Why Is Paramount Plus Promoting Big Oil With Its Landman Series? – CleanTechnica

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“Landman” is a television series broadcast on Paramount Plus, the digital subscription video on-demand and live streaming service. I’ve watched most of the other Taylor Sheridan series, somehow hoping that a romanticized Old West culture can be combined with positive representations of females. What I didn’t expect from him was a running narrative about the weakness of renewable energy and the gift of Big Oil for everyday citizens. The series presents uneven, almost always one-sided arguments against renewable energy and the work of climate activists.

Core social media narratives like these on Paramount Plus are shaping discourse around the climate crisis due to the persistent “stickiness” of mis- and dis-information — and they’re influencing people to disregard the danger of fossil fuels. Sheridan’s characters boast how the Texans around them could never maintain their lifestyles without ample amounts of oil and gas. Evidence to the contrary points to a robust ability for renewables to substitute for fossil fuel power, thank you.

It’s not just within the US media complex that climate misinformation confuses everyday folks. Renewables like rooftop solar, gridscale wind and solar, and advanced storage now provide around 40% of the electricity in Australia’s main grid. The catch? Fewer than 1 in 10 Australians know it, according to a survey by the Climate Council.

Here are some examples of the “Landman” energy mis-/disinformation. Sammy Roth of the LA Times calls such examples part of a larger “propaganda that serves to lionize the oil industry.”

Lithium is Worse by Implication than Fossil Fuels

“Well, I can promise you all those Chinese lithium mines are bad for the environment.”

The race toward net-zero emissions depends heavily on lithium to power electric vehicles as well as to store wind and solar power. Yes, new battery technology needs to be developed using more common, environmentally-friendly materials. The sourcing, building, and disposal of lithium-ion batteries does have supply chain pollution, yes, but it does not ultimately compare to what we’re currently doing with fossil fuels.

A much more nuanced approach that Sheridan could have chosen would have been to declare that, to meet sustainability goals, we need to strike a balance between energy sourcing and renewable advancements. Think of it this way: once you burn gas, it’s gone. Meanwhile, you can recharge a battery multiple times.

(Note the Othering in the “Landman” quote that cites China’s contribution to lithium mining.) 

Cows are So Cute — So What if They Burp?

“They say that a cattle burp is bad for the environment. Now they want to get rid of all the cattle.”

Cattle burps generate significant amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas (GHG) that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the planet. In fact, animal agriculture produces more GHG emissions than all the world’s cars and trucks combined. Methane has a much higher global warming potential (GWP) than carbon dioxide.

Capturing enteric methane emissions from cows running loose in the fields is a challenge of epic proportions. Yes, the culture of food must necessarily continue to morph with the times — about three-quarters of all global agricultural land is vulnerable to substantial climate disruptions. Like many hog farmers, cattle ranchers may find themselves struggling to support their herds, whether it is from destructive storms or consumers’ shifting preferences to plant-based diets.

Do Solar Panels Actually Kill Birds and Whales?

“They put solar panels and wind turbines on these lands that kill these birds, disrupt their patterns. Then they stick ‘em in the ocean and kill the whales.”

Bird species and whales are under threat from climate change. Fossil fuel and nuclear power plants actually cause more bird deaths than solar or wind power. They also threaten the very ecosystems bird species rely on. Furthermore, bird deaths from wind turbines have dropped considerably (per kWh) as the technology has matured, and annual bird death totals from cats, windows, and vehicles each dwarf annual bird death totals from wind power.

North Atlantic right whales are highly endangered, and their survival is at serious risk due to a combination of vessel strikes and entanglements in fishing gear. And, contrary to a highly publicized article filled with disinformation, NOAA Fisheries does not anticipate and has not authorized — or proposed to authorize — mortality or serious injury of whales for any wind-related action.

Are Wind and Solar More Expensive than Natural Gas?

Wind energy “is twice as expensive as natural gas, and solar four times as expensive.”

A LCOE study from Lazard says it clearly — renewable energy from wind and solar resources is cheaper than electricity from thermal generators powered by coal, oil, or methane gas. Period. And that’s without counting the carbon cost of their competitors and the impact of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which has added tens of billions of new financial incentives to the mix.

