Shell has been called a psychopath; Innocent wants to be cutesy and natural. Both are corporate machines, but by thinking of them in human terms we may be able to hold them accountable for their behaviour Ah, multinational corporations – they’re just like us! They have their own hopes and dreams and quietly simmering psychopathic tendencies. Or, in some cases, the simmering is not done so quietly. John Ashton, the UK’s former climate change envoy has just accused Shell and its oil and gas counterparts of basically being the Patrick Bateman of international business. In an open letter to Shell’s chief executive, Ashton wrote : “You and your peers cannot complain if society increasingly comes to see in your behaviour the characteristic marks of the professional narcissist, paranoiac, and psychopath.” Well, I mean, wake up and smell the fossil fuel! Shell burns stuff for a living. Its raison d’etre has always pretty much been to set the world on fire, and not in a good way. It’s named af...