If we keep to our current course, sabotage is coming.
November 7, 2021 8:26 AM Subscribe
‘Better to die blowing up a pipeline,’ Malm concludes, ‘than to burn impassively.’ Thus the image of blowing up a pipeline returns, not now as an act of sabotage but one of self-sacrifice. At this intersection of a monumental past and a dark future, we reach a dead end.Adam Tooze in the LRB, on Andreas Malm and climate direct action.
Related links:
Archive link to the LRB article, for those who have trouble with the paywall.
Andreas Malm's "White Skin, Black Fuel"; "How to Blow Up a Pipeline"; "Corona, Climate, Chronic Emergency" and others at Verso Books.
Verso Roundtable on "How to Blow Up a Pipeline"
In rich countries, intergenerational justice can also be a locking in of privilege, where our children and grandchildren are simply future versions of ourselves and the resources we currently enjoy. Its centrality to the current wave of climate activism, in both XR and particularly Fridays for the Future, has enabled the mobilisation of (literally) millions of activists, many for the first time. But it also points to a weakness.Beyond Politics? The Aims and Limits of Extinction Rebellion by Graeme Hayes
In both the ecological movement histories of the UK and Germany the ideological traditions of sabotage and of strict ‘non-violence’ competed with one another. In Germany this conflict reached a head in 1997 at one of the Castor protests against the transportation of nuclear waste. It is reported that some ‘non-violent’ activists alerted police to other activists who were sabotaging the railway tracks, leading to their violent arrest and detention.Tactics and Traditions in the British and German Climate Movements by Alice Swift
The avoidance of sabotage as a subject and the near disappearance of the word from labor history (replaced by “direct action”) seem to bear out Smith’s pronouncement that it is so dangerous that it can’t be mentioned.On Sabotage by R.H. Lossin
Criticisms of "How to Blow Up a Pipeline"
Surprisingly, after finishing the book, it is difficult to answer what the book aims to do, who should blow up the pipeline, or worse, who is it addressing. The first thing one notices about the book is the startling whiteness of the authorial gaze and voice.How to Write About Pipelines by Sakshi Aravind
Malm is admitting to the reader that he has his own personal limits to militancy, writing that “the moral capital the climate movement has amassed could be depreciated or obliterated in one blow.” While posturing as a hard-nosed truthteller, he is forced to concede that these actions do indeed have impacts on individuals and movements. This is an accurate assessment, and one to be wrestled with. But he never admits it himself.How to Blow Up a Movement: Andreas Malm’s New Book Dreams of Sabotage but Ignores Consequences by James Wilt
Malm is proposing an ecological version of pseudo-Marxist terrorist organisations like the Red Army Faction or the Red Brigades, groups born from despair at the ability of the working class to change society. They may have been motivated by some sort of idealism and hope for a better world, but they contributed nothing to the development of mass movements. They were crushed by the state and their members spent decades in prison, committed suicide or were killed by the police.Review in the Global Ecosocialist Network by Alan Thornett
Paradoxically, just as we have begun to give up on the prospects of politically averting climate crisis, we have seen that it is practically possible. What lessons can the climate movement draw from this?A Pandemic Can Do What a Movement Cannot by Alf Hornborg
Response to criticisms by the author
The violence is coming, all but guaranteed like the hyper-lethal heatwaves, on the assumption that humans are not killed in the many millions without ever fighting back. The question for climate movements, including any coming children of Kali, is how to give that violence direction and lend it political purpose and impose on it some essential restraint. To that comes another question: when does the fightback begin?When Does the Fightback Begin? by Andreas Malm
Some other works and events mentioned in the Tooze review
There are two ways to organise the low-carbon transition: through the state itself or through the financial sector. What might be termed the “big green state” approach involves massive public investments in green infrastructure and industries. When private finance recently lamented Biden’s infrastructure plans, it was objecting to a big-state route to decarbonisation that rejects the rhetoric of public-private partnerships.Private Finance Won’t Decarbonise our Economies – But the ‘Big Green State’ Can by Daniela Gabor
Despite federal authorities use of ‘terrorism’ language to describe Reznicek’s actions, no person was harmed by her actions, nor was she technically convicted of any terrorism-related crime. ‘§ 1366 – Destruction of an energy facility‘ – which encompasses the conspiracy charge Reznicek plead guilty to – is listed in the US Code under Chapter 65 – Malicious Mischief; Terrorism crimes are listed in a separate section of the US Code, Chapter 113B – Terrorism.DAPL Saboteur Jessica Reznicek Sentenced to 8 Years by Chris Schiano
Fascism, viewed objectively, is not the revenge of the bourgeoisie in retaliation for proletarian aggression against the bourgeoisie, but it is a punishment of the proletariat for failing to carry on the revolution begun in Russia. The Fascist leaders are not a small and exclusive caste; they extend deeply into wide elements of the population.Fascism by Clara Zetkin
Civil wars may be horrible for the environment but so is doing nothing.
posted by evilDoug at 9:25 AM on November 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by evilDoug at 9:25 AM on November 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
government action was in large part directed towards shoring up existing property relations and the existing distribution of wealth and income. The interventions were gigantic but overwhelmingly conservative in their intentions and effects.
