The People Versus Big Oil—With Jamie Henn
Jamie Henn joins Fighting Fascism to discuss holding Big Oil accountable, the politics of climate change, and how to confront the climate crisis with urgency and hope.
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The People Versus Big Oil w/ Jamie Henn / Fighting Fascism
In recent weeks, we’ve seen our skies engulfed in dystopian haze. We’ve had lethal heat waves ruin our Fourth of July cookouts. States have announced emergency water rationing due to record-breaking droughts. Tens of thousands of Europeans have been killed by extreme heat so far this summer; hundreds of thousands are being evacuated by apocalyptic wildfires. And we know it’s just the beginning—this is, after all, not just the hottest summer of our lives, but the coolest summer for the rest of our lives.
This didn’t just happen. Climate change is overwhelmingly the result of pollution and deception from specific Big Oil companies that were predicting decades ago that their fossil fuels would cause, in their own words, “globally catastrophic” climate harms that would create “more violent weather” and cause “suffering and death due to thermal extremes.” Even as they used this knowledge to protect their own infrastructure, they orchestrated fraudulent campaigns of climate denial to lock us into the disasters we are currently experiencing.
But we’re not powerless in the face of these nightmares. We can take on Big Oil, and the fossil-fueled authoritarianism that these corporations have done so much to engender. And there are few people with more experience in these fights than Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media. He joined us for a great conversation about making polluters pay, the ways clean energy developments have totally transformed the climate fight, and how to balance hope and fear in the midsts of climate chaos.
Fighting Fascism Podcast is produced by Nik Damants in collaboration with The Nation.
Intro song and music by Horse Radish.
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Wildfire smoke from Canada shrouds the sun behind the skyline of New York City on July 17, 2026.
(Gary Hershorn / Getty Images)In recent weeks, we’ve seen our skies engulfed in dystopian haze. We’ve had lethal heat waves ruin our Fourth of July cookouts. States have announced emergency water rationing due to record-breaking droughts. Tens of thousands of Europeans have been killed by extreme heat so far this summer; hundreds of thousands are being evacuated by apocalyptic wildfires. And we know it’s just the beginning—this is, after all, not just the hottest summer of our lives, but the coolest summer for the rest of our lives.
This didn’t just happen. Climate change is overwhelmingly the result of pollution and deception from specific Big Oil companies that were predicting decades ago that their fossil fuels would cause, in their own words, “globally catastrophic” climate harms that would create “more violent weather” and cause “suffering and death due to thermal extremes.” Even as they used this knowledge to protect their own infrastructure, they orchestrated fraudulent campaigns of climate denial to lock us into the disasters we are currently experiencing.
But we’re not powerless in the face of these nightmares. We can take on Big Oil, and the fossil-fueled authoritarianism that these corporations have done so much to engender. And there are few people with more experience in these fights than Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media. He joined us for a great conversation about making polluters pay, the ways clean-energy developments have totally transformed the climate fight, and how to balance hope and fear in the midst of climate chaos.
The Fighting Fascism podcast is produced by Nik Damants in collaboration with The Nation.
Intro song and music by Horse Radish.
Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/subscribe.
The Nation Podcasts
Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Can Jane Kim Fix Insurance? w/ Jane Kim / Fighting Fascism
We haven’t had any political candidates on Fighting Fascism yet. But we decided to make an exception for Jane Kim, who is running to be the next insurance commissioner of California. Part of that exception is because Jane is an old friend. But part of it is because the office she’s running for touches on such interesting and important issues. We don’t think often about insurance, particularly property and casualty insurance. But it’s the foundation for so much of our economic world. And right now it’s not working. Well, it’s actually working great for the massive corporations raking in billions in profits while denying and underpaying claims and saddling us with massive climate risks. But Jane believes a better way is possible. And we think you will, too, after listening to our conversation.
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