Elijah's Reviews > How to Blow Up a Pipeline

Its a bit of a slog for how short it is. Andres Malm makes solid points and dissects arguments very well in the middle of the book, but maybe too well; to the point its repetitive and you get a bit lost during the moral debates in the middle. Personally I dont really need to overthink or justify the idea of taking violent action against fossil fuel infrastructure. The rare points where this book shines are the tales where he is sharing his personals actions in the fight against global heating and fossil fuel infrastructure. Perhaps that is where the book is being adapted to movie and tv. Ultimately not very informative or motivating when it comes to the mobilization of people, just a bunch of internal arguments climate activists are facing, mainly the distinction between violent and non violent action and the morals behind them. Other reviews have pointed out his blindspots in his arguments and i find those particularly valid, especially his misunderstanding, or shallow portrayal, of the modern day state apparatus and its proclivity towards violent suppression of anything remotely anti-capital - in this case, anti fossil fuel infrastructure. Someone else said it best, you could get a pretty basic TDLR on this book from the man himself on his podcast appearances promoting the book. It on some level does feel like a cash grab because of the title but especially since there's apparently already a movie and also potentially a TV show in development from what i hear(not googling it, dont care). Skip the read.