How to Blow Up a Pipeline
Andreas Malm
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. more
208 pages, Paperback
First published Verso Books
3.97
Rating
4957
Ratings
861
Reviews
Andreas Malm
25 books 324 followers
Andreas Malm teaches Human Ecology at Lund University, Sweden. He is the author, with Shora Esmailian, of Iran on the Brink: Rising Workers and Threats of War and of Fossil Capital, which won the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Prize.Community reviews
Malm makes convincing arguments for the role of sabatoge in the fight against climate change, but I found his side stepping of the carceral system in his arguments inexcusable. Malm's musings on the definitions of terrorism and some parts about crime show his limited view in these areas, and takes no time to delve into the deeply political roots of these words and definitions he cites. Even in his scant mentions of punishment, he showed little understanding of the function of prisons in a capatalist society. I would expect more such as than a from someone positioning themselves as having answers for the movement. As other's have said his little disscussion of the repression climate activists have faced from police and prisons, and even less so as far as the disproportionate effects these tactics have on marginalized people, is lacking and he doesn't seem to have any answers to it. more
How to Get Pass the Title. Preamble:--2022 Update: I recently revisited this topic to unpick the actual debate and to synthesize the common ground. Folks are so eager to jump into disagreements, where catchy titles/slogans quickly become distractions. If we drop the advertising, an accurate title would be Should Environmental Movements Diversify to include Property Damage. The Limits and Blurry Margins of Nonviolent Civil Disobedience. more
SABOTATORIIl libro nasce come non-fiction, saggio, essay, che dir si voglia. Ha un titolo forte, Come far saltare in aria un oleodotto (o anche un gasdotto, insomma una di quelle grosse conduttore che trasportano combustibile). Non credo che in Italia sia ancora arrivato il film omonimo, che però non è un documentario – come farebbe supporre l’essere basato su un saggio - ma film di fiction, un autentico motion picture. Molto in motion, trattandosi di film cinetico, grintoso, avvincente, che trasporta i suoi protagonisti in vari parti degli Stati Uniti, dalla California meridionale al Texas occidentale, con puntata a Chicago. Decisamente non un film “pulito”. more
3 chapters on the utility of sabotage as a sort of "left flank" strategy for moving the global climate justice movement (in particular in the Global North) from its infatuation with non-violence in all its forms. i'm sympathetic to the argument and have written as much (in my "violence and vulnerability. " piece on DAPL security). everyone loves to pile on Malm for some reason, and I don't mean to do the same (am giving this 4 stars anyway). but the big missing element here is that Malm can't conceive that a sabotage movement doesn't just have to win in the court of public opinion but also in real life. more
This doesn’t answer the question the title suggests (“how do I blow up a pipeline. ”), instead it asks and attempts to answer a few related ones “*should* I blow up a pipeline. ” and “why hasn’t the climate movement been blowing stuff up more already. ”. The thrust of Malm’s argument is that the climate movement's commitment to pacifism with regards to property destruction is misguided, and the book is a spirited provocation to try out this type of action and see where it leads. more
kind of impossible to rate but i can say this: NOT a beach read haha. i have a lot of thoughts, most of which make me want to hurl, so i will try to be concise (edit to say the gag is i was not concise):-i think the question of "why isn't the climate movement more militant 🤔" has many obvious answers; perhaps most saliently that if what we are really talking about is, say, disrupting and upending a world order (colonization holding hands w capitalism) hundreds of years old, the ruling class who does have an iron fist on this world would be pretty invested in killing any militant environmentalist dead and you and me wouldn't know anything about it. a really easy way to wind up dead is to be an environmental activist especially in the global south and the fact that he doesn't talk about how many environmentalists (militant or not) get killed each year is a glaring blindspot-it's lip service when he does interact with the sacrifice it takes to be a militant activist and he basically asks why hasn't anyone martyred themselves for the movement. i wonder if he has ever considered taking that on because he has all these ideas and is annoying. -effective in that it made me climb the fucking walls with anger about how the world is quite literally ending right this second and we are so invested in this fantasy that the world goes on forever that we're like what career will i end up in and when can me and Bradley have a baby to also experience global catastrophe with us in 5 years probably -if his thesis is we must physically attack capital to stop climate change then fine i agree-all of his philosophizing about violence and terrorism and the meanings & values of these tactics got really hairy really fast-essentially i don't know what verso is up to with these books that are like how could these things like police brutality & global warming get and continue to be so bad without us doing anything . more
4. 5 stars. As someone who spent 5+ years doing direct action organizing within the climate movement, I'm very glad that Andreas Malm wrote this book. It reminds me of many post-meeting rants at the bar. I have some relatively minor issues with it, but overall, the points he makes are very good and necessary. more
