From Drilled: The Carbon Gold Rush
5/19/202628 min
We usually bring you failures of the past, but today we're sharing an episode from someone who uncovers failures as they happen. Amy Westervelt is an award-winning investigative climate journalist and the host of Drilled, a true-crime climate change podcast exposing how corporate corruption and political operatives built decades of climate denial and delay. Each season unravels new evidence of deception, disinformation, and the power structures keeping real climate solutions out of reach.
Drilled's latest season, Carbon Cowboys, examines a group of people who've turned climate policy into a profit engine. In September 2025, a group of Brazilian government ministers flew to North Dakota to watch a presentation on a new type of clean energy project, one that promised to help them deliver Brazilian President Lula’s dream of turning Brazil into “the Saudi Arabia of sustainable aviation fuels.” It was the latest in a string of projects from Midwest Republican kingmaker and corn ethanol magnate Bruce Rastetter, whose investments in Brazil might just transform him into a global carbon czar, even as his Summit pipeline carbon project faces fierce opposition from Iowa to North Dakota.
Here's episode 1 of Drilled: Carbon Cowboys. Find Drilled wherever you get podcasts and hear episodes early and ad-free with a Pushkin+ subscription. Sign up on the Drilled show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm/plus.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsTim Harford· Host0:00
[intro music] [pen scratching] Pushkin. Hello. Tim Harford here, briefly stepping aside from my usual role of documenting failures of the past to point you towards someone who's uncovering spectacular failures as they happen. Her name is Amy Westervelt, and her show is called Drilled. It's an investigative podcast about climate change, not the science of it, but the politics and the money and the spin. This season, Carbon Cowboys follows a new type of clean energy project in Brazil, one that promises to turn the country into, quote, "The Saudi Arabia of sustainable aviation fuels." What could possibly go wrong? It's the kind of story Cautionary Tales listeners will recognize. Powerful people, a compelling vision, and some uncomfortable questions lurking just beneath the surface. Enjoy the episode, and if you want to hear more, find Drilled wherever you get your podcasts, and hear episodes early and ad-free with Pushkin Plus, available on Drilled's Apple Podcast show page, or pushkin.fm/plus.
Amy Westervelt· Host1:20
This is an iHeart podcast. [upbeat jingle] Guaranteed human.
Tim Harford· Host1:24
AI is everywhere these days, but Wix Harmony stands out. It's an