethic, your commitment to personal responsibility, and your desire to master a trade.”
Rowe has listed the following sponsors:
Sponsor 2020 [17] 2021 [18]
Andre Agassi Foundation for Education Y
ATI (Automotive Training Institute) Y
Bruce Jacobs Fund at Donors Capital Fund Y
Charles Koch Foundation Y
DCA (Distribution Contractors Association) Y Y
Engelstad Foundation Y
Facebook Y
Ferguson Bath, Kitchen & Lighting Gallery Y Y
Gray & Son, Inc. Y
HomeServe USA Y
Koch Industries Y Y
Moen Y Y
Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry Y Y
Ray H Marr Foundation Y
Universal Technical Institute Y
Wolverine Boots & Apparel Y Y
Work for Piedmont Y
Zest Social Media Solutions Y
Earther reported that in addition to Koch Industries, Rowe’s foundation funders include other anti-regulation groups such as the the Distribution Contractors Association, a group that is also funding his show Six Degrees, and Federal Mogul Motor Parts, a subsidiary of the British multinational energy firm Centrica. [10]
The Climate Investigations Center found that Koch Industries and the Charles Koch Foundation, both tied to the massive fortune amassed by the Koch brothers, have together donated more than $1 million dollars to Rowe’s foundation. [10]
Note that the following form, despite being labeled “Do Not File” and “Not Open to Public Inspection” was included as part of the foundation’s 2019 submission to Guidestar and is available publicly.
mikeroweWORKS Foundation 990 Forms
mikeroweWORKS Foundation as Recipient
The below data is taken from publicly listed 990 forms available at ProPublica. This does not include the totals listed in the “Excess Contributions” in Schedule A listed above.
Donor Name (Only those who donated $1,000 or more listed) 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 Grand Total
Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation $50,000 $225,000 $225,000 $125,000 $625,000
Pennsylvania Chamber of Business & Industry Educational Foundation $25,000 $77,151 $57,875 $160,026
Network for Good $10,797 $26,537 $115,767 $153,101
Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust $40,000 $40,000 $80,000
California Community Foundation $50,000 $50,000
Schwab Charitable Fund $5,250 $23,900 $29,150
Tapeats Fund $10,000 $9,000 $8,000 $27,000
Techforce Foundation $25,000 $25,000
Joe R Lee Family Foundation $25,000 $25,000
Mercury One $25,000 $25,000
National Philanthropic Trust $24,900 $24,900
Roth-Armstrong-Hayes Foundation $5,000 $7,500 $10,000 $22,500
Paypal Charitable Giving Fund $5,998 $13,577 $19,575
Keough Family Foundation $1,500 $6,000 $6,000 $13,500
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund $13,125 $13,125
Friedery Family Foundation $3,000 $3,000 $5,000 $11,000
Rickard Family Foundation $5,000 $5,000
Howell Fund $5,000 $5,000
Collins Family Foundation $5,000 $5,000
Shell Oil Company Foundation $3,000 $3,000
TZP Cares Foundation $3,000 $3,000
Achelis Foundation $1,000 $500 $1,500
Charitocracy Corporation $1,478 $1,478
Armrod Charitable Foundation $1,000 $1,000
Grand Total $50,000 $36,500 $20,250 $361,900 $420,946 $271,467 $167,792 $1,328,855
Stance on Climate Change
October 31, 2016
Mike Rowe wrote at his blog: [19]
This weekend, in a bar called Grumpy’s, I listened as two professors from Berkeley discussed with great passion the inevitable consequences of ignoring climate change. When I was invited to share my opinion, I shrugged and said, “Beats me, fellas. Last week the smartest people on the planet thought there were 100 billion galaxies in the universe. They were off by a couple trillion. I’m not really sure what’s in store for planet earth.”
I was surprised by their response. One frowned real hard, and stared into his beer. The other asked if I was some kind of “Climate Denier.”
“Not at all,” I said. “Any fool can see there’s a climate.”
“You know what I mean,” he said. “Are you skeptical of the fact than man is destroying the planet by heating it up to an unnatural degree?”
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“I’m skeptical of most things,” I said. “But who cares what I think? I’m just a narrator. You guys are the actual scientists, right?”
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“We are,” said the one staring at his beer.
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“Well then, tell me this. Isn’t skepticism at the very heart of scientific inquiry?”
“It is.”
“Then how come people who question the claims around global warming are called “Deniers?”
“Because Global Warming is real, and man is causing it. And our planet is in terrible trouble.”
Then the other one chimed in with this. “Right now, this planet is one of the worst places to be in the universe.”
I nodded. “I’m sure you’re right,”I said. “But if it turns out you’re not, and you need someone to walk it back for you – give me a call. I’m in the booth all the time.”
April 21, 2014
The following was posted on Mike Rowe’s Facebook page: [20]
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It now appears we have a new culprit that explains the cause of global warming – hard work.
Early this morning, one of San Francisco’s free newspapers found it’s way to the sidewalk in front of my apartment, proving yet again that you don’t always get what you pay for. Because I abhor litter, I picked it up for deposit it in my mandatory recycling container. But not before glancing at the headline.
Apparently, this is their annual Green Issue, and their contention is pretty straightforward – work is killing the planet. Below the headline it gets better – “Climate Change Threats Revive the Long Forgotten Goal of Taking it Easier.”
Against my better judgment I took a peek inside, where a lengthy article spelled out a variety of examples about how the American work ethic is making the world hotter. Let me sum it for you. Hard work requires energy. Energy, as you surely know, is dirty, expensive, and bad. So, if we use less of it, we’ll not only save money, we’ll have more free time to follow our passion, and best of all, a more temperate planet for everyone. Ergo – work less and save the world!
We did two specials on Dirty Jobs called “Brown Before Green.” I don’t have anything new to add. However – if you run a foundation that’s based on the belief that “Work is Not the Enemy,” you can’t ignore a headline like this one.
I launched mikeroweWORKS on Labor Day of 2008. I did it because hard work and skilled labor need a PR Campaign. Too many Americans have become disconnected from the people who make our society function, and I believe that “disconnect” has informed a great many challenges we currently face as a country – including a widening skills gap, a crumbling infrastructure, and decades of offshoring. In short, I think we have a rotten relationship with work, and I suspect a lot of our current problems are a symptom of that relationship.
Occasionally, people say “Mike, what makes you believe such a thing? What makes you think that society is waging a war against hard work?” I have a book full of examples. And if I had seen this headline before I wrote it, I would have included one more…
May 2008
In a segment on Dirty Jobs, Rowe comments while trudging through snow. The following is from season 3, episode 29 of Dirty Jobs (timestamp [21:50]): [21]
“Hi. Today I’ve come to Kensington, Minnesota, on the first day of spring with an important message about global warming.” Rowe then laughs hysterically for more than ten seconds.
Key Quotes
February 25, 2021
Writing at an “Off the Wall” blog post, Rowe listed a series of headlines that were mistaken about COVID and compared them to claims made regarding climate change: [22]
“Is it unreasonable for a casual observer to read through this hot mess and conclude that every one of these journalists, politicians, and scientists seemed more interested in fighting xenophobia than they were in protecting Americans from a potentially deadly virus? Is it unreasonable to wonder how many more Americans would have died as a result of these comments, had the virus turned out to be even deadlier than it is?” Rowe said of a list of headlines about COVID.
“Some will argue, ‘But Mike, that isn’t fair. These people were just following the science. Science evolves, and when it does, reasonable people change their beliefs when new information is brought to light.’
“I couldn’t agree more. But ‘following the science’ wherever it may lead demands a measure of modesty. A willingness to be completely and totally wrong. So I would ask these defenders of the mistaken, “Where is their humility? Where are their apologies? Where is their embarrassment? Why do so many people in the public eye work so hard to sound so certain every time they hold forth?”
“Obviously, the problem is not limited to COVID. Consider the claims driving the climate debate, and the certainty of those making them. I just watched John Kerry tell CBS, ‘The scientists told us three years ago we had 12 years to avert the worst consequences of climate crisis. We are now three years gone, so we have nine years left.’ He said a great deal more as well, and he spoke as he always does, with absolute conviction and deep certainty.
[…]
2008: Al Gore Predicts that Earth’s “Ice Caps” Will Melt away
by 2014. https://bit.ly/3uAv11c
2007: Ten Years Left to Avert Catastrophe! https://bit.ly/3aRcLZt
2001: “Snows of Kilimanjaro to vanish by 2020!” https://bit.ly/3korPAQ
2000: “Children Aren’t Going to Know What Snow Is in Five Years.” http://bit.ly/3aW8N1Q
1987: “Within 15 years, the earth will be warmer
than it has been in the past 100,000 years.” https://bit.ly/3kpZqdN
1970: Earth Day Prof. Predicts A Super Ice Age Will Engulf The World. https://bit.ly/3aRdwSj
1967: “Dire Famine by 1975.” https://bit.ly/3uv5FS5
“Again, these predictions are notable not because they were all so wrong, or delivered by experts. There notable because they were all so unapologetically certain. And yet, we still fall for it, over and over, year after year. I know a lot of reasonably intelligent people who now believe the world will end in nine years if we don’t abandon fossil fuels immediately. It’s not just that they believe it – they know it. They know it to the point where they’ll shout down all those who disagree, or dismiss them as deniers, or demand they be forbidden from speaking.”
February 1, 2021
Via Fox Business: [23]
“The conversation I think we ought to be having involves the degree to which 330 million Americans are truly reliant on petroleum products and fossil fuels,” Rowe said on FOX Business’ “Varney and Co.” “Not just at the pump. It’s not just oil and natural gas or clean versus dirty. It’s the yoga pants. It’s the plastic on the keyboard.”
