What radical tactics might those seeking transformational action on climate or environmental sustainability undertake? What options are capa
What radical tactics might those seeking transformational action on climate or environmental sustainability undertake? This paper explores efforts that can vigorously confront apathy and inaction and potentially subvert power relations currently perpetuating climate catastrophe and environmental destruction. We examine tactics from civil disobedience and (strict) nonviolence, antiauthoritarian strategies and self-defense as well as guerrilla warfare perspectives. ... The situation demands that we consider what Galvin calls “daring, obstinate actions … needed to halt this rush to destruction,” actions that enable “people of goodwill … to increase their power so as to work actively to wrest power from those who control social structure for their own gain at the expense of others and the climate.” ... Given the deteriorating state of our climate and our interconnected ecosystems, we might need to consider direct action tactics, some of them even violent and highly disruptive. Taking in account criticisms of “non-violence,” we offer here three general, yet overlapping categories, of tactics and strategies: civil disobedience, anti-authoritarian resistance, and militant, insurgent, and guerilla action. ... Following Springer, we do not consider “self-defense a form of violence, as there is no impetus for coercion or domination but rather a desire for self-preservation” and, in the matter of land defense, protecting habitats and ecosystems. “Violence,” then, refers to unequal power relations—often dependent on anthropocentrism, racism, classism and a myriad of other discriminations—that involves some element of coercion and/or domination over living creatures that either cause direct physical injury or indirect and slow forms of harm. This categorization of violence makes a distinction between property and sentient life, self-defense and tactical deployment of coercive action.
