How to Blow Up a Pipeline
We talk about the new film — How to Blow Up a Pipeline — that was inspired by the Andreas Malm book of the same name. We discuss environmental politics and Malm’s work — things like degrowth, eco-modernism, defeatism vs direct action. Other films about environmental terrorism get a mention, including The East and Avengers: Infinity War.
In short: The film might have its flaws but we still endorse it as quality uplifting family entertainment.
—Yasha
PS: One thing that seems a bit ridiculous about Malm — the guy who inspired this pro-terrorism film — is that as far as I can tell he believes that green tech will save us from climate catastrophe. So terrorism against fossil capitalism...to be replaced with utopian lithium battery state-backed capitalism? And he’s a Marxist, too. A true chin-scratcher, I have to admit.
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How to Blow Up a Pipeline
To address your question about the conservative point of view, I think most conservatives are skeptical of climate alarmism. People have been predicting environmental catastrophe from global warming since the early 90s and they have always been wrong. After living through decades of this stuff it becomes very easy to tune out.
I think vagueness (with the help of humans' natural optimism) is the only way to keep these ideas going. If you look at any single aspect of social collapse in detail it should become apparent that nothing like what we have now will remain post collapse, and likely nothing like what humans have ever experienced, unfortunately for people hoping for a primitivist looking future like myself. At the very very least, nothing like a smooth transition to post fossil fuel society is possible. The alternatives at this point seem to me to be either a haphazard collapse, or a more or less successful attempt to transorm the entire planet into biosphere earth, since our efforts have destabilized all natural systems our species used to rely upon and be integrated among, to the point that nothing functions anymore naturally.. Both sound pretty horrible.
Thanks for the episode! This is apretty important topic id say, considering.