How to Blow Up a Pipeline

One review on 23 Nov 2021

First Published: 2021

Non-Fiction

How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Author: Andreas Malm

Summary: Not an instruction manual but an argument for doing it.

Publisher:

Verso

Synopsis

An exploration in three parts - Learning from the Past, Breaking the Spell, and Fighting Despair.

Part 1 discusses the lessons from various non-violent, violent against property, and violent (war) movements, including the ones that the militant NVDA adherents of XR etc fetichise as examples of why NVDA works. Malm's case is that on its own it can only work in very specific circumstances.

Part 2 covers how and why violence against property can, and should, be justified in the climate crisis as a radical flank (more radical than XR which Rupert Read classifies as being the radical flank).

Part 3 addresses the we're all doomed, no point in doing anything hopeless position.

Interestingly the book was written in 2018-2019 before the global lockdowns and culture of fear. The preface, written in 2020, briefly addresses this interregnum.

Reviews

Why, not How To

by rogerco on Tue 23rd Nov 2021.

The first part is right on the nail. Provides the detail that totally debunks the XR NVDA proponents reliance on lessons from history. Very good.

The second part is also useful, covering some examples of possible actions and their pros and cons with examples and how the radical flank has to walk a difficult tightrope between undermining the main thrust of the movement by provoking an extreme reaction, and being ineffective in convincing the fossil powers that they need to make changes to accommodate the demands for change.

The third part is really unsatisfactory as it is a digression to tilt at some windmills that really do not deserve attention.

What is lacking is any discussion of the forms that effective action might take or the nuts and bolts of organising - perhaps this is for another writer to pick up.

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