Survival Strategy

"You will read this book as the flames of a burning world come ever closer, and you will just about make out a path to survival, and you will marvel at the beauty and power of David M. Hughes' argument and feel the renewed pull of the militant climate activism he knows so well, and you will get cracking. There is no other way." - Andreas Malm, author of How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight in a World on Fire

"This book is a bold and passionate call for insurrectionary climate politics. Providing a sobering assessment of its risks and opportunities, Hughes has no easy solutions on offer but plenty of uncomfortable truths. He urges us to confront the continued failures of the climate movement and come to terms with the strategies and alliances needed to euthanize the fossil fuel industry. As the clouds darken around us, this book could not come at a better time." - Wim Carton, co-author of The Long Heat: Climate Politics when it's Too Late

"After two decades of relentless organizing, politics- and activism-as-usual have failed to overcome the forces driving the planet toward irreversible climate catastrophe. Something riskier, even desperate, may be required to break the death-grip of fossil capital. With Survival Strategy, Hughes eloquently engages us in a provocative, radical, and eminently reasonable thought experiment, one that might prove eminently useful, too, as climate breakdown accelerates. The dangers of what he advocates are all too real—but by no means more dangerous than allowing fossil fuels to keep burning. Read this book, grapple with it, argue with it, throw it across the room. But read it." - Wen Stephenson, climate justice correspondent for The Nation and author of Learning to Live in the Dark: Essays in a Time of Catastrophe

"This is a serious and important intervention. I applaud Hughes for his willingness to make a 'speculative' argument, the kind anathema to most social scientists. The climate movement needs more strategic proposals like this one, bold and creative yet grounded in empirical research. As polluters drive us further into catastrophe, the climate movement needs to experiment with new approaches. This book is a provocative and thoughtful proposal for one strategy that could bear fruit. I hope it reaches organizers, activists, lawyers, and anyone who wants to preserve a habitable Earth." - Kevin Young, author of Abolishing Fossil Fuels: Lessons from Movements That Won

"What should we do as fossil capitalists destroy our lifeworld? In a daring departure from accepted wisdom, Survival Strategy argues that the climate movement needs to begin more aggressive strategies of sabotaging planet-destroying fossil infrastructure. Survival Strategy identifies a specific tool, jury nullification, that could make climate sabotage into an effective strategy to deploy as part of broader political campaigns in parts of the country where climate breakdown is likely to make large numbers of people sympathetic to such acts. The book is a forceful exploration of how climate justice movements should move forward in the cataclysmic present and near future." - Ashley Young, author of Environmentalism from Below: How Global People's Movements Are Leading the Fight for Our Planet