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Vanessa Richardson (13:33)

Cause I always find something amazing. Just so many good brands cause there's always something new.

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Join the NordicLub to unlock exclusive discounts. Shop new arrivals first and more. Plus buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.

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This is Coke Zero Sugar with real Coca Cola taste and zero sugar. Listen closely Hear those bubbles? That's the sound of delicious Real Coca cola taste and zero sugar. Ice cold cook. Zero sugar. Real Coca Cola taste. Zero sugar.

Vanessa Richardson (14:15)

In 1983, amateur biologist and environmental activist Jay Westerveld went on a research trip to Samoa. Jay perfectly fit the mold of a young environmentalist. The 21 year old had a ponytail, sunglasses and a passion for animals big and small. And he wasn't afraid to stand up for what he believed in. On his trip, Jay read a sign in the hotel that gave him pause. It said Save our Planet. Every day millions of gallons of water are used to wash towels that have only been used once you make the choice. Thank you for helping us conserve the Earth's vital resources. At the bottom of the sign was the traditional recycling symbol. But Jay knew hotels wasted resources in all sorts of ways. He realized that the towel request was just a way for them to save on laundry costs while pretending they wanted to help the environment. The idea stuck with Jay even after his trip. He started to see the same practices everywhere. Oil companies, can companies, public utilities were all shielding themselves behind eco conscious advertising. Jay knew he had to do something about it. He wrote an essay and came up with a name for these practices. In 1986, 24 year old Jay Westerveld published his piece titled Greenwashing. The use of green came from the West German Green Party, which advocated for environmental change through radical political demonstrations. But over time, the word got hijacked and watered down by corporations. In his essay, Jay made a stand in favor of its original usage and used the example of the hotel towels as a jumping off point. He wrote, the meaning has been usurped and it's not really about making the planet greener anymore. Wash my towels, please. Just don't greenwash me. Jay's term stuck and within a few years, greenwashing went mainstream thanks to environmental activists. They protested events they felt were greenwashed and published books and magazines to educate people about the practice. By 1999, 13 years after Jay's essay was Published, the word greenwashing was added to the Oxford English Dictionary. The term helped bring more awareness to the practice, but it didn't stop corporations from doing it. Instead, they leaned in. Earth Day 20, celebrated in 1990, was a major event worldwide. By some estimates, 200 million people in 141 countries participated in the festivities. Being eco conscious had never been so popular. One poll found that 77% of Americans chose products based on a company's environmental reputation. Like with Chevron's People do campaign, many corporations realized they could pander to this increased audience. Greenwashing hit an all time high. When Earth Day was celebrated in 1990. A quarter of new household products coming to market advertised themselves as recyclable, biodegradable, ozone friendly or compostable. But behind the scenes, not much had changed. One study at the Time found that 58% of environmental ads had at least one deceptive claim. In 1990 alone, global CO2 emissions hit 20 billion tons, almost four times what was being produced in 1950. And for every pound of plastic recycled, 3.7 pounds of new plastic was produced two years later. In 1992, the United nations held a climate change convention called the Second Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. An environmental trade fair called Eco Brazil 92 was held in nearby Sa Paulo at the same time. Among the dozens of companies participating in the trade fair were Mitsubishi, Mercedes Benz and Sun Electric. These were some of the same corporations that were responsible for creating the issues the UN was trying to combat. And the industry got only more deceptive after that. In the year 2000, British Petroleum, one of the most powerful fossil fuel companies in the world, rebranded as beyond petroleum. In a $200 million campaign, they changed their logo to a green flower, purchased a major solar energy company, and promised to become the greenest oil company on Earth. At the same time, the company was heavily lobbying to drill in environmentally protected areas. Not only that, but BP had been aware of the impacts of fossil fuels on the environment for decades. Even then, BP and other oil companies funneled money into climate change denial organizations. In particular, ExxonMobil spent $20 million on groups that denied a link between fossil fuel use and global warming. Many of these organizations seemed benign on the surface, but were secretly trying to discredit the environmental movement. One of the most prominent of these organizations was called Africa Fighting Malaria. The nonprofit claimed to raise awareness about the disease in rural Africa. But behind the scenes, the group was lobbying against regulation for fossil fuels and chemical pesticides like ddt. As horrible as it was, Africa Fighting Malaria's strategy worked. The founder, Roger Bate openly said their goal was to make environmental activists seem unconcerned with the needs of black Africans. It became hard to criticize their actions without looking like a monster. This process, with oil and chemical companies funding puppet groups, became