A sociology of “climatage”: the appeal and counterproductivity of property destruction as a climate change strategy

ABSTRACT

Calls for the use of property destruction as a climate change strategy are understandable given social conditions that make such ‘climatage’ appealing, including the chronic failure of institutions to address climate change and the widespread sense that these institutions are illegitimate and will continue to fail to act (post-legitimacy); the inability of atomized individuals to successfully transform the forces driving climate change (real helplessness); the virtualization of politics into inconsequential moralism (hyper-politics); and widespread despair about the environmental crisis and future of the world. Despite the appeal, property destruction as a climate change strategy will likely prove counterproductive for at least three reasons, deduced from research on social movements: (1) property destruction will likely decrease public support for climate activists and climate policy, (2) property destruction will almost certainly increase state repression, a fight that climate activists will likely lose, and (3) alternative tactics that do not involve property destruction will likely prove more effective. In addition to our pragmatic intervention, we make a theoretical contribution to our understanding of social movements and strategy.

KEYWORDS:

• Malm
• industrial sabotage
• hyper-politics
• state repression
• public support
• social movements
• eco-extremism
• ecotage

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Social Research Workshop at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville for helpful feedback on an earlier development of this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The axiological and consequentialist questions overlap, of course. The case for property destruction on moral grounds implicitly assumes that property destruction will be effective. There are good reasons to predict that this is a misleading assumption, as stressed in this paper.

2. Though bombing buildings and infrastructure without maiming or killing humans is easier said than done (see Sovacool and Dunlap 2022, 12).

3. This is especially difficult for climate activists because many are advocating for a livable future and a more ecocentric perspective when presentism and anthropocentrism are the norm.

4. The general aim is to, of course, weaken and destabilize movements perceived as threats. Thus, agent provocateurs attempt to remove important activists and cast suspicion on the credibility of sincere central activists (for recent case, see Aaronson 2023). This indirectly points to an additional reason why climate activists should avoid the appeal of property destruction. Only the most committed climate activists will consider participating in climatage and, if caught and prosecuted, these committed activists may be imprisoned, where they are less capable of contributing to the movement.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ryan Gunderson

Ryan Gunderson, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Gerontology and Affiliate of the Institute for the Environment and Sustainability at Miami University. His research interests include environmental sociology, the sociology of technology, social theory, political economy, and animal studies.

William Charles

William Charles, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Gerontology at Miami University. His research interests include economic and organizational sociology, sociology of work, social movements, and social theory.