Bonus Ep 3: The Big, The Bad and The Biofuel

Reporting on Jacobin Levant's story has opened my eyes to the existence of a sprawling criminal underworld.

“Of rampant, green fuel scams, leaching off the legitimate biofuel industry.”

It's occupied by many more crooks than just Jacobin Levant. My producer Jacobo Tyavich has been digging deep into it, and in this final bonus episode, he'll take you along with him, starting by looking at other, egregious cases of biofuel fraud.

But ultimately going way beyond that, all the way to the decades-old political cynicism that

essentially allowed this fraud to keep happening. Jake, I'll let you take it from here. Thanks Michelle. From the teams at novel and iHeart Podcast, this is Kingdom of fraud. Bonus episode three, the big, the bad, and the biofuel.

So, Jacobin Levant might have been the most audacious in the sheer volumes of money they stole from the U.S. Treasury, but they certainly weren't the only ones lining their pockets with government cash. As it turns out, biofuel fraud schemes were happening all across the U.S. almost as soon as the credits were introduced, back in 2005.

But I was interested to find out how biofuel became such a big industry in the first place.

And why things ended up going this wrong? I also had this other pretty fundamental question.

“One that I think gets asked very rarely when discussing biofuel fraud.”

Like, was it really the planet saving invention that it was made out to be? To get some of these answers, I spoke with Don Carr. My name's Don Carr. I'm live in Minnesota. For about past 20 years, I've done investigate journalism and advocacy. Don Carr grew up in Sioux Falls.

I made Western City wrapped around the banks of the big Sioux River in South Dakota. For the most part, his work is focused on American agriculture and its impact on the environment. Coming from generation that didn't grow up with screens and growing up in South Dakota, we spent a lot of time outside, either hunting or fishing, kayaking, rock climbing, hiking, anything we do outside.

And so I kind of love nature and love the outdoors because it's really part of our day-to-day almost entertainment. As an adult, this love for the great outdoors evolved into a passion for environmental advocacy. Don worked with environmental groups on political issues and campaigns, including the farm

bill, a huge piece of federal legislation that essentially governs all of American agriculture and food policy. This was familiar territory for Don. His family actually owned a farm where they grew grain and raised cattle, but that didn't blinker Don to the havoc agriculture could wreak on the natural environment.

The farm bill notoriously incentivizes a lot of destruction of natural environments, plying under a wild fields, focus on just a few grains instead of a diverse farming ecological system. And from there, I kind of got radicalized into the environmental movement witnessing kind of the devastation happened in all these wild places that I grew up loving and playing and being plowed under.

The natural landscapes Don had known as a child were increasingly being repurposed for intensive farming. Don covered this landscape shift as a journalist, writing for Politico and the Huffington Post and even appearing on national news. He had another passion though.

I do the stuff during the daytime, so at night I would like to write fiction, that's just the way I like to do it. While I was working on actually a novel, at the time, Don had a book agent. He rang me up and said, hey, we need to talk so I'm important going down. Don's agent tells him he needs to speak to him urgently and it's not about the fiction

novel he's working on. The agent has been contacted by a real life whistleblower.

“This whistleblower literally fell out of the sky in his lap and that's how I really got involved”

in it. Don got dropped right into the middle of an environmental thriller. The central plot revolved around biofuel fraud. Don got on the phone with a whistleblower using a secure line and the story he revealed was shocking.

So shocking, the Don started working on a full length investigative book. Guys named as Dave Larson and Dave had this amazing compelling story about how he grew up in the 80s.

He always liked build stuff and tinker with stuff and he kind of fell into this home

Even before biofuel's went mainstream, there were people tinkerring with car engines

and creating biofuel's and their garages and backyards, hobbyists. Dave was one of them, a smart guy who liked to work with his hands and was interested in a more sustainable way of living. Eventually Dave learned so much about biofuel's that he realized he could turn the hobby into a paid job.

He got this tip that Indiana biofuel plant called Triton needed to have a plant manager. So Dave ended up being the plant manager and managed the three or four other people that were in the plant doing various tasks. It made sense. It really fit his skill set and then what he believed about the world.

But Triton wasn't just any bio plant. Back in 2011, they seemed like the rising biofuel superstars because Triton had apparently

developed a new catalyst for making biofuel that burned cleanly.

