Having twice read Andreas Malm’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline, I still don’t even know where to begin.

Despite its incendiary title, the book is not a “how to” so much as a “why not?” Given the increasingly dire signals from Earth, Malm asks: “When do we start physically attacking the things that consume our planet and destroy them with our own hands?” Third Act, founded on nonviolent principles, would say never. More on that later.

Malm’s short book combines history, philosophy and organizing experience to call for more drastic action on climate. For starters, he says, many movements lauded for their nonviolent tactics were not always peaceful. After decades of peaceful pressure, the British suffragists resorted to property destruction: breaking windows at the prime minister’s residence and shops and torching mailboxes. “To be militant in some form, or other, is a moral obligation,” suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst said. A violent uprising in Haiti brought emancipation there, and the US fought a Civil War to end slavery here. In South Africa in 1960, after years of boycotts, strikes, pass-burnings and other civil disobedience, Nelson Mandela called for acts of sabotage and, if that didn’t work, “guerrilla warfare and terrorism.” Some activists have targeted pipelines, including those in the Niger Delta fighting predatory and polluting oil companies. Malm argues that the nonviolent U.S. civil rights movement was successful in part because a violent “radical flank” also posed a threat.

Malm asks: “Is the root system of fossil fuels within the prevailing order so shallow that they can be extracted with smaller effort than any of those other ills?”

In July 2007, in a wealthy Stockholm neighborhood, Malm was among climate activists who “disarmed” 60 SUVs. They left a note on each windshield: “We have deflated one or more of the [tires] on your SUV. Don’t take it personally. It’s your SUV we dislike. You are certainly aware of how much gas it guzzles, so we don’t need to enlighten you about it. But what you seem to not know, or not care about, is that all the gasoline you burn to drive your SUV on the city’s streets has devastating consequences for others.” The notes explained the climate crisis and encouraged the owners to use readily available public transit. They announced the sabotage efforts in a blog post. Copycat actions persisted through the summer, only to be called off as winter approached so as not to endanger any lives on slippery roads because some people tried to drive their SUVs anyway.

One of the criticisms of the SUV action was that it targeted private consumption instead of fossil-fuel production. Malm counters that consumption, particularly by the super-rich, is a big part of the problem. Take so-called superyachts, he says. One study showed that, in one year, the global fleet of just 300 of these yachts “generates as much CO2 as the 10 million inhabitants of Burundi.” Other studies differentiate between “subsistence emissions” – from rice paddies or cattle in developing nations – and “luxury emissions” that are entirely optional.

“The rich could claim ignorance in 1913,” Malm writes. “Not so now. A group of American and British criminologists have consequently argued that conspicuous consumption of fossil fuels ought to be classified as a crime.” Luxury emissions, he says, need to go first: “If we cannot even get rid of the most preposterously unnecessary emissions, how are we going to begin moving towards zero.”

In a 2016 action, Malm participated with Ende Gelande in civil disobedience, breaking through fencing, storming into a coal plant and shutting off power for a limited time. The plant’s CEO called it “massive criminal violence,” irony not lost on Malm: “the breaking of fences could be officially framed as … devastation, unimaginable damage, whereas the perpetual cloud of CO2 from [the coal plant] was the mark of a peaceful normality.”

Malm discusses Bill McKibben’s commitment to nonviolence, a core principle for Third Act. In part, McKibben finds a “spiritual insight” in nonviolence, involving the idea of “turning the other cheek, of taking on unearned suffering.” Malm has little patience for that approach: “Isn’t suffering unearned by the victims precisely what is so morally repugnant about the unfolding crisis?” McKibben has landed on nonviolence as the better strategy, the “tactically sound choice” and the “greatest ‘innovation’ of the twentieth century.” McKibben also maintains that our strength lies in numbers, not violent acts. The state will always have the advantage in a fight of arms, to which Malm counters that the “enemy has overwhelmingly superior capabilities in virtually all fields, including media, propaganda, institutional coordination, logistical resources, political legitimacy and, above all, money.” Of course, the Trump regime now poses added risks, as it silences dissent – from law firms, universities, students and more – and decrees that “climate change” are forbidden words.