known as green scamming. Many of these tactics were modeled after those used by the tobacco industry to deny the link between smoking and lung cancer. Greenwashing and green scamming efforts were a huge success in the 1990s and 2000s. And even as the signs of climate change became more visible, corporations continued to escape accountability. Thankfully, there were some laws passed to curb the use of greenwashing and put more environmental regulations into Place. In 1990, President George H.W. bush signed the Clean Air act amendments into law. It introduced vehicle emissions standards and increased protections against urban air pollution. More laws were also passed limiting the use of lead and mercury in household items. Then, in 1992, the Federal Trade Commission published Green Guides. These documents outlined what companies could and could not claim in their eco friendly advertisements. Over the next decade, these rules were continually updated. The FTC filed cases against dozens of companies for making misleading environmental statements, including Mobil Oil and Mattel. But the FTC could only do so much. They could prevent corporations from making misleading claims, but they couldn't stop them from harming the environment. That role fell to Congress and the epa. But getting legislation passed to regulate these industries wasn't always easy. Like their green scamming efforts, major corporations spent millions of dollars lobbying against regulations. From 1990 to 2010, the Oil and gas lobby spent over a quarter of a billion dollars on political donations, with the vast majority going to the Republican Party. These efforts yielded major Results. In a 2007 poll of congresspeople, 95% of Democrats who responded said they believed in climate change, compared to just 13% of Republicans. Even as states like California implemented new environmental laws, corporations found ways around them. And the clearest example of this deception was the development of the electric car. The first electric car was actually designed around the same time as the gas powered automobile in the 1880s. It was popular for a while and even held the land speed record until 1900. But the high cost compared to diesel engines meant the electric car fell out of favor by the 1910s. Over the next century, though, vast improvements were made in battery technology and the cost of these cars went down significant. Significantly, as the effects of climate change became more apparent, many consumers considered switching to electric cars. In the early 1990s, the California Air Resources Board, or CARB, even mandated that Auto manufacturers had to produce electric cars as an alternative if they wanted to keep selling vehicles in the state. By 2002, many automotive companies, including General Motors, Honda and Toyota, had released their first electric vehicles to satisfy CARB's regulations. But they weren't interested in making them a success because they wanted to protect their friends in the oil industry. Many of these companies intentionally under promoted their electric cars to make it seem like consumer interest was low. And GM only offered its car in a closed end lease, meaning customers could only use it for a limited time before the car would be repossessed. In some cases, the car companies even destroyed their electric vehicle models so they wouldn't be sold secondhand. At the same time, these corporations joined with the fossil fuel industry to lobby against California's regulations. They even went so far as to sue carb, claiming their rules were unconstitutional. Eventually, CARB caved to the pressure and repealed its mandate. It would be almost a decade before new affordable EVs hit the market. In the meantime, over 50 billion tons of CO2 were emitted by cars. And it only got worse year after year. These impacts eventually made climate change undeniable. Meanwhile, the early 2000s saw a number of major events that transformed the environmental movement in America. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan devastated the soil and air of those countries. Most famously, the US Military would use burn pits to dispose of electronics, plastics, and even ammunition. And major disasters like Hurricane Katrina highlighted how fragile our relationship with nature really is. But arguably, the biggest turning point for the movement wasn't an international crisis. It was the release of a documentary film. An Inconvenient Truth, released in 2006, highlighted a campaign by former Vice President Al Gore about the looming threat of climate change. The documentary wasn't groundbreaking in its research. Scientists had been promoting similar ideas for decades. But what set An Inconvenient Truth apart was the data. It showed the cost of CO2 emissions and called its viewers to action to help save the planet. The film was a huge success, grossing almost $50 million worldwide and winning two Academy Awards, including Best Documentary Feature Film. A 47 country poll in 2007 showed that 2/3 of respondents felt the film changed their minds about global warming. 89% said it made them more aware of the problem, and 74% said they changed their habits after seeing the film. An Inconvenient Truth brought new life to the environmental movement. Despite the millions of dollars oil companies spent to deny it, climate change couldn't be ignored any longer. Just like with Silent Spring, corporations suddenly had a real PR problem. Being seen as public enemy number one was bad for business. And unfortunately for these companies, things were about to get even worse. What drives a person to kill? Is it uncontrollable rage? Overwhelming fear? Unbearable jealousy? Or is it something deeper? Something in the darkest corners of our psyche?