“Honestly, the scientific significance of this supposed breakthrough surpasses my high school”

level understanding of chemistry. But Don says that at this time, Triton's new technology seemed to solve a major problem. Everyone was looking for a silver bullet kind of new chemical that could use that would really produce a biofuel that burned clean. And this is super important, it's very hard and expensive to make biofuel that actually

burns clean, essentially without producing harmful emissions. But no matter how difficult it was, Fred Whitmer, the boss of Triton, claimed to have done just that, they created the best biofuel on the market. It was a major achievement for the industry and for the state of Indiana. People took notice.

They were celebrated, they were heroes in Indiana in Indiana as a big cornering state. There's a picture of Mike Pence at the refinery when he was running for governor. It was a big campaign stop. He sat in the back of this big red pickup and did a big campaign event at the facility at Triton.

“They employed a lot of people in the area and they were going to be the next big thing”

that happened in agriculture. They were heroes for their community, absolutely. When Dave Larson, Don's whistleblower, joined Triton, it felt huge for him. Dave was passionate about the environment about making biofuel and he was doing something he was really good at.

But as he gets to know the Triton plan to little better, Dave starts noticing some strange things. For starters, his boss, Fred Whitmer, is very protective about the details of the company's crucial technology. Then Dave notices that fast amounts of the biofuel Triton produced wasn't actually being

used as fuel. He kept noticing that they kept taking their biofuel they made and doing other products with it. It was being mixed into things like asphalt and fire starters.

“And importantly, you can't claim biofuel credits or subsidies for that.”

At first, Dave is suspicious. Then when he realizes the truth about Triton's biofuel, he's horrified. Dave learned that it was actually fake. It didn't work. It was bad.

They were making bad biofueles, so they'd put it in other products in order to get rid of it and also to claim their tax credit from the government. All the pieces fell into place for Dave.

Triton wasn't making a revolutionary clean burning biofuel.

And Fred wasn't secretive about their special catalyst because it was so innovative. It was because their fuel wasn't actually good enough to even be sold as fuel. It's really hard and it costs a lot of money and a lot of resources and a lot of times it doesn't cancel out economically to make a biofuel that burns really clean. And that's where the crux was.

They couldn't solve the problem. Of course, Triton may have been started with the best of intentions, but it had a reputation to uphold, as well as a bunch of staff and a local community depending on its success. But without an actual clean burning biofuel, the business was under serious pressure. One thing had to give.

And so that's when the fraud comes in. That's when they start moving around in different vehicles, calling it different names, making it in a different products, but still claiming your tax credits. With Triton to get the lucrative tax credits, they start lying about what they were making. And it might seem, you know, innocuous.

It might seem, you know, no one's getting hurt here. It's a victimless crime. It's the federal government. Our next batch will be better. You can see the thinking here, but it still was fraud.

Dave Larson had figured all of this out, and he was genuinely heartbroken. Because not only was Triton lying about their business to clean tax credits, this idealist and true believer in saving the planet, was now relying on all this fraud for his livelihood.

Then, one day, he was working at Triton's plant, and something horrific happened.

Dave's life would never be the same.

That's coming up after the break. Why do you love movies? Is it the emotion, the spectacle, the escapism, on Raiders of the Lost podcast, we explore cinema like no one else. Including huge interviews with stars like Ryan Gosling on Project Hail Mary.

“It didn't always work, it came with its own problems, that's what made it great.”

The cast of Obsession, on set, there was so much magic happening with each scene we were putting together, deep dives into classics like 2001 of Space Odyssey or Fight Club. We are being denied the information about Hotel Durdon is because the narrator is being

denied that information by himself, plus weekly episodes on all industry news.

Listen to Raiders of the Lost podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more, follow @ Raiders of the Lost podcast and @Tiktok podcast network on TikTok. The declaration, which is full of these beautifully rendered, you know, sentences and paragraphs about enlightening ideals, does also have this darker history to it.

Why is it important for the darker part of the declaration of independence in the American Revolution?

“Why is it important that Americans know about it?”

Well, if we don't understand the full context in which our nation was founded, we won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself. I'm Rebecca Nagel, Goheen Dawadol, Jelika Yetley Gaila, Citizen of Cherokee Nation.

This is First America, the true story of how the United States came to be and how we got

to this present moment. Listen to First America on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil. So we met with a lot of larger farmers, went from Bahia to Tokotene's to Montagroso.

He brought a team of executives. They were going to help the country get in on a gold rush.