“Even if our government turns its back on fossil fuels, the country can’t,” Rowe told host Stuart Varney. “No matter what we want, we can’t do it.”
“Fossil fuels, as I understand it, is one of the leading investors in alternative fuels,” Rowe said. “So we can’t just separate two sides of the same coin and expect to come out on the other side.”
January 11, 2018
In a Facebook post later praised by Anthony Watts, Rowe responded to a comment from a viewer. Below is an excerpt from the full post: [24], [25]
“If I said I was skeptical that a supernatural being put us here on Earth, you’d be justified in calling me a ‘doubter of religion.’ But if I said I was skeptical that manmade global warming was going to melt the icecaps, that doesn’t make me a ‘doubter of science.’ Once upon a time, the best minds in science told us the Sun revolved around the Earth. They also told us the Earth was flat, and that a really bad fever could be cured by blood-letting. Happily, those beliefs were questioned by skeptical minds, and we moved forward.”
Key Actions
April 2021
Heated reporter Emily Atkin wrote how Rowe’s upcoming show on Discovery+ called Six Degrees is sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute (API), the largest trade association for the oil and gas industry with more than 600 corporate members including BP, Conocophillips, ExxonMobil, and Shell. [9]
“The oil and gas industry is funding and sponsoring Six Degrees because it wants to promote Rowe’s point of view, which is beneficial to the industry politically. Rowe’s point of view, specifically, is that oil and gas is necessary for human prosperity, and that without it we would all be very poor and very sad,” Atkin wrote at Heated.
In the end of his show’s first episode, as reported at Earther, Rowe commented “Six Degrees is sponsored by the oil and natural gas industry. Why? Because oil and natural gas connects everything.” [10]
The show was also sponsored by Distribution Contractors Association, a lobbying group for fossil fuel pipeline contractors. [10]
“As the stakes around climate change continue to get higher—and more people point toward fossil fuels as the main culprit to the warming of our planet—Big Oil’s sponsorship of Mike Rowe’s new show on Discovery+ is concerning,” said Allison Fisher, climate and energy program director at Media Matters for America. “Unlike the conservative audience that tunes in when Rowe talks about the oil and gas industry on Fox News and Fox Business News, Discovery+ is reaching a new and unwitting audience who may not have an opinion on Big Oil one way or another, but could be persuaded by Rowe.” [10]
Following the Earther piece, Mike Rowe crafted a 6,000-word Facebook post in response, claiming the headline—”Mike Rowe’s New Discovery+ Show Is Big Oil-Funded Propaganda”—was “demonstrably false.” [26]
Heated countered: “It’s an accurate headline. The oil and gas industry is funding and sponsoring Six Degrees because it wants to promote Rowe’s point of view, which is beneficial to the industry politically. Rowe’s point of view, specifically, is that oil and gas is necessary for human prosperity, and that without it we would all be very poor and very sad.”
February 2021
On February 3, Rowe appeared on Fox News in an interview to react to the Biden administration’s decisions on the Keystone pipeline. [11]
“It’s a heartbreaker,” Rowe commented, “to hear them [oil and gas workers] treated in such a high-handed way.”
[…]
“When the workforce is fundamentally out of balance, then the rest of us become disconnected from everything that we rely upon. And if you don’t think we rely upon Keystone workers and pipelines and energy and petroleum based products and fossil fuels and gas and so forth, just wait until we truly make them the enemy and disconnect ourselves so completely from that part of our economy that we really start to see the impact.“
Fox News commentator Brian Kilmeade opened up the floor for Rowe to promote his new API-funded television series, Six Degrees. [10]
He appeared in another Fox News segment on February 9 discussing how Americans are “‘disconnected’ from impact of fossil fuels on daily life.” [12]
April 29, 2014
Mike Rowe testified before the House Committee on Natural Resources. The committee met to discuss “American Energy Jobs: Opportunities for Skilled Trade Workers.” [27], [2]
Affiliations
mikeroweWORKS Foundation — Founder and President.
Social Media
@mikeroweworks on Twitter
@TheRealMikeRowe on Facebook
Publications
In addition to his media appearances, television and narrating work, Rowe has written books such as:
Profoundly Disconnected®, A True Confession From Mike Rowe
The Way I Heard It, Gallery Books; (October 15, 2019)
Resources
Jill C. Wheeler. Getting Gritty with Mike Rowe, ABDO, August 15, 2015.
“Mike Testified Before House Committee on Natural Resources,” YouTube video uploaded by user “Mike Rowe,” April 30, 2014. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
“Frequently Asked Questions,” Dirty Jobs “You Ask, He Answers” at Discovery Chanel. Archived February 10, 2008. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/1KjTY
Mike Rowe. “A Turkey Without a Pardon: Bidding Farewell to Dirty Jobs,” HuffPost, January 21, 2012. Archived April 27, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/JZYAY
“Mike Rowe Returns with More DIRTY JOBS,” Discovery, March 18, 2021. Archived April 27, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/lMY76
(Press Release). “MIKE ROWE BRINGS ORIGINAL SERIES TO CNN,” CNN Press Room, April 10, 2014. Archived April 27, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/pNnT9
“Mike Rowe Returns with More DIRTY JOBS,” Discovery, March 18, 2021. Archived April 27, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/lMY76
“SIX DEGREES WITH MIKE ROWE,” Discovery. Archived April 27, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/YuaSi
Emily Atkin. “Mike Rowe, oilsplainer,” Heated, April 13, 2021. Archived April 23, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/wEy8B
Dharna Noor. “Mike Rowe’s New Discovery+ Show Is Big Oil-Funded Propaganda,” Earther at Gizmodo, April 2, 2021. Archived April 23, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/mGSLu
Nikolas Lanum. “Mike Rowe: ‘It’s a heartbreaker’ to see oil and gas workers losing jobs after Biden orders,” Fox News, February 3, 2021. Archived April 26, 2021. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/5wquj
“Mike Rowe: Americans ‘disconnected’ from impact of fossil fuels on daily life,” Fox News, February 9, 2021. Archived April 27, 2021. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog. Archive URL:https://archive.ph/AiWSw
“Off The Wall: The Koch Industries Association,” Mike Rowe, September 2, 2016. Archived April 27, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/AhUeX
Jay Caruso. “Koch Industries Teams Up with Mike Rowe to Improve the Skills Gap,” OpportunityLives, August 8, 2016. Archived July 11, 2016. Archive URL:https://archive.ph/dZiq2
“Mike Rowe’s Interview with Charles Koch,” YouTube video (unlisted) uploaded by user “Mike Rowe,” August 30, 2016. Archived .mp4 on file at DeSmog.
“About,” mikeroweWORKS Foundation. Archived April 26, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/jQI2L
“Could You Help Me Unload a Million Dollars?” Mike Rowe, February 11, 2020. Archived April 26, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/T6Z6U
“Off The Wall: Thanks for Your Generous Support,” Mike Rowe, April 21, 2021. Archived April 26, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/6irHM
“The Worst Place in the Universe,” Mike Rowe, October 31, 2016. Archived April 27, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/IL3pO
“It now appears we have a new culprit that explains the cause of global warming – hard work. …” Facebook post by Mike Rowe, April 21, 2014. Archived April 26, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/NJZUb
“Mike Rowe on Global Warming,” YouTube video uploaded by user “JstKiddin,” January 23, 2011.
“The Difference Between Sounding Certain & Being Correct,” Mike Rowe, February 25, 2021. Archived April 27, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/dkhCj
Catie Perry. “Mike Rowe: Biden administration can turn its back on fossil fuels, but America can’t,” Fox Business, February 1, 2021. Archived April 27, 2021. Archive URL:https://archive.ph/eHras
“Mike Rowe schools a woman who labels him an ‘anti-education, science doubting, ultra-right wing conservative’,” Watts Up With That? January 14, 2018. Archived April 27, 2021. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/MFkPP
“Off the Wall,” Facebook post by Mike Rowe, January 11, 2018. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/zY9qM
Facebook post by Mike Rowe, April 10, 2021 at 2:48 PM. Archived .pdf on file at DeSmog.
“Mike Testified Before House Committee on Natural Resources,” Profoundly Disconnected, May 15, 2014. Archived July 1, 2014. Archive URL: https://archive.ph/LOJ2B
Other Resources
“Mike Rowe,” Wikipedia.
no lnx
https://www.foxbusiness.com/energy/mike-rowe-biden-turn-its-back-fossil-fuels-america-cant
Mike Rowe: Biden administration can turn its back on fossil fuels, but America can't
Americans are reliant on petroleum products and fossil fuels, Mike Rowe said
By Catie Perry FOXBusiness
‘Six Degrees with Mike Rowe’ host Mike Rowe discusses the importance of the energy industry and why Facebook has canceled his show. Video
The Biden administration's clean energy push comes as Americans rely on the fossil fuel industry more than ever, according to TV host and writer Mike Rowe.
“The conversation I think we ought to be having involves the degree to which 330 million Americans are truly reliant on petroleum products and fossil fuels,” Rowe said on FOX Business' “Varney and Co.” “Not just at the pump. It's not just oil and natural gas or clean versus dirty. It's the yoga pants. It's the plastic on the keyboard.”
SOUTH CAROLINA CEO CREDITS MIKE ROWE WITH HELPING SAVE HER SMALL BUSINESS DURING PANDEMIC
He added that “energy can't be the enemy” in America.
