In The Steep Climes Quartet series, I write about Big Oil villains, although not from the direct perspective of any of the big names (one such homophone goes with “coke”), but rather people who are an executive director of a fossil fuel supporting think tank, or a well-hidden business person with a lot of money on the line, or various operatives for such people who do their dirty work that includes murder.

These characters are hardly the full focus of the books, but they do tend to be involved in some of the more snappy plot lines. In Kill Well, the series’ first book, there’s an operative working for the head of a company that “fixes” problems—in this case, the problem is an effort by oil divestment activists to persuade an investment company to forgo an oil pipeline deal on offer, and as novels tend to have it, complications ensue. In the second book, Dear Josephine, there’s a growing battle for control of a huge new Federal agency while the bill is still in various Congressional committees, but Big Money, which overlaps with Big Oil, wants the bill to go a certain way, and the executive director of a fossil fuel-funded think tank sets some murders and blackmail in motion.

I’ve had my doubts about such violence, not wanting to go-off halfcocked with fantastical imaginings, so early on—while working on Kill Well, the first book published—I did some digging. And, no, I do not know where the bodies are buried, but what I found when writing the post “Murder, Oil, and Blood Money: Is the climate fiction plot line of fossil fuel interests murdering someone far-fetched?” resulted in the following conclusion: I’ll stand by my plot device in Kill Well, both intrinsically and as metaphor.

What I’ll stand by also includes my knowing that fossil fuel use is itself deadly. And don’t you know but that the International Monetary Fund—hardly a left-wing outlier—has concluded in ongoing studies started in 2015, that the use of fossil fuels have resulted in 1.6 million premature deaths annually, and that is just from pollution/particulates, with the cost of climate change harder to determine, but growing increasingly significant. And I came across a paper published by Harvard Environmental Law Review, which argues fossil fuel companies “have not simply been lying to the public, they have been killing members of the public at an accelerating rate, and prosecutors should bring that crime to the public’s attention.”

So, yeah, Big Oil and villains.

If only these claims were true only in fiction, but every day brings more confessions of intentional malfeasance by fossil fuel folks, although no claiming of homicide yet. In today’s inbox comes the latest from ExxonKnews, a Substack that “covers fossil fuel industry disinformation, influence, and efforts to obstruct climate action. We’ll bring you the latest on climate accountability efforts, in the courts and beyond.” The Substack for October 2, 2025, written by Emily Sanders, is titled “The fossil fuel subsidy denier-in-chief,” which carries the deck, “Fossil fuel companies are getting propped up with billions in tax dollars, but the U.S. energy secretary claims otherwise,” with several passages excerpted below:

“There are not oil and gas subsidies,” Chris Wright, the top energy official for the U.S. government — which will now provide more than $34 billion a year in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry — told a room full of reporters and climate advocates last week.

Five days later, the Energy Department announced it would deliver $625 million in new subsidies to the coal industry after adding “Tax breaks/tax credits/subsidies” to an ever-expanding list of words its officials are banned from using.

…

It was a perplexing assertion [no oil subsidies] from Wright, the lead energy official in the Trump administration, which has allocated more than $4 billion in additional subsidies per year since coming into office, according to the new analysis by advocacy nonprofit Oil Change International (OCI).

OCI calculated fossil fuel production subsidies by adding up tax deductions, low-cost access to public lands, direct appropriations, and other financial backing from the federal government based on the definition of fossil fuel subsidies established by the World Trade Organization. 

…

That’s not counting “implicit subsidies,” or the external costs taxpayers bear on top of energy prices — including from climate change and local pollution, according to the International Monetary Fund. [The Steep Climes Note: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) calculated the implicit fossil fuel subsidies for the U.S. in 2022 at approximately $754 billion. This amount reflects the societal costs of fossil fuels—such as negative health impacts and environmental damage from air pollution and climate change—that are not paid for by producers or consumers.]

…

On top of the subsidies granted by the Trump administration, fossil fuel companies enjoy specific tax benefits not available to other industries, including larger capital cost write-offs, deductions, and deferments.

…

“If you can’t rock on your own after 33 years, maybe that’s not a business that’s going places,” said Wright at a press conference last week where he announced the cancellation of $13 billion in funding allocated for clean energy technologies.

I can admire people who dissemble so directly, if only for their chutzpah, but as best I can conclude from my Sunday school lessons, such bald-faced lying is a mark of a bonafide villain. I especially delight in the last excerpt above, where Wright wrongly claims that renewable energy subsidies over the last three decades means that this “clean energy technology” ain’t ever going anywhere. Look out the window, pal.