“Carbon and its derivatives are going to be really the next great commodity that the globe”

can attend. But back home in Iowa, trouble was brewing. If you live in Iowa, you're land, your water, and your voice could all be at risk thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter. Now people are questioning if his climate solutions have anything to do with climate at all.

On this season of Drilled Carbon Cowboys, the story of how the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil, and what it tells us about the limits of technology and markets to solve the climate crisis. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Munga Shatek together, and I'm back for the new season of the podcast Skyline Drive.

This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement to try to understand what this longevity obsession is all about. And what it really means to live forever for all of us. I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you, and then we can test what draw is the best for your brain.

As opposed to his brain. Here are some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a 4-5 year acceleration. And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing, but it doesn't work.

Make it look more defined, they say it works. I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, how to live forever on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The job of Dave Larsen's dreams turned out to be a scam. Triton was making crappy fuel.

Worst still, they were fraudulently claiming government tax credits on it. Dave was devastated. Then things got even worse, and much, much clearer. Dave was on a ladder working on something, and this catalyst, this mysterious catalyst, that they had, something happened in the room filled full of vapor.

And he passed on, and he fell off the ladder, and lost half his teeth.

suffering from respiratory problems.

“When he's discharged from hospital, he heads back to the plant to speak with his boss,”

Fred Whitmer. Dave tells him he desperately needs workers compensation after the accident, and he uses his knowledge of the fraud as a leverage. He tells Fred, he might just talk to the EPA. Allegedly, Dave said, Fred is boss, put a gun on the table, and said,

"There's nothing you can do about it, and you shouldn't talk to anybody about this." And that's when Dave got very scared, and very paranoid. He got his own gun, and got a secure phone line, because Dave was incredibly frightened that the owners of this plant knew how politically connected they were. But don says, Dave believed it wasn't just political connections.

Dave alleges his former boss was in contact with other biofuel criminals.

“One of them, allegedly, Levan Thermenzian.”

Don says, Dave wanted to warn anyone who might want to come after him for blowing the whistle, that he was ready to protect himself. He was frightened to death of speaking out loud about this and being hunted down. He would say, "Every time, hey, if you write a story and you put me in the story, please put in, I have a loaded handgun."

According to Dave, he once heard Fred talking to the lion on the phone. Another time, Dave allegedly saw Levan's name scrolled on a note pad on Fred's desk. We know Jacob and Levan had several shady connections in the biofuel business. According to Dave Larson, Fred Whitmer was one of them. We've reached out to Fred Whitmer for common to about these alleged threats

and his alleged links to Levan Thermenzian, but we never heard back from him.

After Dave's alleged confrontation with Fred Whitmer at Triton, Dave became terrified of his boss.

“He felt like he was being surveilled or followed, and I believe me, Dave Kim Cross is very credible.”

Dave sent us documents and pictures, so I trusted him. He wanted to do the right thing. He was also very, very mad about the whole situation, because he was a biofuel true believer. And he got into the industry because he thought he was doing the right thing for the environment. And not only to be personally injured by this whole process, but his whole worldview fell apart on him.

And so he was very angry and wanted this story to get out badly. And I spoke about 18 months on this investigation for this book project. I felt terrible when it didn't happen when we had to scuttle the whole project, because we got scooped. Scooped is journalism speak for when another reporter gets your story out before you do. In this case, it was wired, the huge tech magazine.

They printed a front cover story about fraud in the biofuel world. It totally took the wind out of Don's book. In which he was going to reveal everything about Fred Wittmers fraud. The whole project was scrapped. Instead, Don put Dave's story out as a long form article.

I told Dave that, this is the best I can do. I'm sorry, pal, you know, we really wanted to get this story out and let the world know about it. He was very disappointed, but you know, I tried my best. Don's book might've been scrapped, but Fred Wittmers would still face justice. In 2017, his miracle catalyst fraud finally collapsed.

He was arrested, and then pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud. He was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison.

Along with his tried and co-owner, Gary jury, Fred Wittmers had illegally claimed more than $16 million in fraudulent tax credits.

Peanuts compared to Jacob and Levant, but it all adds up. Of course, Wittmers and his codependent were the bad guys here. But this government scheme was so easily manipulated that it was clearly profoundly flawed. Michelle dove into this a little bit back in episode two. But talking to Don, I realized it goes beyond just innately written subsidy regulations.