It s interesting what the subject is about, but I don't understand the title, as someone who lives near hundreds of pipelines.
The major problem is that the pipelines blow themselves up, and companies profit from that, y'all. Because pipelines are located in places where people can't effectively complain, and there won't be media attention, companies don't have to fix them.
companies are then rewarded during shortages or scares, when they jack the prices up. This is how the market works.
Capitalism is a pipeline permanently blowing up and eventually getting patched, forever. Capitalism builds a thing so it will blow up.
Anyway interested in this writing, I can just never get around the obtuseness of the title. I lot too many kids sick with asthma because they live in pipeline corridors.
posted by eustatic at 9:30 AM on November 7, 2021 [14 favorites]
The major problem is that the pipelines blow themselves up, and companies profit from that, y'all.
[...]
Anyway interested in this writing, I can just never get around the obtuseness of the title. I lot too many kids sick with asthma because they live in pipeline corridors.
This is a great point.
I don't know if it will make you more or less likely to engage with the the review by Tooze, the original work, or indeed the OP, but almost every one of the critical reviews listed in the "more inside" starts with the observation that the book isn't actually a manual for blowing up pipelines, and the title is basically there for shock value.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 9:36 AM on November 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
[...]
Anyway interested in this writing, I can just never get around the obtuseness of the title. I lot too many kids sick with asthma because they live in pipeline corridors.
This is a great point.
I don't know if it will make you more or less likely to engage with the the review by Tooze, the original work, or indeed the OP, but almost every one of the critical reviews listed in the "more inside" starts with the observation that the book isn't actually a manual for blowing up pipelines, and the title is basically there for shock value.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 9:36 AM on November 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
Remember: you won’t reduce CO2 emissions by burning it all down. Civil wars are horrible for the environment.
Well this is arguable at best. You know what's REALLY horrible for the environment? Corporate capitalism. If we could sufficiently disrupt this death march it could indeed be a net positive compared to the status quo.
I'm generally a pacifist but I couldn't let such a blinkered claim go unchallenged.
posted by viborg at 9:45 AM on November 7, 2021 [9 favorites]
Well this is arguable at best. You know what's REALLY horrible for the environment? Corporate capitalism. If we could sufficiently disrupt this death march it could indeed be a net positive compared to the status quo.
I'm generally a pacifist but I couldn't let such a blinkered claim go unchallenged.
posted by viborg at 9:45 AM on November 7, 2021 [9 favorites]
To me, it's not a question of civil war or sabotage. It's a question of mass action/revolution. I don't really think a campaign of isolated sabotage will do more than give ammunition to those seeking to clamp down on protest. And the frame of "civil war" doesn't quite fit since the corporate interests that underpin the fossil fuel economy are bipartisan (way more Republican, but bipartisan) and also global. But popular resistance could be transformative if it were youth-led and international. The question is, what will be the trigger, if anything? Do American youth really care? Would Chinese youth ever revolt against their Revolution?
posted by haricotvert at 10:13 AM on November 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by haricotvert at 10:13 AM on November 7, 2021 [7 favorites]
This seems distant and extreme until you play forward what's going to happen in places, for example, whose water supply depends in large part on the Colorado River. There's plenty of precedent in California, of course, but every state in the river compact has infrastructure that will seem like a good target to the desperate downstream. Now, add several other similar disasters we haven't even realized are coming yet.
posted by feloniousmonk at 10:46 AM on November 7, 2021
posted by feloniousmonk at 10:46 AM on November 7, 2021
Every time something like this comes up, everyone comes straight out of the gate with "because capitalism."
No, it's not because capitalism. It's because energy politics. The problem is that easy to access and easy to use energy is horribly polluting and is effectively destroying the very climate which allowed humans to develop into high technology and, in some parts of the globe, unprecedentedly culturally enlightened societies.