Solar and wind power have relatively low capacity factors, and making them really useful and comparable to a fossil gas power plant in utility means adding stationary energy storage as well. Adding in storage, onshore wind power has the same low cost as combined cycle gas power plants, and utility-scale solar is not far off.

Solar is Only Good for 8/24 Hours in the Day — Really?

“On its best day of the year, a solar power plant generates electricity for about 8 hours.”

Misinformation about solar is rampant. The value of adding batteries to wind and solar plants located in areas that face transmission congestion is forgotten in this “Landman” statement. Climate scientist Mark Jacobson deconstructed a recent study for us at CleanTechnica that discussed this point.

“This paper shows that the main grid in the world’s fifth largest economy was able to provide more than 100% of the electricity that it used from only four clean renewable sources – –solar, wind, hydroelectric, and geothermal — for anywhere from 5 minutes to over 10 hours per day for 98 out of 116 days during late winter, all of spring, and early summer, as well as for 132 days during the entire year of 2024, without its grid failing. The growth of solar, wind, and battery storage, in particular, resulted in fossil gas use dropping 40% during the 116 day period and 25% during the entire year of 2024 relative to 2023.”

But the disinformation continues nonetheless. Michigan climate advocates have had to refute a breathless viral meme told the story of devious deep-state plotters who were conniving with greedy globalist solar developers to cut down a pristine tract of virgin old growth forest — nope, false, a lie.

Is Wind Power Clean, or Isn’t It?

“There’s nothing clean about this” wind power. 

A “Landman” character outlines how a whole lotta fossil fuel is used to manufacture, transport, and assemble each turbine, so that, “in its 20-year lifespan, it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it.” What he’s not saying is that wind is an energy source that is a viable and clean alternative to fossil fuels, and the worldwide installed capacity of wind power has many economic and environmental advantages.

Wind turbines do not produce any pollutants or emissions during operation that could harm the environment, except those required for maintenance (which are minimal). The major drawbacks of wind energy are high upfront costs, variability in wind speeds, and unsuitability in regions that do not have constant winds. Wind also reduces power-sector emissions of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and sulfur dioxide. These reductions, in turn, provide public health and climate benefits that are larger than wind’s grid-system value. Big Oil has more upfront pollution and zero environmental benefits when it’s burned.

Instead of doing a deep dig, Sheridan lies in the voice of a “Landman” character, “Getting oil out of the ground’s the most dangerous job in the world. We don’t do it ‘cause we like it. We do it ‘cause we run out of options.”

Can’t Electrify Everything because We don’t have the Transmission Lines

“If the whole world decided to go electric tomorrow, we don’t have the transmission lines to get the electricity to the cities… It would take 30 years if we started tomorrow.”

There’s a kernel of truth to this position. However, a visionary filmmaker could have described the value of adding batteries to wind and solar plants located in areas that face transmission congestion. Sure, optimal configurations of hybrid VRE+battery plants might vary between areas types and between solar and wind, yet the plants can contribute to both energy and capacity markets.

It’s important to refine long term planning processes and provide insight into future conditions as renewable energy and battery deployment expands over time.

Final Thoughts about Landman: The Power behind Paramount Media

Paramount Global—the sprawling media empire behind CBS, MTV, and one of Hollywood’s most storied movie studios— was acquired by Skydance Media in late 2024. The complex deal, worth over $8 billion, happened in a two-step transaction that involved Skydance first acquiring Paramount’s controlling company, Shari Redstone’s National Amusements, and then merging Skydance and Paramount. Founded by David Ellison in 2006, Skydance specializes in films, animation, television, video games, and sports.

The week after the November election, once-and-future President Donald J. Trump gathered his top advisers in the tea room at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, to plan the transition to his second-term government, as reported by the New York Times. Two valued houseguests were the billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the billionaire co-founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison.

“I brought the two richest people in the world today,” Trump told his advisers, according to a person who was in the room. “What did you bring?”

Ellison brings a vast communications conglomerate to Trump’s feet. Is he, like the “Landman” billionaire, someone who has helped to elect friendly politicians and to provide lobbying to maintain billions of dollars in subsidies to Big Oil? It’s hard to explain otherwise.

Mr. Ellison, please rein in your boy Taylor and use your ample billions for clean energy, the common good, and truth.