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How to Blow Up a Pipeline Kindle Edition
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.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVerso
- Publication dateJanuary 5, 2021
- File size1142 KB
Editorial Reviews
Review
—David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth
"The definitive deep history on how our economic system created the climate crisis. Superb, essential reading from one of the most original thinkers on the subject."
—Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine
"The best book written about the origins of global warming ... Like Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything, Fossil Capital trenchantly demonstrated that capitalism and capitalists are responsible for climate change."
—Michael Robbins, Bookforum
"How to Blow Up a Pipeline is a challenge to the left, and an important one."
—John Foster, The Battleground
"A short and gripping manifesto which aims to wrench the climate movement out of its complacency"
—Bright Green
"Timely ... Malm delivers the essay in his usual lucid and fiery style"
—Ecologist
"One of the most important things written about the climate crisis."
—Wen Stephenson, LARB
"A profoundly necessary book"
—Scott W. Stern, LARB
"Advocates powerfully against despair and powerlessness."
—Tatiana Schlossberg, New York Times
"Written passionately...Malm argues that it may be too late to avert climate crisis, but it is far from too late to ameliorate suffering."
—Sawarin Suwichakornpong, Bangkok Post
"Malm offers a critical, passionate and hopeful assessment of where it might go next. Malm's refreshing humanist ethos combined with his Marxist radicalism make him one of the most exciting contemporary writers on the climate crisis, this forceful new entry into his repertoire is no exception, though perhaps a different beast from his more academic work."
—Political Economy Research Centre
"Refreshing and provoking"
—It's Freezing in LA
"How to Blow Up a Pipeline makes a strong case for looking beyond non-violent activism"
—VICE
"A humble and nuanced case... it’s hard to read this book without daydreaming about sabotaging the private jets of the ultra-rich."
—Tim DeChristopher, Yes Magazine
"While the book does not live up to its titular promise of providing instructions to detonate a pipeline, it does make an unflinching case for carrying out such activities in advanced capitalist countries."
—James Wilt, Canadian Dimension
"Malm [has] captured the rising fury of climate activists"
—Pilita Clark, Financial Times
"Impossible to dismiss"
—David Wallace-Wells, Times Literary Supplement
"Malm is right. Shunning all violent acts will only prolong the worst. No new fossil fuel infrastructure can be created, and we need, as a society, to dismantle what we already have"
—Devi Lockwood, VICE
"By ruling out direct action, the climate movement robs itself, in Malm's view, of its only serious means of leverage."
—Adam Tooze, London Review of Books
"Bracing"
—Financial Times
"If you want to do something about the climate crisis instead of wallowing in despair, there's no better place to start than Andreas Malm's short treatise on the virtues of eco-sabotage. Provides a radical sort of hope."
—Abigail Weinberg, Mother Jones
"Malm calls for the formation of a radical flank to the popular climate movement...[he] finds the peaceful discipline of the climate movement to be remarkable but stifling in its single mode of action, calling it gentle and mild in the extreme."
—James Mumm, Social Policy magazine
"An impassioned argument for climate activists to move beyond non-violent protests...Even for those who disapprove of How to Blow Up a Pipeline, it is a useful guide to the noisiest climate activist voices."
—Economist
"A seductively well-written and well-researched book that argues climate activists should abandon their longstanding "commitment to absolute non-violence", and instead "escalate" their campaign by "physically attacking the things that consume our planet", such as fossil fuel infrastructure."
—Andy Beckett, Guardian
"Dynamite"
—David Hughes, Time Out
"[A] persuasive and optimistic rebuttal of climate fatalism"
—Glasgow Guardian
"A rousing case for property destruction as a tactic in the pursuit of climate justice."
—Simran Hans, Guardian
"This is a book as weapon, a manifesto for forcing change framed by the legacy of the suffragettes' direct action, civil rights movement protests, anti-apartheid boycotts, national liberation armed striggles."
—Philosophy Football
"How to Blow Up a Pipeline ... makes a historically persuasive case for the need for disruptive social movements to create transformative change. It convinced me that we can no longer leave the problems of our time to simmer on the low flame of gradualism."
—Roman Krznaric, New Statesman
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B084V7M2JT
- Publisher : Verso (January 5, 2021)
- Publication date : January 5, 2021
- Language : English
- File size : 1142 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 209 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #195,629 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #88 in Economic Conditions (Kindle Store)
- #140 in Environmental Policy
- #172 in Political Economy
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Customers find the book engaging and interesting. They appreciate the thoughtful reflection on pacifist versus militant direct action. However, some readers feel the title is misleading and inflammatory. Opinions differ on the thought-provoking content - some find it well-reasoned and justifiable, while others find it confusing and not serious enough.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book an easy and engaging read. They appreciate the author's talent and the great text. The title is considered the best part of the book.