Malm finished the book just before the pandemic, when Greta Thunberg and climate strikes were in the news and huge actions in the works. The pandemic shut all that down. It also temporarily slowed emissions as much of commerce came to halt. Whatever one thinks of the merits of sabotage vs. peaceful protest and nonviolent civil disobedience, the pandemic raised a key question for Malm: “If a pandemic can induce governments to take emergency actions, why can’t a climate breakdown that threatens to kill off the very life-support systems of the planet do the same? After this, there can be no more excuses for passivity.”

TAPA April Newsletter: Keep the momentum going!

Here are links to all Third Act Pennsylvania newsletters.

TAPA Newsletter – April 2025

TAPA Newsletter – March 2025

TAPA Newsletter – February 2025

TAPA Newsletter – January 2025

TAPA Newsletter – December 2024

TAPA Newsletter – November 2024

TAPA Newsletter – October 2024

TAPA Newsletter – September 2024

TAPA Newsletter – August 2024

Climate Finance

The AFFF Team encourages everyone (especially elders) to put pressure on bad actors in the finance industry – especially Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo and Vanguard – to stop investing in fossil fuels and move money into clean, green energy solutions instead. Divestment works!!!

Goals and Strategies:

• Pressuring the big, dirty banks to stop financing fossil fuels through communications, protest, disruption, birddogging and others means

• Leveraging the power of big corporate clients to pressure the dirty banks on climate

• Moving our money to align our personal finances with our values through “Responsible Finance” approaches

• Increasing investments in clean energy and healthy communities.

Pennsylvania AFFF is currently working on Costco/Citi Clean Up Your Credit Card and Move Your Money campaigns.  Contact us: thirdactpa@gmail.com.

Resources:

• Move Your Money Info Session (TAPA/THIS! webinar recorded 12/5/23)

• THIS! Is What We Did Office Hours

• Move Your Money Tools & Find a Better Credit Card Guide

Democratize Energy

The Democratize Energy Action Team is working to mobilize Third Act PA members to demand stronger action on climate in Pennsylvania.

We are focusing on the Public Utility Commission as well as state and federal energy policies.

Goals and Strategies:

• Power Up Communities! mobilizing Third Act working groups and supporters to advocate and influence the powerful state-level Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) agencies to set strong energy policy at a state level

• Educating Third Act supporters to implement the landmark federal Inflation Reduction Act at the state level and ensure the available funds are well-spent on clean energy, energy efficiency, and climate resilience solutions at the state and local level

• Advocating for relevant state-level climate and energy legislation.

Democracy and Voting

Goals and Strategies:

• Mobilizing for Pennsylvania local, state, and federal elections

• Protecting and promoting the right to vote

• Engaging in civic life beyond elections, including in local and state policy advocacy and collective action

• Advancing “Third Acts” of community engagement, kindness, and mutual aid and practicing democratic principles of participation, consensus building, accountability, transparency, and human rights in our everyday lives.

It’s not an overstatement to say that music is fundamental to the human experience. Music provides emotional expression, social connection, and cultural identity. It even has therapeutic and healing powers. As such, it’s unsurprising that music has bound people together in common cause throughout the protest movements in our country’s history since the Revolution. Examples include “Yankee Doodle,” which was co-opted from the British troops as a symbol of defiance, and “We Shall Overcome,” which had its roots at the turn of the 20th century but was popularized by Pete Seeger in the 1960’s for the Civil Rights Movement. A lesser known but suitable anthem for our current times is “All You Fascists Bound To Lose” by the Resistance Revival Chorus. (This is a favorite of one of our Third Act PA Comms Team members). For a very recent and widely heard example, consider Kendrick Lamar’s Superbowl halftime show, which hit on themes including the fading American dream and broken promises to formerly enslaved Black people. (For an excellent breakdown of the show, see this essay in the New York Times.)

