Andreas Malm

Now this provides food for thought to the climate movement. The fact that (as of this writing) it 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?

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 root system of fossil fuels within the prevailing order so shallow that they can be extracted with smaller effort than any of those other ills? Are they not entwined with overbearing power and fabulous profit? Should we expect there to be less friction, less conflict in this transition, in which emissions must go from ballooning to zero? Do our experiences so far tell us that we can accomplish this without ever having to contemplate other methods, or what exactly sets the climate apart from those other crises?

Given that fossil fuels are this kind of thing, the toppling of dictators makes for poor parallels. Roger Hallam of XR holds up the image of thousands of demonstrators flowing into a square to demand the departure of a tyrant.

Strategic pacifism is sanitised history, bereft of realistic appraisals of what has happened and what hasn’t, what has worked and what has gone wrong: it is a guide of scant use for a movement with mighty obstacles.

This is the impasse in which the climate movement finds itself: the historical victory of capital and the ruination of the planet are one and the same thing. To break out of it, we have to learn how to fight all over again, in what might be the most unpropitious moment so far in the history of human habitation on this planet.

Many if not most struggles in the past have obeyed such a temporality of exasperation – enough is enough, ¡Ya basta!, etc. – but in this case, it is subordinate to prognostication. The worst has not happened; it is on the way, at speed.

So here is what this movement of millions should do, for a start: announce and enforce the prohibition. Damage and destroy new CO2-emitting devices. Put them out of commission, pick them apart, demolish them, burn them, blow them up.

Not only new but existing, young and old CO2-emitting devices would have to be deactivated.

instant suspension of every project in the pipeline would make 2°C achievable only if accompanied by the decommissioning of one-fifth of all power plants running on fossil fuels (this estimate is as of 2018