It all goes back to why the subsidy program, officially called the Renewable Fuel Standard or RFS, had been introduced in the first place. Turns out, it wasn't just the environmental and energy independence reasons we've mentioned before. Don says it was at least in part, in response to an agricultural revolution. Technology and science in agriculture became incredibly forward thinking from GPS technology to drive tractors to seeds that if you spray them a certain herbicides and insecticides, they are safe.

They can grow big yields. All this kind of suite of new technologies in agriculture were making yields go through the roof for corn and soybeans. These new efficient farming methods meant so much corn and soybean was being produced by American farmers.

It was an existential threat for the industry because this could lead to a total collapse in price.

“And that, in turn, could bring the entire agricultural economy down.”

The US government, with President George Bush at its helm, could see this crisis looming. They somehow needed to create more demand for corn and soybean. And that way, keep the prices stable and farmers in business. That's where biofuel, which can be produced from corn and soybean, came into play. They just said, oh, it's a great idea.

We can make ethanol and biofuels and we can convince our members of Congress to pass a law that mandates a certain amount of this fuel is blend into the fuel supply. And around the same time, 9/11 in the War and Terror Happened here in America, and people were very concerned about our dependence on foreign oil. So it was a convenient kind of like marketing slogan to say, let's have a homegrown fuel. Let's not depend on places that might not like us so much for our fuel. Both political parties, so they would polarized after War and Terror rallied around ethanol and biofuels.

It was very patriotic, right, to grow gasoline in America as opposed to buying it from a foreign country. Politically, it looked like a home run for the Bush administration.

So in 2005, they passed the first renewable fuel standard.

Then 2007, they passed what was called the RFS2, which is more of a turbocharged version of it. And we were off for the races because by law, it said certain millions of gallons of ethanol needed to be blended into the American fuel supply every year. The system worked. It created huge demand for soybean and corn crops. But it would also have unintended consequences.

On one hand, a lack of enforcement let the schemes credit system vulnerable to fraudsters. What it was established, for example, you could register to claim tax credits without even so much as an inspection by the EPA. But there was more. Now, what happened when renewable fuel standard was engaged, that was the main mandate that says we had to grow a bunch of corn and soybeans to put in.

To put in to liquid fuel in where fuel supply, the price went so high for those because the demand was high.

It made economic sense for farmers to even plant the worst land. They were financially incentivized to plow everything in plant everywhere.

“Which would lead to widespread environmental devastation?”

More on that after the break. Why do you love movies? Is it the emotion, the spectacle, the escapism? On Raiders of the Lost podcast, we explore cinema like No One Else, including huge interviews with stars like Ryan Gosling on Project Hail Mary. It was like the jazz chart.

Didn't always work. Came with its own problems. That's what made it great. The cast of obsession. On set, there was so much magic happening with each scene we were putting together.

Like dives into classics like 2001 of Space Odyssey or Fight Club. We are being denied the information about Hotel Durdon is because the narrator is being denied that information by himself. Plus, weekly episodes on all industry news. Listen to Raiders of the Lost podcast on the iHeart Radio app. Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And for more, follow @ Raiders of the Lost podcast and @Tiktok podcast network on TikTok. The Declaration, which is full of these beautifully rendered, you know, senses and paragraphs about enlightening ideals, does also have this darker history to it.

“Why is it important for the darker part of the Declaration of Independence in the American Revolution?”

Why is it important that Americans know about it? Well, if we don't understand the full context in which our nation was founded, we won't understand the full context in which our nation now finds itself. I'm Rebecca Nagel. Goheen Dauddol, Jolika Yethli Gaila, Citizen of Cherokee Nation.

For you guys make cheese fans? Hell yeah. This is First America. The true story of how the United States came to be and how we got to this present moment. Listen to First America.

On the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A decade ago, the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil. So we met with a lot of larger farmers went from behi to Tokotene's Montagroso. He brought a team of executives. They were going to help the country get in on a gold rush.

Even an instrument is going to be really the next great commodity that the globe is going to trade.

If you live in Iowa, you're land, your water, and your voice could all be at risk thanks to a man named Bruce Rastetter.

“Now people are questioning if his climate solutions have anything to do with climate at all.”

You got to get cruises of the guy's credit. There were no one kids. They didn't get a [bleep] on him. On this season of Drilled Carbon Cowboys, the story of how the ethanol kingpin of Iowa became the king of corn in Brazil. And what it tells us about the limits of technology and markets to solve the climate crisis.

Listen, on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Mungisha, together, and I'm back for the new season of the podcast Skyline Drive.