Looking for a playlist of popular protest songs? Here’s my completely biased top 10 list, sorted by date, with links to some great live performances.

“Blowin’ in the Wind,” Bob Dylan, 1963. Ranked number 14 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest hits of all time, this classic poses questions about war, peace, and freedom. These questions are rhetorical, but the answers, found in the refrain “blowin’ in the wind,” can be interpreted as either obvious or fleeting.

“The Times They Are A-Changin’,” Bob Dylan, 1964. A call to action for societal change, this song was released during the war in Vietnam and became an anthem for the anti-war and civil rights movements.

“All Along the Watchtower,” Bob Dylan, 1964, and also recorded by Jimi Hendrix, 1968. With abstract lyrics about confusion and chaos, it’s not strictly a protest song, but for Hendrix it was about the Vietnam War.

“Respect,” Aretha Franklin, 1967. Be sure to check out the linked version of this song from the Blues Brothers 2000 movie, which hearkens back to the much better The Blues Brothers movie from 1980 where she performed “Think.” “Respect,” a feminist anthem, earned Franklin two Grammy Awards.

“Fortunate Son,” Creedence Clearwater Revival, 1969. This song provides a critique of class inequalities in the Vietnam War, which allowed people of higher privilege to avoid military service.

“War,” Edwin Starr, 1970. “War” was originally sung by The Temptations, but Starr’s version made it a hit. A powerful anti-Vietnam War song, it continues to resonate.

“Imagine,” John Lennon, 1971. This song challenges us to envision a world free of conflict, where we are not separated by religion or class. It seems particularly timely in our current political state.

“Sunday Bloody Sunday,” U2, 1983. This song wrestles with the violence in Northern Ireland, focusing on the shooting of unarmed civil rights protesters in 1972.

“Born in the U.S.A.,” Bruce Springsteen, 1984. Springsteen’s song is a critique of the Vietnam War and the treatment of veterans returning from it. It’s often misinterpreted as a patriotic song. During last year’s presidential campaign, The Boss was not shy in his condemnation of its use in Trump rallies.

“We Are the World,” Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, 1985. Although not strictly a protest song, its call for humanitarian relief of Africa seems relevant today given Elon Musk’s attack on USAID.

“[T]he despair was something else again. Sometime before the election was over, I vowed to keep away from what I thought of as ‘the Conversation,’ the tailspin of mutual wailing about how bad everything was, a recitation of the evidence against us … that just buried any hope and imagination down into a dank little foxhole of curled-up despair.”

Sound familiar? Match the mood today? Well, that’s Rebecca Solnit writing about the despair we felt – in November 2004, when a majority of our compatriots re-elected George W. Bush. Heck, I remember the “Sorry Everybody” website where we could post images of our notes of abject apology – for re-electing W and in advance for all the terrible things he was sure to do. Despite worldwide protests, Bush had already launched the war on Iraq based on the lie of “weapons of mass destruction.”

In those despairing times, Solnit wrote a short book called Hope In The Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities. I returned to it to rediscover her guidance, history lessons, and that elusive hope.

Solnit’s hope is not a passive, feel-good, everything-is-fine stance. It’s intricately tied up with activism. Hope, she writes, “is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky, … hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency.” To hope, she says, “is to give yourself to the future, and that commitment to the future makes the present inhabitable. Anything could happen, and whether we act or not has everything to do with it. … The future is dark, with a darkness as much of the womb as the grave.”

Our actions, even if unsuccessful in the moment, can change the future. “It’s always too soon to go home,” she writes, noting the long campaigns for women’s suffrage and gay rights or against slavery and apartheid. The Berlin Wall had seemed permanent, until it wasn’t. “What lies ahead seems unlikely; when it becomes past, it seems inevitable,” she writes. In one example, she spoke to an activist with Women Strike for Peace, an anti-nuclear weapons group whose work contributed to the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty that ended above-ground testing. The activist said she often felt defeated and disillusioned. The small group’s protests in front of the White House seemed futile. But, years later, she heard that Dr. Benjamin Spock had seen them at the White House. Their efforts had been a turning point for him to become active in the antiwar and anti-nuclear weapons efforts.