“Even if our government turns its back on fossil fuels, the country can't,” Rowe told host Stuart Varney. “No matter what we want, we can't do it.”
MIKE ROWE REVEALS WHY HE THINKS STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS IS A BAD IDEA
Rowe said while some energy jobs are going away under the Biden administration, skilled workers such as those from the Keystone XL Pipelinewill be able to find work elsewhere.
“It's unfortunate, but a lot of people over the last 10 months, have had to adapt or die,” he said. “We've all had to pivot in virtually every industry.”
The TV host has given away millions of dollars through his charity, The Mike Rowe Foundation, to support those looking for trade work and training that does not require a college degree, such as plumbing and electric work.Those interested can apply for a "work ethic" scholarship through the foundation.
“From a foundation standpoint, the thing that I tried to focus on for the last 13 years is making sure people have a skill that's in demand and a willingness and ability to go to where the work is,” he said. “I don't say that to sound glib or in any way dismissive of what's happening in this industry.”
He said the state of jobs in the energy field is often oversimplified and that there is opportunity as the industry adapts.
“Fossil fuels, as I understand it, is one of the leading investors in alternative fuels,” Rowe said. “So we can't just separate two sides of the same coin and expect to come out on the other side.” origin of talking pt?
2/21?
Television host Mike Rowe reacted on Monday to White House climate envoy John Kerry’s statement about oil workers needing to learn how to build solar panels, stating that his comments don’t make "a ton of sense" while acknowledging the need for some workers and industries to "pivot."
During an appearance on "America’s Newsroom," Rowe joked that Kerry’s public relations chief should start looking for another job, but he clarified that Kerry’s comments were "not entirely wrong."
Rowe said despite job losses in the oil and gas industry, in part due to Biden’s recent executive orders, opportunities remain for people with special skills.
"If you have a skill that's in demand, and you're willing to go to where the work is, the opportunities are still out there," he said.
KERRY SAYS COAL WORKERS FED 'FALSE NARRATIVE' THAT CLIMATE POLICIES ARE KILLING THEIR JOBS
Rowe explained that a need for skilled labor will reach levels "like we’ve never seen before" after the pandemic, clarifying that although the government’s is having issues with fossil fuels, "the country isn’t". He also spoke to the plastic and petroleum products in high demand that are typically overlooked, including the parts used to create computers and other electronics.
"Energy can't be the enemy," he said. "It doesn't make a ton of sense to tell them to go out and make solar panels."
Rowe created his own foundation known as WORKS, whose mission statement sets out to close the "skill gap" in the United States and prepare people for an estimated seven million jobs that do not require a college degree. The foundation website states that "we keep lending money we don’t have to people who can’t pay it back for jobs that don’t exist" and that our culture reaffirms the "misguided belief" that skilled trade jobs aren’t desirable.
Kerry was criticized last week after insinuating that oil workers need to learn how to build solar panels to find work. He also claimed that coal workers have been fed a "false narrative" in thinking that climate policies are killing their jobs.
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https://gizmodo.com/mike-rowe-s-new-discovery-show-is-big-oil-funded-propa-1846585716
no lnx many
Mike Rowe’s New Discovery+ Show Is Big Oil-Funded Propaganda
By Dharna Noor
4/02/21
Comments (321)
Mike Rowe takes part in a roundtable discussion on manufacturing with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012. ]
Reality show host Mike Rowe’s new series Six Degrees, which is currently streaming on Discovery+ and will soon air on television, begins how I expected it would: with him on screen in a t-shirt, jeans, and baseball cap, and smiling wryly. It’s classic Rowe, posturing as an avatar for the “average” American.
The conceit of the show is to tie seemingly unrelated events together. In the first episode, Rowe traces the history of the dating app Tinder back to the invention of the horseshoe. He explains that in the 1700s, a young blacksmith melted horseshoes to create the first iron plow, and that decades later, Australian outlaw Ned Kelly used an iron plow to create a suit of armor for the first time. Kelly then became the subject of the world’s first feature-length film, which contributed to the rise of the movie industry. Hollywood made actress and inventor Hedy Lemarr famous. One of her inventions was a precursor to wifi, which we use to surf dating apps. Rowe describes this all circuitously, stopping along the way for jokes and whiskey shots. It’s dumb but seemingly innocuous—until you get to the end.
“Six Degrees is sponsored by the oil and natural gas industry. Why? Because oil and natural gas connects everything,” Rowe says at the episode’s conclusion. He goes on to explain that Lemarr’s inventing process was funded by the fortune her boyfriend made in the oil fields.
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I knew that Big Oil funded Six Degrees—the blog Reality Blurred caught wind of the sponsorship in January. In fact, I started watching it because I’d read it was funded by the American Petroleum Institute (the oil and gas industry’s biggest trade group) and Distribution Contractors Association (a lobbying group for fossil fuel pipeline contractors). Still, watching this unfold on screen, I nearly fell out of my chair.
It turns out Rowe shouts out the oil and gas industry in some capacity in every episode. I couldn’t believe he was so up front about it. But as jarring as it was to hear him praise the industry that is largely responsible for frying the planet, this sponsorship makes sense. It fits right in with the industry’s current favorite media strategy: Reminding us that their products are used in everything. [[// trump do it in plain sight quiet part out loud?]
“They want to impress upon us that they’re responsible for making a lot of the cool shit we use, starting with when you wake up in the morning and you take a hot shower, and then when you fry an egg, and then when you turn on your iPhone,” said Kert Davies, director of Climate Investigations Center.
It’s true that across the U.S., water heaters, stoves, and electricity that keeps your phone charged largely run on fossil fuels. Yet none of it has to. We have the technology to power each of those things with clean energy. Delaying that transition would lock in catastrophic climate damage. That’s what makes Rowe’s show and other fossil fuel PR campaigns like it so insidious.
“If all you know about this industry, if all you see, is that that they sponsor a cool show you like, you’ll probably subconsciously think, ‘how bad could they be?’” said Geoffrey Supran, a Harvard researcher who has studied the fossil fuel industry’s misinformation campaigns.
Davies was a little more, uh, direct: “The point of the ads is, back off, don’t fuck with us, you need us. It’s all to do with social license.”
Though the blatant shilling for Big Oil on the show is shocking, it’s not surprising. Rowe has a history of pro-fossil fuel messaging, and according to tax forms obtained by Earther, his nonprofit has raked in six-figure donations from the likes of Koch Industries. (He declined to comment for this story through Discovery+, and Earther did not receive a response from his nonprofit.)
Before Six Degrees, Rowe made a name for himself as the host of Dirty Jobs‚ a show with an obvious—if shallow—appeal as an ode to the American working class, particularly if you think of the working class as exclusively white dudes in hard hats. On each episode, he worked in different thankless and sometimes gross professions, including a roadkill collector, sewer inspector, and “avian vomitologist,” which is exactly what it sounds like.
This was an unlikely career path for Rowe, who before the show began was an opera singer—far from the stereotypical conception of a good ol’ rugged American dude he portrays on TV. But Dirty Jobs gave him a certain credibility as an advocate for forgotten workers.
In 2008, Rowe launched mikeroweWORKS, a nonprofit promoting vocational training for blue-collar jobs.The organization provides scholarships for job training programs in fields including automotive technology, HVAC, manufacturing, and diesel technology, which in itself isn’t a bad thing. But the foundation is premised on the idea that the reason people are struggling to find good-paying work in these sectors is because of a skills gap for those in blue-collar fields—a thoroughly debunked myth pushed by industry leaders to make workers feel underqualified for positions, which research suggests helped companies to put more conditions on their job listings and offer lower rates of pay. mikeroweWORKS also fails to grapple with the reality that amid the worsening climate crisis, many of these fields will have to undergo major changes (and in the case of diesel, at least, be fully phased out).
“He’s to the oil and gas industry what Ronald Reagan was for General Electric, a charming pitch man.”
In the years since starting his nonprofit, Rowe started a parallel media career as a pundit, frequently appearing on Fox News to openly speak out against regulating oil and gas extraction.
Despite his posturing as a friend of the working class, Rowe doesn’t have much to say how the industry mercilessly lays off employees while paying shareholders or that working in the fossil fuel industry comes with notoriously dangerous conditions for workers and long-term health risks. (Instead, he suggests safety concerns are overblown). He’s also failed to show much support for labor organizing in the energy sector, even though they could desperately use his support. Federal data shows rates of unionization in the coal, oil, and gas sector is dwindling.
“He’s to the oil and gas industry what Ronald Reagan was for General Electric, a charming pitch man,” Adam Johnson, the co-host of the podcast Citations Needed,wrote in an email.
That’s likely no accident. As Johnson’s podcast uncovered on a 2019 episode, Rowe’s foundation is funded by anti-regulation groups including the Distribution Contractors Association (yes, the same group funding his new show), auto parts manufacturer Federal Mogul Motor Parts, a subsidiary of the British multinational energy firm Centrica, and perhaps most damning of all, the massive fossil fuel and petrochemical conglomerate Koch Industries. A document the Climate Investigations Center found on Guidestar, which is marked “not open to public inspection,” shows that Koch Industries and the Koch Foundation, both tied to the massive fortune amassed by the Koch brothers, have together donated more than $1 million dollars to Rowe’s foundation since it was founded.
“Not Open to Public Inspection”—oops!
“Not Open to Public Inspection”—oops!Photo: Guidestar via Climate Investigations Center]
Johnson described Rowe as the “greatest anti-worker avatar money can buy,” because he’s “someone who a lot of working people genuinely love ... but who is 100% against their interests.”