We're swimming in capitalism and its byproducts and therefore every problem looks like a capitalist one. Many problems are, but climate change and environmental harm are definitely orthogonal to capitalism. The Soviet Union and the eastern bloc didn't exactly have a political energy and manufacturing culture that promoted good stewardship of resources and the health and safety of their citizens. (And please let's not trot out "communism didn't fail, it was failed" because the idiots in power in most of the world who are die-hard orthodox capitalists say the same thing about our current system, that capitalism is being failed for similar handwavey reasons.)
To the libertarian/an-cap market fetishist, there's no problem freer capitalism can't solve. To some folks on Mefi, clearly there's no problem that getting rid of capitalism won't solve.
But when it comes to our climate emergency, you can take away capitalism and you will still have the same problem: the politics of energy. It's easy to pull stuff out of the ground and burn it to make electricity and manufacture goods, and the people in power, across all ends of the economic philosophical problem have had no trouble taking their political win by supplying that cheap/easy energy to people and making the poor people who living in the wrong place suffer for it now, and making all of our descendents suffer for it later.
It's easy to release crap into the streams some other sucker has to drink out of, capitalist, socialist, social democrat, whatever. It's hard to resist that temptation and even harder when you have various constituencies pushing you to take short cuts. Build that nuclear power plant with almost literally no countermeasures to contain a meltdown? For the same effort we could build a whole other plant and have twice the energy. Decommission those coal mines? I got 10,000 workers who'll be mad at me and won my last election by 4,000 votes. Neither of these are capitalist problems or socialist ones. They're politics problems.
Part of fighting our climate emergency will involve fighting entrenched capitalist interests, to be sure -- as a matter of fact, a LOT of it will require constraining, regulating, and fighting against people who stand to make a little more money and don't care about who gets screwed now and in the future to do it. But most of it actually involves the harder thing: fighting the habit and incredible political power of people who want to do the easier thing now and who will very handily have you removed from power and influence if you do something to make them even a little bit uncomfortable.
posted by tclark at 10:52 AM on November 7, 2021 [30 favorites]
No, it's not because capitalism. It's because energy politics. The problem is that easy to access and easy to use energy is horribly polluting and is effectively destroying the very climate which allowed humans to develop into high technology and, in some parts of the globe, unprecedentedly culturally enlightened societies.
We're swimming in capitalism and its byproducts and therefore every problem looks like a capitalist one. Many problems are, but climate change and environmental harm are definitely orthogonal to capitalism. The Soviet Union and the eastern bloc didn't exactly have a political energy and manufacturing culture that promoted good stewardship of resources and the health and safety of their citizens. (And please let's not trot out "communism didn't fail, it was failed" because the idiots in power in most of the world who are die-hard orthodox capitalists say the same thing about our current system, that capitalism is being failed for similar handwavey reasons.)
To the libertarian/an-cap market fetishist, there's no problem freer capitalism can't solve. To some folks on Mefi, clearly there's no problem that getting rid of capitalism won't solve.
But when it comes to our climate emergency, you can take away capitalism and you will still have the same problem: the politics of energy. It's easy to pull stuff out of the ground and burn it to make electricity and manufacture goods, and the people in power, across all ends of the economic philosophical problem have had no trouble taking their political win by supplying that cheap/easy energy to people and making the poor people who living in the wrong place suffer for it now, and making all of our descendents suffer for it later.
It's easy to release crap into the streams some other sucker has to drink out of, capitalist, socialist, social democrat, whatever. It's hard to resist that temptation and even harder when you have various constituencies pushing you to take short cuts. Build that nuclear power plant with almost literally no countermeasures to contain a meltdown? For the same effort we could build a whole other plant and have twice the energy. Decommission those coal mines? I got 10,000 workers who'll be mad at me and won my last election by 4,000 votes. Neither of these are capitalist problems or socialist ones. They're politics problems.
Part of fighting our climate emergency will involve fighting entrenched capitalist interests, to be sure -- as a matter of fact, a LOT of it will require constraining, regulating, and fighting against people who stand to make a little more money and don't care about who gets screwed now and in the future to do it. But most of it actually involves the harder thing: fighting the habit and incredible political power of people who want to do the easier thing now and who will very handily have you removed from power and influence if you do something to make them even a little bit uncomfortable.
posted by tclark at 10:52 AM on November 7, 2021 [30 favorites]
The honest title would have been "Why To Blow Up A Pipeline" and Malm is seriously failing to think this one through.
The threat from any climate change activism is tiny and easy to mitigate. If you're rich enough to be a climate criminal then you're rich enough to pay for bodyguards to keep you safe from a few angry activists. Or a pay for a few more drones to watch over your pipeline and an extra 0.5% on the pipeline insurance.
The threat from climate change is already massive. One rainstorm killed a 100 people in Germany and caused what, €10 billion damage? And this is only going to get worse.