“Hope,” Solnit writes, “is not a door, but a sense that there might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the present moment even before that way is found or followed.”

Her book is a call to press on, to realize that change treads a convoluted path. “The sleeping giant is one name for the public; when it wakes up, when we wake up, we are no longer only the public; we are civil society, the superpower whose nonviolent means are sometimes, for a shining moment, more powerful than violence, more powerful than regimes and armies. We write history with our feet and with our presence and our collective voice and vision. And yet, and of course, everything in the mainstream media suggests that popular resistance is ridiculous, pointless, or criminal, unless it is far away, was long ago, or, ideally, both. These are the forces that prefer the giant remains asleep.”

Working together, we are very powerful, she writes, “and we have a seldom-told, seldom-remembered history of victories and transformations that can give us confidence that yes, we can change the world because we have, many times before.”

Much as we might like to be in a coma or whatever for the next four years, that’s the one way to ensure defeat. We will need to grab that ax and break down some doors. This is most definitely an emergency.

In last month’s Third Act PA newsletter, we gained an appreciation of our place in Earth’s geological history with a review of Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Save the World. Continuing this theme, we consider climate scientist Michael Mann’s book Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth’s Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis.  Mann is one of the creators of the famous hockey stick chart. This graph, depicting global temperatures over the last 2,000 years, is an icon in the fight against climate change. The chart, appearing in United Nations climate assessments, shows that the global warming we’ve experienced in the last 50 years is a sharp break from the stable temperatures over the last 2,000 years. However, in Our Fragile Moment, Mann traces Earth’s changing climate over its entire history and goes beyond the chart to reveal that the current warming exceeds anything experienced in the last hundred millennia. As Mann says, “Let that sink in.”

Mann traces Earth’s climate from when it formed 4.55 billion years ago up to the present era. In this timeline, it’s humbling to conceive that modern humans emerged only 200,000 years ago, and human civilization has existed for just 6,000 years. During this “fragile moment,” prior to the hockey stick’s upward spiking blade in the 1970’s, the climate has been remarkably stable and has provided conditions for humans to thrive. This stability has been maintained by self-reinforcing mechanisms that resist changes to the climate. However, Mann warns that pushing the climate system too much through the burning of fossil fuels will disrupt these mechanisms and trigger new ones that will destabilize our climate.

Mann’s book describes Earth’s climate resilience, detailing one example 4 billion years ago when high levels of greenhouse gases provided temperatures warm enough for life despite the Sun being 30% dimmer than it is today—the Faint Young Sun paradox. He also delves into destabilizing mechanisms, like a “Snowball-Earth” episode 2 billion years ago in which photosynthesis caused a rapid increase in oxygen that cannibalized atmospheric methane, resulting in an ice-covered Earth. These examples inform us about the climate-disrupting tipping points seen today, such as the slowdown — and resulting impacts — of the ocean conveyor belt (AMOC), a future including worst-case rising sea levels of 6.5 feet by the end of the century, and the US East Coast suffering a Superstorm Sandy event every few years. With business-as-usual climate policies, Mann warns of warming as much as 5.4ºF, resulting in “…a lot of suffering, species extinction, loss of life, destabilization of societal infrastructure, chaos, and conflict. An end, perhaps, to our fragile moment.”

Mann emphasizes that uncertainties in climate models, often cited by climate-change deniers, are reasons for more action, not less. At this stage of the climate debate, he says, the larger issue isn’t climate denialism but doomism—the idea that it’s too late to ameliorate the worst effects of climate change. On the contrary, his analysis concludes that limiting these impacts is still entirely within our power both physically and technologically. The problem is politics.

For a fascinating glimpse of how Earth’s climate history informs us of the possibilities of our future climate, I highly recommend this book’s rigorous yet readable treatment of this topic.

