How we can stop the destruction of life on Earth

How we can stop the destruction of life on Earth

     by Ben Warner / Deep Green Resistance UK

According to the Oxford English Dictionary the new word of the year is “post-truth.” It means “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” In other words, so many people are burying their heads in the sand that we need to have a new word for it. If you do not think we are in great danger of wiping out most of the life on this planet, feel free to remain, albeit for a short while, in the post truth age. But if you want to live in a flourishing, abundant and diverse living community, I invite you to continue reading to find one way this might be reached.

The environmental movement has failed. Since the publication of Silent Spring we have not even been able to slow down the rate at which human produced CO2 levels increase each year. If you wanted to stop your bath from overflowing, but each second the tap was turned more and each turn was bigger than the last, when would you realise your attempt to prevent overflow was failing? We have not slowed down the destruction of the forests, the jungles, the grasslands, the coral reef or any other non-human community. The dominant culture is poised to wipe out most life on Earth. If we do nothing it will certainly succeed. We can only stop it if we act.

The quickest, surest and most effective method of stopping a group of people from murdering other beings is to permanently remove the means, the devices, the machines they use to achieve their goal. The means this culture uses is industrial infrastructure. We need to permanently impede this infrastructure before it kills us and the communities of life we rely on. This can be achieved by small groups of unconnected people who work secretly to dismantle, disrupt and sabotage any device that is a threat to life. They will have to be dedicated, educated and skilled. They will have to plan their actions with precision and accuracy. They will have to work undetected, underground and unthanked. If life is to have a future we need this underground to start immediately.

Aboveground activists should work to normalise this kind of resistance. We can support them emotionally, morally and politically. In order to maintain security we must do this without making any direct contact with the underground. Our work is complementary but must be separate.

Modern humans (homo sapiens) have existed on this planet for about 200,000 years. Despite humans’ spread across the globe, fossil records show us coexisting with the rest of the earth’s species for the first 97% of our time here. (There is some debate as to whether indigenous humans drove some species extinct, but if it occurred, it wasn’t anything like the mass extinction that industrial humanity is currently causing.) We must protect the life that still remains using all effective means. An underground has to form, and those of us who are unwilling or unable to join it must support it in any way we can.

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Protective Use of Force: Defining Nonviolence and Pacifism

Protective Use of Force: Defining Nonviolence and Pacifism

This is the fifth installment in a multi-part series. Browse the Protective Use of Force index to read more.

via Deep Green Resistance UK

Gene Sharp, founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, a non-profit dedicated to the study of nonviolent action, defines nonviolence as “the belief that the exercise of power depends on the consent of the ruled who, by withdrawing that consent, can control and even destroy the power of their opponent. In other words, nonviolent action is a technique used to control, combat and destroy the opponent’s power by nonviolent means of wielding power.” [1]

Nonviolence can be described as principled or pragmatic, reformist or revolutionary. Robert J. Burrowes describes how revolutionary nonviolence aims to cause significant, long term change and works towards a peaceful, egalitarian and sustainable society. [2] The Gandhian form of principled, revolutionary nonviolence is sometimes referred to as orthodox nonviolence. [3] Nonviolence can also be categorised as actions either of concentration or dispersal. Actions of concentration involve people coming together for marches and protests. Actions of dispersal would be boycotts and stay-at-home strikes, or other distributed action. [4]

In Strategic Nonviolent Conflict: The Dynamics of People Power in the Twentieth Century, Peter Ackerman and Christopher Kruegler differentiate between nonviolent sanctions and principled nonviolence, pacifism, or satayagraha. Sanctions are the use of methods to bring pressure to bear against opponents by mobilizing social, economic and political power without causing direct physical injury to the opponents.

Some nonviolence advocates argue that nonviolence and pacifism get confused, when they are in fact very different. [5] Principled nonviolence is synonymous with pacifism or Gandhi’s satayagraha or “truth force.”

