Climate Change Misinformation: Tracing the Funding to Greedy People

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For almost half a century, we have been trying to

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talk about climate change and make sure that people are aware that

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the climate is changing and the consequences that come along with that.

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But over those 50 years, we have seen a series

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of campaigns that feel relentless against

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scientists, against conservationists, against people who are

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trying to make sure that everybody, you and I, know

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about what the what climate change will bring to us.

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And it's funded by people who have investments

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in oil. We've been talking about this for, like I said, half a

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century. But the people who have been funding this have been getting away

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with it, even though we kind of knew who they were. There's an article that's

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now posted that shows what people and

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what companies are donating to these campaigns and

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why they benefit from the fossil fuel industry.

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And today we're going to be talking about the frustrations that I felt and

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other people have felt about climate change and why people just aren't getting

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it. And now we even see even now to this day where we

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see the consequences that people are continue to, you

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know, speak out against it and make sure that we

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can't do any more progress from a government standpoint as

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much as we need to do because of these misinformation

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campaigns. So we're going to talk about that on today's episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.

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Let's start the show. Hey

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everybody, welcome back to another exciting episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.

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I'm your host, Andrew Lewin, and this is a podcast where you find out what's happening with the ocean,

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how you can speak up for the ocean, and what you can do to live for a

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better ocean by taking action. And if you're new

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here, don't worry, you're in the right place. place if you want to know about

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ocean news you want to know about what's happening with the ocean you want to know how you can protect

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the ocean this is the resource for you not only on this podcast but

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you can head over to our website at www.speakupforblue.com and

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even more if you want to get information to your email

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Monday to Friday every morning You can find out

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not only about what's happening in the latest news, but you can find out our latest information

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that we provide on our podcasts and our YouTube videos, as well

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as you can find out if you're looking to start a career in ocean

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conservation, you can get three jobs every day, Monday to

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Friday, right to your email. So yeah, that's

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essentially it. If you want to get access to that, go to

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speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter. That's

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speakupforblue.com forward slash newsletter. Let's

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get into the episode. There is one of my new of

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this article that I was talking about earlier about how there are

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organizations that funded That were funded to spread

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lies to the public This

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article came from a new a new website that I really love called the cooldown

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calm It's all about just sort of ways that we can help in

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terms of dealing with climate change. It has like business, auto tech,

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outdoors, all this kind of stuff. And this is in the business section. I'm going to

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link to the article in the show notes or the description wherever you're watching.

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If you're watching on YouTube, it's in the description below. But

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check it out. Check out the site. Check out this article. It's a really interesting article

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that leads to a different article, which I'm actually going to highlight

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in the show notes because it's an article that will actually show

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the report, the fossil fuel philanthropy report. basically saying

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that there are companies and organizations, non-profit organizations,

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like organizations who get a tax rebate. that

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are getting funded to spread lies. Not

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only just lies, but to spread apathy. So I'll

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take you back to a time where people started

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to talk about climate change. Scientists were starting to make people know. You saw

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scientists make people know about the ozone layer.

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They said, hey, you know what? There's a hole in the ozone layer, and this is what's causing it.

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It's like a bunch of CFCs. and if i was an 80s i

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was a 70s baby i grew up in the 80s and 90s and i remember watching

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shows like cartoons like gi joe kind of stuff

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and gi joe used to have this little thing at the end it

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was like a little segment called the more you know and

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or knowing is half the battle I think is is is what it was more you

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know is NBC thing but knowing is half the battle was

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a G. I. Joe kind of saying and it basically talk is about a variety different

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things don't take candy from strangers know how to call 911 and

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who's a friend who's not all this kind of stuff But they also

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talked about the ozone layer and how the ozone layer, actually I think it

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was one of the episodes was about the ozone layer, how there's like CFCs

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in aerosol cans that was causing the

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hole in the ozone layer. So back then, in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, We're

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like, oh, OK, so there's a hole in the ozone layer and it's caused by

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these CFCs. So governments got together and said, you know what? Not

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only do we have to stop buying these aerosol cans, but we have to stop putting

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CFCs in these aerosol cans. So basically put the

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element or the chemical that was causing the hole in the ozone layer, we

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need to stop putting that in the aerosol cans because that's what the scientists are saying is

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it's causing the hole in the ozone layer. And they did that. They

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actually took it out. And so aerosol cans didn't have that. And hey,

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guess what? The hole in the ozone layer got smaller, right?