Dr. Tristan Ingalls (27:14)

Every Monday and Thursday, the Crime House Original Podcast Serial Killers and Murderous Minds dives deep into the minds of history's most chilling murderers. From infamous serial killers to ruthless cult leaders, deadly exes and terrifying spree killers, I'm Dr. Tristan Ingalls, a licensed forensic psychologist along with Vanessa Richard. Immersive storytelling full of high stakes twists and turns. In every episode of Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, I'll be providing expert analysis of the people involved, not just how they killed, but why.

Vanessa Richardson (27:50)

Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is a Crime House Studios Original New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts. Come 2010 there was finally some real power behind the environmental Movement Fighting climate change wasn't just a niche cause, it was trending. That represented a huge problem for corporations, especially fossil fuel companies. At the start of the decade, public perception around fossil fuel companies was at an all time low and it was about to get a whole lot worse. Around 7:45pm on April 20, 2010, an explosion occurred on BP's Deepwater Horizon oil platform off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico. The supposedly greenest oil company on Earth spilled 210 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean, resulting in the worst ecological disaster in American history and the largest marine oil spill in the history of the oil industry. Around the same time, Nissan released the Leaf, the world's first mass market battery electric vehicle. The Roadster from Tesla Motors came out first two years earlier, but the Leaf was the first affordable consumer ready car from an established automaker. This signaled more trouble for fossil fuel companies, especially because California had recently renewed its EV mandate. For the first time since the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, major corporations were facing real pushback against their policies. They needed to save face, and fast. In 2010, Chevron started a massive global ad campaign called We Agree. Its website claimed they believed the same things climate activists did. It said stuff like it's time oil companies get behind the development of renewable energy and oil companies should put their profits to good use. The vagueness of this campaign was widely mocked. Almost immediately, climate activists made websites that parodied Chevron's and completely derailed the press coverage about the campaign. Their attempt at greenwashing was a clear failure, and it taught Chevron and other companies Something important. Their old techniques weren't going to cut it anymore. If they wanted to keep maximizing profits, they needed to implement every trick in the book, starting with lying to the government. Among car companies, Volkswagen Motors had a reputation as one of the more environmentally friendly options for consumers. Their lineup of diesel powered cars, including the Beetle, Jetta and Golf, was marked as clean diesel with better fuel efficiency and lower emissions than their competitors. The Jetta even won awards like Green Car of the Year. But beneath that eco friendly praise was a dangerous secret. Starting in 2009, Volkswagen's engineers installed a software program into their diesel powered vehicles. The program could detect when a car was undergoing an emissions test and automatically reduce emissions to well below the legal limit. As soon as the test was over, the cars would return to normal. They emitted over 150 times the pollutant levels of gasoline powered models. Even worse, studies showed the people who used these cars, and especially their children, were at a much higher risk of negative health effects. But that didn't stop Volkswagen from putting the software into over 11 million million cars, including 500,000 in the U.S. volkswagen's fraudulent activities wouldn't be discovered until 2015, six years after they started installing the software, the company's American CEO apologized before Congress and Volkswagen had to pay over $33 billion in fines. US sales subsequently dropped 25%. In the aftermath of the Volkswagen scandal, other diesel car manufacturers came under fire. Companies including Audi, BMW and Jeep were accused of installing these defeat devices. But the auto industry wasn't the only one lying to regulators about their environmental impact. Keurig, the single serve coffee company, was forced to pay a $3 million fine in Canada after falsely claiming that their K Cup pods were recyclable. Kohl's and Walmart were fined a combined $5.5 million for claiming certain clothes were made from sustainable materials when they were actually made from plastic. These incidents weren't isolated. They were just an aspect of the new style of greenwashing. One that took off after a major piece of climate legislation. In 2015, the United nations reached an unprecedented deal to flee fight back against climate change. The so called Paris Agreement sought to keep global temperatures from rising by investing in renewable energy and reducing emissions. In order to hit the goals outlined in the Paris Agreement, the participating countries would need to hit net zero emissions by 2050. This plan required tripling