Rowe’s an especially useful ally to the fossil fuel sector because he continually perpetuates the age-old conservative myth that environmental regulation must come at the expense of jobs, despite mountains of evidence that the opposite is true and that a just transition for fossil fuel employees is possible (and needed).
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“The dirty truth about fossil fuels and the petrochemical industry is that it is really dangerous dirty work all the way from the frack fields and wellheads to the refineries and chemical plants,” said Davies. Workers get sick and die. Fenceline communities get sick and die. There are cancer clusters, increased asthma and other health problems associated with petrochemicals, plastics and pesticides.”
In Six Degrees, Rowe doesn’t take an explicitly anti-renewable stance. In an episode connecting sheep to how we do our taxes, he speaks with a solar installer and asks him when the energy source will “become not just an alternative but one of the go-to choices.” But even then, he doesn’t say anything about why solar might be preferable because oil and gas have created an existential threat.
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“API is hitching its wagon to a show that appears to promote discourses of fossil fuel essentialism and fossil fuel solutionism,” Supran said.
In another episode of the show, for instance, Rowe says electricity is “made possible by spinning turbines—turbines powered by wind and solar, but mostly by oil and gas.”
“In other words, the audience is not-so-subtly indoctrinated with the idea that fossil fuels will inevitably be essential for the foreseeable future, which is a political judgement, not a scientific necessity, and a recipe for climate disaster,” said Supran.
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In an email, a spokesperson for Discovery+ said that Six Degrees is the only program on the network that is funded by advocacy or trade groups. Though he said he could not disclose exactly how much money the American Petroleum Institute or Distribution Contractors Association contributed to the production of Six Degrees, he said that the groups didn’t influence the show’s content.
“This sponsorship was simply to get production started,” he said. “There was no creative input or influence on the series.”
But it’s clear why the industry itself would want to sponsor this kind of endeavor now. Public concern about the climate crisis is growing. The Biden administration has imposed new regulations limiting extraction, and organizers who correctly state these moves are insufficient are pressuring officials to do far more. There’s also the reality that climate change poses an existential threat if left unchecked. And the fastest way to reduce carbon emissions is to wind down the fossil fuel industry while simultaneously protecting the workers Rowe says he stands in support of. From Six Degrees, though, you’d never know that phasing out fossil fuels is a necessary step to securing working people a livable future.
“As the stakes around climate change continue to get higher—and more people point toward fossil fuels as the main culprit to the warming of our planet—Big Oil’s sponsorship of Mike Rowe’s new show on Discovery+ is concerning,” said Allison Fisher, climate and energy program director at Media Matters for America.“Unlike the conservative audience that tunes in when Rowe talks about the oil and gas industry on Fox News and Fox Business News, Discovery+ is reaching a new and unwitting audience who may not have an opinion on Big Oil one way or another, but could be persuaded by Rowe.”
Six Degrees is right—currently, fossil fuels do provide the foundation of society and are connected to nearly everything. But that’s not an immutable truth, it’s a problem to be solved by creating a just, green economy. It’s precisely because of the interconnectivity of everything, the premise on which the show is built, that we need to forge that new world. Rowe’s new show is a roadblock to do just that, and that’s exactly the way the Six Degrees’ sponsors want it.
no lnx many
Mike Rowe’s Discovery+ show Six Degrees is sponsored by the oil industry
Andy Dehnart
4 Jan. 2021 |
Six Degrees with Mike Rowe premiered earlier this year on Discovery+, and is now airing Sundays on the Discovery Channel. It’s still a show that was funded by the oil industry, despite Discovery’s insistence that it “is committed to curbing our own impact on the environment.”
Mike Rowe’s 2005 to 2012 reality show Dirty Jobs was terrific, both entertaining and informative, educational without being annoying. On that and the CNN show that followed, Somebody’s Gotta Do It, Mike was an affable host who put the spotlight on the people he was profiling (rather than making it all about himself).
I especially appreciated his mission of highlighting the people who do “the kinds of jobs that make civilized life possible for the rest of us,” as he said during Dirty Jobs’ intro.
So in December, when I received screeners for his new Discovery+ show Six Degrees with Mike Rowe, I was hopeful it’d be similar. On the show, which premiered today on the new subscription streaming service, Mike “poses questions that no one has ever asked, and then, (with a little help from his old buddy Chuck), provides unforgettable answers that prove every single thing is connected,” according to Discovery’s description. For example, one episode ends with him saying, “That is how a horseshoe can find your soulmate,” connecting horseshoes to wifi.
While the anecdotes were interesting, I didn’t find the show compelling enough to keep watching. But then, at the end of episode 101, “How can a horseshoe help you find the perfect soulmate?”, Mike said this:
“Six Degrees is sponsored by the oil and natural gas industry. Why? Because oil and natural gas connects everything. Remember Howard Hughes from just a few scenes ago? Well, before Howard made a fortune in aerospace, he made a fortune in the oil fields. The money that he gave to Hedy Lamarr that she used to help create wifi, that came from oil.”
Ever since Jeff Probst dropped a Target-branded crate on Survivor contestants 20 years ago, I’ve been very used to product integration on reality TV shows. Target, Budweiser, and other company’s sponsorship literally made Survivor possible.
And since then, producers and networks have used product integration of varying kinds—sometimes to make money, but often to just cover the costs of production. So I understand the very real need to get sponsorship.
Yet I also could not recall a host making as explicit a sponsorship statement as Mike Rowe did there, and also was shocked by the actual advertiser: the oil industry?!
On the one hand, it’s nice transparency: Here’s who paid for this. On the other hand, it’s the oil industry.
In another episode, “How Civil War Soldiers Produced This Show,” Mike concluded with this:
“Why is Six Degrees sponsored by the energy industry? Well, that’s a bit like asking why Chuck drinks coffee all day long. When you play a dozen different characters in the course of a single show, you need all the energy you can get. Likewise, when you go to your favorite search engine to find whatever it is you’re looking for, that takes energy, too.
Specifically, it takes electricity—electricity made possible by spinning turbines. Turbines powered by wind and solar, but mostly by oil and natural gas. So, go pour yourself another cup of joe, and raise your glass to the men and women who provide the energy that keeps the servers humming 24/7.”
This is undeniably factual. And of course, this website runs on such a server, and I have a hybrid car that still uses gasoline, and I use plastic products, which I try to recycle.
The other episode I had access to, “How A Mousetrap Can Cure Your Hangover,” does not have that explicit a message at its conclusion. (It ends with an outtake of Mike laughing.) But its credits—like the other episodes—include this:
Special Thanks
Energy Citizens
Thanks to Our Sponsors
American Petroleum Institute
Distribution Contractors Association
The Distribution Contractors Association’s mission statement says “working together to deliver superior value to the natural gas and the underground utility industry.”
Energy Citizens, which is fighting for oil pipelines and against efforts to end our dependence on gasoline, says it is “paid for by the American Petroleum Institute,” and the API says it “represents all segments of America’s oil and natural gas industry.”
The American Petroleum Industry is currently being sued by the state of Minnesota, which says API is among the “parties who have profited from avoiding the consequences and costs of dealing with global warming and its physical, environmental, social, and economic consequences,” and wants it to pay for “those impacts, rather than Minnesota taxpayers, residents, or broader segments of the public.” API is also being sued by Hoboken, New Jersey, which said Big Oil has been “actively lying about the detrimental effects of their products when in fact their own research indicated otherwise, all in order to generate multibillion dollar profits by producing, marketing, and selling vast quantities of fossil fuels.”
The Climate Investigations Center reported that “API was one of the first trade associations to orchestrate behind-the-scenes climate change denial campaigns. As early as the 1950’s and 1960’s, API worked to downplay the threat of smog to human health in Los Angeles by hiring their own scientists that would disparage leading smog control scientists, while promoting the idea that pollution controls would be too costly.”
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Now, they’re sponsoring a Discovery+ reality show—a show you have to pay Discovery to watch. And even if you pay $7/month to remove ads, the oil industry’s message is part of some of the actual episodes.
Why does this matter?
A screenshot from an episode of Six Degrees with Mike Rowe, which shows the oil industry's sponsorship.]
Earlier last year, Mike Rowe was one of the speakers at an API event, where he and others “discussed the state of the energy workforce and the need for sensible policymaking on trade and infrastructure.” API’s press release quotes him: “Energy is always in the room…Every single American is relying on it.”
But every single American is also being affected by a “coordinated cover-up of climate risks [that] stretches back decades and rivals that of big tobacco companies.”
And we’re being affected by climate change right now. NASA’s “The Effects of Climate Change” outlines “impacts that are currently visible throughout the U.S. and will continue to affect these regions,” including “decreased water availability,” “risks to infrastructure,” “increasing wildfire, insect outbreaks and tree diseases [that] are causing widespread die-off,” “reduced agricultural yields” and “health impacts in cities due to heat.”
Emily Atkin, whose reporting on the climate crisis has taught me so much, wrote this:
Every year, the oil and gas industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising to convince the public they’re good faith partners in the fight against climate change.
… Oil companies and trade groups run such ads claiming they’re “part of the solution” while investing trillions of dollars into extracting more fossil fuels that, if burned, will undoubtedly send the livable world into chaos. They run ads claiming they’re “on it” while spending millions funding the spread of climate denial and disinformation.
I have not watched all episodes—three were provided to critics—but I have not seen evidence that Six Degrees with Mike Rowe is directly denying climate change or spreading overt disinformation.
But it certainly is taking the oil industry’s money—and delivering a pro-oil message that focuses on “the men and women who provide the energy that keeps the servers humming 24/7.”