It's clear Andreas did his research on the history of non-violence, and presents a clear and compelling case for the use of violence in political movements. For that part, it feels like a strong essay. The rest of the book feels oddly tone-deaf, where he makes passing references to adjacent movements without proper context (and with. questionable language) and strokes his own ego as it relates to his participation in civil disobedience. There's really no analysis of who the biggest polluters are (as far as I could tell, not one reference to the U. more
I have been very excited to read this book since it came out. This excitement came from my early recognition that while groups like XR are brilliant at getting attention for an issue the historical movements are supported by a more violent counterpart movement. It is this which moves the Overton window, the acceptability of the non-violent option. However, this book has been very disappointing and I found regularly missed the point. Firstly, the point both Malm and I seem to recognise, that non-violence is useful in it’s relationship with violence (largely against property) is poorly addressed throughout. more
A lot of really great information and insightful arguments for the role of sabotage, but the organization of this book was horrendous. There was a terrific book potential with the research and writing but what this is simply a decently good book. Worth your time if you enjoy these broad topics, but keep expectations more limited than the excitement brought on by the cover and title. more
see this book had a decent point to make but some parts were SO tone deaf. why did he use the word “dyke” . and give his takes on racial issues . this would’ve been a decent recommendation to give if not for his continuous comments that make it clear this book was written by a white man. comparing climate change to slavery (and saying climate change is worse) . more
5 for providing an urgent critique of continued ineffective tactics along with a historical corrective to notions of massive social change ever occurring by purely nonviolent tactics. 1 for including no actual instructions nor discussion of legal repercussions. more
1. This has very much the same vibe as The Wretched of the Earth. Peep the last paragraph: But if destroying fences was an act of violence, it was violence of the sweetest kind. I was high for weeks afterwards. All the despair that climate breakdown generates on a daily basis was out of my system, if only temporarily; I had had an injection of collective empowerment. more
How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a passionate argument in favor of property damage in the climate change cause. Malm makes a series of points to support this. If climate change is a dire threat to humanity, including mass deaths and suffering, surely meeting it justifies a form of violence when peaceful means fail to change the status quo. Violence can certainly grab people's attention very well, which can be useful in changing hearts and minds. If one considers climate devastation to be a form of violence against humanity and the natural world, then violence in response suits many people who aren't committed pacifists. more
the main point, that climate movements need to destroy some property if it wants to win anything, is correct. he provides a quick and strong historical case explaining how basically every winning movement you think was nonviolent (the civil rights movement, anti-apartheid in south africa, the suffragettes, the indian independence movement, etc) actually fundamentally relied on tactics we'd call violent for their success. but after that first section it falls off. he's a european dude, and he typically sounds like he's addressing to the largely white and middle class climate movements of the global north (which he himself has spent most of his life a part of), but sometimes he'll speak on movements in the global south which he has nooo expertise on. the arguments he uses are so abstracted, focusing on philosophy and things like "justice theory" or even "just war theory. more
A very strong critique of white liberal climate movements (primarily XR), as well as the idea of orthodox pacifism as the only "ethical" tactic for green movements. Within this critique of "non-violence" (at least in the understanding which sees the sabotage of inanimate property as unacceptable), Malm is careful to also criticize and caution against more extremely violent movements, those who swing the other direction in their orthodoxy - refusing to consider non-violent actions even where such tactics are useful. Also, nowhere in this book does it say how to blow up a pipeline. more
Bijzonder interessant boek, eco-sabotage, waarin Andreas Malm zijn kritiek op de klimaatbeweging uit. Inhoud is zeer goed, vooral de vergelijkingen met de klimaatcrisis en andere sociale bewegingen vond ik het betoog versterken en bovendien leerzaam. De doelgroep leek mij nog vaag; voor wie schrijft Malm dit boek. Je hebt voorkennis over de klimaatbeweging nodig wil je het boek snappen en je moet (als klimaatactivist) vanuit pacifistisch oogpunt niet afgeschrikt worden door de titel. Aangezien er af en toe persoonlijke kritiek werd geuit, was ik erg benieuwd naar de persoonlijke rol van de schrijver. more
There's a lot of great stuff in here and I found myself nodding along especially in the second and third chapters, but I thought the discussion on violence was a bit shallow. I get that it's a polemical essay but I wish Malm had put other movements under the microscope with the same rigor as he did to the pacifists -- which, to be clear, his critiques were welcome. Relatedly, I don't think he talks enough about state repression, or the middle- and even working-class investment in the current order, especially here in the States. more