In Pacifism as Pathology, Ward Churchill describes pacifism as promising “that the harsh realities of state power can be transcended via good feelings and purity of purpose rather than by self-defense and resort to combat.” [6] Churchill argues that proponents of requisite nonviolence believe that nonviolent resisters must not inflict violence on others but may expect to experience violence directed against them. [7]

Peter Gelderloos describes how nonviolent activists seem to prefer one term or another“pacifism” or “nonviolence”some making a distinction between the two; he also notes that these distinctions are often inconsistent. Nonetheless, pacifists and nonviolent activists tend to work together with little concern for their chosen identity or ideological label. Gelderloos defines pacifism/nonviolence as a way of life or a method of social activism that avoids, transforms, or excludes violence while attempting to change society to create a more peaceful and free world. [8]

Gelderloos also takes issue with pacifists or nonviolent activists who distinguish themselves as revolutionary or non-revolutionary. He maintains that both groups work together, attend the same protests and generally use the same tactics. It is their shared vision of nonviolence, Gelderloos argues, and not a shared commitment to revolutionary goals, that primarily informs with whom they work. [9]

Bowser identifies pacifists as holding two unifying beliefs: beliefs in anti-war and anti-oppressive violence. He uses the term “pacifismto mean ineffective, disengaging non-resistance and the term “active nonviolence” to describe offensive, creative action, where those practicing it put themselves in physical danger and engage in direct action, property destruction, and civil disobedience. [10]

“Civil disobedience” is a term coined by Henry Thoreau in 1849 in his essay of the same name. He describes civil disobedience as willful disobedience of laws considered unjust or hypocritical. Sharp defines civil disobedience as a “a deliberate, open and peaceful violation of particular laws decrees, regulations, ordinances, military or police instructions, and the like which are believed to be illegitimate for some reason,” adding that “civil disobedience is regarded as a synthesis of civility and disobedience, that is, it is disobedience carried out in nonviolent, civil behavior.” [11]

Lierre Keith, one of the founders of Deep Green Resistance, considers nonviolent direct action to be the most elegant political technique that has been used successfully over the last fifty years around the world. She describes how unlikely it is to shift the stance of those who have a profound moral attachment to true pacifism. She also maintains that those who support direct action using force or militant tactics need the support of nonviolent activists. She emphasizes that it is not helpful to get into conflict with these activists and that it is better to thoughtfully engage and disagree.

US attorney Thomas Linzey and his organisation Community Environmental Legal Defence Fund (CELDF) have developed a strategy described as “collective, non-violent civil disobedience through municipal lawmaking” to elevate community rights over corporate rights. The aim is to stop corporations coming into local communities and damaging the local environment or economy to make a profit.

Read on at What is Nonviolent Resitance? Part One

Featured image by Daniel Marsula/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Endnotes

  1. Politics of Nonviolent Action, Gene Sharp, 1973, page 4
  2. The Strategy of Nonviolence Defense: A Gandhian Approach, Robert J. Burrowes, 1996
  3. Global Warming: Militarism and Nonviolence,The Art of Active Resistance, Marty Branagan, 2013, page 139
  4. Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Nondemocracies, Kurt Schock, 2005
  5. Global Warming: Militarism and Nonviolence,The Art of Active Resistance, Marty Branagan, 2013, page 111
  6. Pacifism as Pathology, Ward Churchill, page 1998, page 45
  7. Pacifism as Pathology, Ward Churchill, page 1998, page 126
  8. How nonviolence protects the state, Peter Gelderloos, 2005, page 6, read online
  9. How nonviolence protects the state, Peter Gelderloos, 2005, page 7, read online
  10. Elements of Resistance: Violence, Nonviolence and the State, Jeriah Bowser, 2015, page 8, read online
  11. Politics of Nonviolent Action, Gene Sharp, 1973, page 315

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Protective Use of Force: The Problems with Violence

This is the fourth installment in a multi-part series. Browse the Protective Use of Force index to read more.

via Deep Green Resistance UK

It is difficult to find a clear, well-reasoned list of arguments against resistance movements using “violence” or force. Some critics argue that it’s authoritarian, but then list only authoritarian revolutions as examples. [1] Others argue that  the use of “violence” or force gives the state an advantage over resistance movements. Therefore it’s best to use nonviolence, which states may find more difficult to violently repress (more on this in future posts). [2]

Another common critique of “violence” or the use of force is that the end never justifies the means. Sharp argues that “violent” struggles against dictators have rarely won freedoms, and have resulted in brutal repression. [3] Saul Alinsky makes some useful points on this in chapter two of his book Rules for Radicals.

