Opinion
Climate Murder? Media Picks Up Novel Legal Theory Suggesting Big Oil Is Homicidal
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Nick Pope
A new narrative is making its way through major media outlets about major oil corporations: climate change that they purportedly caused is taking lives, and they could be held liable for homicide.
In recent weeks, numerous outlets have run stories or opinion pieces promoting or otherwise examining the novel legal theory, which is the subject of a new paper published by the Harvard Environmental Law Review, according to a Tuesday E&E News report detailing the architects’ efforts to market their idea to prosecutors. The Boston Globe, The Guardian, Newsweek, Inside Climate News and other outlets have all recently published pieces promoting the idea that leading oil companies could or should be charged with murder for their role in climate change, which the theory’s architects claim has caused thousands of deaths in the U.S.
David Arkush, who runs Public Citizen’s climate program, and Donald Braman, a professor at George Washington University’s law school, articulated the theory in a March paper. Public Citizen is a left-of-center organization founded by failed Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader that, among other things, pressures American International Group (AIG) to stop providing insurance coverage for fossil fuel companies, according to its website and Influence Watch.
“Activists and journalists have called executives of major oil companies ‘mass murderers,’ lamenting that ‘millions of human beings will die so that they can have private planes and huge mansions,’ and a growing chorus of communities devastated by [fossil fuel companies’] lethal conduct have begun to demand accountability,” the authors state in their paper. “But as of this writing, no prosecutor in any jurisdiction has charged [fossil fuel companies] with any form of homicide over climate-related deaths. They should.”
The paper also suggests that the American Petroleum Institute (API), a leading trade association for the oil and gas industry, was involved in the industry’s purported attempts to obscure the effects of emissions.
“The record of the past two decades demonstrates that the industry has achieved its goal of providing affordable, reliable American energy to U.S. consumers while substantially reducing emissions and our environmental footprint,” a spokesperson for API told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Any suggestion to the contrary is false.”
The two authors contend that energy corporations were aware of the warming that emissions from their products and operations would cause for decades, and that those companies decided to mislead the public and obscure what effects those emissions may have. A similar narrative lies at the heart of climate lawsuits that have been filed against energy companies in numerous jurisdictions across the U.S. in recent years.
Arkush wrote a Wednesday piece for Newsweek laying out his theory and referencing these climate lawsuits, opining that the fossil fuel industry’s purported “crimes may be among the, if not the, most consequential in human history.” The Boston Globe ran a similar opinion piece authored by Arkush and another official for Public Citizen on March 17.
The Guardian ran its own piece about the climate homicide theory on March 21, using the headline “Fossil fuel firms could be tried in US for homicide over climate-related deaths, experts say.” Clean Technica, a site that promotes green energy, ran a March 16 piece on the new legal theory with the headline “Climate Criminals — Prosecuting Big Oil For Environmental Crimes.”
Inside Climate News published an April 4 story on the subject, using the headline “Should Big Oil Be Tried for Homicide?” and including excerpts from interviews with the two architects of the climate homicide theory. The pair suggested that the aim is not to punish individuals or seek vengeance, but instead achieve results that would prompt companies to shift their investments away from fossil fuels, according to Inside Climate News’ story.
However, Inside Climate News did quote legal experts who expressed skepticism about the theory’s merits.
“I do not believe that a criminal prosecution on homicide charges against the major oil companies is appropriate or can be sustained,” John Coffee Jr., a professor at Columbia Law School who specializes in corporate law, told the outlet.
Nick Pope is a contributor at The Daily Caller.
Censorship Industrial Complex
US Under Secretary of State Slams UK and EU Over Online Speech Regulation, Announces Release of Files on Past Censorship Efforts
By Cindy Harper
Sarah Rogers’ comments draw a new line in the sand between America’s First Amendment and Europe’s tightening grip on online speech.
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Federal prosecutors say Minnesota’s exploding social-services fraud scandal may now rival nearly the entire economy of Somalia, with as much as $9 billion allegedly stolen from taxpayer-funded programs in what authorities describe as industrial-scale abuse that unfolded largely under the watch of Democrat Gov. Tim Walz. The staggering new estimate is almost nine times higher than the roughly $1 billion figure previously suspected and amounts to about half of the $18 billion in federal funds routed through Minnesota-run social-services programs since 2018, according to prosecutors. “The magnitude cannot be overstated,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said Thursday, stressing that investigators are still uncovering massive schemes. “This is not a handful of bad actors. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud. Every day we look under a rock and find another $50 million fraud operation.”
Authorities say the alleged theft went far beyond routine overbilling. Dozens of defendants — the vast majority tied to Minnesota’s Somali community — are accused of creating sham businesses and nonprofits that claimed to provide housing assistance, food aid, or health-care services that never existed, then billing state programs backed by federal dollars. Thompson said the opportunity became so lucrative it attracted what he called “fraud tourism,” with out-of-state operators traveling to Minnesota to cash in. Charges announced Thursday against six more people bring the total number of defendants to 92.
BREAKING: First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson revealed that 14 state Medicaid programs have cost Minnesota $18 billion since 2018, including more than $3.5 billion in 2024 alone.
Thompson stated, "Now, I'm sure everyone is wondering how much of this $18 billion was… pic.twitter.com/hCNDBuCTYH
— FOX 9 (@FOX9) December 18, 2025
Among the newly charged are Anthony Waddell Jefferson, 37, and Lester Brown, 53, who prosecutors say traveled from Philadelphia to Minnesota after spotting what they believed was easy money in the state’s housing assistance system. The pair allegedly embedded themselves in shelters and affordable-housing networks to pose as legitimate providers, then recruited relatives and associates to fabricate client notes. Prosecutors say they submitted about $3.5 million in false claims to the state’s Housing Stability Services Program for roughly 230 supposed clients.
Other cases show how deeply the alleged fraud penetrated Minnesota’s health-care programs. Abdinajib Hassan Yussuf, 27, is accused of setting up a bogus autism therapy nonprofit that paid parents to enroll children regardless of diagnosis, then billed the state for services never delivered, netting roughly $6 million. Another defendant, Asha Farhan Hassan, 28, allegedly participated in a separate autism scheme that generated $14 million in fraudulent reimbursements, while also pocketing nearly $500,000 through the notorious Feeding Our Future food-aid scandal. “Roughly two dozen Feeding Our Future defendants were getting money from autism clinics,” Thompson said. “That’s how we learned about the autism fraud.”
The broader scandal began to unravel in 2022 when Feeding Our Future collapsed under federal investigation, but prosecutors say only in recent months has the true scope of the alleged theft come into focus. Investigators allege large sums were wired overseas or spent on luxury vehicles and other high-end purchases. The revelations have fueled political fallout in Minnesota and prompted renewed federal scrutiny of immigration-linked fraud as well as criticism of state oversight failures. Walz, who is seeking re-election in 2026 after serving as Kamala Harris’ running mate in 2024, defended his administration Thursday, saying, “We will not tolerate fraud, and we will continue to work with federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught.” Prosecutors, however, made clear the investigation is far from finished — and warned the final tally could climb even higher.
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