The real question the climate movement must ask itself is not whether sabotage is ethical, but whether
Question:
The real question the climate movement must ask itself is not whether sabotage is ethical, but whether the tactic is likely to succeed in bringing down temperatures. At least at our current juncture in history, the answer is probably not. Were climate activists to start blowing up pipelines in 2022, it would likely backfire and weaken the climate movement's ability to win policies that would draw down temperatures. Let's play out the scenario in the United States, the political terrain with which I'm most familiar. In 2022, a widespread campaign of pipeline or power plant destruction would immediately draw condemnation from both sides of the political aisle, as well as all mainstream news sources. If an accident were to result in even a single injury, the condemnation would grow ten fold. If the sabotage were linked to a spike in energy costs for working families, the climate movement would be alienating exactly the people it needs to win: those on the front lines of the crisis. Even if the link to higher prices weren't true, Fox News would render it so for millions of US voters. Suddenly, the climate movement-whose popular support and political power have grown steadily over the past decade-would find itself with waning influence and few defenders. The right would gleefully cry "Ecoterrorism!" and leverage those fears to accelerate their creeping fascism. Tucker Carlson would label all climate advocates "Green ISIS," and the MAGA crowd would mobilize machine-pun-totine virilantes to natrol their local ninelines. [This provides a straightforward argument against Just Stop Oil's tactics. We should not protest injustice in ways that are likely to make it harder to achieve justice in the long-run. That's precisely what Just Stop Oil's sabotage did.?