"...Bottom line here: this is a challenging read, fascinating, and very, very thought-provoking. I hope many people read this book...." Read more
"...It's an easy read, it's a fun read, it's an exciting read, and at the end of the day it'll do more than the thousands of navel-gazing think tank..." Read more
"...I also think that the book posssibly was written in another language (other than English) and then translated literally rather than contextually as..." Read more
"As advertised. Great book!" Read more
Customers find the book a thoughtful reflection on pacifist and militant direct action. They describe it as one of the most radical things they've read. The history of violence in nonviolent movements is also interesting and challenging.
"...Instead, it's a thoughtful reflection on pacifist versus militant direct action and a call to action for people to go further in demanding a better..." Read more
"...He gives pacifists much to consider. Packed with info without feeling dry or academic. A very talented and engaging writer." Read more
"History of violence in nonviolent movements..." Read more
Customers have different views on the book. Some find it thought-provoking and well-reasoned, with facts and logic. Others find it confusing, boring, and an unsatisfactory waste of time and money.
"...line here: this is a challenging read, fascinating, and very, very thought-provoking. I hope many people read this book...." Read more
"...The book is noting like the interview. It’s dry, boring,long, drawn out, hard to read, confusing and non-sense making...." Read more
"...This 161-page book is a well-reasoned argument that the climate movement needs to move to the use of direct action in addition to marches and civil..." Read more
"An amazingly fresh take on environmentalism backed with FACTS and LOGIC and REAL HISTORY..." Read more
Customers dislike the title. They say it's clickbait and inflammatory to draw attention. The text is great, but the title should be banned for that reason alone.
"...no information about actually blowing up pipelines, the title is nothing more than clickbait, and there is nothing new nor useful to consider..." Read more
"Text is great. Title is intentionally inflammatory to draw eyes. Don’t let that scare you off...." Read more
"Terrible read, terrible message and should be banned for the title alone...." Read more
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History of violence in nonviolent movements
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2025As advertised. Great book!
- Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2021Andreas Malm (b. 1976) is a Swedish academic and activist working to save the ecosystem from the fossil fuel industry. This 161-page book is a well-reasoned argument that the climate movement needs to move to the use of direct action in addition to marches and civil disobedience. Sabotage.
The first section, "Learning From Past Struggles" (5-63) marshals historic evidence to show that the claims made by some activists about the strictly non-violent nature of certain social movements is inaccurate. From the movement against slavery, to the suffragettes, to the movement for Indian independence, to the Civil Rights Movement and the ANC in South Africa, the use of direct action involving property damage was in fact an important part of the tactical arsenal. Malm argues for the sociological social movement theory concept of the "radical flank effect" (Haines 1988) where a radical wing of a movement pushes the authorities to negotiate with and meet the demands of a more moderate wing.
In the central section, "Breaking the Spell" (65-132) Malm makes an ethical argument for direct action. There are those who see damage to property as non-violence since it does not harm people. Malm rejects that view, accepting the prevailing view that property damage is a form of violence, but making a crucial distinction between violence to property and violence to people. He makes the utilitarian argument that given the failure of corporations and governments to act, the climate movement must begin to escalate its tactics to shut down the fossil fuel infrastructure. Not in a haphazard way, but deliberately and carefully. He uses the example of two young women who sabotaged the Dakota Access Pipeline in Iowa as a prime example. And he excoriates the Extinction Rebellion group in London for blocking a train taking working class people to work as a perfect negative example of how to choose targets.
Finally, in the last section "Fighting Despair" (133-161) he argues with Roy Scranton, Jonathan Franzen, and others who have publicly declared that "resistance is futile" and that we should just accept inevitable doom. This is fine until he comes to radical environmentalists of the period before his activism -- Earth First! chief among them. He dismisses these organizations committed to sabotage, or ecotage, as ineffectual because "[t]hey were not performed in a dynamic relation to a mass movement, but largely in a void" (155). He is wrong about that -- I have both academic and activist knowledge of the subject -- and he might be surprised to find that some of the tactics he promotes associated with the excellent German anti-coal group Ende Gelände are taken right out of the Earth First! repertoire. But that doesn't detract from his main argument.
*** *** ***
This provocatively titled book makes an important contribution to the movement, I hope it is widely read, debated, and applied.
