BREAZE

Aric McBay, Lierre Kieth & Derrick Jensen, Deep Green Resistance: Strategy to save the planet

“Humans aren’t going to do anything in time to prevent the planet from being destroyed wholesale. Poor people are too preoccupied by primary emergencies, rich people benefit from the status quo, and the middle class (rich by global standards) are too obsessed with their own entitlements and the technological spectacle to do anything”; this is the pivotal premise to Deep Green Resistance, it is the crux to the authors’ entire thesis; so hold on to that thought [1].

During mid-2011 the Gillard/Labor government released their much anticipated carbon-tax bill, almost immediately the debate between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott (leader of the Liberal/Nationals Opposition) began to resemble a WWF wrestling bout: there was a total disconnect from reality, puffed chests, flamboyant phrases and choreographed conflict. What was missing was any rational or intelligent debate as why a price on carbon would halt any increase in the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, also guaranteeing and protecting the security of the coal industry for the next 50 years, and that fudged targets were to be met via the purchasing of offset credits overseas; such dissection was left to the frnge media.[2] No wonder the Victorian Premier has shown utter contempt for renewable energies, permitted the expansion of coal mines, and is generally “failing Victorians on climate change”. Many people may concur with Paul Ehrlich, who stated in an interview during a visit to Australia, that “unfortunately many politicians are idiots … you should not elect people like that to office, … (for they have) low I.Qs”.[3]

In light of the Australian ‘carbon-tax debate’ (sic), one of the central questions raised in Deep Green Resistance is: how should those truly and passionately concerned with the future of the planet respond to this type of behaviour; what levels of response are demanded of activists and the environmentally-aware; and what is to be done concerning the current coterie of political and financial leaders? A central contention of the book is that all “political and corporate leaders are interchangeable” and regardless of which individual/s are in charge “industrial capitalism and patriachy is skinning the planet alive” with the capacity for “making Earth unihabitable”.[4]

At the same as Labor and the Liberals were playing petty-political-point-scoring, Melbourne was hosting the ‘Four Degrees Conference’, where some of the world’s leading climate scientists were trying to raise their public voice, declaring that we can most certainly forget keeping climate change below 2OC – as politicians still espouse – and that civilisation needs to prepare for a much higher climate change. Media on this event was relegated to the middle pages of the broadsheet newspapers and latenight TV-news services.[5] McBay and his co-authors are genuinely distressed that the “Earth” is being systematically destroyed, that a “Climate Holocaust” has been set in moion where in excess of 200 species per day disappear into extinction, where 83% of the planet is under direct human interference.[6] In November 2011, the ‘Science’ journal published a peer-reviewed article elaborating on the forecast that global temperature increase will exceed two degrees; confirming that the claims made by McBay, Keith & Jensen are not far-fetched.[7]

The authors of Deep Green Resistance[8] demand that those who are sincerely concerned about climate change, and who understand the implications of an ineffectual response and unbridled climate change, need to objectively assess conventional modes of concepts of protest and consider instead notions of assertive, and even aggressive resistance. What makes this book relevant to Australians is the apparent lack of comprehension amongst politicians and business leaders concerning the very real dangers encompassed with rising temperatures and climate change. The authors’ response is that “we need to stop those killing this planet” and that ultimately the only recourse remaining will be a “direct confrontation with power because social convention, the concentration of power, and dominant economic systems all prevent the necessary changes”.[9]

There are three major contentions/issues raised in this book, all directed towards securing the “ultimate goal: a living planet, in recovery, more alive and more diverse year after year; equitable and sustainable communities that do not exploit the planet or each other”.[10]

The first discussion concludes that the current political and economic systems have failed the planet and nonhuman species, that existent democratic systems including public protest share the blame. Secondly, current efforts to avert further climate change are a miserable failure. Thirdly, there is an urgency to form cells – based on historical guerilla/militia models – to disrupt and ultimately bring about the collapse of the “destructive industrial civilization” before it is too late.[11]


Frustration with entrenched political leaders and the ‘democratic systems’ is not new, nor a revelation, and is ceratinly not confined to climate change. Ilan Pappe has articulated this succinctly, and whilst he is not addressing climate change his observations are pertinent: “the nature of politics, especially in the West, has been since the Second World War … evolutionary (and) not revolutionary. Sticking to formulas is thus in the nature of such political systems and unless catastrophe proves such formulas to be dead for all intents and purposes, political elites are not likely to deviate from them.”[12] McBay, Kieth & Jensen would concur with Pappe’s analysis; and in their hefty tome they examine the effectiveness of protest and resistance movements over the course of the twentieth century, and it is their conclusion that the time for conventional protest is over, because “systems of power are not swayed by moral exhortation”, and obviously, and regretably, “emissions have continued to rise in the face of environmental activism so far[13]”