U.S. based fossil fuel corporations are worth something like $1.5 trillion and worldwide totals $4 or $5 trillion, as best I figure. These sums could, I suppose, provide motive for violence and crime, and that supposition is a certainty. I couldn’t find any 2024 statistics on crimes committed by U.S. fossil fuel corporations, but I did come across the wonderfully titled “The Fossil Fuel Crime File: Proven Crimes and Credible Allegations,” for 2023, by Greenpeace, but this focused only on European fossil fuel corporations.

Here’s some indication of what lies within the report:

Key Numbers and Findings:

• • Our research compiles 17 different crime categories.
  • These are backed up by 26 examples of criminal conduct, which are either credibly alleged or formally established.
  • We list 10 fossil fuel companies that have committed offences or have been credibly accused of breaking the law, many of them several times over.
  • The most recurrent crime was Corruption, of which 6 cases have been included in this Fossil Fuel Crime File.
  • A new generation of legal offences has evolved over the past few years such as misleading advertising in the form of greenwashing.

In addition to the compilation referenced above, this report breaks out two further categories of extremely serious allegations require separate consideration:

The Ogoni 9 Case. Allegations of Shell’s complicity in heinous crimes in addition to its environmentally destructive operations in the Niger Delta have been pursued through many courts in many jurisdictions over the past 25 years. Investigations into the 1995 judicial murder of nine activists known as the ‘Ogoni Nine’ and numerous other crimes by Nigeria’s then military regime led Amnesty International to publish “Shell: A Criminal Enterprise,” documenting decades of alleged complicity by the company in the crimes of the brutal regime. Shell has consistently denied allegations of complicity and no court has ever found Shell entities, directors or officers guilty despite legal action being taken against them by some of the widows of the Ogoni Nine since 2002. In March 2022, the Hague District Court held there was insufficient evidence against Shell. 25 years after the Ogoni Nine were imprisoned and executed, Amnesty has never withdrawn its call for Shell to be investigated for their murder and other extremely serious crimes.

Crimes against Humanity. Put simply, should those who bear responsibility for the effects of climate change be charged with committing crimes against humanity? CEOs of fossil fuel majors have known for many decades that their business model has increasingly caused and contributed to extreme weather events that have already killed or displaced untold numbers of people around the world. These events continue to cause countless billions of dollars in economic damage, to ravage vital ecosystems and wildlife and to disproportionately affect already marginalized communities around the world.

This report is a “work in progress,” according to the website, which also notes, “We do not claim to have included ALL crimes committed by fossil fuel companies, nor the total of allegations made against them. We will continue our investigations to uncover and publicize the industry’s crimes.” Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much indication that this is still an active project, much to my disappointment.

Another recent work comes out of Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, in an article written by Wes Hennricksen, called “Fossil Fuel Fraud.” Here’s the first two sentences of the Abstract:

In some recent climate litigation cases, plaintiffs have added a claim for common law fraud, in addition to the more traditionally pursued claims for nuisance, negligence, and trespass. Fraud claims against fossil fuel companies center on the decades-long campaign of climate change doubt that was organized, funded, and carried out by oil, gas, and coal industry leaders, as well as public relations firms and industry advocacy groups working on their behalf.

Not quite as provocative as the Greenpeace report and only focused on the fraud charge potential against U.S. fossil fuel corporations, but still fascinating, if in a lawyer kind of way.

In The Steep Climes Quartet there are villains on the other side, too. One, in Dear Josephine, isn’t so much anti-Big Oil as he is against the wealthiest among us, grabbing his target list from the annual Forbes 400 richest people in the world ranking. There is a climate action terrorist group in Dear Josephine but barely introduced until book three. No One is Safe is the group and there are several characters from NOS who form a significant part of plot line of the third book, Over Brooklyn Hills, which is due out in Spring 2026. It was an interesting exercise to look at purportedly well-intentioned people who do more and more terrible things, and, to be clear, I recommend against violence all around. As I say when giving a climate and climate fiction talk, “It turns out that I love to plan out murders. I swear, this is just a fictional thing, honest.”

There will come a time when Big Oil will face justice. I wrote a post called “Big Oil in the Dock: Can Suing Fossil Fuel Corporations Answer Climate Change?” about a year and a half ago, and the movement to sue fossil fuel companies has continued to grow since then. Make Polluters Pay bills are actively considered in several states, adding weight to the states that have passed such a bill already. Of course, President Big Oil Stooge is directing his DOJ (and it is his, isn’t it) to get the highest court to throw out the very concept.

There are some climate fiction that have portrayed criminal actions taken against entities found responsible for climate change; The Great Transition, by nick fuller googins, comes quickly to mind, Unfortunately, it seems still to be anybody’s bet whether fossil fuel corporations will be held criminally responsible.

I do like the sound of “Crimes Against Humanity” that gets mentioned in the Greenpeace report mentioned earlier. As foot-dragging and direct action against the energy transition carries on, this charge seems more and more appropriate in the real world.