Behind the Carbon Curtain: The Energy Industry, Political Censorship, and Free Speech.
I liked this book enough to buy a second copy from Amazon so I could write an Amazon book review. I bought the first copy at the New Mexico School of Mining bookstore, of all places, after attending a graduation ceremony. I am afraid the book will never get the attention it deserves because the author is from a little known university of the nation’s least populous state, Wyoming, and because much of the activity described takes place in that region, which must seem remote to many potential readers.
However, as the author points out, Wyoming can be viewed as a lens into America for this topic. It produces 1/5 of the nation’s energy and is second only to Texas in total BTUs produced. In Wyoming, fossil fuel taxes and royalties account for 60% of state revenues or at least 2/3 to 3/4 when allied activities are considered. Hence, the fossil fuel industry, individuals it has made rich, and politicians it finances have the opportunity to exert enormous financial pressure on public institutions like its university, museums, and schools and, of course, on government itself. The author examines how this industry and its captains handle this opportunity with respect to censorship.
Usually, censorship is regarded as a tool of government or religion to maintain its power or authority. However, in this case, censorship originates as a tool of industry and its captains to serve its own purposes either directly or through the politicians it controls. In Wyoming, many individuals with backgrounds or fortunes from the fossil fuel industries hold elected offices, serve as government officials, and serve on the boards of public institutions like the University of Wyoming, museums, and public schools. In addition, the industry finances many of the state’s politicians at all levels of government, as well as think tanks, academic institutions, and programs placed in the state’s schools and university.
The author’s approach to showing how this power is used begins by reporting many seemingly small narratives that are well below the national radar but that cumulatively become pervasive. He begins with the story of the Carbon Sink, a piece of land art installed by the UW Art Museum that displeased the energy industry. The large outdoor artwork was destroyed as a result of pressure from industry and the legislators it supports. For good measure, follow-up included withdrawal of industry support for university museum fundraising, removal of $2 million from the museum’s budget, and passage of a law requiring submission of future similar art work to the UW energy resources council and the governor. Another sequence that involved suppression of art is described for the photographic exhibit, THE NEW GOLD RUSH: Images of Coal Bed Methane in the Nicolaysen Art Museum of Casper, Wyoming.
The author continues with the stories of several scientists who were fired, censured, had research defunded, or were directed away from conducting research or presenting information to the general public due to objections from the fossil fuel industry and its politicians. Forbidden activities included studies or opinions that reached the public regarding fracking and water contamination, fracking and markedly increased earthquakes, dumping enormous volumes of waste water from fracking, finding that natural gas may be worse than coal for global warming if leakage exceeds 3%, and finding that flared excess gas and fracking effluents from new wells produced dangerous toxic smog in downwind communities.
Although these events were painfully important for individual careers and communities, they were merely indicators of the widespread intimidation that created a far more important climate of pervasive self-censorship. The author documents this by providing many examples of industry and its top politicians publicly endorsing this process and privately implementing it by phone calls and meetings or by actions on boards of directors for universities and museums. He then provides multiple examples of enforcement of this censorship by subordinate university administrators, university department heads, and museum administrators afraid of losing funding or losing their jobs.
Of course, industry driven censorship does not stop here. It also engages in preemptive educational censorship to determine what can and cannot be taught to the state’s children and even in its university. In 2013, a bill was passed supporting a curriculum developed by energy companies to promote “energy literacy” in grade schools. Subsequently, politicians offended by the inclusion of anthropogenic climate change in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) initiated a struggle for its implementation by passing a budget footnote denying it state funds. Other struggles over curriculum and teaching materials took place at the state and local levels.
For the University of Wyoming, the legislature imposed upon the trustees a decision to have the industry-dominated advisory Energy Resources Council approve the hiring for the School of Energy Resources. In 2013, Robert Sternberg was hired as the new university president with assurance to the legislature that he would be “building programs…in collaboration with the energy industry.” He replaced the provost with a candidate who had ties to the energy industry. A cascade of resignations and firings followed. He conducted a review of the UW College of Law by a task force stacked with energy industry supporters to assess its shortcomings “with regard to energy, natural resources, water, and environmental law.” The dean resigned in protest over the duplicitous politics that provided no voice for his faculty. Subsequently, an investigative journalist showed that this plan to reeducate law students was based on demands from a single trustee with connections to the energy industry.
In his final two chapters, the author discusses the fate of free speech in market society. He offers climate change as the most powerful example of how energy corporations have controlled public discourse. Well-funded think tanks and their scientists-for-hire have successfully manufactured the illusion of scientific controversy where none existed by recycling fatuous claims in a version of “proof by repetitive assertion.” This was merely repetition of techniques used by industry to delay action against the hazards of tobacco in the 1960s and acid rain in the 1980s.
In today’s era of market fundamentalism these techniques have been facilitated by the commodification of public and private life. This commodification may be the most potent tool of censorship. In the starkest sense, free speech now becomes the property of those who purchase it. When speech can be bought and sold, only the rich can speak in ways that are heard, particularly after Citizens United. The top 0.1% have as much wealth as the bottom 90%. With the concentration of wealth comes the consolidation of speech. In this setting, the author finds two structural defects that foster censorship in Wyoming, the hegemony of the energy industry and the connection between political elections and corporate money.
16. Behind the Carbon Curtain (Wyoming academic and government takeover by corp. mining)