The most comprehensive list of arguments that pacifists articulate against the use of “violence” or force is in Endgame Volume II: Resistance by Derrick Jensen. [4] Jensen includes his response and counterargument to each one:

  1. Love leads to Pacifism, violence implies a failure to love
  2. You can’t use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house
  3. It’s easier to make war than peace
  4. We must visualise world peace
  5. If someone wins someone loses
  6. Schiller’s line: “peace rarely denied to the peaceful”
  7. The end never justifies the means
  8. Violence only begets violence
  9. We must be the change we wish to see
  10. If you use violence against exploiters you become like them
  11. If you use violence the media distorts our message
  12. Every act of violence sets back the movement 10 years
  13. If we use violence the state will come down hard on us
  14. The state has more capacity to inflict violence than us
  15. Violence never accomplishes anything

To conclude, in the last three posts I’ve attempted to clarify the vague concept of violence. I have listed a number of categories and definitions of violence. I’ve also stated that we need to consider the intention of those involved and the context of the situation. It is important to consider if a violation is taking place and instead of thinking in terms of violence, frame things in terms of how much justifiable force is need to defend humans, non-humans or the earth. I have described structural, subjective and objective violence and the concepts of state monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. Finally, I’ve listed the problems with violence. The aim here is to move away from the binary thinking of violence vs nonviolence and to appreciate the complexity of this topic. In the next post I will explore nonviolence and pacifism.

This is the fourth installment in a multi-part series. Browse the Protective Use of Force index to read more.

Featured image: A Palestinian hurls a stone towards Israeli police during clashes in Shuafat, an Arab suburb of Jerusalem and home to the victim of a suspected revenge killing for the murder of three Israeli teenagers. By Baz Ratner/Reuters

Endnotes

  1. Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea, Mark Kurlansky, 2007
  2. Blueprint for Revolution: How to Use Rice Pudding, Lego Men, and Other Non-Violent Techniques to Galvanise Communities, Overthrow Dictators, or Simply Change the World, Srdja Popovic, 2015, page 86
  3. Dictatorship to Democracy, Gene Sharp, 1973, page 4
  4. For a thorough critique see pages 675-757 in Endgame Vol II or incomplete versions here and here

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Protective Use of Force: Different Forms of Violence

Protective Use of Force: Different Forms of Violence

This is the third installment in a multi-part series. Browse the Protective Use of Force index to read more.

via Deep Green Resistance UK

Societal violence

Structural violence is the deaths and suffering caused by the way society is organised so that huge numbers of people lack the means necessary to avoid starvation, prevent illness etc. [1] Cultural violence is the prevailing attitudes and beliefs regarding power and the necessity of violence. [2]

In Violence, Slavoj Žižek, a controversial philosopher and cultural critic, differentiates between what he calls subjective and objective violence. “Subjective violence is experienced in a truly peaceful work where there is no violence of any sort. Objective violence is the inherent violence of the ‘normal’ state of things.” [3]

Žižek describes two kinds of objective violence. Symbolic (objective) violence is embodied in language and its forms, which is similar to the concept of cultural violence described above. Systemic (objective) violence includes the terrible consequences of the everyday functioning of economic and political systems, similar to structural violence described above. This kind of violence is inherent to the system itself: direct physical violence; subtle forms of coercion that sustain domination and exploitation, including the threat of violence. He also describes ideological violence, which includes racism, incitement, and sexual discrimination. [4]

Žižek observes that there is a focus on subjective violence (social agents, evil individuals, disciplined repressive apparatuses, fanatical crowds) to distract our attentions from objective violence and our complicity in the oppressive systems that perpetuate it.

State monopoly of violence

A defining characteristic of the modern state is the state monopoly of violence. This is the concept that only the state has the right to use or authorise the use of physical force. The German sociologist Max Weber first described this concept in his 1918 lecture Politics as a Vocation:  “human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory.” The German philosopher Walter Benjamin wrote about the state monopoly of violence in his 1921 book Critique of Violence.

The state monopoly of the legitimate use of violence is a concept to mean that the state and other actors are using violence but the use of violence by those that are not the state is illegitimate or illegal. Whereas the state monopoly of violence means that the state is the only one using violence, which is where we have got to in most Western countries. So the state is deeming self defence as illegitimate (more on this in the future article on self defence).