The violence of the changing climate won't bring about the economic and political changes that we need. Climate terrorism could only be a trivial addition to that.
posted by happyinmotion at 11:05 AM on November 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
The threat from any climate change activism is tiny and easy to mitigate. If you're rich enough to be a climate criminal then you're rich enough to pay for bodyguards to keep you safe from a few angry activists. Or a pay for a few more drones to watch over your pipeline and an extra 0.5% on the pipeline insurance.
The threat from climate change is already massive. One rainstorm killed a 100 people in Germany and caused what, €10 billion damage? And this is only going to get worse.
The violence of the changing climate won't bring about the economic and political changes that we need. Climate terrorism could only be a trivial addition to that.
posted by happyinmotion at 11:05 AM on November 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
Well, then let's make sure it's not just "a few angry activists." It's harder to protect your infrastructure from, say, five million. The article mentions Ende Gelände as an example of what this might look like. I don't know much about them, but their tactics seem scalable and potentially effective to me.
posted by haricotvert at 11:24 AM on November 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by haricotvert at 11:24 AM on November 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
Well, sure. I guess what I mean when I say "it's capitalism" is that "Big Mike" Fesi is the elected state representative for Lafourche Parish, where most of the pipelines the united states relies on are positioned.
He owns a pipeline maintenance company, and makes decisions at the state level to enrich himself and his business partners.
Our government can't pass policies to stop the pipelines from leaking methane, much less get rid of pipelines, because that would hurt the bottom line of the elected representative.
Ignorance of the material reality of fossil fuel infrastructure in the United States, and the political dynamics that keep everything shitty, hampers any kind of political analysis, liberal, leftist, even conservative, of what is to be done.
The meaning of the title of the book depends on maintaining people's ignorance about the impact and political conditions around pipelines in the United States. Which is frustrating.
If we were centered on oil and gas workers, we could talk about how the price war of 2020 has resulted in unprecedented layoffs, and the automation of fracking means that workers are not being re-hired.
If we could talk about that, we could be able to turn Texas blue, and move away from a political system captured by this one dumb industry. But since we can't talk about workers, and can't talk about that, there s this unnecessary desperation in the discussion.
posted by eustatic at 11:24 AM on November 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
He owns a pipeline maintenance company, and makes decisions at the state level to enrich himself and his business partners.
Our government can't pass policies to stop the pipelines from leaking methane, much less get rid of pipelines, because that would hurt the bottom line of the elected representative.
Ignorance of the material reality of fossil fuel infrastructure in the United States, and the political dynamics that keep everything shitty, hampers any kind of political analysis, liberal, leftist, even conservative, of what is to be done.
The meaning of the title of the book depends on maintaining people's ignorance about the impact and political conditions around pipelines in the United States. Which is frustrating.
If we were centered on oil and gas workers, we could talk about how the price war of 2020 has resulted in unprecedented layoffs, and the automation of fracking means that workers are not being re-hired.
If we could talk about that, we could be able to turn Texas blue, and move away from a political system captured by this one dumb industry. But since we can't talk about workers, and can't talk about that, there s this unnecessary desperation in the discussion.
posted by eustatic at 11:24 AM on November 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
I think Malm’s point is that if we take threat of climate change seriously, then we should not categorically reject all forms of direct action - which is not to endorse all forms of direct action or ecoterrorism of some kind. Rather, direct action should be taken if and only if it is an effective means of averting a climate catastrophe. I mean, we’re talking about the fate of billions of people and human civilization itself, why should direct action be off the table?
posted by thedamnbees at 11:28 AM on November 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by thedamnbees at 11:28 AM on November 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
Well, sure. I guess what I mean when I say "it's capitalism"
I would add that ‘entrenched capitalist interests” are one of the main features of actually existing capitalism.
posted by thedamnbees at 11:31 AM on November 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
I would add that ‘entrenched capitalist interests” are one of the main features of actually existing capitalism.
posted by thedamnbees at 11:31 AM on November 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
The honest title would have been "Why To Blow Up A Pipeline" and Malm is seriously failing to think this one through.
The threat from any climate change activism is tiny and easy to mitigate. If you're rich enough to be a climate criminal then you're rich enough to pay for bodyguards to keep you safe from a few angry activists. Or a pay for a few more drones to watch over your pipeline and an extra 0.5% on the pipeline insurance.
The threat from climate change is already massive. One rainstorm killed a 100 people in Germany and caused what, €10 billion damage? And this is only going to get worse.