Not only have politicians failed, so too has the eco-protest movement. This failure is two-fold: a failure in the attitudes and mindset of those opposing government in/action to fully comprehend what they are up against and what is at stake, and the absurd belief that necessary change will eventuate simply because people protest. The position enunciated by McBay etal, echoes a much earlier statement by Hunter S. Thompson, “the underlying assumption underlying any public protest – any public disagreement with the government – is that the men in charge of whatever you’re protesting about are actually listening, whether they later admit it or not, and that if you run your protest Right, it will likely make a difference. … The unspoken rationale behind all public protests is that our noise is getting through and that somebody in power is listening and hearing. in the end the very act of public protest is essentially optimistic and actually a demonstration of faith in the father figures who have the power to change things – once they could be made to see the light of reason.”[14] The authors of Deep Green Resistance do not dismiss the value of public protest, it is deemed to compliment a bigger two-part resistance: an above-ground and an underground, what they do query is the ability of public protest – assuming the message can be driven home to those who with power – to secure real change and accompanying decisive action in the very limited timeframe available. This is further exaxcerbated in the knowledge that the notion of establishing a sufficiently numerous and committed mass movement is indeed a fantasy, and to date, there is no evidence to indicate that governments are responding adequately to the concerns raised by conventional protests.[15]

Long prevelent amongst environmentalists is a failure to appreciate and understand the nature of power and the mindset of those who possess it and jealously safeguard what amounts to the theft of the democratic rights of the world’s majority; and whilst these few have instituted legislated and economic measures by which to secure their ‘priviledge’, environmentalists remain “content to use the same strategies when they are clearly not working” and believe that “the oppressive horrors perpetuated by those in power are mostly a misunderstanding, rather than interlocking systems of power”. The authors are harsh and uncompromising in their assessment of mainstream environmentalists, considering them as people of priviledge naïve to the ruthlessness and force that upholds, and is employed by those in power to ignore the rewards for unsustainability [16]

McBay writes that “those in power are so segregated from the rest of us socially, economically, culturally and physically”, but if this is true then so is the converse: that those in the environment movement are totally segregated from those in power; what we all share in common is our dependence upon the planet’s biomes, but even there there is severe divergence in attitudes.[17]


That the planet is in deep crisis, with the prospect of the collapse of ecosystems and biomes, underpins the author’s analyses and evaluations of every discussion within their book. Their conclusions concerning current efforts to confront climate change are tersely unfavourable. Lierre Kieth comments that “the word sustainable (has become) the “Praise, Jesus!’ of the eco-earnest”, that the word is now bandied about with repetitive tedium that it has altogether lost its pertinency, and whilst “the changing to compact flourescents may offer some relief from guilt” to consider that it has “any kind of meaningful solution is to ignore the nature of our predicament”.[18]

The Cuban agricultural revolution, that coincided with the collapse of the Soviet empire, receives a far from flattering review from Kieth, commenting that it has been a failure, that the health of Cubans has deteriorated due to malnutrition and a high carbohydrate diet resulting in increased blindness and a 30% obesity rate. She is also critical of some modern ‘alternative’ agricultural practices, citing that “every load of vegetables off the farm or out of the the garden is a transfer of minerals that must be replaced .. the fallacy with Biointensive/Biodynamic and Permaculture is that they all require outside inputs .. there is no way to have perpetual fertility and take a crop off and replace lost nutrients with the “leftovers” from the area under cultivation”; not that Lierre wants us to starve: restoration of grasslands and the produce they produce would sufficiently feed a sustainable population, although she cites no evidence to support the viability of this claim.[19]

Prominent Indian activist, Vandan Shiva has long berated the west for it stubborn adherence to, proselytisation of and preservation of its destructive consumerist culture, a term equivalent to “industrial civilization” as employed by McBay and his cohorts. In Soil Not Oil, Shiva wrote that, “Most of the discussions and negotiations on climate change have been restricted to the commercial mechanistic worldview and consumerist culture. Within this paradigm there are two dominant approaches: the approach of global business, especially the corporations that have promoted the fossil-fuel economy, and the approach of those seeking renewable alternatives to support and energy-intensive consumerist society”. Keith centres Shiva’s argument a little closer to home, accusing the climate change movement of clinging to their living standards as though they are sacrosanct, and in doing so permit the continuance of the status quo: “the priviledged doing the consumption seem content to accept a happy ever after world of wind, solar and recycled tote bags. And the powerful are pleased that no one is threatening their conversion of the last of the living biomes into their own private wealth”.[20]