Malm's two previous books are also superb: "Fossil Capital" (2016), the published version of his Ph.D. dissertation, and "The Progress of This Storm" (2018), in which he takes on the influential theory of Bruno Latour.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2021This 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.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2024Chapter one can be read as a reference to the history of violence in nonviolent movements.
5.0 out of 5 stars History of violence in nonviolent movementsChapter one can be read as a reference to the history of violence in nonviolent movements.
Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2024
Images in this review - Reviewed in the United States on December 17, 2024For a book centered against “too much talk and not enough action” there was too much talking and not enough of the “how to” as far as guidance toward action
- Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2023No, this is not a book of instructions on how to blow up a fossil fuel pipeline. It is far more interesting and challenging than a simple recipe for destruction. Better to think of this book as the intellectual process leading the reader to the conclusion that blowing up a pipeline can well be justified. Swedish environmental activist Andreas Malm takes a good look at the past, present, and future of “property sabotage,” most recently in service of survival of our Earth (and us). He assumes that we know about the severity of the climate crisis and where it is leading. His book is all about what we are doing and what we will do to address the climate crisis currently underway. He starts with a look at the history of moral pacifism and strategic pacifism and how these thought systems have addressed different social problems. He corrects what he calls the “simplified history” of these two forms of pacifism. As an example, he returns more than once to the English suffragettes under the leadership of Emmeline Pankhurst who repeatedly engaged in property destruction in their efforts to get the vote for women. He draws a strong distinction between “property sabotage” in which property is destroyed, versus “terrorism” in which human beings are hurt or killed. He draws on historical examples to demonstrate that property destruction has indeed led to social change, despite the on-going insistence that violence is ineffective. Malm also is strongly critical of the current moral and strategic pacifists who are way too often very class unconscious which too often renders their activism ineffective. Bottom line here: this is a challenging read, fascinating, and very, very thought-provoking. I hope many people read this book. My only criticism is that there is no analytical subject index, despite a text full of historical events and people, of ideas and of events.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2023Disclosure: I bought a hard copy of the book after listening to the audiobook. This content review is regarding what I got from the audio, but it is inline with the hard copy text as well.
The book is a fascinating perspective on climate protests and resistance to the capitalist march to a climate apocalypse. At times one of the most radical things I’ve read, and at times one of the most straightforwardly logical. It’s absolutely given me something to think about regarding climate fatalism and personal philosophical choices regarding my impacts on climate and my fellow residents of the world. This one will stick with me for a long time, and I think anyone who reads it with an open mind and in good faith will feel the same way.
- Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2021Author advocates militancy as only way to get meaningful progress on CO2 reduction.
Top reviews from other countries
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in Canada on July 4, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
A well researched and well reasoned walk through the changes in climate activism; detailing the historiography, history, potential pitfalls and potential boons of renouncing environmentalism pacifism. 100% recommend read.
- Isabel MoraesReviewed in Brazil on June 1, 2023
4.0 out of 5 stars Good to think strategies in the fight against climate change
I like many things in this book. Malm spends a big part of the book explaining the contradictions and issues with the pacifism and the European environmental organizations that are led by pacifist ideologies since at least the 90's, and have achieved nothing relevant so far. The only part I don't like about the book is that it's clearly written by an European person (which is ok, but since I come from the most dangerous country for environmentalists in the world, I still see it a bit naïve for my personal context). I do think it's worth reading, I think Malm understand the problem very well and I enjoyed reading it very much.
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Amazon-KundeReviewed in Germany on May 9, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Tolles Buch, das nachdenklich macht
Der Autor gibt einen interessanten Abriss über die Geschichte des zivilen Ungehorsams, räumt mit vielen Klischees über Gewaltlosigkeit auf und stellt die berechtigte Frage, weshalb der Protest gegen die Klimakrise bisher so harmlos verläuft. Es steht schließlich viel mehr auf dem Spiel, als je zuvor.
Wie man eine Bombe baut verrät das Buch aber nicht. Das muss man - wie immer - im Internet recherchieren.
Für einfache Sabotage reicht aber auch der inzwischen deklassifizierte Field Guide aus dem 2. Weltkrieg, der allerdings leider auch nicht verlinkt ist.
Das Fazit von Douglas Adams wäre folglich wohl: Mostly harmless!
- dscvryReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 23, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars What's Yet to be Done
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.
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JuliusReviewed in Germany on April 24, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Gutes Buch
sehr interresantes buch, das die verschiedenen formen von protest erklaert und zum handeln motiviert