The violence of the changing climate won't bring about the economic and political changes that we need. Climate terrorism could only be a trivial addition to that.
posted by happyinmotion at 11:05 AM on November 7
Fair enough but the distinction from climate disasters is that sabotage would be highly targeted. The real risk at that point is the loss of human life, but as we see in Britain right now civil disobedience can be quite effective as a temporary tactic. (Cue Mario Savio.)
The question of whether the threat is significant or not entirely depends on the scale of action. It doesn't matter whether the criminals can insulate themselves from the effects or not, at a global scale. Consider insurgencies in the Middle East as an analogy, a little bit of destruction can go a long way. Again I'm not advocating violence even if against property, I'm just addressing the tactical question. I do wonder if we need to consider whether to Google proof these remarks at all? No doubt there are certain key terms it would be wise to avoid using repeatedly but I can't say specifically which ones.
posted by viborg at 11:33 AM on November 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
The threat from any climate change activism is tiny and easy to mitigate. If you're rich enough to be a climate criminal then you're rich enough to pay for bodyguards to keep you safe from a few angry activists. Or a pay for a few more drones to watch over your pipeline and an extra 0.5% on the pipeline insurance.
The threat from climate change is already massive. One rainstorm killed a 100 people in Germany and caused what, €10 billion damage? And this is only going to get worse.
The violence of the changing climate won't bring about the economic and political changes that we need. Climate terrorism could only be a trivial addition to that.
posted by happyinmotion at 11:05 AM on November 7
Fair enough but the distinction from climate disasters is that sabotage would be highly targeted. The real risk at that point is the loss of human life, but as we see in Britain right now civil disobedience can be quite effective as a temporary tactic. (Cue Mario Savio.)
The question of whether the threat is significant or not entirely depends on the scale of action. It doesn't matter whether the criminals can insulate themselves from the effects or not, at a global scale. Consider insurgencies in the Middle East as an analogy, a little bit of destruction can go a long way. Again I'm not advocating violence even if against property, I'm just addressing the tactical question. I do wonder if we need to consider whether to Google proof these remarks at all? No doubt there are certain key terms it would be wise to avoid using repeatedly but I can't say specifically which ones.
posted by viborg at 11:33 AM on November 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
The threat from any climate change activism is tiny and easy to mitigate. If you're rich enough to be a climate criminal then you're rich enough to pay for bodyguards to keep you safe from a few angry activists. Or a pay for a few more drones to watch over your pipeline and an extra 0.5% on the pipeline insurance.
I think one of the claims in the book, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, is that basically any conspicuous consumption makes you a potential target, and that population largely can't afford perfect security. For example he mentions a movement that went around wealthy neighbourhoods (iirc in Stockholm) letting the air out of the tires of SUVs, because driving gas-guzzing cars was enough of a climate crime. He also muses about a mass movement of keying cars such that if one can't drive into London without getting their car keyed, pretty soon people will stop.
Which is a very different kind of direct action than literally blowing up a functioning pipeline and the connecting infrastructure.
posted by selenized at 11:40 AM on November 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
I think one of the claims in the book, How to Blow Up a Pipeline, is that basically any conspicuous consumption makes you a potential target, and that population largely can't afford perfect security. For example he mentions a movement that went around wealthy neighbourhoods (iirc in Stockholm) letting the air out of the tires of SUVs, because driving gas-guzzing cars was enough of a climate crime. He also muses about a mass movement of keying cars such that if one can't drive into London without getting their car keyed, pretty soon people will stop.
Which is a very different kind of direct action than literally blowing up a functioning pipeline and the connecting infrastructure.
posted by selenized at 11:40 AM on November 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
Here's Tooze's newsletter issue adding more to the topic. (I'm not sure how open it is)
posted by doctornemo at 12:31 PM on November 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 12:31 PM on November 7, 2021 [6 favorites]
Here's Tooze's newsletter issue adding more to the topic. (I'm not sure how open it is)
(That's a fantastic link that adds a lot of useful context. I wish I'd included it in the OP!)
posted by chappell, ambrose at 12:47 PM on November 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
(That's a fantastic link that adds a lot of useful context. I wish I'd included it in the OP!)
posted by chappell, ambrose at 12:47 PM on November 7, 2021 [3 favorites]
I'm fascinated by Malm's vision and have many thoughts.
One point now:
"What Malm is challenging us to imagine is a movement against fossil capitalism in which an embattled group of energy revolutionaries breaks away from the global empire of oil and gas, as the Bolsheviks did between 1917 and 1922, to forge a new politics, a new economy and a new energy regime. As Malm points out, at least today’s War Communists will have solar and wind power."
