How to respond to disinformation about clean energy, at scale

September 2
1h 11m

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Episode Description

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Disinformation about clean energy is showing up everywhere — online after every blackout, at county commission meetings about siting new projects, in regulatory dockets stuffed with fake comments. GoodPower, which combines a C3 education arm with a C4 advocacy arm, is trying to fight back with a network of thousands of content creators, rapid-response campaigns around storms and grid failures, and an AI tool that detects manufactured public comments. I talk with CEO Leah Qusba about what they've tried, what they've measured, and what actually works.

Chapters:

00:00 – Introduction

03:06 – What the disinformation claims, and who spreads it

05:57 – From Action for the Climate Emergency to GoodPower

08:38 – Building a creator network in non-political verticals

14:17 – Competing with talk radio and Fox News

18:26 – Winter Storm Fern and the rapid response system

23:26 – Measuring whether a deployment actually worked

27:24 – Pre-bunking and the 80-county experiment

33:18 – Getting people off the couch and into the room

38:10 – AI agents and where human judgment sits

42:05 – Keeping the C3 and the C4 distinct

47:13 – Battery fires, Moss Landing, and talking to fire chiefs

50:54 – TrueVoice and manufactured public comment

56:13 – Whether AI will overwhelm the comment process

58:11 – The best messages that actually land

1:04:22 – Super PACs, budgets, and what comes next

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