Tom: This has been one of my favorite books the last few years. I learned about it when I heard Bjornerud speaking about it on a Long Now podcast. She does a fantastic job of outlining the history of our planet. I’m in awe of all the incredibly unlikely things that happened in its 4.5 billion years of history that led to…me. It truly is a wonder we are here at all. The flip side is that it is all so fragile––it could all go away. We are not guaranteed the conditions we enjoy now. It makes me really sad to see the damage we’ve done in my lifetime alone. For example, the planet has its own way of regulating CO2 in the atmosphere with weathering of rocks and locking that CO2 away as calcite. The system has worked over thousands of years, but it can’t keep up with all the fossil fuels we are burning. The excess just ends up in our atmosphere, as shown by the Keeling curve with its steady upward slope. Climate change is the result. Some cultures, unlike our American culture, have recognized that we are so out of balance. Bjornerud’s description of the native American practice of survivance and their fights to save our environment––despite centuries of mistreatment by the American government––is a tragic irony.  Jo––those were some of my initial big takeaways. What were your thoughts?

Jo: Tom, what struck you about the book is such an important point: humanity’s unlikely development over earth’s 4.5 billion years—and the damage we’ve done to our planet despite the miniscule amount of time we’ve spent on it. This past summer I had the pleasure of hearing Marcia Bjornerud in conversation with Maikin Scott (WHYY) at the Academy of Natural Sciences here in Philly. When I saw the announcement, I must admit that I hadn’t heard of Bjorenrud, but the title of the presentation—“Reading the Rocks: How Geology Tells the Earth’s Story”—immediately caught my attention. I found myself scrawling down significant phrases on the Q&A notecard I’d been given: for example, “Rocks are not nouns but verbs”; they are “time travelers” and “story-tellers.” I was so inspired by the talk that I picked up Timefulness. Once again, her title caught my attention (she seems to be good at that), and as I read what she meant by the term, I began to understand the meaning of her subtitle, How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World. Timefulness, according to Bjornerud, constitutes “a clear-eyed view of our view of our place in Time, both the past that came long before us and the future that will elapse without us” (17). As humanity continues to pursue present-day gain and convenience at the expense of our future, the idea of embracing timefulness particularly resonates with me.

Tom: Oh, I am so jealous. I would love to see her in person––she’s a real rock star (sorry–– couldn’t resist). One of the other parts of her book that I really loved was her takedown of the Elon Musks of the world. They are so entitled and brimming with hubris that they think they can recreate a living planet out of Mars. Bjornerud correctly points out that they have absolutely no understanding of the 4.5 billion year process it took to get here. We can’t take care of the one planet in the Universe we know harbors life. Why would we think we could make another one? It is shocking that Trump has taken Elon in his confidence for the moment, so we will be stuck with his kind of arrogance for at least the next few years––or until Musk falls out of favor. Because of my organizing background, I immediately jump to, “Well, so now that we know this information about Earth, what are we gonna DO about it?” Unfortunately, I doubt we can give a copy of the book to everyone in the country, LOL. We can however work to build Third Act into a large organization that has some clout. I was struck, given the weird weather we are having, that climate was so rarely mentioned during the presidential campaign. As environmentalists, we have to accept responsibility for that deafening silence. It indicates the lack of power of the environmental movement. This is one thing that draws me to Third Act. With so many folks of our age and hair color, we should be able to build the power to get climate back to the table.

Jo: Tom, I agree that’s frustrating that catastrophic climate change wasn’t addressed during the campaign, particularly as I think it would have struck a note with young voters, such as the two who spoke at our Silver Wave event in Philly. The current political landscape makes me more and more aware of the importance of the geological thinking that Bjornerud recommends: “Recognizing that our personal and cultural stories have always been embedded in larger, longer—and still elapsing—Earth stories might save us from environmental hubris” (178). Bjornerud tells a story of her own hubris when, trying to dislodge a delicate, “watermelon-colored” tourmaline crystal from an abandoned mine, she accidentally smashed it “with one errant blow” and realized “that in one avaricious second I had carelessly destroyed an exquisite thing that had witnessed a third of Earth’s history” (128). I can’t help but think that this story serves as a microcosm of the macrocosmic planetary destruction in which humanity is currently engaged because our greed trumps (pun intended) our care for our planet. I wish that I could give a copy of the book to every climate denialist—but they probably wouldn’t break away from their misinformation platforms to read it.