Where might such a breakaway begin?
posted by doctornemo at 3:18 PM on November 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
One point now:
"What Malm is challenging us to imagine is a movement against fossil capitalism in which an embattled group of energy revolutionaries breaks away from the global empire of oil and gas, as the Bolsheviks did between 1917 and 1922, to forge a new politics, a new economy and a new energy regime. As Malm points out, at least today’s War Communists will have solar and wind power."
Where might such a breakaway begin?
posted by doctornemo at 3:18 PM on November 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Apologies if it is already mentioned in any of the many fascinating links above, but in the latest novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (earlier and earlier), eco-violence is part of the plot, but aimed at individuals and their 'devices' more than at infrastructure.
It seems quite plausible that if someone took down a few private jets, there would quickly be a lot less private jet travel to Davos or anywhere. And a few targeted killings of executives at the most egregious corporations might lead to a quick exodus of many more from their c-suite, with likely business impacts.
To me this feels more effective than blowing up a pipeline, which could quickly (or even slowly) be repaired or replaced.
posted by PhineasGage at 3:41 PM on November 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
It seems quite plausible that if someone took down a few private jets, there would quickly be a lot less private jet travel to Davos or anywhere. And a few targeted killings of executives at the most egregious corporations might lead to a quick exodus of many more from their c-suite, with likely business impacts.
To me this feels more effective than blowing up a pipeline, which could quickly (or even slowly) be repaired or replaced.
posted by PhineasGage at 3:41 PM on November 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
This podcast/debate is remarkably realistic for a couple of Trotskyites (?) discussing the solution to the climate crisis. So more thanks to doctornemo for posting the link to Tooze's newsletter which is where it was linked. So much to unpack there. Heh, they called dialecticism (?) 'magical thinking' which apparently originated with theological scholasticism.
(I don't have anything against Trotsky in principle, I'm mostly just poorly informed about his views, and most of my experience with hard leftists is on Twitter and maybe not really representative.)
posted by viborg at 3:53 PM on November 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
(I don't have anything against Trotsky in principle, I'm mostly just poorly informed about his views, and most of my experience with hard leftists is on Twitter and maybe not really representative.)
posted by viborg at 3:53 PM on November 7, 2021 [2 favorites]
After seeing what happened in Arizona in 2003, I’ve thought that pipelines are some of our most vulnerable infrastructure. What happened was that an old gasoline pipeline burst in the middle of Tucson, spilling tens of thousands of gallons of gasoline. As for Tucson, that was the worst effect of it, because the fuel terminal here was several miles upstream on the pipeline. It didn’t affect supplies here at all. However, that pipeline continues to Phoenix. It’s one of three supplying the city. Hey, you still got the majority of your gas supply, you’re fine, right? Wrong. People in the Phoenix area freaked the fuck out. Lines at the gas stations, fights, threats, panic buying, prices being jacked up. Sabotage in the right areas could throw entire metro regions into absolute chaos.
posted by azpenguin at 6:26 PM on November 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by azpenguin at 6:26 PM on November 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure it matters anymore. Experts in scientific press are trying to figure out contingency scenarios, while industry-government partnerships push shills to defend burning it all down, in the meantime. There is no come-to-Jesus-moment coming, because we're pretty much all invested in it chugging along, as it is. We don't punish bullshitters who keep pushing profits over honesty, and the ppms and ppbs keep climbing. We're cooked.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:59 PM on November 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 7:59 PM on November 7, 2021 [1 favorite]
Without advocating any particular course of action, I would just note that if you asked the average American about their opinions on Turing Pharmaceuticals, you'd likely get blank stares. But if you asked them about their thoughts on "Martin Shkreli, Pharma Bro", I suspect you'll get some colorful responses.
I remember when the Working Families Party organized a bus tour, in response to the massive government bailout of then-failing AIG, of AIG executives' homes in the luxe suburbs of southern Connecticut.
It's worth remembering that corporations don't do things; people do things. People make decisions, other people carry out those decisions. The law creates a veil behind which they are allowed to act as one, but this is only binding on the law. The press, the rest of society, doesn't need to just play along.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:28 AM on November 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
I remember when the Working Families Party organized a bus tour, in response to the massive government bailout of then-failing AIG, of AIG executives' homes in the luxe suburbs of southern Connecticut.
It's worth remembering that corporations don't do things; people do things. People make decisions, other people carry out those decisions. The law creates a veil behind which they are allowed to act as one, but this is only binding on the law. The press, the rest of society, doesn't need to just play along.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:28 AM on November 8, 2021 [3 favorites]
One thing to note is that the climate isn't changing, it's actively being changed. And it's being changed at the direction of a relatively small number of individuals who have names, faces, and addresses.
