Waterstones How to Blow Up a Pipeline
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Price: £10.99
Brand: Waterstones
Description: The science on climate change has been clear for a very long time now. Yet despite decades of appeals, mass street protests, petition campaigns, and peaceful demonstrations, we are still facing a booming fossil fuel industry, rising seas, rising emission levels, and a rising temperature. With the stakes so high, why haven't we moved beyond peaceful protest? In this lyrical manifesto, noted climate scholar (and saboteur of SUV tires and coal mines) Andreas Malm makes an impassioned call for the climate movement to escalate its tactics in the face of ecological collapse. We need, he argues, to force fossil fuel extraction to stop--with our actions, with our bodies, and by defusing and destroying its tools. We need, in short, to start blowing up some oil pipelines. Offering a counter-history of how mass popular change has occurred, from the democratic revolutions overthrowing dictators to the movement against apartheid and for women's suffrage, Malm argues that the strategic acceptance of property destruction and violence has been the only route 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 us an incisive discussion of the politics and ethics of pacifism and violence, democracy and social change, strategy and tactics, and a movement compelled by both the heart and the mind. Here is how we fight in a world on fire. Waterstones How to Blow Up a Pipeline - shop the best deal online on thebookbug.co.uk
Category: Books
Merchant: Waterstones
Product ID: 9781839760259
Delivery cost: 2.99
ISBN: 9781839760259
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Author: dscvry
Rating: 5
Review: Contrary to an earlier opinion posted, the book is well researched and clearly written in a language not maternal to the author. Excellent review also from Chris here ('Militant Tactics and Saving the Climate') presenting a précis of the book's scope. Personal observations: I found the argument somewhat simplistic in parts with respect to the potential efficacy of 'targetting the ruling class'. My suspicion is that we are all invested in the economics of climate change to a greater degree than recognised by a generic tactic of hitting 'the yachts of the rich'. Social aspirations, shifting class identity and their respective financial ensnarements make for fuzzy associations - guillotining the one per cent might not inhibit global warming sufficiently to alleviate the crisis. Advancing a commitment to collective responsibility is key to unwinding alienation from the urgency to act - Malm relates a persuasive case for climate camps here. For many, the imperative remains paying the rent & bills, feeding & raising the kids, staying warm ... energy infrastructure is for the politicians, climate militancy for those with a bit of spare time. There's this sense of being caught in crossfire should anything disrupt a fragile routine of getting by. That consciousness needs to change - and one means of attacking the hold the fossil-fuel lobby has over government inertia in taking up the challenge is immediately to target returns to capital from investment in the status quo within arms' reach. Malm relates that protest discoupled from resistance historically has a scant record of achievement. Malm spends some time on the question of violence (in the context of direct action), discussing the distinction between attacks on property and the person. This seems beside the point and the argument too loosely defined, at least from a British legal perspective: attacks on property result in 'damage' (e.g. a charge of 'criminal damage'), while attacks on the person constitute assaults (e.g. a charge of 'robbery with violence'; 'actual/grievous bodily harm') - there is a clear distinction: destroying property prima facie does not constitute violence ... depending on the motive(s) (at the time of writing), such damage might not even be judged criminal. Endnote references to cited matter are gathered at the back of the book, but are not superscripted in the text - for the next edition, Andreas ? This would be useful. Also, a detailed index would add value for those readers not so current with the state of play of direct action.
Author: Illyrialady
Rating: 4
Review: This book, "How to Blow Up a Pipeline", makes clear that due to the criminal malfeasance of the fossil fuel industry, its bankrollers, and the politicians they buy, the climate chaos crisis, at perhaps the most critical juncture in human history, is becoming worse and worse. The intransigence of the ruling class and its sycophants to address this issue, indeed their active deeds to make it worse, are made clear in this book. And the book presents good information on why non-violent climate chaos activism has been, and will continue to be, so very ineffective. The book makes clear that sabotage directed at fossil fuel property (but not at persons fueling the climate crisis) would be much more effective, and that this development is inevitable. But as the book makes clear, it is an open question on when this development will become effective and desirable.
