The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Fighting a world on fire with fire

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Sean Illing talks with climate scholar Andreas Malm about his book How to Blow Up A Pipeline. They discuss the failure of decades of protests and appeals to curb the actions of the fossil fuel industry. And they explore why, despite dire evidence like the increasingly common scourge of wildfires and disastrous weather events, the climate change movement hasn't moved beyond peaceful protest — and why Malm argues the time for escalation is now.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), Interviews Writer, Vox

Guest: Andreas Malm, associate professor, Lund University

References: 

  • How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire by Andreas Malm (Verso; 2021)
  • "Uganda, Tanzania, oil firms sign accords to build $3.5 billion pipeline" by Elias Biryabarema (Reuters; Apr. 11)
  • "The Energy Future Needs Cleaner Batteries" by Drake Bennett (Bloomberg; Sept. 23)
  • "Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition" by Rupert Way, Matthew Ives, Penny Mealy, and J. Doyne Farmer (INET Oxford Working Paper No. 2021-01; Sept. 14)
  • "Fossilised Capital: Price and Profit in the Energy Transition" by Brett Christophers (New Political Economy; May 12)
  • The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (Hachette; 2020)
  • "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Albert Camus (1942)


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    This episode was made by: 

    • Producer: Erikk Geannikis
    • Editor: Amy Drozdowska
    • Deputy Editorial Director, Vox Talk: Amber Hall

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