Tom and Jo: We highly recommend this book to our Third Act members. If you don’t have an independent local bookshop in your area, we recommend that you shop through bookshop.org, which supports such bookshops.

The day after the inspiring Arch Street event, Bill McKibben joined over 50 Third Actors to canvass with the Environmental Voter Project. We gathered in West Philadelphia’s Clark Park where, under a statue of Charles Dickens, Bill gave a rousing speech about the importance of the upcoming election, beginning appropriately with the well-known opening line from Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times… .” Canvassing pairs set off through the streets of West Philly, and we ended up knocking on over 1600 doors and speaking to a wide variety of people over the course of several hours. Tellingly, in the middle of October, the temperatures were in the 80s, a sobering sign of the effects of catastrophic climate change. Despite the oppressive autumnal heat, however, we were heartened to talk to people motivated to vote, to see many signs supporting democracy and voting rights, and to be engaged with like-minded others in working for the good of the planet.

CBS News Climate Watch produced two videos of the Philly canvassing event.  Click the images below to watch the videos on Third Act PA’s Facebook page.

Speaking at Arch Street Meeting House on Oct. 20 to a crowd of Third Actors and our allies, McKibben said, “That’s a lot of pressure and a lot of burden to put on you all. But it’s also a great honor to be at that incredible place of power. To be superhuman.”

Also firing up the audience was Philadelphia Reverend and Councilman Nicolas O’Rourke, who emphasized that all the mailers and ads show how important Pennsylvanians are in this election: “If the path to the White House runs through Pennsylvania, what kind of impact could strong, strategic people-powered movements for climate justice do for our politics?”

Two Saint Joseph’s University students, both first-time voters, let us know they are counting on our help:  Mariana Arnabar, an immigrant from Mexico and marketing major in the Leadership, Ethics, and Organizational program, said we need to vote for the future we want to have. Nicole Bowen, an environmental studies major involved in the Laudato Si’ program, based on Pope Francis’s encyclical on the environment, has studied the university’s carbon footprint and highlighted the threats to our environment.

Musicians John Braxton, Burce Pollack-Johnson and Tom Hoffman – a member of our Democratize Energy campaign team – led us through some good ol’ protest songs. (From left in the photo, John and Tom.) The three musicians sang a climate version of the union-organizing favorite: “They say where Milton came ashore, there are no neutral souls. You’re either fighting climate change or a shill for oil and coal. Which side are you on? Which side are you on?”

McKibben, as part of his Silver Wave Tour, came to the Keystone State to fire up climate voters, including the silver-haired sort. The day after the event, he and about 50 Third Actors canvassed with the Environmental Voter Project. (See below.)

“There are 70 million of us over the age of 60 in this country,” McKibben said. “Not only are there a lot of us, we punch above our weight politically, because we all vote. There is no known way to stop old people from voting.”

Although political science experts insisted that people get more conservative with age, McKibben disagreed when he started Third Act. “Our First Act on this planet was during a period of remarkable social and cultural and political transformation” in the 60s and 70s, he said. Many of us protested for huge advances in women’s rights and civil rights and for environmental legislation – “all the things that Donald Trump is now working overtime to destroy.”

Now we are in an “extraordinary amount of trouble” because we haven’t heeded scientists’ warnings. Earth is seeing the hottest temperatures in at least 125,000 years, bringing calamities scientists warned of: drought, fires, deluges, flooding, and this fall, Milton and Helene. And not only in the United States, of course: In Libya, for example, a torrent of rain destroyed two huge dams, swept into a coastal city and “washed 10,000 people out to sea where they drowned in an hour,” McKibben said.

And yet the U.S. is responsible for most of the climate pollution. “This is not only the greatest practical problem that we have ever faced. It is the greatest moral problem that we have ever faced.”

