Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h / t climate depot; No doubt, at any moment, Twitter and Facebook will forbid the author, Amazon, the New York Times, and other reviewers and book sellers from saying nice things about flammable material that promotes violence and terrorism.
From NYT;
Three books offer new ways to think about environmental disasters
By Tatiana Schlossberg
January 22, 2021
HOW TO BURN UP A PIPELINE
By Andreas Malm
200 pp. Verse paper, $ 19.95.
In September 2019, millions of people around the world took part in non-violent demonstrations calling for action against climate change.
…
“To say that the signals have fallen on the deaf ears of the world’s ruling classes would be an understatement. If those classes ever had any sense, they’ve lost them all, ”writes Malm, a Swedish professor of human ecology and climate change activist, in his compelling but frustrating paper.
An appropriate and rational response, according to Malm, should be to target the fossil fuel infrastructure: destroy fences around a power station; Occupy pipeline routes, as protesters have done for Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines; Establish climatic camps in coal mines or similar locations that Malm believes are effective as laboratories for activism and for shutting down things by bringing bodies to the track.
…
So Malm wants us to fight back (although I should add that there are no actual instructions here on how to blow something up).
He argues that there should be room for tactics other than strict nonviolence and peaceful demonstrations – indeed He’s a little disdainful of those who offer strategic pacifism as a solution – and notices that The fetishization of nonviolence in earlier protest movements disinfects historyRemoving agency from people who sometimes violently fought for justice, freedom and equality.
For sure. But the problem with violence, even if it is only intended to destroy “fossil capital”, is that it is ultimately impossible to control.
…
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/books/review/scorched-earth-emmanuel-kreike-how-to-prepare-for-climate-change-david-pogue-how- to -blow-up-a-pipeline-andreas-malm.html
OK, not a full endorsement of violence, but in my opinion NYT Tatiana Schlossberg’s review doesn’t exactly read like a categorical rejection of the use of force to deny people access to a legal product.
The official book website also makes it very clear what is advocated;
How to blow up a pipeline
Learn to fight in a burning world
by Andreas Malm
Why resisting climate change means fighting the fossil fuel industry
The science of climate change has long been clear. Despite decades of appeals, mass street protests, petition campaigns, and peaceful demonstrations, we are still facing a booming fossil fuel industry, rising seas, rising emissions, and rising temperatures. Why didn’t we go beyond peaceful protest at such high stakes?
In this lyrical manifesto, the well-known climate researcher (and saboteur of SUV tires and coal mines) Andreas Malm passionately urges the climate movement to escalate its tactics in the face of ecological collapse. We must, he argues, bring fossil fuel production to a halt – with our actions, with our bodies, and by disarming and destroying their tools. We need, In summary, to blow up some oil pipelines.
Malm offers a counter-story about how mass changes in the population came about, from the democratic revolutions overthrowing dictators to the movement against apartheid to women’s suffrage The strategic acceptance of the destruction and violence of property was the only way for revolutionary change. In a braided narrative that moves from the forests of Germany and the streets of London to the deserts of Iraq, Malm offers a succinct discussion of the politics and ethics of pacifism and violence, democracy and social change, strategy and tactics, and a movement from both Compelled by the heart as well as the mind. This is how we fight in a burning world.
Read more: https://www.versobooks.com/books/3665-how-to-blow-up-a-pipeline
I never received a reviewer’s copy so I haven’t read the book, but I think we got the idea.
Fossil fuel production only exists because people buy fossil fuel products. Oil production could be stopped overnight if the Greens were given superiority. Or people could choose of their own free will to stop buying gasoline.
The author of this savage call for weapons must know that there is no chance of convincing ordinary people to forego the comforts of modern civilization, and therefore advocates depriving people of that comfort through violence and unlawful destruction of property.
With that in mind, the real targets of the violence advocated in this evil cry for arms are ordinary people who willingly purchase the fossil fuel products of our civilization. Ordinary people who would be badly molested or worse were those products that were forcibly withdrawn by eco-madmen inspired by this ugly manifesto.
4.5
8th
be right
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