Next month, the 27th Conference of the Parties or COP, the UN Climate Negotiations

will kick off in Cairo, Egypt. Once again, negotiators and politicians from all over the world

will join up to talk through what they are willing to do to stave off human extinction.

That sounds dramatic, right? But that's kind of what we're talking about here.

There will be the usual massive contingent from the fossil fuel industry there as well.

Last time in Glasgow, the fossil fuel industry sent more representatives than anyone

country did, and there's likely to be more of the same in Egypt. The organizers have

in a much publicized and criticized move allowed major global polluter Coca-Cola to sponsor the event.

Even worse, they've also hired Coca-Cola's publicist, Hill and Nolton, to do PR for the conference.

If you missed season three of Drill, go back and listen to it. We did an entire episode on Hill

and Nolton, founder John Hill and his work for both the oil industry and the tobacco industry

all at the same time. Hill masterminded the strategy of hiring scientists to say tobacco smoking

wasn't bad for you, and that the jury was still out on whether it caused cancer.

At the very same time, his firm was working for the American Petroleum Institute,

and some of its member companies. In fact, it was Hill who brought tobacco folks

into the American Petroleum Institute, a long-standing relationship between oil and tobacco,

eventually resulted in the creation of the cigarette filter,

a money maker for oil and gas companies looking for a new place to sell petrochemicals,

and a slight of hand for the tobacco industry looking to convince consumers that they can make

smoking less harmful by smoking lighter, filtered cigarettes. Hill represented Monsanto around the

same time too, so no surprise that the chemical industry embraced a lot of the same tactics.

Definitely the folks you want strategizing the messaging for your climate conference.

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