How to Blow Up a PipelineHow to Blow Up a Pipeline

"The science on climate change has been clear for a very long time. Yet despite decades of petitions, intergovernmental conferences, and peaceful demonstrations, we are still in thrall to a booming fossil fuel industry. Sea levels and global temperatures continue to rise as greenhouse gas emissions increase unchecked. With the stakes so high, why haven't we moved beyond peaceful protest? In this lyrical manifesto, noted climate scholar (and saboteur of SUV tyres 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 to force fossil fuel extraction to stop -- with our bodies and our actions -- by disabling or destroying its tools. In short, we need to start blowing up some oil pipelines. Offering a counter-history of mass political movements, from the democratic revolutions that have overthrown dictators to the anti-apartheid struggle and the suffragists, 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 Extinction Rebellion actions in 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."--