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There you go. Scientists identify the problem. The policy

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goes in for the government. People are like, yeah, we can't do this.

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Let's listen to the scientists. OK, let's put into policies,

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put into regulation, and businesses stop putting it in there. Perfect.

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Problem pretty much solved. It closed. It's opened again,

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but for a different reason. But now, in

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the 80s, we had acid rain. So basically, the chemicals that were going into

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the atmosphere from a variety of different things, a lot of it had

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to do with mining. Because I remember in Sudbury, Ontario, near where

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I live, just north of where I live, like four hours, five hours north, there

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was acid rain. So what was happening is there was chemicals that were getting the air

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from, I believe it was from mining, if I remember correctly. And then it

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made the rain more acidic and it was causing devastation

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to the environment. So scientists identified that,

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governments got together and said, hey, you know what? We should stop this. So let's

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put on regulations of what was causing it and let's stop acid

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rain. Acid rain went down. We don't hear about acid rain again because it's

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not that much of a problem as it was back in the 80s and 90s. And

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now, because scientists identified it, that's great. Now,

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come to climate change. In the 70s, scientists started to talk about climate

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change. 80s, 90s, we're starting to say, hey, you know what? We really

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need to look out for this because it's getting worse. And it's caused by

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the chemicals that are put out for the fossil, the burning fossil fuels. So

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you're looking at carbon dioxide. You're looking at methane gas

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and other greenhouse gases that were warming the atmosphere and

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that was causing changes and shifts in the environment. So it was warming

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the waters. It was causing the water to be more acidic,

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right? And it was causing a lot of sea level to rise. It was causing the

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glaciers to melt. But all of a sudden, there

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started to be information being like trying to get rid of that information, right?

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Trying to combat that information. Be like, no, no, scientists are just

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being This is a bunch of hippies that are doing that are saying this and

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they want us to stop it We don't really need to stop. It's okay. We could

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just continue don't believe in climate change climate change is not a

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thing That was the messaging all throughout the 90s and probably most of

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the 2000s that we've had so far And it wasn't until

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recently the like last 10 years where we started to see

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campaigns be like, you know what? Like climate change is here. Yes,

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it's it's here like it's cause and it's a little bit caused by humans actually for

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a while. They used to say I remember all man. I remember this was like I

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think it was like in the late 90s or early 2000s. It

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was a senator. I think was Ted Cruz that went on like David

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Letterman and And he basically told David Letterman,

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because they were talking about climate change and how the atmosphere was warming. And

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he's like, yes, we had a peak in 1998. And

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if you look at the rest of the time after that,

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we haven't had temperatures higher than that. Right.

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So we've only peaked and now we're going down. That's basically what he said on national

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TV. But if you looked at the entire graph,

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like from the 50s and 60s, even earlier, you start to

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see this exponential growth. And yes, there was a

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slight peak in 1998 and it did go down a

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little bit, but it was slowly starting to rise again each

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year, year after year after year. And it continued to

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rise and it continues to rise. And so when you have

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people saying, oh, yeah, well, it peaked, but now it's going down, people are like,

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oh, that makes sense. Like, there's this guy on TV who said it peaks and it goes down. But

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when you look at the actual graph and you take it into full context, you

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start to see, like, actually, it's slowly rising again. And

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we're still very high compared to where we were 50 years

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ago, even longer, like 100 years ago. Very, very different.

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So they're just looking at minuscule in a small period of time, but

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we had to say the peak. And I remember talking to people. I was in university at

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this point, learning about climate change, learning about how it affects the ocean.

