Andreas Malm

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.

Swedish / Svenska

El cambio climático es una realidad inapelable. Sin embargo, tras décadas de campañas de peticiones, protestas y manifestaciones, la industria fósil sigue creciendo, al igual que las temperaturas, el nivel de los mares y otros fenómenos climáticos extremos. Si nos lo estamos jugando absolutamente todo, nuestra vida y nuestro futuro, ¿por qué no hemos ido más allá de la protesta pacífica? Andreas Malm (experto mundial en cambio climático, además de militante comprometido con el sabotaje de minas de carbón y vehículos hipercontaminantes) lanza una ardiente llamada para que el movimiento climático intensifique y diversifique sus tácticas con el objetivo de evitar el colapso ecológico. Así, Malm nos ofrece una breve historia de la consecución de nuestros derechos fundamentales (de la abolición de la esclavitud a la Primavera Árabe, pasando por la revuelta de las sufragistas, las luchas obreras y el Movimiento por los derechos civiles) y concluye de forma irrefutable que, en todos estos casos, la destrucción de la propiedad y la violencia fueron imprescindibles para obtener los privilegios que hoy disfrutamos muchos y dan sentido a nuestras existencias. Consecuentemente, ahora que está en riesgo el derecho a la vida, necesitamos detener de inmediato la extracción de combustibles fósiles destinada a seguir enriqueciendo a unos pocos. ¿Cómo? Vinculando la militancia climática a una corriente anticapitalista amplia. Recordando que la lucha por llegar a fin de mes y por evitar el fin del mundo son la misma. Atreviéndonos a poner rostro a nuestro enemigo: «Más capas de hielo, menos jets privados». Asumiendo que nos jugamos demasiado como para que el movimiento climático siga siendo el primo educado de la gran familia de la agitación social. Aprendiendo a perturbar la normalidad del capital fósil y de sus inversiones con nuestras acciones y nuestros cuerpos. Necesitamos, en definitiva, empezar a dinamitar unos cuantos oleoductos.

Rising temperatures and the rise of the far right. What disasters happen when they meet?In the first study of the far right’s role in the climate crisis, White Skin, Black Fuel presents an eye-opening sweep of a novel political constellation, revealing its deep historical roots. Fossil-fuelled technologies were born steeped in racism. No one loved them more passionately than the classical fascists. Now right-wing forces have risen to the surface, some professing to have the solution—closing borders to save the nation as the climate breaks down. Epic and riveting, White Skin, Black Fuel traces a future of political fronts that can only heat up.

An argument for bold action to halt climate destruction, adapted for young people from Andreas Malm’s best-selling book Young people are inheriting a world of climate catastrophe. Young people are also one of the strongest forces leading movements for climate justice, and to halt the fossil fuel emissions that are making our Earth unlivable.   As Greta Thunberg and the Fridays for the Future movement have made clear, solutions offered by adults are far too little, far too the measures in unenforceable international agreements won’t halt our reliance on fossil fuels, or take the drastic steps humans need to take in order to keep our planet livable. What kinds of drastic steps are needed? What kind of bold actions can the climate justice movement begin using to bring a stop to climate destruction, and that can be employed alongside existing strategies of mass protest, awareness, and legal appeals? Why does our society consider profit for oil companies more important than the future of young people and the health of our shared environment? In this adaptation of Andreas Malm’s best-selling book on the need for a bolder, more confrontational climate justice movement, these urgent questions are brought to the most important audience of those who are growing up in a world on fire.