I enjoyed this book a lot, even though the suggestions in it won't be palateable to a lot of people. What climate activists are up against is amply illustrated by the action of the Ende Gelande movement at the Schwarze Pumpe, the 'black pump', an enormous power plant that belches out vast amounts of smoke after burning brown coal. When Ende Gelande broke through the fences surrounding Schwarze Pumpe to spray graffiti on some walls, they were condemned by the 'authorities' due to their criminal damage, yet the perpetual cloud of CO2 from the power plant wasn't commented on as it was normal, the horrible pollution is thought of as normal. As Malm says at the end of the book, there has been a time for a Gandhian climate movement; perhaps there might come a time for a Fanonian one and the breaking down of fences will seem a minor misdemeanour. In the book The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon writes of violence as a 'cleansing force', it frees the native (Fanon's word not mine) 'from his despair and inaction: it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect'. more
El libro y sus planteamientos tienen defectos o aspectos cuestionables, pero se merece 5 estrellas aunque sea solo por lo fácil y entretenido de leer que es (un ensayo que parece una peli de acción) y por la llamada a la acción y a la esperanza que supone frente a la crisis climática, que buena falta nos hacen. more
More "What is to be Done. " than "Anarchist Cookbook," Malm does not actually provide the guide suggested in the title but poses questions of violence and tactics for social movements with a much-needed critique of non-violence and pacifism. The ideas and urgency in the book certainly merit 3 stars, but as with most books from Verso, this is lightweight in more ways than one: extremely short, a strange non-citation use of endnotes, and their trademark chalky, margin-less pages bound in an old cigarette box (seriously: I hope this material is recycled given the content of the book and it's poor quality. Given what I recently learned about their labor practices I'm not optimistic). Even for a short book Malm spends less time than many climate writers pointing to the scoreboard and maintains an urgent tone and anti-defeatist stance. more
Ik zit ergens tussen 3 en 4 sterren voor deze. Malm maakt een pleidooi voor gewelddadig klimaatactivisme in de huidige klimaatcrisis. Hij bekritiseert op succesvolle manier het gefetisjiseerd pacifisme van maatschappelijke bewegingen en ontkracht het idee dat emancipatie en rechtvaardigheid historisch zonder geweld is verlopen. Toch sluit ik mij aan bij de kritiek die anderen al verwoord hebben: Malm's perspectieven en overtuigingen zijn bij momenten vrij toondoof -het is vrij duidelijk dat het boek geschreven is door een witte, Europese man. Malm incorporeert geen intersectionaliteit in zijn analyse en dat beperkt de validiteit van zijn argument. more
Reading this in the same week I saw Avatar 2 has me ready to take up arms with Payakan 🐋The common critique of Malm’s sidestepping of the US carceral state and its militarized police (which I think he actually addresses, though perhaps not to a satisfactory extent regarding groups particularly vulnerable to that violence) just shows that climate activism must go hand-in-hand with police and prison abolition. . more
not good at all. Malm clearly suffers from the mental illness of being European. bad faith engagement with his examples of "islamist" terrorism and why they happen. (no one who says islamist should be taken seriously on this matter). no discussion of acts of terrorism that might be more analogous to pipeline sabotage like abortion bombings. more
In my opinion, this was a poorly-written, poorly-argued book with a message still nonetheless pertinent. He makes good points about the potential symbiosis of violent and nonviolent campaigns, and has thrown new light on the Chenoweth studies for me. But still so many things rubbed me the wrong way with this book. The first chapter was an absolute mess; complaining that the nonviolence camp cherry-picks, he proceeds to cherry-pick, overlook and misunderstand, blundering his way through history. Citing Kenya, Ireland and Vietnam as great examples of successful violent revolution. more
Not doing a proper review for work-related reasons but a fascinating take on the near-religious devotion to non-violence within the climate movement, an excellent takedown of the popular view of Gandhism and, possibly most effectively, a dismantling of the pointless arrogance of climate fatalism. Some rhetorical devices work better than others -- and some of Malm's choices of words and direction of some of his ire can be. problematic. to say the least but it was worth reading. more
Deze dude heeft een punt. Misschien is het strategisch pacifisme wel uitgemolken en de ernst van het probleem té groot. Vond het wel jammer dat zijn kijk weinig intersectionaliteit bevatte, wat, in mijn optiek, de voedingsbodem is voor al ons activisme. . more
Kendisi de bir aktivist olan Malm, küresel ekolojik harekete dikkat çekmek istiyor. Tarihsel ve günümüzdeki direniş hareketlerini ve gruplarını da konu ediniyor. İşin doğrusu ben Malm’ın şiddet konusunda tavrını anlayamadım. Pasifist mi yoksa şiddeti araçlaştırmayı doğru mu buluyor emin değilim. FKP, Gandhi, Martin Luther King ve süfrajetler ekseninde bu eleştiriler. more
I read most of this book on a flight which is ironic. Review to come. . more