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But still, you didn't see or hear a lot of talk. But you hear the denial. I started to really sort

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of realize how many people were denying climate change on

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TV, in conversations. And I remember talking to

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my dad about this. And my brother and I

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was like, yeah, I'm like, look, climate change is a big thing. We have to be careful of

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it. We've got to change the way we live. It's a big, big

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change. Because it was fossil fuels. We were relying on fossil fuels

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so much at that point. We were barely going to windmills, barely

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going to solar. That was being talked about like, it can't sustain

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anything. The technology is not there yet, all that kind of stuff. This is late

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90s, early 2000s. And I remember talking to my dad about it. He's like,

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well, we've got to be careful. We can't just change everything because the economy is

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dependent, especially in Canada, is dependent on fossil fuels. And it is. It

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is tied to oil and gas. That's what our economy is tied to. If

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the oil goes down, the price of oil goes down, our economy goes

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down because we're so focused on natural resources, especially oil and

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gas. Regardless of that, that deniability just

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kept coming into play. And then we started to hear the apathy, basically

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saying, hey, you know what? Yes, climate change is here. We

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recognize that the climate is changing. Then they're saying, but it's not

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by us. Climate just changes over like a lot

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of time over the time period. And it's just a natural thing. We saw ebbs

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and flows in over time. And we just saw that we

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don't have to worry about it. It's not human related. Then, you know,

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more evidence comes out that it's human-related and more and more people are believing that.

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And then they start to say, you know what, sure, it's here. I think

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now it's like, we just can't do anything about it. It's just the earth. The

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earth is just changes. Yes, so we make a little bit of a minuscule disturbance.

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We just can't do anything about it. You might as well just enjoy the ride and

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let's just see what happens. And over this time, we

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keep continuing to reveal that there are companies out

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there who are spending money to PR firms, who

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are spending money on non-profit organizations like the Fraser Institute

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here in Canada, to proliferate all this garbage

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science that says, hey, you know what, we have so many science, hundreds

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of scientists have signed on saying climate change doesn't exist. Not true.

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If you actually scour and look at the peer-reviewed journal articles

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where the science happens, Like where all, everything

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is agreed upon and debated on, and

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you know, there's rivalries and stuff like that. You

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see a lot happening, a lot of critique about science

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in the peer-reviewed journals. You see it. Not only just, you know,

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journals, journal articles of science that are saying that yes, climate change

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is getting worse, and we're still here, and you know, even if we stop

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everything now, we're still gonna feel it for like the next 50 to

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100 years. All that's in there, but there's also

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a lot of scientists that are just talking about climate change in general. They

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may not be focused, their study may not be focused on climate change, but

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overall, there is climate change. It's in

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there, just like, oh yeah, and climate change is affecting this, so it's a cumulative effect on a

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disturbance for nutrients or whatever. There's always that added factor. Scientists

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continue to sort of

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enforce the fact that climate change changes everything. Climate

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change changes everything. And when the United States had Obama as

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their president, Obama came out and said, climate

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change is the number one threat to the US. And then the Navy came

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out and said, climate change is the number one threat to the US. And

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then NASA came out and said, climate change is the number one threat to the

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US. You had all these people coming out and saying it that were backed by

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science. And then all of a sudden that messaging disappeared because

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you had another president who came in who was just basically all

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for drilling oil and gas and continuing to

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move that. Even with the other president, Joe Biden coming in,

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still saying, hey, we need to put this plan together about climate change

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and to reduce climate change, still approving projects for

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oil and gas that will continue to develop oil and gas reserves

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well into the future, like 30, 40, 50 years into the future. And

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it's just perpetuated by this misinformation that we keep

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seeing. Every time, and a lot of my fellow science communicators

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will be able to attest to this. A lot of times, and for

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me, it's like every time I talk about climate change, there is somebody who's

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gonna write a comment that denies climate change. And the best,

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my favorite is like, watch this YouTube video. This YouTube video will

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tear every scientist that has

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talked about climate change, how it's affecting the world. It's gonna tear them down, all

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the arguments are gonna be torn down. Forget the peer-reviewed scientists. Just

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listen to this YouTube person and I Fully

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aware that I am a person who's listening to you Who's telling you on YouTube

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that climate change is real and we're facing the consequences. I understand that

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but I'm backed by peer-reviewed science I'm backed by all

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those scientists who are saying hey, we have a problem here.