According to the authors the urgency necessary to prevent a “Climate Holocaust” requires environmentalists and activists to adopt new strategies, the old strategies have permitted those who are aware of the problems to be ego-centric in their responses and naïve in their beliefs that “if you run your protest Right, it will likely make a difference” because someone in power will hear/listen/act; but no, for “if you love this planet it’s time to put away the distractions that have no potential to to stop this destruction: lifestyle adjustments, consumer choices, moral purity. And it’s time to put away the diversion of hope, the last, useless weapon of the desperate[21]”


Finally, larger environment organizations “don’t consider themselves to be resistance organizations; they identify strongly with those in power and with the culture that is destroying the planet. They keep trying to convince those in power to plese change, and it doesn’t work, and they fail to adjust their tactics accordingly”, the only legitimate and (potentially) effective response remaining is what the authors refer to as “Decisive Ecological Warfare (or DEW)”, and up until now the environmental movement has made a choice to “reject the possibility of serious resistance”. Considerably more than half of Deep Green Resistance is devoted to a discussion of the organisation, strategy and tactics of a green militia and its co-ordination and co-operation with aboveground climate action groups.[22]

There is a brief analysis of some of the major resistance groups of the twentieth century, arriving at their conclusion that “a small group of intelligent, dedicated and daring people can be extremely effective”; but because the authors analysis is cursory in nature it is also somewhat fallible; whilst they are certainly honest in declaring which resistance groups contributed to a successful outcome, and those that failed completely, there are some major questions to be raised about some that they refer to as succesful, and certainly debate over the authors’ reasons as to why those that completely failed did so.[23]

Deep Green Resistance shares some perceptions with Kumi Naidoo (Boiling Point), who agitated that environmental activists “too often accept, even celebrate, tiny victories as the best we can do”, and that “silence and timidity cannot be the answer”, but this is all they have in common; Naidoo advocates that it is possible and necessary to ‘change the system’, for McBay, Keith & Jensen the political/economic system is itself a destructive force that is totally redundant.[24]

Justification for resorting to aggressive measures, to nonviolent organising, “is not a pacifist attempt to convince the state of the error of its ways, but a vigorous, aggressive application of force”, one that is an obligation precipated by the violence that generations of economic and political leaders have inflicted on Earth. For individuals who are uneasy about resorting to aggressive resistance the authors assert that “no matter what you do, your hands will be blood red. If you participate in the global economy your hands are blood red”; yet, they are not so callous to insist that everyone join an environemtal militia cell, there is a need for individuals to operate in aboveground organisations. Above all, the authors warn that the existing power structures will respond forcefully when threatened and retaliate accordingly, they will be more eager to prevent their own extinction that they are the annihilation of over 200 species per day.[25]

What is gleaned from the above examples of classic resistance groups has been meshed with what the authors claim they have learnt from USA military training manuals and other do-it-yourself guides, these provide the foundation and the practicalities of conducting successful “Decisive Ecological Warfare”.[26] From this material they have established goals and strategies by which to wrest control of the planet’s future from those who choose to convert “the last of the living biomes into their own private wealth” by “skinning the planet alive”. The Immediate goals are: 1) “to disrupt and dismantle industrial civilization”; and 2) “to defend and rebuild just, sustainable, and autonomous human communities”. And that these goals will be achieved via following strategies: “direct militant actions against industrial infrastructure”, “aid and participate in ongoing social and ecological justice struggles”, “defend the planet from industrial exploitation”, “build, mobilize and train resistance cells”, and “rebuild a sustainable resistance base for human societies”. The authors merely discuss and delineate their philosophy on attitudes and preliminary means by which to foment resistance cells, this is far from any dissertation on modus oprandi, absent are any specific plans/recipes on how to actually bring down the infrastructure of industrial civilisation. What is acknowledged is that this struggle will need to be maintained for hundreds of years, if not longer.[27]