That sounds reasonable until I imagine Mister Rogers saying Mister Rogers Neighborhood was sponsored by the tobacco industry, and the hard-working men and women who produce the nation’s cigarettes.
Mike Rowe’s response
On its web site, Discovery—now a massive, worldwide company, not just a single cable network—outlines its commitments to “being purposeful and doing the right thing.” That includes its commitments to the planet: “we seek to protect the planet and ensure there will always be stories to tell. We acknowledge that climate change is a real threat to our world and business and Discovery is committed to curbing our own impact on the environment.”
I asked Discovery how accepting money from an industry responsible for climate change and for lying about it fit with Discovery’s corporate mission and stated goals, and if Discovery be “committed to curbing our own impact” while allowing the oil industry to buy time inside one of its high-profile new shows.
Discovery did not respond to those questions.
I also asked where the sponsorship came from, how much they’re paying, who’s receiving that funding, and if the oil industry had any editorial control.
I received a statement attributed to Mike Rowe, which said this:
“Six Degrees is a show about the surprising ways people and events are connected through history. DCA and API were both interested in the concept and offered to sponsor the program before it was even shopped. They had no creative input, and no editorial oversight. But their enthusiasm for the project allowed us to start production long before the program had a home. It wouldn’t have happened without them, and I’m grateful for their support.”
Mike’s appreciation for their support for funding his show is understandable, but it’s regrettable that he’s appreciating and promoting an industry and organizations that are causing so much damage to every one of us.
some lnk
Distribution Contractors Association’s mission statement says “working together to deliver superior value to the natural gas and the underground utility industry.”
Energy Citizens, which is fighting for oil pipelines and against efforts to end our dependence on gasoline, says it is “paid for by the American Petroleum Institute,” and the API says it “represents all segments of America’s oil and natural gas industry.”
The American Petroleum Industry is currently being sued by the state of Minnesota, which says API is among the “parties who have profited from avoiding the consequences and costs of dealing with global warming and its physical, environmental, social, and economic consequences,” and wants it to pay for “those impacts, rather than Minnesota taxpayers, residents, or broader segments of the public.” API is also being sued by Hoboken, New Jersey, which said Big Oil has been “actively lying about the detrimental effects of their products when in fact their own research indicated otherwise, all in order to generate multibillion dollar profits by producing, marketing, and selling vast quantities of fossil fuels.”
The Climate Investigations Center reported that “API was one of the first trade associations to orchestrate behind-the-scenes climate change denial campaigns. As early as the 1950’s and 1960’s, API worked todownplay the threat of smog to human health in Los Angeles by hiring their own scientists that would disparage leading smog control scientists, while promoting the idea that pollution controls would be too costly.”
ref conf
January 8, 2020
The U.S. is the global leader in energy production, carbon emissions reductions and environmental performance. In 2020, the State of American Energy is one of leadership in natural gas and oil development and ongoing progress toward global climate solutions.
For decades, U.S. energy policy has focused on reducing our dependence on foreign natural gas and oil – the outlook was often defined by scarcity, rather than abundance. Each of our last seven presidents understood that clean, affordable and reliable American energy is essential to both economic growth and national security. And today, our nation has achieved this hard-fought, bipartisan goal.
This was the overarching message of the State of American Energy event in Washington, D.C., where API unveiled its latest advocacy campaign – Energy for Progress – focused on establishing a shared vision for a brighter energy future.
In the keynote address, API President and CEO Mike Sommers emphasized that the benefits of American energy progress are felt be everyone – in Colorado and New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and with our trading partners across the globe:
“U.S. energy leadership offers stability in chaotic times and insulates America from hostile and unreliable suppliers of energy. The global benefits of American natural gas and oil on the international stage are compelling. But if you want to know the value of stenergy leadership in 2020, you also must zoom in to see its benefits here at home. They’re on display from the smallest American communities to our biggest cities. American energy is powering the lives of people across our nation.
[vid]
aPI’s annual report – “This is Energy Progress” – tells the story of seven communities that have felt the positive impacts of the U.S. shale revolution. With decreased household energy costs, increased investment in infrastructure projects and expanded opportunities for skilled tradespeople, domestic energy abundance is an economic asset for millions of Americans. Sommers remarked:
“Natural gas and oil help explain why, in parts of America that haven’t seen job growth for decades, you’ll now find a vibrant manufacturing base…and more tax revenue for schools, police, public works, conservation, and everything else that powers modern life.”
The event also included a panel discussion featuring Terry O’Sullivan, General President of the Laborers’ International Union of North America; Karen Kerrigan, President and CEO of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council; Leslie Beyer, President of the Petroleum Equipment and Services Association; and Mike Rowe, former host of Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs. Among other topics, the experts discussed the state of the energy workforce and the need for sensible policymaking on trade and infrastructure. Mike Rowe stated, plainly:
“Energy is always in the room...Every single American is relying on it.”
Still, there are those intent on halting U.S. energy development – offering unrealistic policy proposals that promise to ban state-of-the-art techniques, like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, or permanently restrict natural gas and oil production on federal lands. These agenda-driven positions all but assure a retreat from our decades-long advance toward energy security and economic prosperity. Sommers explained:
“At the extreme, we hear promises on the 2020 campaign trail to ban fracking, nationwide and forever. Here’s a glimpse at that vision: Millions of jobs lost, a spike in household energy costs, a manufacturing downturn and less energy security. In the short run, a fracking ban in America would quickly invite a global recession. You don’t abolish the most dynamic asset of the world’s leading energy supplier without severe consequences.”
But the lawmakers and presidential contenders presenting these positions on fracking, energy infrastructure, and federal and offshore leases offer false choices when comprehensive and common-sense solutions are within reach. Simply put, the U.S. doesn’t have choose between energy abundance and environmental progress. By advocating for smart policies that advance industry-led innovations, we can continue to expand the economy, supply affordable natural gas and oil to consumers and drive down emissions of carbon dioxide. Sommers noted:
“Bold and achievable action on climate change at the global level is essential, and America’s natural gas and oil industry is committed to innovation and leadership to make these ambitions more than just hopes and dreams. We support legislation to encourage wider use of carbon-capture, utilization, and storage technology—a breakthrough based on American ingenuity.”
In 2020, this industry – and our nation – finds itself at a defining moment. As the global demand for energy rises and actions to combat climate change intensify, America’s natural gas and oil industry is poised to tackle this dual challenge and create a better, brighter future for all. This is the State of American Energy. This is energy for progress.
About The Author
Sam Winstel is a writer for the American Petroleum Institute. He comes to API from Edelman, where he supported communications marketing strategies for clients across the firm’s energy and federal government practices. Originally from Dallas, Texas, Sam graduated from Davidson College in North Carolina, and hecurrently resides in Washington, D.C
PT Barnum once said, “There's no such thing as bad publicity”https://mikerowe.com › 2021/04 › p-t-barnum-once-sai...
Apr 10, 2021 — MIKE ROWE'S NEW DISCOVERY SHOW IS BIG OIL-FUNDED PROPAGANDA. Reality show host Mike Rowe's new series Six Degrees, which is currently ...
https://mikerowe.com/2021/04/p-t-barnum-once-said-theres-no-such-thing-as-bad-publicity/
his blog
Barnum once said, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity,” which is almost as good as Oscar Wilde’s version, who put it like this: “There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
Both men could turn a phrase, and both men had a point. With Discovery premiering Six Degrees this Sunday at 10 PM, you’d think that any surrounding press would be a good thing. But neither Barnum or Wilde lived in these extraordinary times, where anyone can post anything from anywhere, and reach millions of people anytime. Many of you have called the attached article to my attention, along with a very misleading headline I would have ignored, once upon a time, but cannot, in this day and age. Here’s a link to the original article, if you’re interested. https://bit.ly/3wNrkGc Or, if you prefer, you can scroll down and enjoy the same copy, along with my gentle attempts to set the record straight. Either way, better strap in. This one’s a doozy…
—
Dharna Noor writes…
MIKE ROWE’S NEW DISCOVERY SHOW IS BIG OIL-FUNDED PROPAGANDA
Reality show host Mike Rowe’s new series Six Degrees, which is currently streaming on Discovery+ and will soon air on television, begins how I expected it would: with him on screen in a t-shirt, jeans, and baseball cap, and smiling wryly. It’s classic Rowe, posturing as an avatar for the “average” American.
Mike Rowe: Hi there, Dharna. First of all, thanks the shout-out. TV audiences are hard to find these days, so I appreciate the mention. Secondly, I don’t “posture” for anyone. For better or worse, the guy you see on TV is me, and my opinions are my own. Thirdly, Six Degrees is not “propaganda funded by Big Oil.” Your headline is demonstrably false, and since Discovery informed you in writing that the sponsors had no creative or editorial control over the show, I’m curious to see how you will justify such an inflammatory claim.
DN: The conceit of the show is to tie seemingly unrelated events together. In the first episode, Rowe traces the history of the dating app Tinder back to the invention of the horseshoe. He explains that in the 1700s, a young blacksmith melted horseshoes to create the first iron plow, and that decades later, Australian outlaw Ned Kelly used an iron plow to create the first suit of armor. Kelly then became the subject of the world’s first feature-length film, which contributed to the rise of the movie industry. Hollywood made actress and inventor Hedy Lemarr famous. One of her inventions was a precursor to wifi, which we use to surf dating apps. Rowe describes this all circuitously, stopping along the way for jokes and whiskey shots.
