The article in the url below wrestles with the proposition that the ends justify the means. Specifically, that when the danger is existential (which is how many understandably frame the climate crisis), then attempting to force change in order to avert the crisis can be justified with extreme action. In particular, the article is an interview with the author (and activist), Andreas Malm:
"With the 2021 publication of his unsettling book, 'How to Blow Up a Pipeline,' Andreas Malm established himself as a leading thinker of climate radicalism. The provocatively titled manifesto, which, to be clear, does not actually provide instructions for destroying anything, functioned both as a question – why has climate activism remained so steadfastly peaceful in the face of minimal results? – and as a call for the escalation of protest tactics like sabotage."
The interview is fascinating, and I have a lot of sympathy with the points being made. Here is an exchange that is illustrative:
"Is there not a risk that smashing things would cause a backlash that would actually impede progress on climate? I fundamentally disagree with the idea that there is progress happening and that we might ruin it by escalating. In 2022, we had the largest windfall of profits in the fossil-fuel industry ever. These profits are reinvested into expanded production of fossil fuels. The progress that people talk about is often cast in terms of investment in renewables and expansion in the capacity of solar and wind power around the world. However, that is not a transition. That is an addition of one kind of energy on top of another. It doesn't matter how many solar panels we build if we also keep building more coal power plants, more oil pipelines, and on that crucial metric there simply is no progress. I struggle to see how anyone could interpret the trends as pointing in the right direction."
Equally fascinating/challenging/depressing:
"Could you give me a reason to live? What do you mean?
Your work is crushing. But I have optimism about the human project. I'm not an optimist about the human project. …
I'm not joking. Yeah, I'm not sure that I have the qualifications to give people advice about reasons to live. My daily affective state is one of great despair about the incredible destructive forces at work in this world – not only at the level of climate. What has been going on in the Middle East just adds to this feeling of destructive forces completely out of control. The situation in the world, as far as I can tell, is incredibly bleak. So how do we live with what we know about the climate crisis? Sometimes I think that the meaning of life is to not give up, to keep the resistance going even though the forces stacked against you are overwhelmingly strong. This often requires some kind of religious conviction, because sometimes it seems irrational."
Tactics similar to this are becoming more 'acceptable' among environmental activists for some time now (see Strategic CSR – Eco-activism). Whether they will be any more effective is yet to be determined.
Take care
David
David Chandler
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How This Climate Activist Justifies Violence
By David Marchese
January 21, 2024
The New York Times Magazine
Late Edition – Final
11-13
