#climate movement

Okay, talking about politics this week, let me talk about this amazing book that you all should read, because it is not that long and it really makes a lot of good points. I found this book through the Philosophy Tube video a couple of years ago.

So, what is this book about?

To put it lightly: It is about how the climate movement is failing over their refusal to use any sort of violence or sabotage. And it is about the ethics of violence.

Which is not only important to the climate movement, but all sorts of progressive movements. Which again brings me back to what I talked about so many times before: Being against a revolution is being against change. And the left in general has a problem with idealizing parcifism to an unhealthy degree.

Let me explain: The left has in general very much drunken the cool-aid to accept that there is no violence happening right now, so using violence against the perceived non-violence is wrong. But that entire idea is bullshit.

Letting people starve, while there is enough food around for everyone, is a form of violence.

Letting people die of preventable deseases, because they cannot afford health care, is a form of violence.

Letting people die in extreme weather, just so that a few people can profit from fossil fuels... Well, that is a form of violence, too.

But left people - especially white, leftists - have very much accepted that non-action can never be violence. So, not giving someone the food they need, cannot be violence in their point of view. So, using violence to act against the system that lets this happen again and again... that is "out of proportion" in their point of view. Because they do not suffer themselves, they do not perceive the violence.

The book talks about how specifically the climate movement refuses to use any form of violence, even just in the form of sabotage, in which no human would ever come to harm. Which is why the title is "how to blow up a pipeline". Because blowing up a pipeline would harm those, who profit from climate change, from the fossil fuels. The book is also about how the climate movement then goes ahead to appropriate civil rights leaders, without really understanding the context they were in. Because they will name Martin Luther King, Ghandi or Nelson Mandela as examples of people who succeeded with non-violence, without acknowledging that all three of those leaders were leaders of a non-violent group that closely associated with a violent movement that aimed for the same changes. And through that contrast - of a violent group and a peaceful group with widespread support - the people in power were forced to make a move to work towards them to some degree.

Now, technically the book involved nothing new to me. Because I thought about this topic - about the ethics and visuals of violence - for a long while now. It also is fitting with the entire French Revolution thing I spoke about on Sunday. Because we see it in the judgement of the French Revolution as well. On how there a) was a peaceful group first, and b) the violence that happened, happened in response to other violence.

And as the book points out: The fossil fuel industry does not care. As a German I know this too well. And I think it is no accident that a lot of the examples of this in the book come from Germany. Our climate movement here is very tame. It is mostly just kids (like people between their teens and early twenties) doing protests in forms of blocking streets and the likes. Yet, the fossil lobby and those in power will call that "terrorism" and will call that one time when folks tore down a fence at the coal mine as "extreme violent behavior". They are doing massive and at times violent police action against those KIDS, who organize the street blockades. Having thrown literal teenagers into prison for at times weeks, before judges intervened clearly saying that "the kids have done nothing illegal".

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In this follow-up to my video "You're Wrong About Climate Change", I talk solutions and strategies. Should the climate movement be moving away from universal pacifism & towards a position of sabotage & destruction? With so little time left to salvage what we have, I address the harmful view that is "Fatalism" - the idea that we must accept our fate & learn to disappear with grace. A video to inspire hope and hopefully action.

RESOURCES DOC: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X...

FEATURING @caelanconrad @LegalKimchi @MainelyMandy @TheLeftistCooks @abagoffleas @hootsontheweb @SKTheCrusader @ThatDangDad  and special guest @ThoughtSlime - thank you so much to all of you!

TIMESTAMPS FATALISM - 00:00 ACTIVISM - 17:35 WREN - 19:42 ACTIVISM - 21:31 HOW TO FIGHT - 43:18 CONCLUSION - 1:10:24 

It’s an urgent moment for the climate movement. Some activists have been on hunger strike for more than a week in Washington, D.C., to demand the White House and Congress work together to pass climate provisions in the budget reconciliation plan. Others blocked traffic in Manhattan this week. Even the sober policy nerds at Vox recently interviewed an activist who wrote a book called How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Their headline? “The Case for a More Radical Climate Movement.”

Are these the right tactics? What is to be done? Anything that might help seems justified: Scientists don’t think we have much time to avoid the worst-case scenarios of mass death and irrevocable planetary damage. Yet even as we stare into a worrisome future, there’s much to learn from social movements of the recent past. History’s first lesson? Don’t give up. ...

The coronavirus pandemic shows us that we can change our ways, and quickly. Millions are learning new ways to work remotely, collaborate across sectors, or provide healthcare in ways previously touted as impossible. The coronavirus is the best case for universal healthcare worldwide and climate justice solutions that promote community cohesion.