MR: I hate to nitpick, Dharna, but Ned Kelly was not the first guy to make a suit of armor. He was just the first guy to make one from an iron plow, in order to survive a shootout. Beyond that, you’ve done a fair job describing what Six Degrees is – a history show for people who don’t watch history shows. I’m flattered to learn that you were engaged enough in the premise to watch the whole thing. Thanks.
DN: It’s dumb but seemingly innocuous—until you get to the end.
MR: All righty then. I retract the “flattered” part.
DN: “Six Degrees is sponsored by the oil and natural gas industry. Why? Because oil and natural gas connects everything,” Rowe says at the episode’s conclusion. He goes on to explain that Lemarr’s inventing process was funded by the fortune her boyfriend made in the oil fields, Howard Hughes. I knew that Big Oil funded Six Degrees—the blog Reality Blurred caught wind of the sponsorship in January.
MR: “Caught wind?” To your point, Dharna, I am literally on camera, thanking the sponsors in most transparent way possible. How much digging do you suppose the journalists at Reality Blurred had to do in order to “catch wind” of this bombshell? Like you, all they had to do was watch the show. Which you can do again, this Sunday on Discovery at 10pm Eastern.
DN: In fact, I started watching Six Degrees because I’d read it was funded by the American Petroleum Institute and Distribution Contractors Association. Still, watching this unfold on screen, I nearly fell out of my chair. It turns out Rowe shouts out the oil and gas industry in some capacity in every episode. I couldn’t believe he was so up front about it.
MR: It’s easy to be upfront about relationships when you’re not ashamed of them. It’s also polite to thank your sponsors, especially in cases like this. Six Degrees wasn’t produced by Discovery – it was produced by me. I needed help to kickstart production and started looking for companies that wanted to support a history show about the surprising ways we’re are all connected. I found several interested parties, including API and DCA. Obviously, one of the things that connects us all is our shared reliance on affordable energy, so they were an easy fit. But again – neither API nor DCA had any creative or editorial control over the show. All they got was a mention from me, and some prime space in the show to run their ads.
DN: But as jarring as it was to hear him praise the industry that is largely responsible for frying the planet, this sponsorship makes sense. It fits right in with the industry’s current favorite media strategy: Reminding us that their products are used in everything.
MR: With respect, Dharna, your view of the energy industry seems awfully one-sided. Obviously, no one who lives on this planet wants to see it “fried,” including me. But no objective person can look at the history of fossil fuels, and not conclude that the petroleum-based products and natural gas have lifted more people out of poverty than any other product in the history of the world. I realize that’s a hard thing to admit, but the fundamental challenge of feeding a hungry planet could not be met without fossil fuels. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be moving toward cleaner alternatives with all due speed – we absolutely should, and from what I’ve seen, we absolutely are. But we shouldn’t deny the role that fossil fuels play in our daily life or try to divorce ourselves from oil and gas today. Doing so would destroy life as we know it.Agriculture, transportation, healthcare, clothing, textiles, space exploration…everything would be impacted. Even the millions of people currently reading this exchange, could not do so without the screens and keypads made possible with petroleum-based products, not to mention an electrical grid, powered in most cases by natural gas. Pointing that out is not “propaganda.” It’s just the truth. An inconvenient one, perhaps, but the truth, nevertheless.
DN: “They want to impress upon us that they’re responsible for making a lot of the cool shit we use, starting with when you wake up in the morning and you take a hot shower, and then when you fry an egg, and then when you turn on your iPhone,” said Kert Davies, director of Climate Investigations Center. It’s true that across the U.S., water heaters, stoves, and electricity that keeps your phone charged largely run on fossil fuels. Yet none of it has to. We have the technology to power each of those things with clean energy. Delaying that transition would lock in catastrophic climate damage. That’s what makes Rowe’s show and other fossil fuel PR campaigns like it so insidious.”
MR: How can the energy industry’s support of Six Degrees be insidious, when, to your point, I’ve been completely transparent about the nature of the relationship? And how can anyone compare a show like Six Degrees with an actual PR Campaign for the fossil fuel industry? As you were told by Discovery before you published your piece, API and DCA had zero control over the content of my Six Degrees. Zilch. Obviously, they have total control over their own marketing and PR, but that’s a very different situation. Texaco sponsored The Metropolitan Opera for 63 years, but never once did they tell the conductor what to conduct, or the singers what to sing. Also, no one is arguing that the transition to renewables should be delayed, and no one is suggesting that fossil fuels won’t be eventually replaced or seriously diminished. But if Kert Davies really believes that we can “transition” to clean energy with the flick of a switch, then you should ask him for some proof.From everything I’ve seen, we’re decades away from any scenario that will allow us to feed the world as we do, move about the country as we do, and live our daily lives in the way we’ve become accustomed…without fossil fuels.[ind talk pt]
DN: “If all you know about this industry, if all you see, is that that they sponsor a cool show you like, you’ll probably subconsciously think, ‘how bad could they be?’” said Geoffrey Supran, a Harvard researcher who has studied the fossil fuel industry’s misinformation campaigns.
MR: Geoffery Supran seems to have a firm grasp of how advertising works. API and DCA would probably prefer not to sponsor programs that people hate. But tell me, Dharna, how is reminding people about the role of petroleum products in their daily life a “misinformation campaign?” Geoff may not like the ads, but does he dispute their veracity? It doesn’t sound like he does. It doesn’t sound like you do, either. In fact, it doesn’t sound like anyone does.
DN: Davies was a little more, uh, direct: “The point of the ads is, back off, don’t fuck with us, you need us. It’s all to do with social license.”
MR: Obviously, Kert Davies is a no-nonsense fellow, unafraid to tell it like it is. But, like Geoff from Harvard, Kert doesn’t dispute the inherent truth of the ads. My question to you is, why would anyone on your side of the argument complain about the ads at all? Fact is, we are ALL addicted to life with fossil fuels. If you and Geoff and Kert want people to break that addiction, I would think the first thing you would want to do is illustrate the extent of our collective dependency. These ads do that. Maybe not in the tenor and tone that you would prefer, but the basic message is clear – we all rely on petroleum-based products. Maybe Kert doesn’t like to be reminded that he couldn’t fire off his super edgy hot-takes without the natural gas that powers the electrical grid that powers the Internet he relies upon, along with his trusty computer, made possible by the petroleum-based products he despises? Maybe that’s why Kert curses so much?
DN: Though the blatant shilling for Big Oil on the show is shocking, it’s not surprising.
MR: Again, Dharna, not to nitpick, but I’m afraid that “shill” doesn’t mean what you think it means. A shill is a somebody who publicly gives credibility to a person or organization without disclosing that they have a relationship with the person or organization in question. As you’ve already “uncovered,” I’ve done nothing to hide my relationship with the sponsors of Six Degrees, airing this Sunday on Discovery at 10pm Eastern. You, on the other hand, have gone out of your way to deliberately mischaracterize that relationship. Why? Did you write a similar article when PBS accepted funding from Exxon/Mobile to help pay for Masterpiece Theater? Did you accuse PBS of airing “big oil propaganda” when Koch Industries began sponsoring NOVA? If not, how come? API and DCA sponsored Six Degrees – a show over which they had zero creative and editorial control – before it even had a home. Again, you knew this before you posted your article. But you proceeded nevertheless.
DN: Rowe has a history of pro-fossil fuel messaging, and according to tax forms obtained by Earther, his nonprofit has raked in six-figure donations from the likes of Koch Industries. (He declined to comment for this story through Discovery+, and Earther did not receive a response from his nonprofit.)
MR: Again, Dharna, Earther didn’t “uncover” anything. mikeroweWORKS is a501-c3. Our tax forms are on our website, along with a list of major contributors. There, in black and white, you can find me thanking all of our major supporters, in much the same way PBS does. As for the old, “he declined to comment” cudgel, who are you kidding? The night before you published this, my office received three questions from you, and a heads-up that your “deadline” was the next morning. One of your questions, was “Why would I accept money from a company like Koch?” Had you given me time to reply, I would have done so with another question. “Why should a public charity not accept support from anyone who wants to support that charity’s purpose?” It seems to me, Dharna, that you have compiled a list of companies that you have deemed “the enemy.” Koch and API and DCA appear to be on that list. It further seems clear that your real purpose is to attack any public figure who dares to consort with those companies.
DN: Before Six Degrees, Rowe made a name for himself as the host of Dirty Jobs‚ a show with an obvious—if shallow—appeal as an ode to the American working class, particularly if you think of the working class as exclusively white dudes in hard hats. On each episode, he worked in different thankless and sometimes gross professions, including a roadkill collector, sewer inspector, and “avian vomitologist,” which is exactly what it sounds like.
MR: Sort of. Dirty Jobs also highlighted dozens of entrepreneurs who prospered as the result of learning a skill. Yes, many of the jobs we featured are underappreciated and kind of gross, but none of the people we profiled saw themselves as victims. (Even the white guys in hardhats.) They were all proud to share their work with a wide audience. Which is why you’ll be delighted to know that Dirty Jobs is
back in production. (That’s why I was unable to drop everything last week and answer your questions in a timely manner. I was building a tugboat in Alabama, which is a story unto itself.)
DN: This was an unlikely career path for Rowe, who before the show began was an opera singer—far from the stereotypical conception of a good ol’ rugged American dude he portrays on TV. But Dirty Jobs gave him a certain credibility as an advocate for forgotten workers.