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That's affecting our entire planet now

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Not in the future, but now it's gonna get worse if we continue on this

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path, but now we are being affected But

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then you continue to have these ideas by high-level

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officials in government who continue to say, hey, the

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weather's being controlled by the government to stop an election

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from happening that will go the opposite way. You

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have people who are out there, like these organizations that

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are being funded by oil and gas through

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non-profit organizations. It's almost like laundering money in a way, but I

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don't know if this is illegal. But you're starting to have this, like the

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Koch brothers are the ones that are a part of

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this. If you look at this fossil fuel philanthropy report that's in this article

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that I'll put in the show notes, you'll see that a lot of, like Charles Koch is

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the guy who, or Koch, or Koch, I don't know how you pronounce it,

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But they're the organizations that are funding this

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misinformation. And you're starting to see the

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ramifications of the misinformation too, because there

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are organizations out there who are suing oil companies for

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perpetuating all this misinformation in the past, and

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for causing delays in action by governments.

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And to be honest, this is my personal feeling, until we

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get money out of election campaigns and

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having businesses, even people being able

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to donate to specific candidates for money, then

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we are not going to see a change in this. But

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until then, which will be a long time if it ever happens, until

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then, it's good to have this report. Because if you want to take

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action against climate change, you want to stop the companies who

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are fueling these misinformation campaigns by

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not buying from what they sell or what they own.

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That could be difficult, because you might have to go, like, tangle in the weeds. But

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the person, the name that I keep seeing is

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Charles Koch, or Coke, however you pronounce it, That

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person is tied to multiple corporations that probably own multiple corporations. They

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are entrenched in our world. They own chemical companies. They own oil and

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gas companies. We may not be able to get out of it right off

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the bat, but you can actually identify the people who are causing

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this misinformation, who are causing the delays in drastic

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action that needs to be taken to help not only save people's lives, but

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save our economy in the future from having to spend trillions

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of dollars into cleaning up the consequences of

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climate change. That's what it comes down to, folks. Like, we talk

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about the economy and how we need to save the economy. Think about every time

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we have to spend money on cleaning up a hurricane that's

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a Category 5 in June, floods that we don't normally

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see, unprecedented floods, hurricanes that are getting bigger and

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stronger and faster that we're seeing in

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October, late October. Right? We are starting to see all

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these storms come to a head. We're starting to see sea level rise and increased storm

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surges because the sea level is higher. We're starting to

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see that the water is getting fresher. We're starting to see that major current

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systems are actually changing or slowing down that will

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eventually shut down and cause a drastic change

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in our weather patterns around the globe. yet

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we continue to let these companies control the information

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that goes through. And think about it, with all the way information

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is spread today in terms of technology and into

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our phones and into our brains, we are the most

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susceptible to misinformation. That is probably a

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big threat to us right now because what you

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see is what you get on different social media

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platforms. And let's just be honest, No matter what side you

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are of an issue Both sides are on those platforms trying to

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put together information that will allow you to make a decision Whether

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that information is correct or not that is up for that is up to you to

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decide and up scientists to tell Right and

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for you to believe you got to know who you can believe because the

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climate Like just cluster f

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that we have seen in terms of a PR campaign

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to do something about climate change is absolutely off its

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rocker. You know, we've failed as scientists, we

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failed as communicators to ensure that

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the right information gets to the right people at the right time.

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and that's on us because like scientists we never talked about climate

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change that much or we never talked about science that much before all this technology

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came out even then we were late because we were worried that our

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information would not get to the right people or would be manipulated to

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show something else because that's happened in the past and that's because you

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know sometimes when there's big business involved we are going up

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against you know, a lot of money. And a lot of

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money can do a lot of bad things in the wrong hands. And

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that's what we've seen. And hopefully, this

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fossil fuel philanthropy report can actually get out to the right

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people and we can actually take action. It's getting out to the people. It's

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out there. We can make a difference. Just how do we

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do that is the next question. Right? That's

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really what it comes down to. How do we do that? I actually recently did,

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I was on Instagram and a

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survey came up by Meta, right? The company that owns, you

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know, Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp and so forth. And

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it asked me a number of questions about the perception of the company, Meta itself.