Ecological violence

Author Marty Branagan calls the damage to ecosystems caused by industries or armed conflict “ecological violence,” [5] but quotes three studies that state that the extent and intensity of warfare are decreasing. [6] I completely disagree and think it’s clear that structural, cultural and ecological violence are all increasing. 180 million to 203 million people were killed by wars and oppression in the twentieth century alone. [7]

Property destruction

Finally, it is important to distinguish between violence against property and violence against people. Some reject that violence is an appropriate word to use to describe property destruction. Property destruction can be achieved without harming any sentient beings and can be effective at stopping an unjust system. It can also be used to intimidate, which is perhaps why some advocate against it. [8]

When considering if property destruction constitutes violence, a number of questions need to be asked: what objects will be damaged; for what purpose; using what kind of force; will any living beings be injured in any way? Do you believe that “property rights” can be “injured?” Radical environmentalists argue that violations of property rights can in fact constitute violent acts or be the result of past violence. “Property” is created when land and animals are forcibly enclosed or when people are separated from the products of their labour. This is a violent process as it involves the actual or threatened use of force to control. Violence will then be needed to maintain this property.

There’s a critical difference between the legitimate use of force, and violence, which is always illegitimate. We need to stand in solidarity with those who use justifiable force by putting their bodies on the line. And then be critical of those that use the dire situation on the earth as an excuse for reckless aggression or selfish violence. [9]

The British suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst had this to say about property destruction: “There is something that Governments care for far more than human life, and that is the security of property, and so it is through property that we shall strike the enemy.”

This is the third installment in a multi-part series. Browse the Protective Use of Force index to read more.

Endnotes

  1. Historical materialism chapter, Critical Security Studies book, Eric Herring, page 157 https://ericherring.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/eh-hm-and-security-09.pdf
  2. Elements of Resistance: Violence, Nonviolence and the State, Jeriah Bowser, page 7, read online
  3. Violence, Slavoj Žižek, 2009, page 2
  4. Violence, Slavoj Žižek, 2009, page 1-10
  5. Global Warming: Militarism and Nonviolence,The Art of Active Resistance, Marty Branagan, 2013, page 7
  6. Global Warming: Militarism and Nonviolence,The Art of Active Resistance, Marty Branagan, 2013, page 40
  7. Jeriah Bowser has done a great job of describing the increasing amounts of violence in the world in the last century in Elements of Resistance: Violence, Nonviolence and the State, 2015, page 22-31, read online
  8. Deep Green Resistance, Lierre Keith, 2011, page 81 (link to DGR book, online version ideally if ready in time see this forum post https://deepgreenresistance.org/forum/index.php?topic=5188.0)
  9. Igniting a Revolution, Steven Best, Anthony J. Nocella, 2006, page 324/5

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Protective Use of Force: Defining Violence

This is the second installment in a multi-part series. Browse the Protective Use of Force index to read more.

via Deep Green Resistance UK

Before looking at nonviolence, it’s important to define what violence is, as it is often understood in varied and misleading terms. The aim of the next three posts on violence is to move away from the binary thinking of violence versus nonviolence and to appreciate the complexity of this topic.

In Endgame I: The Problem with Civilization, [1] Derrick Jensen maintains that many words and contexts are needed to approach a more complex understanding of what violence means and entails. He lists the following categories of violence in a discussion meant to provoke readers into (re)considering what forms of violence they oppose:

  • unintentional and intentional violence
  • unintentional but fully expected violence (when you drive you can fully expect to kill insects)
  • distinction between direct violence and violence that is ordered to be done by others
  • systemic (and hidden) violence
  • violence by omission – by not acting leading to harm
  • violence by silence – witnessing violence and not acting
  • violence by lying – supporting those that carry out violence

Peter Gelderloos, author of The Failure of Nonviolence, writes critically of a typical human mindset, particularly by humans who occupy positions of institutionally maintained privilege: “If it’s done to me it’s violence. If it is done by me or for my benefit, it is justified, acceptable, or even invisible.” [2] He argues that violence doesn’t exist as an act but rather as a category; and that it is a concept regularly redefined by the state for the purpose of protecting and perpetuating systems of oppressive power. Gelderloos also asserts how common it is for people to describe things that they do not like as violent.