MR: Actually, it was a very likely career path. I started hosting shows for Discovery back in the early nineties. Dirty Jobs just happened to be the most consequential, thanks perhaps to the shows “shallow” appeal. Now it is true that back in the early eighties I sang with the Baltimore Opera Company, but if you think that vocation is inconsistent with Dirty Jobs, you don’t know anything about opera…
DN: In 2008, Rowe launched mikeroweWORKS, a nonprofit promoting vocational training for blue-collar jobs. The organization provides scholarships for job training programs in fields including automotive technology, HVAC, manufacturing, and diesel technology, which in itself isn’t a bad thing. But the foundation is premised on the idea that the reason people are struggling to find good-paying work in these sectors is because of a skills gap for those in blue-collar fields—a thoroughly debunked myth pushed by industry leaders to make workers feel underqualified for positions, which research suggests helped companies to put more conditions on their job listings and offer lower rates of pay. mikeroweWORKS also fails to grapple with the reality that amid the worsening climate crisis, many of these fields will have to undergo major changes.
MR: Well, at least you spelled mikeroweWORKS properly. You’d be surprised at how many do not. Unfortunately, the actual goal of my foundation is not as you suggest. We exist primarily to debunk the stigmas and stereotypes that discourage millions of people from even considering a career in the skilled trades. At mikeroweWORKS, we value ALL forms of education, but we emphasize those opportunities that don’t require a four-year degree and offer scholarships to those who wish to pursue a skill that’s in demand. This month, we’re accepting applications for another round of work ethic scholarships and offering a million dollars to qualified applicants. (Apply at **mikeroweworks.org**.) As for the skills gap, I believe it to be very real, as do countless employers, government officials, and economists. It has been disputed by a number of activists, but certainly has not been “debunked,” much less, “thoroughly debunked.” Saying otherwise is a bit like saying, “because the science is settled!” when someone dares to question the increasingly popular claim that the planet will come to an end in the next decade. It’s just not persuasive.
DN: In the years since starting his nonprofit, Rowe started a parallel media career as a pundit, frequently appearing on Fox News to openly speak out against regulating oil and gas extraction.
MR: As a rule, Dharna, whenever I speak on television, I speak “openly.” But a “parallel media career?” That’s funny.Yes, I’ve appeared on FOX to discuss a number of topics related to my foundation, but never for compensation. I’ve also discussed those same issues on CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, NPR, PBS, The Today Show, The Tonight Show, The Daily Show, Good Morning America, and CBS This Morning. Couple years ago, I appeared on Bill Maher’s show and Glenn Beck’s show in the same week and watched people on both sides of the aisle tell me how I’d “lost their respect” – not because they disagreed with me, but simply because I had the nerve to sit next to someone they didn’t approve of. That’s what you’re doing, Dharna. You’re expressing your “shock,” and clutching your metaphorical pearls because I expressed my gratitude to an industry you don’t like. But you’re also making things up.I have never spoken out against regulating oil and gas extraction. Like your headline, that’s a complete fabrication.
DN: Despite his posturing as a friend of the working class, Rowe doesn’t have much to say how the industry mercilessly lays off employees while paying shareholders or that working in the fossil fuel industry comes with notoriously dangerous conditions for workers and long-term health risks. Instead, he suggests safety concerns are overblown.
MR: Now you’re concerned with jobs? You mean, like the thousands of jobs that evaporated when Keystone was cancelled? Who’s “posturing” now, Dharna? Seems to me, if you really wanted to shut down all fossil fuel production, you’d be more supportive of my attempts to help those workers get trained in other areas. At mikeroweWORKS, that’s exactly what we do. We assist people who wish to learn a skill that’s in demand. We do not hold their hands for the rest of their lives or insert ourselves into disputes between labor and management. Regarding safety concerns, I’ve never said they were “overblown.” I’ve only suggested that companies who boast that “safety is first,” put themselves in an awkward rhetorical position with respect to common sense. (If safety is truly first, then why ask your people to assume any risk at all?) I believe that any effective occupational safety program must emphasize the role of personal responsibility. I think too many safety programs emphasize compliance instead. Compliance is important, obviously, but it’s not a substitute for personal responsibility. My position on this, informally called “Safety Third,” has been embraced by lots of companies and organizations.
DN: He’s also failed to show much support for labor organizing in the energy sector, even though they could desperately use his support. Federal data shows rates of unionization in the coal, oil, and gas sector is dwindling.
MR: I’m confused. Are you upset because I don’t share your contempt for fossil fuels? Or are you upset because I haven’t adequately supported the workers in the industry you want to eliminate? Either way, you seem to be shifting away from criticizing me for things that I do, to criticizing me for things that I don’t do. It’s not enough to produce a decent history show that the whole family can watch, it needs to be a history show with a list of sponsors that meet your approval. It’s not enough to start a foundation that’s assisted over 1,000 people, it needs to be a foundation that helps EVERYONE, and concerns itself with ALL aspects of labor. As my Pop used to say, “there’s no pleasing some people.”
DN: “He’s to the oil and gas industry what Ronald Reagan was for General Electric, a charming pitch man,” Adam Johnson, the co-host of the podcast Citations Needed, wrote in an email.
MR: Adam Johnson has provided you with a very poor metaphor. Ronald Reagan was indeed GE’s pitchman. Thus, they told him what to say, and he said it, in exchange for money. But this is different. I don’t work for the energy industry.API doesn’t pay me to defend them, like Earther pays you to attack them. They don’t control anything I say or write, including this. They’re just a sponsor and an advertiser of a show that I produce. You’ll notice this on Sunday at 10pm, when Six Degrees premieres on Discovery at 10pm Eastern Time.
DN: That’s likely no accident. As Johnson’s podcast uncovered on a 2019 episode, Rowe’s foundation is funded by anti-regulation groups including the Distribution Contractors Association, auto parts manufacturer Ford-Mogul Motor Parts, a subsidiary of the British multinational energy firm Centrica, and perhaps most damning of all, the massive fossil fuel and petrochemical conglomerate Koch Industries. A document the Climate Investigations Center found on Guidestar shows that Koch Industries and the Koch Foundation have together donated more than $1 million dollars to Rowe’s foundation since it was founded.
MR: Again, sorry to nitpick, Dharna, but there’s no such company as “Ford-Mogul Motor Parts.” There is a company called Federal Mogul Motor Parts, and yes, they have supported my foundation in the past. But again, that’s hardly a secret. All the companies who support my foundation are publicly listed in numerous places, including my website and my Facebook page. And yet, as you did with Reality Blurred, you go out of your way to credit Adam Johnson with “uncovering” some kind of smoking gun. With respect, a child with an iPhone and I WiFi connection could have “uncovered” all of this, then cut and pasted a more accurate version of the facts than what you’ve provided.
DN: Johnson described Rowe as the “greatest anti-worker avatar money can buy,” because he’s “someone who a lot of working people genuinely love … but who is 100% against their interests.”
MR: I’m not sure I understand how awarding millions of dollars to help train the next generation of skilled workers is “anti-worker,” and I’m unclear as to how my efforts over the last twenty years to call attention to the critical role of skilled labor is “against the interests” of skilled workers, but okay. Adam Johnson is entitled to his opinion. But people should know that Adam Johnson has a very specific agenda. Like you, he does not solicit opinions that challenge his own. Like you, he conflates the support of a non-profit foundation with the upside of a business deal. Like you, he doesn’t know the difference between a sponsorship and an endorsement, a shill and a spokesman, a TV show and a piece of propaganda. It’s no wonder you asked him for a quote.
DN: Rowe’s an especially useful ally to the fossil fuel sector because he continually perpetuates the age-old conservative myth that environmental regulation must come at the expense of jobs, despite mountains of evidence that the opposite is true and that a just transition for fossil fuel employees is possible (and needed).
MR: Nonsense. If the fossil fuel sector sees me as an ally, it’s probably because I’m a public figure who has not declared them to be an enemy of the people. Or maybe, it’s because I’m not afraid to acknowledge that fossil fuels have saved millions of lives, and dramatically improved my own? Or possibly, it’s because I try to look at both sides of the climate debate before declaring the matter to be “settled?” These days, you don’t have to be paid by the fossil fuel sector to be their ally. You just have to be someone who doesn’t condemn them while continuing to use the products they make possible.
DN: “The dirty truth about fossil fuels and the petrochemical industry is that it is really dangerous dirty work all the way from the frack fields and wellheads to the refineries and chemical plants,” said Davies. Workers get sick and die. Fenceline communities get sick and die. There are cancer clusters, increased asthma and other health problems associated with petrochemicals, plastics and pesticides.”
: That might be the “dirty” truth, but it’s certainly not the whole truth. Like anything else, there are risks and challenges related to the incredibly complicated process of extracting energy from the ground. But that doesn’t change the simple fact that nothing in the long history of human achievement has done more to pull more people out of poverty than easy access to an abundance of affordable energy. Obviously, that comes with a price, and I agree that the price is steep. But no one is arguing against lessening that price. No one is arguing against the pursuit of cleaner alternatives. And no one is “standing in the way” of renewables. Progress is happening as we speak.
DN: In Six Degrees, Rowe doesn’t take an explicitly anti-renewable stance.
MR: That’s because I’m not “anti-renewable,” Dharna. Far from it. I’m just aware of the way technology evolves. We didn’t go from the horse and buggy to the Tesla overnight. Neither will we transition from fossil fuels to some equally affordable and efficient alternative overnight. The fact is, there is no hope for wind or solar or hydro without a massive investment from the very companies represented by API and DCA. You can’t build a windmill without petroleum products. Nor can you manufacture solar panels. Nor can you ship them. We’ll never transition to renewables by vilifying the very forms of energy we currently rely upon.