The current situation in Africa’s Niger River delta provides the authors of Deep Green Resistance with reasons to harbour optimism in the strategies they propose. For decades European-based oil companies have devastated and destroyed the river, the riparian environment and the neighbouring indigenous communities; recently the aggressive response by eco-activists the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta have reduced the oil output from this area by one-third, using tactics – including sabotage - and strategies advocated and endorsed by McBay and Co.[28]

This section of the book is less convincing than the authors’ analysis of the contemporay situation, they resort to the use of unfounded and unverifiable optimistic language, a language that dominates the second half of this book; one example is the use of the word “would” when discussing the consequences of particular action/s, there is no consideration or acknowledgement of the possibility that environmental resistance could fail miserably, of course from the authors perspective were nonviolent agression to fail then the planet is doomed. There is an assurance in their language that is unwarranted and detracts from the seriousness of the first section; for example: “this would set in motion”, and equivalents are used 30 times in two pages alone.[29]

With the election of Barak Obama as President (and Commander-in-Chief) of the USA there has been an increase in fully-armed and trained right-wing militia groups; the authors contend that there is every reason why this should be matched by the formation of environmental militia cells. Resorting to armed struggle and aggression bases Deep Green Resistance deeply within the wider context of American social and cultural history, it is SO American to resort to armed struggles, that violence is best countered by a more effective violence – the G.W. Bush strategy without the Bush lesson. In fact “since the second world war, the United States has crushed or subverted liberation movements in 20 countries, and attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, many of them democratic, and dropped bombs on 30 countries, and attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders”. The authors want to claim their position within this cultural legacy, based upon the premise that the existing civilisation needs to be dismantled before the planet is totally skinned alive.[30]

The ultimate importance of this volume to Australian readers is that it will challenge existing paradigms and social norms, and ask the unavoidable and disconcerting questions: how far are we prepared to go to ensure the continuance of a planet fit for human habitation? And how are we to respond considering the failure of our current traditional and ineffective forms of public protest? What the debate (sic) over the ‘carbon-tax’, and the denial of the scientific findings presented to the Four-Degrees Conference, has indicated is that the level of debate in Australia concerning climate change is far removed from what is necessary to guarantee a habitable planet and the continuance of as many species as possible. With only 1400 people controlling the world economy, one must wonder how seriously Australia’s political leaders are taken on the world stage, but what the authors of Deep Green Resistance want readers to realise is that “they (the powerful) have our wealth and we aim to take it back”[31].

(One of the frustrating aspects of this book is the absence of an index, which is ludicrous concerning the depth of details, the citations and size of this publication.)

Publishing Details: Seven Stories Press, 2011; 520 pages [plus ‘Notes & Bibliography’].
DGR Website deepgreenresistance.org/