In Anarchy Alive! Anti-authoritarian Politics from Practice to Theory, Uri Gordon suggests that “an act is violent if its recipient experiences it as an attack or as deliberate endangerment.” [3] He offers a comprehensive review of the thinking on violence in relation to activism by asking two fundamental questions: what is violence, and can violence be justified?

Gordon makes a useful distinction between the violence of the anarchist movement in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the violence of today. The political violence of past centuries often involved mass armed insurrection and the assassination of heads of state and business leaders. Today, it tends to involve non-lethal violence during protests, property destruction, and clashes with law enforcement. [4]

Gene Sharp, known as the “father of the nonviolent revolution,” argues that violence is a way to influence behavior by intimidating people. His list of what constitutes violent actions includes conventional military action, guerrilla warfare, regicide (the killing of a king), rioting, police action, private armed offensive and defence, civil war, terrorism, conventional aerial bombing, and nuclear attacks. [5]

Bill Meyers argues that the corporate state intentionally confuses language used to discuss issues of violence in order to neutralise opposition: “It is important to distinguish exactly what is meant by violence, not being violent, and the ideology of Nonviolence. Most people have a pretty clear idea of what violence is: hitting people, stabbing them, shooting them, on up to incinerating people with napalm or atomic weapons. Not being violent is simply not causing physical harm to someone. But gray areas abound. What about stabbing an animal? What about allowing someone to starve because they cannot find means to pay for food? What about coercing behavior through the threat of violence? Through the threat of losing a job? Violence as a dichotomy, with the only choices being Violence or Non-violence, is not a very useful basis for political discussion, unless you want to confuse people.”

A good place to start is the Oxford dictionary definition of violence: “behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.”

In Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi, Mark Boyle seriously considers if inaction can be considered violent. He asks whether there is a definition or understanding of violence that can take into account the idea of inaction, the act of witnessing gross injustice and doing nothing within one’s power to effectively combat it. [6]

Boyle argues that when asking if an action is violent or an appropriate use of force, the intention of those that carry out the action needs to be considered. He offers the example of a tooth being pulled out either as an act of care by a friend if the tooth is causing a lot of pain, or by a torturer to inflict pain.

Boyle’s ultimate definition of violence is the “unjustified use of force in ways that are intentionally or culpably injurious to another entity, or insensitive to that entity’s own needs or The Whole of which it is one part. It encompasses actions that, through willful neglect, indirect conscious complicity, or the imposition of a set of conditions, contribute to the injury of another entity.” [7]

For Pattrice Jones, both concepts and context must be considered when defining violence. When many people say “violence,” they often mean some sort of violation that involves actual or the threatening of physical force. Following this logic, both force and violation must be present for an act to be considered violence. She observes that in law there is a distinction between violence and justifiable use of force, and between violent and nonviolent crime.

With regard to context, she notes that “if we understand violence to be injurious and unjustified use of force then we can never discern whether or not an act is violent apart from its context.” Thus, there is no need to waste time arguing about abstractions; justifiable use of force isn’t violence. We can move on to consider the more important question of how much force is justifiable in defence of human and non-human life and the earth. The line between force and violence can only be determined based on the context of the situation.

Jones poses intriguing questions when contemplating the use of force in any given situation: is the action likely to result in a desired outcome; is the same outcome likely to be achieved as quickly or certainly by some other means; and is the level of force being contemplated proportional to the level of harm that is trying to be prevented? [8]

This is the second installment in a multi-part series. Browse the Protective Use of Force index to read more.

Endnotes

  1. Endgame Volume 1, Derrick Jensen, 2006 page 399-400
  2. The Failure of Nonviolence, Peter Gelderloos, 2013, page 20/21
  3. Anarchy Alive! Anti-authoritarian Politics from Practice to Theory, Uri Gordon, 2007, page 78-95 https://libcom.org/files/anarchy_alive.pdf
  4. Anarchy Alive! Anti-authoritarian Politics from Practice to Theory, Uri Gordon, 2007, page 79-80, read online
  5. Politics of Nonviolent Action, Gene Sharp, 1973, page 3
  6. Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi, Mark Boyle, 2015, page 38-43
  7. Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi, Mark Boyle, 2015, page 45/6
  8. Igniting a Revolution, Steven Best, Anthony J. Nocella, 2006, page 323

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Standing Against the Coming Climate Nightmare

Trump’s election has sabotaged any prospect of reigning in the global warming crisis

     by Max Wilbert / Deep Green Resistance

On Tuesday night, the American people decided to elect Donald J. Trump, a billionaire business mogul and reality TV star who has been accused of raping or otherwise sexually assaulting twenty-three women, who has called for banning immigration to the United States, and who has built a campaign on virulent racism.

