Talking Climate: Beyond Lies
Investigative journalists and academic researchers have exposed the fossil fuel industry’s tactics of promoting empty promises, forcing the public toward individual blame, and pushing their destructive business-as-usual policy. But business as usual isn’t a foregone conclusion. We’ve also seen corporations and elected officials respond strongly to public pressure. Over the past 7 months, through our Beyond Lies participatory arts campaign featuring posters by Mona Chalabi, people around the world have joined the campaign to demand change. This initiative has invited the public to understand the fossil fuel industry's tactics, spread the word in their communities, and take civic action. Together we can work toward the changes we want to see.
On March 24th, Talking Climate: Beyond Lies featured the insights of expert panelists Mona Chalabi, illustrator, data journalist, and creator of the Beyond Lies posters; Amy Westervelt, journalist and creator of Drilled; and Jasmine Wynn, NYC 11th grader, Climate Museum High School Internship Alumna, and Beyond Lies Ambassador.
In this moment of urgency, Talking Climate: Beyond Lies, like all the Climate Museum’s programming, aims to create ground for community-building, democratic engagement, and civic action on the climate crisis.
This resource guide is designed to complement the conversation. If you enjoyed these readings or want to add to the list, please let us know!
Background for the Beyond Lies Posters
“Exxon: The Road Not Taken” by Neela Banerjee, John H. Cushman, Jr., David Hasemyer, and Lisa Song (InsideClimate News, October 2015).
“Exxon documents show that top corporate managers were aware of their scientists’ early conclusions about carbon dioxide’s impact on the climate. They reveal that scientists warned management that policy changes to address climate change might affect profitability. After a decade of frank internal discussions on global warming and conducting unbiased studies on it, Exxon changed direction in 1989 and spent more than 20 years discrediting the research its own scientists had once confirmed.”
“Big Oil braced for global warming as it fought regulations” by Amy Lieberman and Susanne Rust (Los Angeles Times, December 2015).
“As many of the world’s major oil companies — including Exxon, Mobil and Shell — joined a multimillion-dollar industry effort to stave off new regulations to address climate change, they were quietly safeguarding billion-dollar infrastructure projects from rising sea levels, warming temperatures and increasing storm severity.”
“Big Oil is trying to make climate change your problem to solve. Don’t let them.” by Amy Westervelt (Rolling Stone, May 2021)
“The strategy of shifting responsibility to the public is far less blatant than climate denial, but that’s part of what makes it so effective. It taps into American ideas about personal responsibility on the one hand, and the purity complex of activists on the other.”
“Lawsuits target Exxon’s social media ‘green washing’” by Maxine Joselow (E&E News Climate Wire, July 2021)
“As Exxon tries to portray itself as a leader on climate change on social media, the company is coming under increasing scrutiny in court. From Twitter to Instagram, the oil giant’s posts have been cited in recent lawsuits brought by state and local governments seeking fossil fuel industry compensation for the local impacts of global warming.”
“Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook.” by Rebecca Solnit (The Guardian, August 2021)
“Carbon footprints caught on, and I routinely see people on social media zooming in on individual consumption habits when climate chaos is under discussion. Bill McKibben made the case against them in 2008: ‘Say you have a certain amount of time and money with which to make change – call it x, since that is what we mathematicians call things. The trick is to increase that x by multiplication, not addition. The trick is to take that 5 percent of people who really care and make them count for far more than 5 percent. And the trick to that is democracy.’”
“The Greenwashing Files: Fossil Fuel giants accused of ‘deceptive’ advertising” by Rich Collett-White and Rachel Sherrington (DeSmog, April 2021)
“The adverts regularly highlight the companies’ preferred solutions to climate change — from carbon capture and storage, to experimental algae biofuels, and investment in renewable energy sources — without being open about the small percentage of overall investment allocated to these technologies, nor their various limitations.”
“Inside Exxon’s playbook: How America’s biggest oil company continues to oppose action on climate change” by Lawrence Carter (Unearthed, Greenpeace, July 2021)
“Keith McCoy – a senior director in Exxon’s Washington DC government affairs team – told the undercover reporter that he is speaking to the office of influential Democratic senator Joe Manchin every week, with the aim of drastically reducing the scope of Biden’s climate plan so that “negative stuff”, such as rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions and taxes on oil companies, are removed.”