global investment in renewable energy by 2030. In theory, governments and corporations would work together to achieve this. And over half of Fortune 500 companies signed the net zero pledge instead. A decade later, it's become increasingly clear that this pledge was just another form of greenwashing. Most of the companies that signed on knew they weren't going to hit their goal. But with such a far off deadline, it meant they could just delay the inevitable. As of 2025, only 16% of global companies are on track to hit net zero emissions by 2050. That's actually a 2% decrease from 2023. Between 2010 and 2018, Chevron spent just 0.2% of their global expenditures on renewable energy. McDonald's, which made a net zero pledge in 2021, only adopted a new recycling program after it was made mandatory by EU regulations. Coca Cola has claimed they're increasing their recycling capabilities with the stated goal to get every bottle back by 2030. But as of 2025, they're still the world's biggest contributor to plastic waste. The net zero pledge has allowed many corporations to escape escape responsibility for high emissions. But the most crooked part of this new type of greenwashing isn't just avoiding blame. It's shifting it onto the consumer. With the threat of climate change looming over the world, many people feel responsible for their own impact on the environment. According to a recent survey, 73% of Americans feel guilty about contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. That eco guilt strikes each of those people 3.8 times per month, on average about 50 days out of the year. Being conscious about how you impact the environment around you is important, but that guilt is also being weaponized by corporations to keep you buying greenwashed products. A 2021 survey by LendingTree found that 55% of Americans are willing to spend more money on products they pursue. Perceive as more environmentally friendly. Companies exploit that desire to charge more for supposedly sustainable products, even if the difference between their items and regular brands is basically non existent. Keeping consumers in a state of eco guilt incentivizes companies to continue greenwashing. And even when consumers successfully advocate for better practices, the results aren't always positive. The anti plastic straw movement gained steam in the mid-2010s after videos of sea turtles with straws stuck in their noses went viral. By some estimates, almost 400 million plastic straws were being used and discarded every single day. Campaigns to switch from plastic straws to paper became incredibly popular, and many plastic straw bans were implemented across America. And but the overall impact of the movement is debatable. Of the 8 million tons of plastic deposited into the ocean each year, only 0.025% was composed of plastic straws. Still, the issue did get people thinking about single use plastics, and the widespread scope of the bans made it one of the most successful environmental campaigns in recent memory. But as corporations joined in on the cause, they often did it in a way that made things worse. For example, Starbucks introduced a new straw free Sippy lid in 2018. It turned out these new lids contained more plastic by weight than the old straw and lid combined. Too often, consumers are put between a rock and a hard place with greenwashed products. It's hard to feel like any choice is the ethical one. Jay Westervelt, the now 63 year old activist who coined the term greenwashing, continues to speak out about environmental protections. He's wary that being eco friendly is just a trend. At the same time, he's still hopeful that we can turn our world around. I'd love to get your thoughts. What do you think about greenwashing? How should we hold corporations and governments accountable for their impact on the environment? Let us know and also share how you try to stay green in the comments. The looming danger of climate change can feel overwhelming, but corporations are counting on us to feel that way. They're hoping that we'll just let them win, or at the very least, buy into their greenwashed solutions. But knowing their tactics is half the battle. Once you're able to recognize greenwashing, you'll see it everywhere, and that's the first step toward change. Thanks so much for listening. I'm Vanessa Richard Richardson and this is Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes. Come back next week. We'll decode the episode together and hear another story about the real people at the center of the world's most notorious cults, conspiracies and criminal acts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what what you heard today, reach out on social media, rimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes Wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference and to enhance your Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode early and ad free. Will be back on Friday. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertzovsky, Laurie Marinelli, Sarah Camp Jake Natureman and Michael Langsner. Thank you for listening. What drives a person to murder? Find out from a licensed forensic psychologist on Serial Killers and Murderous Minds. A Crime House Original Podcast New episodes drop every Monday and Thursday. Follow wherever you get your podcasts.