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How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire is a nonfiction book written by Andreas Malm and published in 2021 by Verso Books. In the book, Malm argues that sabotage is a logical form of climate activism, and criticizes both pacifism within the climate movement and "climate fatalism" outside it. The book inspired a film of the same name. Andreas Malm, a lecturer in human ecology at Lund University, wrote several other books on related subjects before his release of How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Prior to events in 2018 and 2019 including Fridays For Future and climate protest camps in Europe, the book was planned to be an argument that there was a lack of climate activism. These events caused the argument to become a critique of nonviolence and pacifism in the climate activist movement, and an argument for sabotage as a logical form of climate activism. The book received both positive and negative reviews in various publications. Background Before the release of How to Blow Up a Pipeline, author Andreas Malm had written several other books related to political economy, climate change, and fossil fuels; all were published by Verso Books. As of the book's publication, he was a lecturer in the human ecology department of Lund University. Malm told Bookforum that he had been studying Ancient Egypt in the first half of 2018, but stopped spending time on that research later that year because he felt a need to focus on climate change, stating that he "was in total despair mode". When he began work on How to Blow Up a Pipeline, he expected to argue that there was a lack of climate activism. However, after the start of Fridays For Future in 2018 and the spread of climate protest camps in Germany and throughout Europe in 2019, Malm described feeling "elated and encouraged by the wave of activism" but frustrated by the climate movement's "strict commitment to absolute nonviolence". The book instead became a critique of nonviolence and pacifism within the movement, and an argument that sabotage is a logical form of climate activism. How to Blow Up a Pipeline was published on January 5, 2021, by Verso Books. Synopsis The book is divided into three chapters, titled Learning from Past Struggles, Breaking the Spell, and Fighting Despair. It also includes a preface.: Contents  Learning from Past Struggles In the first chapter, Malm describes a protest he participated outside the COP1 United Nations climate conference in 1995. He asks "At what point do we escalate?",: 8  stating that the modern climate movement has remained committed to "absolute non-violence" and avoided property destruction.: 22–23  He criticizes what he defines as "moral pacifism" for failing to account for defensive violence: 30–32  and argues that "strategic pacifism" as advocated by Bill McKibben and Extinction Rebellion is ahistorical, discussing the radical flank effect in the context of the civil rights movement and questioning whether there are "convincing reasons" to believe that "the struggle against fossil fuels ... will succeed only on condition of utter peacefulness".: 34–54  Breaking the Spell In the second chapter, Malm states that the ruling class will not implement sufficient change to address climate change, and that the climate movement should sabotage devices that produce CO2 emissions in order to discourage new investment in them.: 67–69  He references a 2005 report by the Pipeline and Gas Journal which described pipelines as "very easily sabotaged", and he describes a "long and venerable tradition of sabotaging fossil fuel infrastructure", referencing instances of sabotage in apartheid South Africa, by Palestinians, and in Nigeria among other examples. Malm questions why actions like this are not taken for the purposes of the climate, attributing that fact to the "general demise of revolutionary politics" and the "insufficient politicisation of the climate crisis".: 70–76  He characterizes property destruction as a type of violence but states that "we must insist on it being different in kind from the violence that hits a human (or an animal) in the face", subsequently arguing that violence "which hits material conditions necessary for subsistence" should be considered violence against people.: 102–103  Fighting Despair In the third and final chapter, Malm argues against critics of collective climate activism like Jonathan Franzen and Roy Scranton, who Malm says are united by "a reification of despair", which he states is "an eminently understandable emotional response to the crisis, but unserviceable as a response for a politics in it". He describes this "climate fatalism" as a contradiction and a self-fulfilling prophecy, writing that "[the] more people who tell us that a radical reorientation is 'scarcely imaginable', the less imaginable it will be".: 141–142  He says that there is no scientific basis for the idea that action now will not have an effect on climate change, stating that people who "think that mitigation is meaningful only at a time when damage is yet to be done ... have misunderstood the basics of both climate science and movement".: 144–146  Malm describes Ende Gelände 2016, during which he and other activists blockaded the Schwarze Pumpe power station, writing that politicians and the media described the action as violent because the activists broke fences. He quotes The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon, stating that Fanon wrote violence "frees the native 'from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect'". He concludes that "There has been a time for a Gandhian climate movement; perhaps there might come a time for a Fanonian one. The breaking of fences may one day be seen as a very minor misdemeanour indeed.": 158–161  Cover The cover of How to Blow Up a Pipeline, designed by Chantal Jahchan, appeared as one of 12 on a list of "The Best Book Covers of 2021" assembled by Matt Dorfman, art director of The New York Times Book Review. It was additionally chosen by The Bookseller as one of the best covers of January 2021. Reception Reviews Journalist Wen Stephenson praised How to Blow Up a Pipeline in the Los Angeles Review of Books, describing Malm's approach as "erudite and, above all, morally serious" and stating that the book "methodically dismantles the social movement doctrine of 'strategic nonviolence'". He wrote that he expected the book to be dismissed by many as fringe or dangerous, but described that potential dismissal as "a very serious mistake". Also in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Scott W. Stern wrote that Malm "makes a stirring moral case for the necessity of escalation" and described the book as "passionate, powerful, deeply flawed, and profoundly necessary", stating that it "may excite some readers, anger others, convince still others, and alienate many, but it is unlikely to be forgotten by a single one". Writing in The New York Times Book Review, Tatiana Schlossberg reviewed How to Blow.... Discover the Wen Stephenson popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Wen Stephenson books.