WHAT is it about Sweden and climate campaigners? It has produced Greta Thunberg, of course, but also Andreas Malm, a writer and human ecologist at Lund University and a long-time climate activist. You might think of him as Greta turned up to 11. His controversial new book, How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to fight in a world on fire, has a deliberately provocative title, but in it he makes the point that escalating environmental protests, from mass civil disobedience to property destruction and even sabotage, look necessary.
Rowan Hooper: Your book isn鈥檛 a manual about how to literally go about destroying pipelines. Rather, it asks why climate activists don鈥檛 use tactics of destruction. So why don鈥檛 they?
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Andreas Malm: It鈥檚 a paradox. Just look at the most recent summer, which was truly a season in global hell with so many climate disasters one after the other. And still you don鈥檛 see people taking out their frustration on the sources of their misery. And the paradox is also intensifying, given how much social unrest of other kinds you鈥檝e seen in the world in recent years. Generally, the climate movement behaves in a very gentle and polite fashion. The International Energy Agency said just a few months ago that we cannot have any new installations in coal and oil and gas [if the world is to avoid more than 1.5掳C of warming], and still that鈥檚 going on without any mass backlash against it.
Most protest movements emphasise peaceful, non-violent resistance as the only way to overcome tyranny. Is that true?
No. I find it very hard to accept the reading of history that people from the leadership of Extinction Rebellion, for instance, have promoted 鈥� namely the idea that in past social struggles for progressive causes, those that have succeeded have steered clear of any kind of violence and only engaged in absolutely peaceful civil disobedience.
You can very easily find significant components of militant confrontation, ranging from the very obvious case of the abolition of slavery 鈥� which in the US happened through a very bloody civil war 鈥� to property destruction at the hands of the suffragettes, to rioting in the case of the poll tax in the UK.
It鈥檚 peace-washing. Militant methods are written out of the history of these struggles. It鈥檚 very difficult to make a well-founded, substantiated historical case for strategic pacifism. In the climate movement, we are facing an uphill battle. We are struggling against an extremely powerful enemy that has enormous material forces at its disposal, so why do we believe that the climate struggle could be victorious with less effort and less pressure than any of these previous struggles?
One worry is that if the climate movement starts on an illegal and destructive path, it would lose public support. Look at the UK 鈥� the protest group Insulate Britain has just been blocking roads, but people and politicians are very upset.
I feel torn about Insulate Britain. Obviously, I sympathise with its demands and with the idea that we need to disrupt business as usual. But the scenes where working-class mothers are begging these activists to get out of the way so they can go to their workplaces and put food on the table for their kids, not to mention the woman who was trying to get to the hospital, these scenes drive me crazy because these people aren鈥檛 your enemy.
My wish would be for activist groups to do something to draw attention to their demands and disrupt business as usual, but not target working-class people. Imagine if Insulate Britain had instead gone after the ultra-rich 鈥� and we know they are the worst climate offenders 鈥� by, for instance, I don鈥檛 know, setting off stink bombs in the richest neighbourhoods in London or throwing dung into the gardens of the rich or something like that. I鈥檓 just speculating here. But that would probably have drawn quite some attention. You need to develop a tactic that doesn鈥檛 antagonise the people that you鈥檙e supposed to help.
Doesn鈥檛 destructive activism always risk alienating the public and the media though?
My argument isn鈥檛 that we should go out and engage in indiscriminate disruption or property damage. The ideal is where you target fossil fuel infrastructure, not necessarily through property destruction. The bulk of it, perhaps all, would have to be through disobedience and mass action of the Ende Gel盲nde kind [the activist movement that began in Germany and occupies coal mines]. There, you have climate camps, with large groups of people congregating in a camp and then going to a fossil fuel installation and blocking it or entering it and shutting it down.
Last year, at the Ende Gel盲nde camp in Germany, a group blocked a gas pipeline. And there was no massive outcry, no backlash. I think that if you go about this in an intelligent fashion, there is certainly a potential to win people鈥檚 support for it, because I think that people generally are quite terrified by climate disasters and upset about continuous expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure.
You are very clear about opposing violence against people and about being very careful not to harm anyone. But isn鈥檛 it a concern that this could escalate?
My point isn鈥檛 that diversifying our tactics and stepping up in this fashion is a risk-free endeavour. It comes with risks that have to be dealt with somehow. My point is that we are so late in the day, and the mitigation of the climate crisis has been postponed for so long, that there is no risk-free option left anywhere. The way to deal with this risk when it comes to escalation would be, in my view, to have a very clear collective discipline about not taking up guns or engaging in any kind of violence against people.
We still need the fossil fuel companies. If activists start damaging their stuff, it isn鈥檛 going to get them on side, is it?
It鈥檚 clear after all of these years that business as usual isn鈥檛 going to be broken without the threat of significant mass unrest. This isn鈥檛 to say that we should just destroy the fossil fuel companies. It is to say that to overcome them and get them under control, to rein them in, you need to put a much greater degree of pressure on governments.
I鈥檓 in favour of nationalising private fossil fuel companies like BP or Shell or ExxonMobil and turning them into public entities for taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere so that they clean up the mess that they鈥檝e created.
What are your hopes for the COP26 climate summit in the UK?
The ideal scenario would be for COP26 to be an occasion to restart the climate movement of the global north [North America, Europe and Australasia] after its coma induced by the pandemic. Back in 2019, we were at the highest peak of mass mobilisation, and then we completely fell off a cliff when the pandemic broke out.
Are you personally hopeful for the future?
Not really. It鈥檚 very difficult to be after a summer like we鈥檝e just seen with all the climate disasters. But hope is the belief that things can be different.
鈥淏usiness as usual won鈥檛 be broken without the threat of significant mass unrest鈥�
There鈥檚 nothing that makes it impossible for us to cope with this crisis and get out of it more or less intact as a species and civilisation. But the vested interests of keeping business as usual going are extremely strong, and they鈥檙e still dominant. It is a question of the overwhelming power of the enemy, frankly, that is the fundamental reason for us to slip into moments of despair.
What is your message for people who might be thinking about taking part in climate activism?
Do engage in climate activism together with others. Think closely about what actions make sense, how you can tailor your interventions in a way that goes after the source of the problem without pissing off people in an unnecessary way. It is our only hope at the end of the day, I think.
I should stress that my book discusses property destruction as a possible avenue for escalation. But it doesn鈥檛 say that that鈥檚 what everyone has to do. It will inevitably, if it ever happens, be a radical flank that does it. If you鈥檙e uncomfortable with that, do something completely peaceful 鈥� that鈥檚 what I have done in my own life as a climate activist, and that鈥檚 what I expect to continue to do.