If a person is charging towards you with a knife screaming that they're going to kill you, everyone but the most ardent pacifist will tend to agree that using anything up to and including deadly force is justified.
The question, then, is when it is justified to employ force to defend yourself against people intent on murdering you by changing the climate?
Blowing up pipelines is almost certainly counterproductive. But Exxon executives have a much higher regard for their own skin than they do for pipelines.
I'm not advocating any particular course of action here, and I'm explicitly not advocating violence against the climate murderers. But sooner or later someone is going to turn to violence and claim its self defense.
And I'm not at all sure they'd be wrong.
Mass action, large scale protest, general strikes, those are all infinitely better than any violent action. But it's not happening. The threat is too distant, too abstraact, the average person tends to see climate change as just sort of abstractly happening and the threat as too distant to risk the cost of a general strike or even a mass protest.
By the time the consequences become apparent and immediate there won't be any time left to try and solve the problem.
In theory that's why we have governments. That's literally the point: to have an agency which has both the power and foresight to identify threats like climate change and take measure to fix it before it's too late. But clearly that hasn't worked for us in this case and really it tends not to in general.
Which brings us back to the inevitability of violent action against the climate murderers. Eventually some person or group is going to decide they must do something violent to save themselves and everyone else.
If someone kills the CEO of a random oil company the immediate result will be a massive backlash against all climate activists, and the presumption that all climate change activists are either violent or at least support violence.
I see it coming, and I see no real likelihood that the climate murderers will change their actions before the violence against them starts. And then we're all in for a bad time.
Either we all die from climate change, or there's a civil war where many of us will die, or I don't know. My son is 15. Every day I wonder if we did the right thing by aadopting him and tying ourselves to him emotionally. Because I think he's going to spend his 30's in a very, very, bad time and I'm having anxiety attacks about it.
Historically times of great change are not good times. And we're on our way to a change that will make all the prior changes look tiny by comparison.
posted by sotonohito at 7:24 AM on November 8, 2021
If a person is charging towards you with a knife screaming that they're going to kill you, everyone but the most ardent pacifist will tend to agree that using anything up to and including deadly force is justified.
The question, then, is when it is justified to employ force to defend yourself against people intent on murdering you by changing the climate?
Blowing up pipelines is almost certainly counterproductive. But Exxon executives have a much higher regard for their own skin than they do for pipelines.
I'm not advocating any particular course of action here, and I'm explicitly not advocating violence against the climate murderers. But sooner or later someone is going to turn to violence and claim its self defense.
And I'm not at all sure they'd be wrong.
Mass action, large scale protest, general strikes, those are all infinitely better than any violent action. But it's not happening. The threat is too distant, too abstraact, the average person tends to see climate change as just sort of abstractly happening and the threat as too distant to risk the cost of a general strike or even a mass protest.
By the time the consequences become apparent and immediate there won't be any time left to try and solve the problem.
In theory that's why we have governments. That's literally the point: to have an agency which has both the power and foresight to identify threats like climate change and take measure to fix it before it's too late. But clearly that hasn't worked for us in this case and really it tends not to in general.
Which brings us back to the inevitability of violent action against the climate murderers. Eventually some person or group is going to decide they must do something violent to save themselves and everyone else.
If someone kills the CEO of a random oil company the immediate result will be a massive backlash against all climate activists, and the presumption that all climate change activists are either violent or at least support violence.
I see it coming, and I see no real likelihood that the climate murderers will change their actions before the violence against them starts. And then we're all in for a bad time.
Either we all die from climate change, or there's a civil war where many of us will die, or I don't know. My son is 15. Every day I wonder if we did the right thing by aadopting him and tying ourselves to him emotionally. Because I think he's going to spend his 30's in a very, very, bad time and I'm having anxiety attacks about it.
Historically times of great change are not good times. And we're on our way to a change that will make all the prior changes look tiny by comparison.
posted by sotonohito at 7:24 AM on November 8, 2021
In the latest novel by Kim Stanley Robinson, The Ministry for the Future (earlier and earlier), eco-violence is part of the plot, but aimed at individuals and their 'devices' more than at infrastructure.
"The Ministry for the Future" seems to have been a big influence on Malm - it's certainly referenced throughout "When Does the Fightback Begin" (an essay response to criticisms of HTBUAP) which you can read here.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 7:52 AM on November 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
"The Ministry for the Future" seems to have been a big influence on Malm - it's certainly referenced throughout "When Does the Fightback Begin" (an essay response to criticisms of HTBUAP) which you can read here.
posted by chappell, ambrose at 7:52 AM on November 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
In ref to the title: it can just change. It doesn't have to stay this way.
posted by firstdaffodils at 3:14 PM on November 8, 2021
posted by firstdaffodils at 3:14 PM on November 8, 2021
‘Better to die blowing up a pipeline,’ Malm concludes, ‘than to burn impassively.’