This time I'm diving into a rabbit hole of peptides, organoids, blood boys, blue zones, and brain replacement. To try to understand what this longevity of session is all about.

“And what it really means to live forever for all of us.”

I learned about some rad science. I can make a brain for you. And then we can test what draw is the best for your brain, as opposed to his brain. Here's some hard truths. I would expect Indians to age faster, but I did not expect it to be almost a four to five year acceleration.

And get myself into a world of trouble. I'd say probably start bone smashing. That doesn't work. Make it look more defined. They say it works.

I don't know. Listen to Skyline Drive, how to live forever on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I feel, and the renewable fuel scheme, we're supposed to be a silver bullet for farmers and the heating planet. And the RFS would have an impact on the environment, just not a good one. Around 2007 to 2008, I was already working on the issue of ethanol, the demand spark, and how it's plowing under all this land.

And we were ringing the bell right away about how this was going to have adverse effect on water quality. Because we douse our corn and soybean crops, not just pesticides and insecticides, but fertilizer has turned out to be the villain that we've created in all this. And pursuit of big crop yields, farmers covered their fields with pesticides and insecticides and fertilizer. All of these can run off fields into the surrounding environment, contaminating that environment. Decades ago, there was enough protected wild land to create a sort of buffer zone that helped filter out these bad chemicals.

But under the RFS, growing corn and soybeans had become more lucrative than ever before. And millions of acres of previously wild land was turned over to these crops. Meaning that protective buffer was essentially wiped out. And without it, chemicals wash into our waterways and green spaces. Some scientists believe that water pollution from nitrogen fertilizer can be linked to rising cancer rates, diabetes, and thyroid conditions. Turning over all this land to farm crops for biofuels led to not only animal and plant habitats being devastated, but human health potentially being harmed as a result.

And all the wild you have guys like Jacob and Levant making a pretty penny by leaching off the tax credits. The whole thing just feels so for straitingly typical that this amazing new political idea and shiny saved the planet packaging almost instantly degenerated. So why wasn't the system changed immediately?

“I think the key here is the political side of it.”

Before years, there's a parade dial of politicians to this day. The farmers massively skewed in their voting for Republicans and for Trump Democrats in the United States in middle of America will not say anything wrong about farmers or ethanol or biofuels. You still do not hear even though it's very clear everyone knows what's going on because they're so fearful of being called anti or cultural anti farmer. So there's this biofuel myth that somehow these fuels are good for the environment.

And then there's this political operation that sustains it that bone here a critical word said about biofuels or farmers because the agricultural industry is such a significant political force.

It's like this propped up economy. Would it collapse without government support like if the government stopped pouring all this money into it? Absolutely and well, it's very pressing that you bring this up because right now there's another sub issue kind of sub fight between EVs and ethanol. The new tug of war between ethanol biofuels and an even newer innovation electric vehicles. Every EV you put on the road in America eats at the demand for ethanol fuel and you know a couple drops in demand suddenly prices fall it could be a domino effect. They're really ripples to agriculture and so yes.

I hadn't fully realized this link before that without fossil fuels or gasoline, there's no need for biofuels by fuels like ethanol need to be blended into traditional gasoline in order to work with most conventional vehicle engines in the US. For all its climate credentials, biofuels are essentially tied to the climate heating system they were designed to counteract and with the rise of electric vehicles, dom believes biofuels time is almost up. The ethanol industry knows it might not be five years it might not be ten years but in 20 years their fuel will probably be obsolete. This link between fossil fuels and biofuels may be even more curious about the gloss once painted over the bio fuel industry as this groundbreaking environmentally friendly new option.

But just how much better is biofuels really compared to fossil fuels has been a lot of stays done about corn ethanol. It's a pretty much a wash in terms of if you look at how much fossil fuels it takes to produce and all these other aspects and they kind of pencil out the same fossil fuels and ethanol. So what it sounds like done is saying is that after all the fanfare and fraudsters and billions of dollars spent, it wasn't even worth the trouble. No, it's land use that really comes down to climate and we're using the land improperly in this aspect by growing biofuels on it.

We should just stop growing biofuels on this land, grow food only where we need to grow it and grow it efficiently and that way that total emissions from agriculture will be less. The whole scheme wrong biofuels and ethanol and the whole lie we've told ourselves that they're good for the environment. This is just systematic of kind of the dishonesty that exists with this program, we should be honest with ourselves and say, hey, this stuff ain't great for the environment, but our farmers need it and it's helped them a lot and this demand is here for them. And if we're honest about that and we're honest about the pollution that comes from those fields, hey, maybe we need to regulate a little better, maybe we need to invest in land retirement, maybe invest more in conservation payments these farmers when they need it and better target that money.