Every ad he listened to on the drive from the airport was about how immigrants were coming to kill him. And yet, our heating planet will produce up to 3 billion climate refugees. “One human being in four will need to leave their homes because it was too hot or too wet” to grow food, he said.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says we need to cut emissions in half by 2030 to have any hope of meeting the caps in the 2016 Paris Agreement. “By my watch, 2030 is five years and three months away. The next president after this one will be inaugurated in January of 2029,” he said. “So, this is the last election that counts for that. Let’s just say that doesn’t give us much time.”

And the election is not the end either. “Politics doesn’t end as much as politics begins on Election Day,” McKibben said. “The point of having an election is to put in office people that you have some hope of being able to press to do the right thing,” such as the protests he organized to stop the Keystone Pipeline during the Obama administration.

On the plus side, we have the technology in hand. “We are now installing a nuclear power plant’s worth of solar panels about every 16 hours,” McKibben said. The International Energy Agency said that we need to increase by about 50 percent the pace of installing renewable energy. “That’s not easy. But it’s not impossible,” he said. “That’s not a kind of science fiction number. To do something 50 percent faster is within the realm of possibility. Look around a place like Pennsylvania. We’re not putting up renewable energy here as fast as we could.” Already, he said, California can supply all its electricity from renewable sources for long stretches, using solar and batteries.

The fossil fuel industry, he said, hates this plan. “The oil industry looks at that and thinks that’s the silliest business model there ever was, and they are determined to stop it, and that is why they are pouring money into this election in ways that they have never before.”

McKibben offered no guarantees – regarding the election or the climate fight.

“If we don’t win soon, then we do not win,” he said. “But we can win at least some extraordinary victories in this next little while. And the next little while for you all is between now and November 5th. So, darn it, get it done.”

Fire Weather, by John Vaillant, was  among the New York Times 10 Best Books for 2023 and was a National Book Award finalist. While not an easy read, it is a gripping page-turner and its accolades well-deserved. Fire Weather examines the utter devastation wrought by a massive climate-fueled wildfire that in 2016 destroyed most of the city of Fort McMurray in the province of Alberta, Canada.

Vaillant takes the reader through the history of colonization of Western Canada, from pelt trade to the development of the oil industry. Fort McMurray arose solely around the extraction and refinement of bitumen found within the oil sands. Bitumen forms the basis for a number of petroleum products, a sizable amount of which are imported to the United States. He provides a richly detailed deep dive into the role fire has played in human civilization. He also looks at fire behavior as though it were a living, breathing being–particularly as it pertains to wildfires, which are not uncommon in the boreal forest. Generally speaking, they go unnoticed. That is until they aren’t.

In the spring of 2016, conditions were exceptionally favorable for significant wildfire activity: well above-average temperatures combined with extremely dry vegetation, high winds and low humidity. A small fire not far from the city limits quickly grew into a raging inferno that would soon flank and overtake the city, rendering neighborhood after neighborhood unrecognizable. The fire was so intense that it created its own weather, generating a massive pyrocumulonimbus cloud and a rare fire tornado. It’s as if Vaillant were describing the horrid scenario of a low-yield nuclear blast. In some sense, it is an easy comparison, given the immense power of this force not of nature, but of man. This is a catastrophe born of the explosive growth of the fossil fuel industry with all its deleterious effects. Despite their valiant efforts to contain the massive blaze, firefighters became overwhelmed, and the focus shifted to saving the lives of some 88,000 desperate souls who were forced to flee in a matter of hours. Through the tireless efforts of first responders, and some luck, there was no loss of (human) life. The fire was not fully extinguished until August  2017.

Vaillant poignantly makes the case for how the fossil fuel industry is complicit in the ever-increasing threats from the climate crisis, boldly demonstrated in one of the continent’s worst wildfires. (Underscoring his point are the many record-setting costly and deadly wildfires in North America and beyond in recent years). He goes on to articulate all manner of efforts to change the dynamic as we face an ever-warming world. Powerful and timely, this is investigative literature at its finest.