Over a year ago, I read a review of a book called, How To Blow Up A Pipeline by Andreas Malm. Malm, an academic, and activist in Europe, on climate disruption issues, wrote a book that blew me away mostly.
I downloaded the book immediately and read it in just a day or so. For the first time, I read a book that was a game changer in the climate disruption/change issue.
Malm, in one book, altered the conversation. Malm, to me, found the political solution: up the pressure much higher. Resort to violence perhaps? He doesn’t say that explicitly but he knows the general rule in public agitation and struggle: the squeakiest wheel gets the grease.
It is an impressive book with great arguments. But then there is another question that is more important: why did it take so long for many of the best magazines on the left/progressive end of the opinion spectrum to review the book?
The Progressive, my favorite, did not review the book at all yet. The Nation just reviewed it long after the book’s publication. The London Review of Books, though not necessarily left, but yet, a very inclusive publication just reviewed it.
Verso published the book in January 2021 and these publications basically ignored it. The New Internationalist, for the record, did not. That is how I discovered the book. That publication, not well known in the states, reviewed it.
So did The New Republic and the L.A. Review of Books. The New York Review of Books reviewed it early too. The Ecologist reviewed it the same month it came out.
On the left, the drumbeat is always “climate disruption” as the #1 threat to human existence on earth; yet, many left publications, in America especially punted on this important book and waited. So many people have never heard of it.
But why did The Nation not push the book? Why didn’t The Nation or The Progressive interview Malm? The Monthly Review also stayed away from Malm’s great tome. In These Times? The Atlantic Monthly?
I am not surprised either. I pitched a review of the book once and was politely turned down. It was about values too.
Was it deliberate that so many publications considered left, progressive, etc., stayed away from reviewing a book that logically discusses violence as a normal defense mechanism to the intentional destruction of the earth and life itself?
I won’t answer. I say read the book. Find your own answer. Malm pulls no punches in the book is all I will say.
And now, How To Blow Up A Pipeline is going to be a film. How about that? It will be released in about two weeks to the world. I wonder if those same publications will review the film. (Check the link below)
Thanks for reading
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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