And yet, for a few years now, I’ve found myself saying something slightly heretical on panels and in conversations with other reporters: we need to start engaging in more overtly conspiratorial language. Because the actual story of climate change—the one we’ve reported exhaustively—is one about coordinated power, deliberate deception, and a bought-off government that repeatedly acts to promote an industry that is poisoning humans and the environment for profit. It just so happens to be a real conspiracy.

The Trump administration’s recent invasion of Venezuela has put this conspiracy at the top of the news cycle. Trump framed the attack explicitly as an oil play, bragging about handing Venezuela’s oil infrastructure to U.S. companies. He said he privately briefed oil executives in advance of the attack, but did not inform Congress. He made clear that if U.S. companies were hesitant to enter Venezuela, U.S. taxpayers would step in to shoulder the financial risk.

There is a lot of important information in here, but let us not forget that the biggest and most influential industry in the world, responsible for more of the human climate impact than any other, is not really the fossil fuel industry.