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And it said, how do you feel about Meta when it comes to misinformation? And

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I was just like, it's the worst, it's the worst company for it. And

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how do you feel about Meta as a company? I don't like

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the, and I even responded, I don't like the fact that you

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manipulate other companies like the government to go after other companies

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like TikTok because you're afraid that they're putting a dent in

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your profits and your share of the attention that you

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used to get from Instagram and from Facebook. Because

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TikTok is pretty much taken over. It's almost rivaling Google at

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some point. I think it was higher at one point. And now you're seeing

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it banned at a certain time, if that ever will happen, in

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the US. Because let's be honest, Meta

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did that. They wanted to do that, they did that. And

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so they're the ones who started all this inquiry. So it's

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really... scary when this happens but

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the fact that we have access now to this information where there's people who

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are donating and companies who are donating to these non-profit organizations

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that are just there to misinform you is

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really powerful and I'm glad this came up and I'm surprised it's

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not being talked about more Because a couple of

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months ago, I did a story on how there were over

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120 senators and congresspeople who were

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being paid by fossil fuel companies or fossil fuel packs that

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would allow them to support oil and gas rather

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than the environment, rather than the country that they

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serve in the US. Right? We're starting

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to see this information come out. It's in there. It's for us. And there's

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a huge election coming to the US. This is

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the time where you say, who is involved with getting funded by the

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Koch brothers? The Koch brothers. Let's just call it the Koch brothers. The Koch brothers.

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Who is involved? Right? Then if

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they're funding certain people who are trying to get elected, maybe if

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the environment is important to you, if the economy is important to you, maybe don't vote them in. It

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doesn't matter what side they're on because they're both being funded by the same

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people. It doesn't matter what side they're on, vote somebody who's independent

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or vote somebody who's not being funded by them or funded less by them, right?

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Somebody who will represent more about you, the people

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who they are there to represent rather than the companies that are donating that

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they end up representing in place of you. So

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that's just like this article just kind of got me going because I was like, I can't believe

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this isn't being talked about a lot. It's probably because the

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Koch brothers own a lot of media outlets, right? Like, let's

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be honest here. You know, there's a reason why the

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Washington Post this year didn't, or this election term,

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didn't say they chose, they didn't choose a candidate they wanted to support. They've

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chosen a candidate all this other time, but now that, you

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know, Amazon donor Jeff Bezos owns them, he's like, you know, we're not going to choose a

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candidate because we're going to stay in the middle. You know, we're going to be journalists,

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we're going to stay in the middle. Funny how most of the articles are

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supporting like Democratic Party sort of policies and

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making and sort of criticizing Republicans. But all of a sudden, now

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you decide to stay in the middle. Maybe it's because that

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when if Kamala Harris gets in as a

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president, you're going to see a lot of taxes come to billionaires and he's

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a multibillionaire and he doesn't want to give up some of his money. That's just me going

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off on a tangent. But that's what's happening here, right? When

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these companies, these big billionaires own all these

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different companies at a powerful level, then all of a sudden they're like, hey, you know what?

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Yeah, we can do whatever we want. We decide not to take a stand. We're

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not gonna support either candidate. Well, there's a reason for

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that. There's always a reason for that. And unfortunately, that's

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just how we have to deal with it. But we have to press the press. We have to

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press the government to say, hey, you're supposed to be representing us,

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not these companies that are supporting you. And this report allows

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us to get more information on who's being supported by

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this and allowing this misinformation coming and

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allowing the government not to go further into

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supporting us and by protecting citizens. And this is

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all governments, not just the US, this is Canada, this is everything. to protect their

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citizens against environmental damage that we're causing to ourselves. So

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that's what I had to say. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Am I off the rocker

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here? Should this be more and more in the news and

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be covered more by multiple outlets? Or, you know, I find this election

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cycle, it's being ignored. Climate change in general is just being ignored.

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I don't know why. It's a big division between the two. The

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one thing I could say why is because human rights are at at stake

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here. Hopefully

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everything goes well this week, but I do recommend that you go

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out and vote I suggest strongly suggested, you know And

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for whatever party you're going for just go out and vote. It's your right It's

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something you deserve to do and everybody deserves to do that. And

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so hopefully The environment will come out ahead, but

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that's it for me today. I'd love to hear from you you can leave a

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comment on YouTube or Spotify or

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you can hit me up on Instagram at how to protect the ocean and

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That's at howtoprotecttheocean, all one word. I'd

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love to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you so much for

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listening to this episode of the How to Protect the Ocean podcast. I'm your host, Angelo.