How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Despite the title, this book is merely a philosophical treatise on the need to engage in violent measures to exact wide-spread societal change. From an historical standpoint, this is not an outlandish proposition but the writing is tediously academic and is unlikely to sway anyone who doesn't already agree.

What happened to the end of my book? It literally just ended at the end of a random anecdote and shifted into notes. 

In fact the entire book was just a random selection of anecdotes. It just shifted between them with no consistent narrative nor any conclusions.

This book was so  disappointing. I am very passionate about the topic but this did nothing to help the cause or help me with my activism. As a background on the topic to read in combination with other books on the same topic it is probably okay, but as a standalone book it is not great. 

“I swore never to read again after ‘To Kill a Mockingbird' gave me no useful advice on killing mockingbirds. It did teach me not to judge a man based on the color of his skin, but what good does that do me?” - Homer Simpson

This book calls for sabotage of private property to halt environmentally devastating actions. The author outlines that the environmental movement has been extremely peaceful, and how property destruction has been seen to be a more effective means of making change.

This is a sister text to one of my favorite books: “In Defense of Looting: A Riotous History of Uncivil Action” by Vicky Osterwell (2019)
Both books reveal the not-so-peaceful true history of various political movements of the last 120 years. Non-violence is all well and good when it works. But property destruction has historically shown to be an effective motivator in pushing political agendas. Slavery wasn't defeated without violence and property destruction. Neither was women's suffrage. Nor the civil rights movement, despite what liberal whitewashers claim.

“The civil rights movement won the Act of 1964 because it had a radical flank that made it appear as a lesser evil in the eyes of state power.” This is the purpose of destructive, disruptive action.

In “Utopia for Realists: How we can build the ideal world” (2017) by Rutger Bregman, he wrote: “The Overton window can shift. A classic strategy for achieving this is to proclaim ideas so shocking and subversive that anything less radical suddenly sounds sensible. In other words, to make the radical reasonable, you merely have to stretch the bounds of the radical.”

The point is: being more radical, taking radical action as opposed to nonviolent action, can be more effective in actually seeing change. The reactionaries, liberals, and SocDems are far more likely to cut a deal with the “reasonable flank” when the radical flank is causing a substantive ruckus. Or better yet, the radical flank takes over and that's even better. Because peaceful protests aren't working fast enough, and if we don't do something, we're not gonna have a very pleasant world to live in.

“The theory of the radical flank effect has application far beyond the African American struggle. The history of working-class politics in twentieth-century western Europe serves as an illustrative example. The vote, the eight-hour working day, the rudiments of a welfare state – the progress made by the reformist labour movement would have been inconceivable without the flank to the left and east of it.”

That's one of the reasons why the fall of the Soviet Union was THE worst geopolitical catastrophe of the latter half of the 20th century. While it wasn't perfect, the mere existence of a large socialist state stood as a galvanizing tool toward positive reforms. This is why the US government has spent the last 70 years destroying tiny countries that dare to become mildly less capitalist. If there's a good example to point toward, people will be more eager to fight for comparable systems at home.

“The fact that (as of this writing) [the climate movement] has not engendered a single riot or wave of property destruction would be taken as a sign of strength by the strategic pacifists, proof of correspondence with their ideal. But could it not also be seen as the opposite – as a failure to attain social depth, articulate the antagonisms that run through this crisis and, not the least, acquire a tactical asset? Does this movement possess a radical flank? Greta Thunberg might well be the climate equivalent of Rosa Parks, an inspiration she has acknowledged and often been compared to. But she is not (yet) an Angela Davis or a Stokely Carmichael.”

The book provides ideas of what some freedom fighters have done that climate activists could pick up.
• deflate the tires of SUV's (this slashed demand for them in Sweden by 27%)
• destroy construction equipment (I think there's a c00kb00k you can find easily enough with some helpful hints)
• actually destroying pipelines (done by Iraqi Nigerian, & Palestinian freedom fighters throughout the decades)

Something to keep in mind.

I really loved this book and recommend it to anyone. Fight the power.

Perhaps I took the title too literally, but it was disappointing to discover how little of this book is concerned with articulating actual tactics for violent climate resistance. It is predominantly an argument for the necessity of violence, a position I agree with having bought a book called “How To Blow Up A Pipeline,” but which ends up feeling as late and ineffectual as the doomerism that spurred writing it.

The last chapter dedicated to rebuking climate defeatism is the most engaging (if shockingly bleak). It seems an altogether more difficult challenge to pull people back from the ledge of accepted annihilation, which Malm does a commendable (if brief) job of. I just can't help feeling like I am no closer to actualizing any of the goals that have been hazely waved before me. The anger and restlessness is already here, what's left is the difficult task of directing it.