©GraemeDrysdale-2011

endnotes
1 Deep Green Resistance, p. 438. (Hereafter referred to as DGR).
2 Particularly Ben Eltham - newmatilda.com/2011/07/14/black-hole-labors-carbon-tax - in New Matilda [http://newmatilda.com], and Frank Jotzo - www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/market-market - in Climate Spectator [http://www.climatespectator.com.au] . ABC – Q&A with the Prime Minister, 11th July; at 20min10sec & 24min30sec; www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3263582.htm.
For more: breaze.org.au/resources/breazeforum/8-ot...x-what-a-cop-out#819
3 Refer to a selection of contemporary articles:
Adam MORTON - State fudges carbon figures [Sept 2011],
www.theage.com.au/victoria/state-fudges-...-20110920-1kjmc.html
The Age - Editorial - Baillieu fails Victorians on climate change [Sept 2011]
www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/bail...-20110921-1kl50.html
Adam MORTON - Baillieu shuns green summit [Oct 2011]
www.theage.com.au/environment/conservati...-20111017-1lten.html
John FERGUSON - Baillieu government takes axe to solar tariffs [Sept 2011]
www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affair...frgczx-1226127670327
Adam MORTON – Baillieu’s wind-farm crackdown [Sept 2011]
www.theage.com.au/victoria/baillieus-win...-20110829-1jig4.html
ABC-TV – 7.30 Victoria – Concerns over coal mine expansion [Sept 2011]
www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-09/concerns-...ne-expansion/2879204
The Age – Speech signals that Bailliue will dump emissions target [Sept 2011]
www.theage.com.au/environment/speech-sig...1.html#ixzz3Hs3FQ15t
Paul Ehrlich Interview, SBS News, 1st Nov 2011, www.sbs.com.au/news/video/2163255476/Paul-Ehrlich-interview
4 DGR, pp. 35, 22 & 36.
5 Four Degrees Conference; www.fourdegrees2011.com.au/ . Some of the scant media garnered by this conference includes the following:
Jo CHANDLER – The end of the world is nigh? It’s just a matter of degrees, says one expert [July 2011]
www.theage.com.au/national/the-end-of-th...-20110712-1hcad.html
Jo CHANDLER – Australia faces prospect of being unable to feed itself [July 2011]
www.theage.com.au/environment/un-climate...-20110713-1hdyn.html
ABC – Lateline: Global warming will threaten food security: CSIRO, 11 July 2011,
www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2011/s3267079.htm
6 DGR, pp. 21, 13 & 53, 421, 425; there are consistent reminders throughout that 200 species are destroyed each day, eg. 189.
7 Tom ARUP, “Two degrees climate target slipping away”, The Age, Oct 2011;
www.theage.com.au/national/two-degree-cl...-20111023-1memx.html
8 DGR is a volume that is firmly grounded in Deep Ecology - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_ecology, its authors have long associations with the USA components of this movement.
9 DGR, pp. 59, 94 & 50; cf 57, 239, 246, 306, 441/2, 425.
10 DGR, pp.441/2.
11 DGR, pp. 59, 93, 94.
12 Ilan PAPPE, “Blueprint for a one-state movement” in Gaza In Crisis: reflections on Israel’s war against the Palestinians, Hamish Hamilton, 2010.
www.nahostfrieden.ch/pdf/Pappe-Blueprint...State%20Movement.pdf
13 DGR, p.106, 453.
14 Hunter S THOMPSON, Kingdom Of Fear [2003], with particular reference to the Democratic Conference in Chicago, USA in 1968; immortalised in the Graham Nash tune ‘Chicago’, www.musicsonglyrics.com/chicago-lyrics-graham-nash.html.
15 DGR, pp. 258, 167.
16 DGR, pp. 186, 374, 375.
17 DGR, p. 246.
18 DGR, pp. 25, 56
19 DGR, p. 487, 483-486. Office of Global Analysis, “Cuba’s food and agriculture situation report’. March 2008. www.fas.usda.gov/itp/cuba/CubaSituation308.pdf.
20 Vandana SHIVA, Soil Not Oil: environmental justice in an age of climate crisis, (South End Press, 2008), p.4, and 16 & 130. DGR, p.193.
21 DGR, p. 239.
22 DGR, pp. 181, 410 & 279-520.
23 DGR, pp. 469-472. Groups analysed, with the competancy of a sole paragraph, include: French Resistance during WW2, the Irish Republican Army, the Iraqi insurgency, the African National Congress (whilst deemed to be successful no examination is made as to what extent Mandela rejected his communist principles in order to swap racist apartheid for economic apartheid), Weather Underground, Black Panthers, British Suffragettes, amongst others. Passing reference is made to the Cuban support of the Congolese resistance in the 1960s (DGR, p. 263), but conveniently ignored is the very first sentence in Guevara’s African diaries, that his book “is the history of a failure”; Ernesto “Che” Guevara, The African Dream: diaries of the revolutionary war in the Congo, (Harvill-Panther, 2000), p. 1.
24 Kumi NAIDOO, Boiling Point: Can citizen action save the world?, Development Dialogue 54, July 2010, pp.39, 52 & 121. www.dhf.uu.se/publications/development-d...tion-save-the-world/
25 DGR, pp. 356, 422 & 420.
26 DGR, pp. 345 – 474. Amongst the references cited are: US Army, Special Forces Operations [FM 31-21]; US Army, Operations [FM 3-0]; C.B. STRAIN, Pure Fire: a self-defense on activism in civil rights; Security Culture, A Handbook For Activists; Office of Strategic Services, Simple Sabotage Field Manual, Washington DC, 1944.; R.A. PAPE, Bombing To Win: air power and coercion in war. Ithaca, NY: Cornell, 1996.
27 DGR, pp.441-42, 458.
Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, mendnigerdelta.com/; see also Wikipedia,en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movement_for_the_E..._of_the_Niger_Delta.
28 DGR, pp. 433-34.
29 DGR, p. 489. John PILGER, “Hail to the true victors of Rupert’s revolution”, 9th Sept 2011; www.zcommunications.org/hail-to-the-true...tion-by-john-pilger.
30 DGR, p. 501.

image of what to look for