DN: In an episode connecting sheep to how we do our taxes, he speaks with a solar installer and asks him when the energy source will “become not just an alternative but one of the go-to choices.” But even then, he doesn’t say anything about why solar might be preferable because oil and gas have created an existential threat.
MR: Again, you’re criticizing me not for what I said, but for what I didn’t say. It’s not enough to showcase a successful solar farm – you want me to condemn fossil fuels while doing so. You’re criticizing me for failing to do what YOU would say, if YOU were hosting Six Degrees with Mike Rowe, premiering on Discovery this Sunday at 10pm. Is that…reasonable? Also – that guy in the episode you claimed to watch was not a “solar installer.” He owned the whole operation. He might have looked like a common worker to you, but he’s actually a very successful entrepreneur, leading the charge in the direction you want to go.
DN: “API is hitching its wagon to a show that appears to promote discourses of fossil fuel essentialism and fossil fuel solutionism,” Supran said.
MR: Let me get this straight. Geoff believes that API – the largest trade group in the energy industry – has “hitched its wagon” to the success of a show they have no control over? A show that premieres on Discovery, this Sunday at 10pm? With respect, I think Geoff might be overestimating the power and reach Six Degrees. But I guess we’ll see.
DN: In another episode of the show, for instance, Rowe says electricity is “made possible by spinning turbines—turbines powered by wind and solar, but mostly by oil and gas.”
MR: Translation: “In another episode, Mike Rowe says some more things that are absolutely true that we really wish he wouldn’t say.”
DN: “In this way, the audience is not-so-subtly indoctrinated with the idea that fossil fuels will inevitably be essential for the foreseeable future, which is a political judgement, not a scientific necessity, and a recipe for climate disaster,” said Supran.
MR:I didn’t go to Harvard, Dharna, but I’m pretty sure that stating a fact is not a form of “indoctrination.” Most electric cars run on electricity that’s generated from turbines powered by natural gas. That’s a fact, and people should know it – especially people who think their electric vehicles elevate them to some new level of social responsibility. When I read quotes from guys like Geoff and Kert, I’m reminded that the biggest impediment to persuading more people to get behind cleaner forms of energy, is the arrogance of those who label ideas they don’t like as “propaganda” or “indoctrination.” These are oftentimes the same people who fly in private jets to exotic destinations to condemn the dangers of carbon footprints with other enlightened stewards of the land. Those people, in my opinion, are profoundly unpersuasive. And their hypocrisy only bolsters the resolve of those who oppose them.
DN: In an email, a spokesperson for Discovery+ said that Six Degrees is the only program on the network that is funded by advocacy or trade groups. Though he said he could not disclose exactly how much money the American Petroleum Institute or Distribution Contractors Association contributed to the production of Six Degrees, he said that the groups didn’t influence the show’s content. “This sponsorship was simply to get production started,” he said. “There was no creative input or influence on the series.”
MR: So then…why the hatchet job? If Discovery actually told you that API and DCA had no creative input whatsoever and only helped get production started, why then, would you claim that the entire series is “propaganda funded by Big Oil?” You knew that your headline was false before you wrote it, but you wrote it anyway. That’s reckless.
DN: But it’s clear why the industry itself would want to sponsor this kind of endeavor now. Public concern about the climate crisis is growing. The Biden administration has imposed new regulations limiting extraction, and organizers who correctly state these moves are insufficient are pressuring officials to do far more. There’s also the reality that climate change poses an existential threat if left unchecked. And the fastest way to reduce carbon emissions is to wind down the fossil fuel industry while simultaneously protecting the workers Rowe says he stands in support of. From Six Degrees, though, you’d never know that phasing out fossil fuels is a necessary step to securing working people a livable future.
MR: What’s fascinating to me, Dharna, is the way you react when TV shows don’t reflect your view of the world. I hate to break it to you, but there are lots of programs out there that do not take a position on what needs to happen in order to secure a livable future for working people. Likewise, there are many networks, (all of them, in fact,) who accept funding from corporations they might not be philosophically or politically aligned with. And of course, there are many millions of Americans who don’t take any of your assumptions at face value. And yet, you write as if they do. You write as if your opinions are no different than the unvarnished, universally accepted truth. Your hubris, if I may be so bold, is extraordinary. Unfortunately, it is not unique.
DN: “As the stakes around climate change continue to get higher—and more people point toward fossil fuels as the main culprit to the warming of our planet—Big Oil’s sponsorship of Mike Rowe’s new show on Discovery+ is concerning,” said Allison Fisher, climate and energy program director at Media Matters for America. “Unlike the conservative audience that tunes in when Rowe talks about the oil and gas industry on Fox News and Fox Business News, Discovery+ is reaching a new and unwitting audience who may not have an opinion on Big Oil one way or another but could be persuaded by Rowe.”
MR: See what I mean?With regard to hubris, you’ve got plenty of company. Consider what Allison Fisher just said. “Unwitting,” is a synonym for ignorant. The program director for Media Matters just said that Discovery’s audience is ignorant, and susceptible to my powers of persuasion. That’s strikes me as a remarkably condescending thing to say. Discovery’s audience is perfectly capable of forming their own opinions. But Allison Fisher doesn’t want them too. Neither do you, or Kert Davies, or Geoff Supran, or Adam Johnson. In fact, I don’t think you guys are worried about my “powers of persuasion;” I think you’re worried about facts that conflict with your own agenda. Facts, for instance, that suggest that the skills gap is real, or, that the “science” surrounding the current doomsday predictions might not be entirely “settled.” As the narrator of How the Universe Works, I announced four years ago that the best minds in science had determined universe contained 200 million galaxies. A few months later, I announced that those same scientists had revised their estimate to two trillion galaxies. Three years after that, they revised it back down to a hundred million. Science, as a rule, is always evolving, and rarely as “settled” as we like to think. But I know this much is true: there’s not a single claim in Six Degrees or in API’s current marketing campaign that you or anyone else have disputed. Not a single one. And yet, you have written an article like this.
DN: Six Degrees is right—currently, fossil fuels do provide the foundation of society and are connected to nearly everything.
MR: Wait…What?? We agree?? Well then, I must ask you again, Dharna, in all sincerity – why the hatchet job? If you and I actually agree on the essential point of Six Degrees – that fossil fuels provide the foundation of society and are connected to nearly everything – than why would you write such a misleading headline? I get that you’re concerned about the future of the planet. Believe it or not, I am too. But Six Degrees is not about the future. It’s about the present, and the past. It’s a fun look backwards, that tries to explain how everything is connected. It’s not a PR campaign for API, or “propaganda for Big Oil,” and saying it is, doesn’t make it so.
DN: But that’s not an immutable truth, it’s a problem to be solved by creating a just, green economy. It’s precisely because of the interconnectivity of everything, the premise on which the show is built, that we need to forge that new world. Rowe’s new show is a roadblock to do just that, and that’s exactly the way the Six Degrees’ sponsors want it.
MR: And so, we end where we began – with one more completely false and totally unsupportable claim. Look, if API wanted to erect a “roadblock” to keep us from entering the future you describe, then why do their member companies invest more in alternatives than anyone else? I don’t know if API wants an economy that’s “just” and “green,” but I do know that the companies they represent are investing massively in renewables and alternatives, and you have declared them your enemy – even as you continue to rely upon the products they make.
In closing, Dharna, I mean you no harm, but I don’t believe you can say the same about me. That’s the reason I’ve responded as I have. You’ve written a deliberately false headline followed by an unsubstantiated article filled with quotes from people whose biases only confirm your own. You did so, knowing full-well that your premise was flawed, and that the facts did not support your headline. In short, I don’t think any of what you’ve written was meant to inform or enlighten. I think it was meant to shame and intimidate. I just wanted you to know that it didn’t work.
Mike
P.S. If I didn’t mention it, Six Degrees with Mike Rowe premieres this Sunday at 10 pm Eastern, only on Discovery. Check it out. You might learn something!
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testimony of Deneen Borelli, full-time fellow of the Project 21 black leadership network, on the impact of high fuel pricesbefore the full U.S. House Natural Resources Committee on May 25, 2010. Project 21 is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research.http://www.nationalcenter.orghttp://www.conservativeblog.org
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2 yr vs 4 yr HS counselor
April 29 2014 Mike testified before the House Committee on Natural Resources. The committee met to discuss "American Energy Jobs: Opportunities for Skilled Trade Workers" Read more at http://profoundlydisconnected.com/mik...
Mike Rowe Testimony
CongressmanGT
1.4M views
4 years ago
12:31
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Mike Rowe receives the 2017 American Legion National Commander’s Media & Communications Award
americanlegionHQ
28K views
4 years ago
19:13
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Mike Rowe opens up on career, confesses "lost wonder" for skilled trades
EquipmentWorld
96K views
7 years ago
6:11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuZ-JnKGvqI
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Rep. Gosar Questioning Mike Rowe
Rep. Paul Gosar
64K views
7 years ago
earning from dirty jobs | Mike Rowe
TED
7M views
12 years ago
28:16
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Mike Rowe - Full Speech at Opening Ceremony of SkillsUSA's 2013 national conference
SkillsUSA
279K views
8 years ago
7:48 selling hat for mike rowe works on ebay dunno who prick is
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C.R.A.P.: "A Prick in Congress"
Mike Rowe
27K views
8 years ago
6:31
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Mike Rowe Testimony
CongressmanGT
1.4M views
4 years ago
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[Congressman Doug Lamborn
191K views7 years ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Xp1qv_t-iU)
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RepLabrador
3.8K views7 years ago