30 October 2021 | New Scientist | 49Gelände kind [the activist movement that
began in Germany and occupies coal mines].
There, you have climate camps, with large
groups of people congregating in a camp
and then going to a fossil fuel installation and
blocking it or entering it and shutting it down.
Last year, at the Ende Gelände camp in
Germany, a group blocked a gas pipeline.
And there was no massive outcry, no backlash.
I think that if you go about this in an intelligent
fashion, there is certainly a potential to win
people’s support for it, because I think that
people generally are quite terrified by climate
disasters and upset about continuous
expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure.
You are very clear about opposing violence
against people and about being very careful
not to harm anyone. But isn’t it a concern
that this could escalate?
My point isn’t that diversifying our tactics
and stepping up in this fashion is a risk-free
endeavour. It comes with risks that have to be
dealt with somehow. My point is that we are
so late in the day, and the mitigation of the
climate crisis has been postponed for so long,
that there is no risk-free option left anywhere.
The way to deal with this risk when it comes
to escalation would be, in my view, to have
a very clear collective discipline about not
taking up guns or engaging in any kind of
violence against people.
We still need the fossil fuel companies.
If activists start damaging their stuff,
it isn’t going to get them on side, is it?
It’s clear after all of these years that
business as usual isn’t going to be broken
without the threat of significant mass unrest.
This isn’t to say that we should just destroy
the fossil fuel companies. It is to say that to
overcome them and get them under control,
to rein them in, you need to put a much
greater degree of pressure on governments.
I’m in favour of nationalising private
fossil fuel companies like BP or Shell or
ExxonMobil and turning them into public
entities for taking carbon dioxide out of the
atmosphere so that they clean up the mess
that they’ve created.
What are your hopes for the COP26 climate
summit in the UK?
The ideal scenario would be for COP26 to be
an occasion to restart the climate movement
of the global north [North America, Europe
and Australasia] after its coma induced by
the pandemic. Back in 2019, we were at the
highest peak of mass mobilisation, and
then we completely fell off a cliff when
the pandemic broke out.Are you personally hopeful for the future?
Not really. It’s very difficult to be after a
summer like we’ve just seen with all the
climate disasters. But hope is the belief
that things can be different.
There’s nothing that makes it impossible
for us to cope with this crisis and get out of it
more or less intact as a species and civilisation.
But the vested interests of keeping business
as usual going are extremely strong, and
they’re still dominant. It is a question of the
overwhelming power of the enemy, frankly,
that is the fundamental reason for us to slip
into moments of despair.What is your message for people who might be
thinking about taking part in climate activism?
Do engage in climate activism together
with others. Think closely about what
actions make sense, how you can tailor
your interventions in a way that goes after
the source of the problem without pissing
off people in an unnecessary way. It is our
only hope at the end of the day, I think.
I should stress that my book discusses
property destruction as a possible avenue
for escalation. But it doesn’t say that that’s
what everyone has to do. It will inevitably,
if it ever happens, be a radical flank that
does it. If you’re uncomfortable with that, do
something completely peaceful – that’s what
I have done in my own life as a climate activist,
and that’s what I expect to continue to do. ❚Rowan Hooper is New Scientist’s
podcast editor and author of
How to Spend a Trillion DollarsInsulate Britain
protesters obstructed
access to UK motorwaysMARK
KERR
ISON/I
N^ PICTURES^VIAGETT
Y^ I
MAGES“ Business as
usual won’t be
broken without
the threat of
significant
mass unrest“