I'm not sure I agree with this to the extent that we are talking about a small group of activists making a decision for the rest of us. I also don't quite buy the argument that fossil fuels = capitalism, versus the happy land of water power that kept humans going with no problems for thousands of years. Capitalism *is* a huge demon because of the imbalance of power, the focus on abstractions (money) over reality, the death-urge to grow at all costs and the perpetual leveraging of the future to pay for today.
But. There's a difference between protesting future bad decisions and trying to undo what's been done. A working pipeline, for example, makes money for the energy companies. But it also delivers energy to every person living in that society, from the cackling CEO down to the poorest single parent trying to get to work. If you interrupt the supply of fuel as happened with the Colonial pipeline, you basically inconvenience a bunch of random people and don't scare anyone off just fixing the pipeline. If you blow up lots of pipelines, then a bunch of people freeze to death, or lose their jobs, or a million other consequences that the saboteurs can't plan for.
Also, Metafilter has conditioned me as a middle-aged white male to realize my privilege, so when I see a YouTube link to two tough-looking cool greyscale white dudes who are going to tell me about direct action, my instinct is to call bullshit. Real collective action is millions or tens of millions of people protesting or saying no to a particular direction. I don't feel confident that a big chunk of people in a US city are going to get together and say "yeah, let's shut off the fossil fuels (or all blow the pipelines up together)! We are totally cool with having no way to get anywhere, no jobs, no heat, etc."
Capitalism is not going away in the blink of an eye, nor are fossil fuels. I do think there are times when a person or small group may decide they've had enough and do something "illegal" under current laws and norms. And those things may be morally right. But I don't think that destroying current infrastructure is going to help anyone.
I also think that humans' need to grow - population, discovery, advancement - predates capitalism by millenia and we would run into the limits of the earth anyway. Capitalism and growth economies make it 100x worse, but I don't think people like having artificial light at night because someone sold it to them. We are going to have to find a way to live with less regardless of the economic system. For those of us like me who are urban and thus less self-sufficient, that's going to be a hard problem to solve.
posted by freecellwizard at 4:27 PM on November 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm not sure I agree with this to the extent that we are talking about a small group of activists making a decision for the rest of us. I also don't quite buy the argument that fossil fuels = capitalism, versus the happy land of water power that kept humans going with no problems for thousands of years. Capitalism *is* a huge demon because of the imbalance of power, the focus on abstractions (money) over reality, the death-urge to grow at all costs and the perpetual leveraging of the future to pay for today.
But. There's a difference between protesting future bad decisions and trying to undo what's been done. A working pipeline, for example, makes money for the energy companies. But it also delivers energy to every person living in that society, from the cackling CEO down to the poorest single parent trying to get to work. If you interrupt the supply of fuel as happened with the Colonial pipeline, you basically inconvenience a bunch of random people and don't scare anyone off just fixing the pipeline. If you blow up lots of pipelines, then a bunch of people freeze to death, or lose their jobs, or a million other consequences that the saboteurs can't plan for.
Also, Metafilter has conditioned me as a middle-aged white male to realize my privilege, so when I see a YouTube link to two tough-looking cool greyscale white dudes who are going to tell me about direct action, my instinct is to call bullshit. Real collective action is millions or tens of millions of people protesting or saying no to a particular direction. I don't feel confident that a big chunk of people in a US city are going to get together and say "yeah, let's shut off the fossil fuels (or all blow the pipelines up together)! We are totally cool with having no way to get anywhere, no jobs, no heat, etc."
Capitalism is not going away in the blink of an eye, nor are fossil fuels. I do think there are times when a person or small group may decide they've had enough and do something "illegal" under current laws and norms. And those things may be morally right. But I don't think that destroying current infrastructure is going to help anyone.
I also think that humans' need to grow - population, discovery, advancement - predates capitalism by millenia and we would run into the limits of the earth anyway. Capitalism and growth economies make it 100x worse, but I don't think people like having artificial light at night because someone sold it to them. We are going to have to find a way to live with less regardless of the economic system. For those of us like me who are urban and thus less self-sufficient, that's going to be a hard problem to solve.
posted by freecellwizard at 4:27 PM on November 8, 2021 [2 favorites]
As a counterexample, I would say aggressively protesting the permitting and construction of a new coal plant that isn't doing anything yet is a good idea.
posted by freecellwizard at 4:30 PM on November 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by freecellwizard at 4:30 PM on November 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
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