Andreas Malm’s provocative manifesto, “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” makes a bold diagnosis regarding the inadequacy of the climate movement’s current pacifist stance. However, correctly diagnosing the disease of a system is not enough to prescribe the right medicine; it is also necessary to accurately determine where the disease is in the body, that is, the real source of the problem. While Malm accurately observes the inertia in the climate crisis, he misses his target with the “property destruction” solution he proposes. This is because the problem is not in the conscience of individuals or companies, but an architectural flaw lying directly in the inaction of states and lawmakers.
1. The True Location of the Problem: Not Consumer Conscience, But the State Apparatus
Malm’s argument is implicitly based on the logic of forcing the system to change by targeting fossil fuel infrastructure. This approach looks for the source of the problem in the wrong place. Reducing the problem to a single individual driving a Volvo XC90 or to a company’s production decisions is to miss the fundamental operation of the system. Due to the nature of the free market economy, the void left by a company that withdraws from production through a conscientious decision will instantly be filled by another. This dynamic makes individual or corporate morality an ineffective tool in solving a systemic problem.
The actual and absolute decision-making power lies in the hands of lawmakers, namely states. The solution is not to drag the system into chaos and collapse it, but to redesign it by using the system’s control mechanisms correctly. In this context, it is both the most harmless and most effective way for states to guide the market using tools such as bans and incentives. The problem is not the existence of pipelines, but the legal and economic framework itself that allows those lines to be built and operated.
2. The Weakness of Historical Analogies and Misinterpretation of Popular Will
To strengthen his argument, Malm uses historical examples such as the civil rights movement or the anti-apartheid struggle, suggesting that the violent acts of the radical wings in these movements triggered change. However, this analogy collapses on a fundamental point: The target audience and the definition of the problem are completely different. The main purpose of the mentioned historical movements was to change public opinion and to provide a social awakening against discriminatory or oppressive systems. However, regarding climate change, at least in many developed countries, public opinion is already largely in favor of supporting climate action. The public is aware of the seriousness and impacts of the problem.
The main obstacle here is not the will of the people, but the structure that prevents this will from reflecting on policy-making processes: the disproportionate and unfair lobbying activities of large fossil fuel companies on lawmakers. Therefore, the violent acts Malm proposes are a meaningless effort like trying to send a message to an already convinced public. The real struggle must be fought against this anti-democratic influence mechanism holding the public will hostage. The solution is not to scare or alienate the public, but to directly and severely pressure lawmakers by organizing the power of the people through non-governmental organizations.
3. Mis-targeting of the Strategic Struggle
When fundamental principles—especially Justice and Fairness—are systematically violated, taking a firm and tough stance becomes a legitimate necessity. Malm is right to argue that a more radical form of struggle must be adopted in the face of the urgency of the climate crisis. However, the targets and methods he has chosen are strategically wrong.
Blowing up a pipeline is attacking the symptom of the disease; whereas the real war must be fought against the source of the disease, the influence of interest groups that have penetrated the political system. The real “battlefield” is not physical infrastructure, but the political and legal arena. The effective weapons to be used in this arena are not dynamite or Molotov cocktails, but organized mass protests, strategic lawsuits, campaigns exposing lobbying activities, and relentless civil disobedience forcing lawmakers to be accountable. This is a constructive, not destructive, struggle; its goal is not to destroy the system but to return it to its actual function, the task of representing the will of the people.
Moreover, Malm’s emphasis throughout the text on the feelings that participating in actions created in him, and the quote from Frantz Fanon at the end of the book that “violence is a ‘cleansing force’,” reveal a dangerous prejudice underlying his proposed strategy. This shows that the struggle is not so much a cool-headed strategy as it is a kind of emotional cleansing search fueled by primitive impulses, “freeing from despair and inaction, making one fearless and restoring self-respect.” In whatever subject it may be, one must be extremely careful against ideas born especially from the primitive emotions of others. An action plan that stems not from pure logic and strategy, but from a need for emotional discharge, has the potential to create much larger problems than a rational solution.
Conclusion: From a Manifesto of Destruction to the Search for a Systemic Solution
Andreas Malm’s book is valuable as an intellectual wake-up call. However, instead of the manifesto of destruction he offers, the focus must be on a call for a smarter and principle-based system design. The fact that the solution lies in the state apparatus is concretely proven by the enactment of initiatives like the European Green Deal and incentive/penalty mechanisms based on carbon footprints. Such legal frameworks provide a systemic progression pushing the market and individuals in the right direction on a scale that the chaotic actions proposed by Malm cannot create.
However, the debate on the legitimacy of violent actions is complex. As Malm illustrates, in situations where public will is suppressed, radical actions can be a quest for rights. But what about situations where the public will itself produces an environmentally harmful result? Germany’s abandonment of nuclear energy and turning to coal due to the anti-nuclear approach in public opinion deepened an environmental crisis affecting the whole world. In this context, to draw attention to the consequences of this contradictory and harmful decision by the public, it might even be necessary to discuss the legitimacy of a symbolic act of harm by dumping coal in public spaces. Such an action reverses Malm’s logic, targeting the public itself this time as the source of the problem. This elevates the question of when and against whom violence can be a justified tool to a much more uncomfortable and complex plane.
Conspiracy Theory
The influence of fossil fuel lobbies extends far beyond bribes or pressures exerted on lawmakers, into much more complex and indirect mechanisms shaping public perception. At this point, some strategic moves, albeit controversial, need to be considered. The claim is that these lobbies turn the course of the climate debate in their favor using tactics like “controlled opposition” and “misdirection.”
For example, it is claimed that large environmental organizations like Greenpeace are indirectly funded by fossil fuel lobbies to wage a relentless struggle against nuclear energy facilities in countries like Turkey. The aim of this strategy is to maintain the dependence on fossil fuels by demonizing nuclear, the strongest and carbon-free energy alternative. While the debate in the eyes of the public is framed as “environmentalists vs. nuclear energy,” the real winners are the oil and coal companies behind the scenes.
Another example of this strategy is the constant steering of the climate change debate toward the livestock sector. Scientifically, the carbon produced by animals is “green carbon” that is already in the atmosphere-plant-animal cycle and is part of the natural cycle. However, the burning of even the smallest amount of coal or gasoline adds “fossil carbon” to the atmosphere, which has been locked underground for millions of years and is not in the natural cycle. It can be argued that lobbies, by drawing public attention and anger to livestock, push fossil fuel consumption, the actual and fundamental cause of the climate crisis, to the background, thus hiding their own responsibilities. This is an perception engineering that hides the real architecture of the problem and directs energy to the wrong targets.