He received more than 60 million votes.

There is a lot to process. Those conversations, about the growing tide of white supremacy, about Trump’s pending sexual assault cases, about the fact that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, about the left’s failure to engage with the white community on issues of race, and about the gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement that characterizes the American system, are already taking place.

I want to focus here on one specific issue: global warming. As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in the sun outside my home. It’s November, and temperatures are more than 20 degrees above the typical average here. This year, 2016, is predicted to be the hottest year on record, beating out last year, which beat out the previous year, which beat out the previous year, each of the last five setting a new mark.

Records are being smashed aside like bowling pins. We are in the midst of a global catastrophe, and it is even worse than previously thought. On the day after the election, news broke that the climate is more sensitive to global warming than most calculations had suspected.

The study in question predicted nearly double the warming that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had previously expected. The new data predicts between 9 and 14 °F warming by 2100, enough to potentially lead to the extinction of the human species and flip the Earth into a completely new regime more similar to Venus than Earth. Michael Mann, one of the most well-known climate scientists in the world, says these findings and the changing political situation may mean “game over for the climate.”

Into this mess strides Donald Trump, who has said that if elected, he would “immediately approve” the Keystone XL pipeline, roll back environmental regulations, further subsidize the fossil fuel industry, and back out of the Paris climate agreement. Coal and oil stocks, as well as shares of equipment companies and railroads, jumped in price after news of his victory hit.

max-stop-pipelinesRight now, thousands of native people and allies are gathering on the cold plains of North Dakota in an attempt to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. Under President Obama, such popular movements had a chance—a small chance, but a chance—of success. Under Trump, there won’t be so much leniency, and the road to victory will be much harder.

History is clear; social movements have generally flourished under slightly more progressive administrations, and waned under right wing leadership. What does this mean for our strategy?

I would like to have a peaceful transition to a sane and sustainable world, but it seems increasingly impossible. The American people have shown themselves to be a reactionary force, clinging to their privilege as if it can shield them against the arrows that originate in American foreign policy. Immigrants come here because their lands have been destroyed for American capitalism, and groups like ISIS have emerged from a slurry of war, oil, racism, and fundamentalism.

Perhaps, then, we need a different type of change. When it comes to protecting the planet, stopping pipelines needs to be one of our first priorities. And like other Earth-destroying machinery, pipelines are very vulnerable. They stretch on for miles with no guards, no fences, and no protection.

Recently, a number of activists, including some who I know, were able to approach and shut down all five pipelines that carry tar sands oil into the United States in a coordinated act of non-violent civil disobedience. Their action was brave, but its long-term efficacy depends on whether courts will agree with them that their action was necessary and create a precedent to normalize actions of this type. With another Antonin Scalia on the way to the Supreme Court, a positive outcome is in doubt.

max-small-scale-sabotageCoordinated action of another type could be more effective in protecting the planet. In plain language, I speak of sabotage. Individuals or networks of people conducting coordinated, small-scale sabotage over a widespread area could cripple the fossil fuel system with a minimum of expense, technical expertise, personnel, and risk. It is simple to disappear into the night, and with proper security culture the possibility of capture is remote. We’ve seen how vulnerable this network is; anyone could do this.

It isn’t idle speculation that such attacks would have a substantial impact. Its actually been done before, most notably in Nigeria, where indigenous people in the Niger River Delta have risen against polluting oil companies many times over the past several decades. Most recently, attacks on oil pipelines earlier this year shut down some 40 percent of Nigeria’s oil processing. Months later, the oil industry still hasn’t recovered.

To many people, this plan will sound insane. Modern life is dependent upon oil in so many ways. But when oil is killing the planet and those in power will not respond to rational argumentation or peaceful protest, and when sixty million people are willing to vote a climate-denying sexual abuser into office, what options are we left with? It is time for serious escalation.

Max Wilbert is a writer, activist, and organizer with the group Deep Green Resistance. He lives on occupied Kalapuya Territory in Oregon.

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