Naming the Arsonists

Big Oil's war on the planet

“As for me I dreamed on nothing grander than the day
that I stepped out on the drilling floor to earn a roughneck’s pay.
Then one day I swear I saw the devil crawling from the hole
and he spilled the guts of hell across the Gulf of Mexico.”
— Steve Earle, Gulf of Mexico

Whenever I post about climate fires, my Facebook page is immediately flooded with rage, BOTs, and disinformation. It's the same whether I post about electric vehicles (EVs), clean energy, or possible steps we can take to mitigate the climate crisis.

I gave up long ago trying to figure out how many of those comments are from offshore AI farms, third-party (i.e. Big Oil) front groups or people who believe that behaving like a rage BOT is something worth aspiring to.

But the stakes are deadly serious.

---

The planet is hurtling toward catastrophe. The red light is flashing as the window for mitigating the disaster is rapidly closing. And yet, there are those making big money making sure we don't change course.

A new report from the International Panel on the Information Environment documents how the growing disinformation machine is being driven by oil companies, governments, and political leaders. The intention is to undermine action on clean energy and to delay any kind of response even as the planet burns.

They give some examples of the massive disinformation campaign that are hitting us in bus ads, online memes and right wing political talking points. The report looks at one case that falsely blamed renewable energy for blackouts in Spain. It mirrors the attempt by the Maple MAGA Alberta government to blame clean tech for rolling blackouts — when, in fact, the problem was their mismanagement of a privatized energy grid.

The attack on electric vehicles comes in many forms. Take, for example, the viral photo of what was “supposed” to be an EV exploding on a Canadian highway. When, in fact, it was a truck full of gas cylinders that exploded in Moscow in 2013.

Mention climate and the wildfires in Canada, Australia, and Greece, and you will be swamped with online claims about an army of arsonists who travel the globe, causing catastrophes.

They are right in one sense.

There are arsonists responsible for these fires. But they aren't skulking around in the forests. The arsonists are sitting in the boardrooms of Calgary, Houston and Moscow.

---

What we are talking about is not low-level digital monkey-wrenching but a corporate campaign that has spent billions to undermine efforts to deal with the climate crisis, even as emissions continue to rise.

It is time we named the arsonists.

---

The Voyage of the Esso Atlantic

Pick the date that the coal and oil barons first knew they were damaging the planet's future. You could go back a century of serious scientific reports and evidence.

However, by the 1950s, the oil giants knew for sure. The message that they were risking the future of the planet had been delivered to the oil lobby by Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb. He walked them through the science.

If they continued to increase oil production, the rising temperatures would cause the polar ice caps to melt, resulting in flooding of coastal regions and plunging the world into an environmental catastrophe.

By 1968, the American Petroleum Institute was able to plot out the timelines of this seemingly slow-moving disaster. They predicted that "significant temperature changes are almost certain to occur by the year 2000," which would put in motion the eventual collapse of the Antarctic ice shelf.

In 1978, an Exxon memo warned that the industry had a narrow window of five to ten years before hard decisions had to be made. This led to the decision in 1979 to undertake a study on how the burning of fossil fuels was impacting the climate. They used the supertanker Esso Atlantic to collect atmospheric readings and plot scenarios for increasing carbon emissions.

The supertanker was fitted with specialized scientific recording instruments and quietly travelled the globe. They were trying to map out just how much damage was being done to the earth's atmosphere by Exxon's operations.

And they were doing it on the down low.

The evidence gathered by the Esso Atlantic wasn't shared with world governments. Instead, it was secretly presented in the boardrooms of the oil giants — and the findings were frightening. Fossil fuels were in the process of dangerously upending the earth's climate.

Researchers stated that it wouldn't be until around the year 2000 that the public began to notice the impacts of a heating earth.

And they warned, by then, it might be too late.

---

Shell Knew Too

In 1988, Shell Oil received a series of reports that set the countdown clock as beginning in or around the year 2000. One noted:

"Many scientists believe that a real increase in the global temperature will be detectable towards the end of this century."

And then, the kicker:

"However, by the time global warming becomes detectable, it could be too late."

Shell, like Exxon, suppressed the report, but they did use the information to their benefit. They rebuilt their offshore oil rigs to withstand a six-foot rise in ocean levels.

On its webpage in 2025, Shell boasts about how its offshore rig technology has advanced deep ocean drilling, leading to the opening up of the Gulf of Mexico.

They don’t bother mentioning the massive environmental catastrophe caused by drilling in the gulf, and they join Trump in claiming that these waters belong to the Gulf of America.

The lies just go on and on.

---

The Big Tobacco Playbook

In what must stand as the greatest corporate conspiracy, cover-up up and cynical criminality of all time, Big Oil decided to bury the evidence. They then launched a widespread publicity campaign and lobbying effort to undermine the research that they knew to be true.

The industry spent billions spreading disinformation through bogus studies, paid influencers, and false front groups to raise doubts.

Canada played a big part in this deception because the oil giants and the political class were obsessed with exploiting the Athabasca tar sands, a tar substance with the highest greenhouse gas emissions per barrel on the planet.

In The Petroleum Papers, Geoff Dembicki writes that the "big lie … partially came from Canada" as oil interests ramped up production in the heavily polluting oil sands north of Fort McMurray.

And God, these disinformation campaigns were effective.

At the beginning of the 1990s, 88 percent of the American public believed that climate change was a serious problem. By the end of the decade, that number had dropped to 28 percent.

And that was before the rise of troll farms, BOT accounts and right-wing "own the Lib" ideologies that embraced burning the future opportunities of our grandchildren as the kinda thing that freedom-loving men and women should be entitled to as a birthright.

---

During my time in parliament, I worked to expose the ongoing campaign by Canada's oil giants to undermine climate action. In 2023, I brought forward legislation that would make it illegal to make false advertisements or use front groups to promote disinformation about the impacts of fossil fuels.

I was following a call from the UN and efforts in Europe to limit the false greenwashing claims of oil front groups. In Canada, it led to a storm of controversy and abuse. I received multiple death threats.

National Observer: MP gets death threats over greenwashing bill

Undeterred, I called the heads of some of the largest oil companies to testify before the House of Commons Committee on Natural Resources. I was particularly interested in hearing from Rich Kruger, former Exxon VP and now head of Suncor.

NDP MP wants Suncor CEO to tell MPs why company moving away from focus on clean energy

In the midst of the catastrophic 2023 wildfire season, Kruger told investors that there was a state of "urgency" for the oil industry.

But the urgency wasn't the fact that Canada was on fire. The urgency was to make as much money as possible.

I encourage you to watch the testimony.

Big Oil has followed the Big Tobacco playbook of paying lobbyists, front groups and bogus science to delay investigations into the impacts of their products.

However, multiple class action lawsuits are now making their way through the courts, providing documents and evidence of the magnitude of the crime being committed against our children's future.

Read The People of California vs. Exxon Mobile. It is a powerful indictment.

In Canada, Maple MAGA is driving the agenda of demanding massive public investments to increase oil production even as thousands are being forced from their homes. And if they don’t get their way? They threaten to break up our country.

The clock is ticking down on action.

The oil giants knew for 40 years that their actions were putting us in this crisis. It is time we named the corporate arsonists and stood up to them.

---

Some of the research in this piece comes from my recent book, Dangerous Memory: Coming of Age in the Decade of Greed published by House of Anansi Press.

---