For further reading we suggest Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Eric M. Conway, on how the fossil fuel industry followed the tactics of the tobacco industry and promoted doubt and uncertainty to confuse the public on the urgency of acting on climate policy.
Moving Beyond Lies and Centering Climate Justice
“Telling people to 'follow the science' won't save the planet. But they will fight for justice” by Amy Westervelt (The Guardian, December 2021)
“People don’t need to know anything at all about climate science to know that a profound injustice has occurred here that needs to be righted. It’s not a scientific story, it’s a story of fairness: people with more power and money than you used information about climate change to shore up their own prospects and told you not to worry about it.”
“Unequal Impact: Putting Justice at the Heart of the Climate Fight” Interview of Beverly Wright by Jeremy Deaton (Yale Environment 360, February 2022)
“Any climate bill has to deal with both repairing EJ communities and reducing climate change. The fact of the matter is that they go hand in hand, because one of the reasons that we are the way we are is because of what we’ve done to communities of color across this country — putting fossil fuel industry facilities in our communities, not caring about our health or our lives, that’s why we’re here. We can’t move forward without addressing that.”
“Lawmakers pursue $15 billion plan for climate justice in New York” by Rosemary Misdary (Gothamist, March 2022)
“Lessons from the slow death of Louisiana's oil industry” by Adam Mahoney (Grist, December 2021)
“The concept of a U.S.-based just transition emerged from the intersecting labor and environmental movements of the 1970s. It relies on the idea of employing a “regenerative” economy rather than an extractive one. With that idea in mind, it calls for the end of fossil fuel extraction – which helps to fuel the global economy – and investment into small-scale local production, food systems, and clean energy.”
“Reporters must center climate justice. Here's how.” by Ezra David Romero (Columbia Journalism Review, July 2021)
“As a reporter, if you’re going to cover climate change, you need to also report on climate justice. If you’re going to do that, you need to have care in your heart—and maybe also a bit of righteous anger.”
Work by our Panelists
Mona Chalabi, illustrator and data journalist, creator of the Beyond Lies posters
For a comprehensive look at Mona’s work and data visualizations, please visit her website and Instagram page.
Digital illustration “Extract. Exploit. Emit.” (2021) in the exhibition The Colour of the Climate Crisis, organized by Do The Green Thing.
“Power to the Powerless: An Interview with Mona Chalabi,” by Noëlle Rakotondravony (Medium, November 2019)
Amy Westervelt, investigative journalist and creator of Drilled
Please visit Amy’s website for more information on her work. Be sure to check out Drilled, Amy’s true-crime podcast about climate change featuring her investigative work on the fossil fuel industry’s deceptions.
“How oil companies rebranded deceptive climate ads as ‘free will’” by Amy Westervelt (Guardian, March 2022)
“The great greenwashing scam: PR firms face reckoning after spinning for big oil” by Amy Werterwelt (Guardian, February 2022)
Rigged is an online archive and podcast documenting the history and evolution of disinformation in America researched and curated by Amy.
Jasmine Wynn, NYC 11th grader and Beyond Lies Ambassador
As a youth climate advocate, Jasmine has mobilized her school on Beyond Lies and is an organizer at TREEage, among other pursuits. Jasmine is also an alumna of the Climate Museum’s high school internship program. Students in 9th through 12th grade can join the Museum’s ongoing Climate Action Leadership Program by registering here.
For more information on youth-led activism in the movement for climate justice, please visit the following:
Support Indigenous Activism
In a virtual context where audience members join us from across the United States and around the world, we acknowledge that our work and lives take place on unceded Indigenous territories. We encourage readers to discover the histories of their particular locations and of others listed here, to engage with efforts restoring land back to Indigenous stewardship, and to support Indigenous-led organizing against the expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure.
Native Land Digital: This is a tool to use as a first step in learning more about the names, traditions, and histories of Indigenous communities and land across the globe.
A 2021 study, “Indigenous Resistance Against Carbon,” by the Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International calculated that Indigenous activists’ resistance to the expansion of fossil fuel pipelines and infrastructure over the last decade saved nearly a billion tons of greenhouse gases from being emitted each year.
You can listen to the study’s coauthors, Dallas Goldtooth and Kyle Gracey, here. You can also find out more and support the work of the Indigenous Environmental Network.