I'll go against the grain and say that I do think that's possible (I'm not sure why people let these companies put it past them), but if that was something big

I'll go against the grain and say that I do think that's possible (I'm not sure why people let these companies put it past them), but if that was something big oil wanted then I don't know why they would facilitate the conspiracy themselves. Enough average Americans are already frightened enough by minor things that all you have to do is wait for film and TV to use nuclear disaster as entertainment for people to become adequately scared. No need for so much as a backroom handshake. When the population is adequately infantilized, let civilization take its course and it will scare itself. The real conspiracy, and it's not so much a conspiracy as confluence, is that the same powers that suggest that we need to take drastic action to curb climate change take little action in implementing real solutions. With all the hand waving around climate change, you'd think by now we would have an "Operation Warp Speed" for implementing more nuclear and developing large scale CO2 scrubbing. As far as I know, there's been little appreciable effort in that direction. But when it comes to actions that line pockets (electric cars serve not only car companies but fossil fuels and lithium mining), are adverse to civilization (intentional blackouts), and so on, America excels. The actual will to address climate change simply isn't there because modern regimes need crises to occur in order to maintain the illusion that they are even needed at the massive scale in which they currently exist. From corporate America to the depths of the federal government, in the back of our minds we know that most of us are excessive and therefore we need to manufacture reasons for our own existence. The concept of "bullshit jobs" has become popularized in recent years, but the same phenomenon happens at a much larger scale. Much of how countries like America operates is exactly like a bullshit corporate job. In fact, federal and state governments are the mass personification of flunkies, goons, box tickers, duct tapers, and taskmasters. Without crises, there's nothing for those bullshit job archetypes to do. Even the mainstream media addicts and zealots of either political party would have nothing to revere or resent.