“Those are all conversations that we can't have until we really be honest ourselves the reason that we're doing this. Right. And so in terms of fuels like what's the solution there if biofuels and viable fossil fuels are viable like what do we do?”

Well, EV, obviously, you know, electrify everything, grid everything up, build better grids, renewables to power the grids and the transition to EVs is already happening. It's already penciling out economically much better. If we made a big leap in EVs, we could be much better by the environment, but we have to figure out the farmer part of the equation.

We have to figure out what we're doing with agriculture and all this land is in production because we don't want this whole sector to collapse either.

The vehicles aren't a perfect solution. Some environmental groups have cautioned against the emissions produced in EV battery production and the intensive mining from materials they require, like lithium and cobalt. But don believes that moving away from fossil fueled cars toward electric vehicles could be a huge positive change. Either way, it feels like biofuels are now fading away from the conversation.

“Are there rinse and the tax credits still operational or has the subsidy system changed?”

There's no substance system anymore or no. There's still some tax credits in effect, but it's much less than it was before.

I do think the thing that we need to really think about here is, what can we have done instead? It's been 15, 20 years, the amount of money we spent, the amount of land we used and what did we accomplish? We made our waters dirtier, our air is dirtier, and our climates hotter, and there's no way around it. It's kind of head spinning, taking this whole thing in. Like there was such an enormous government push behind the adoption of biofuels.

This huge nationwide narrative, betting billions and billions of taxpayer dollars on this new sector. And many well-intentioned people were led to believe it was a great opportunity to help the climate crisis. But the outcome fell shockingly short of that. The outcome that the public sees is, but I was all just a big fat lie, and we wasted billions of dollars. And like you said, we just ruined the environment even further.

And then what we're seeing happening in the US and elsewhere now is that people are even skeptical about the idea of the climate crisis. Like people are kind of tired of having to find a way to fix it, because at least in this case, like we've been lied to.

“So like how do we get people to buy in? How can people trust this stuff in the future?”

What I will say is I think the answer is pretty clear. I just don't know how politically how to get there.

And the answer is regulate polluters. It's pretty simple. You regulate polluters. It works. That's the only answer that always works. And the reason we're not doing that is because the companies that see it cost them more for regulation would rather put that money into politics and to influencing politicians to make sure they don't get regulated as opposed to actually just doing the right thing.

It's a surprise surprise. It's really easy to feel cynical about this stuff.

But Dawn remains hopeful.

“You know, it's the generations blow me that are concerned about this. They're going to have to live in this hotter planet that I see activated and try to do the right thing. That's what's going to happen.”

I'm Gen X. We fail everybody. I'm still trying, but you know, I'm been at this law enough to know that it's going to take a couple more generations and it's going to take a real awakening for people understand what we're doing to this planet.

And even better, how we're all connected. It's a global place, right? It's not just America. It's not just the EU. We're in this together. We share the same atmosphere for Grand Out Loud.

Make the planet great again, is what we should be saying.

“Thanks so much to Jake, my stellar and steadfast producer on this series, and also to Dawn Car for that fascinating interview.”

Most importantly, thank you to you for listening to Kingdom of Rod. You can catch more of my long-form reporting at Michelle McFeed.com or follow me on social media to see what I'm up to next.

Kingdom of Rod is produced by novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from novel, visit novel.audio.

“The show is hosted by me, Michelle McFeed, and reported by me and Jake O'Tayovich.”

This episode was produced by Megan Dean. Amaya Sortland is our assistant producer. Our editor is Sandra Schmoulli, production management from Shari Houston, Joe Savage, and Charlotte Wolff. Our fact chapter is Fendell Fulton. Sound design in mixing by Tiffany Demack, a original music composed and performed by Nicholas Alexander in Daniel Camson. Music supervision from Jake O'Tayovich, Sandra Schmoulli, and Max O'Brien. Willard Fobston is creative director at novel.

Our executive producers are me, Michelle McFeed, Max O'Brien, and Craig Straken, but novel, and Stephanie Lenn. Katrina Norvel and Nikki E. Tore are the executive producers for iHeart Podcasts, and the marketing lead is Alice in Canter. Special thanks to Carrie Lieberman, Will Pearson, and the whole team at WME.