Readings: 
1. C. Bonneuil and J Fressoz, “Thanatocene: Power and Ecocide,” 122-147.
2. Naomi Klein, “Decade Zero: One Way or Another, Everything Changes,” and “The Leap Years: Just Enough Time for Impossible.” in This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. New York: Simon and Schuster. 2014. 1-28.
3. A. Malm, How to Blow Up a Pipeline: Learning to Fight a World on Fire. London: Verso, 2021.
QUESTIONS: Remember to cite specific page numbers in your answers. No quotations or outside sources are permitted. Work independently. Avoid plagiarism. Check you Turnitin similarity score.
Question #1 (Total for Q.#1 including a and b: 500 words)
Bonneuil and Fressoz argue (130), “By learning to kill humans in an efficient fashion, the military have also learned to kill living things in general.”
a) How did WWII prepare the technological framework for mass consumption society? Discuss, with specific reference to:
i) fishing capacity and expensive equipment, and
ii) gas warfare industry conversion to pesticides and herbicides.
b) How have artificial fertilizers disturbed the natural biogeochemical cycle of nitrogen on a global scale? How did agriculture fertilization work prior to the late 1900s in the UK?
Question #2 (Total for Q.#2 including a, b, and c: 500 words)
a) What, according to Klein, is the significance of 2 degrees Celsius and 4 degrees Celsius of  warming? 
b) Sufficient technological solutions are available, but underemployed. Andreas Malm and Naomi Klein 
agree that the capitalist world-economy operates “in fundamental disconnect from the sense and science of a planet on fire” thwarting sufficient climate action. Explain, with proper citation of readings.
c) Provide a brief analysis of Malm’s central argument, and discuss its social, political and economic implications.
Question #3 (Total for Q.#3 including a, b, c, d, and e: 500 words)
a) What is “Lanchester’s paradox”? 
b) Why do you think there is a general deficit of action in response to climate breakdown? 
c) According to Malm, did Gandhi resist all forms of violence? Explain, with reference to Malm’s specific arguments (properly cited). 
d) Does Malm believe there is a phase beyond peaceful protest? Argue for or against the use of violence (that avoids human casualties), using Malm’s discussion as a basis of your argument, citing page numbers from his book. 
e) Citing his examples (and specific page numbers), explain Malm’s distinction between luxury and subsistence emissions. Do you think luxury emissions should be classified as a crime? Why or why not? Explain, citing Malm’s specific examples to illustrate your answer.
• Dog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bHoLsU_W14
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaRW4Dwu86k
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSpglxHTJVM
Discourses
Structured ways of thinking. Widely accepted reference
points
Some ideas will come to seem like commonsense, while
others are marginalized as deviant or unimportant.
They coexist, compete, and can become obsolete.
The question of whether a discourse is true or false is less important
than whether it is effective in practice.
When it is effective, it is called a regime of truth.
Facts can be perceived in different ways. Language (discourse) has real
effects in practice.
Normalizing discourses
• Dominant discourses inform what we have come to see as self-evidently
true about how “normal” it is to be
• We may be “free to choose” alternatives, but will find ourselves having to
defend our position
How
much
is one
billion
• Consumes flesh
• “If I wasn’t meant to
eat meat, then I
wouldn’t have these
canine teeth!”
Andreas Malm
Fossil fuel combustion is the major cause
of global warming
Our choice to drive cars, for example, has
been normalized over time, such that other,
once possible forms have been
marginalized and exclude – prevented from
being a real choice.
This is “Carbon lock-in” a normalization of
fossil-fuel based technologies, deflecting
alternatives and obstructing policies of
climate change mitigation.
In the Heat of the Past: Towards a History of the Fossil
Economy,” in Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and
the Roots of Global Warming.London: Verso, 2016. pp. 1-19.
Greenhouse
gases
Dangerous greenhouse gases in
Earth’s atmosphere include CO2
(carbon dioxide), methane, nitrous
oxide and ozone.
Immediate global action is needed cut
emissions to zero and begin repair
and regeneration – we need to
radically reorient human economic
production (Malm, 141).
“Even under optimistic assumptions
the pathways to a tolerable future are
narrowing.” Malm, 66
• “The northern zone of permafrost is a
subterranean storehouse of carbon frozen
for hundreds of thousands of years. As
this soil thaws microbes set to work on
the organic matter and decompose it
releasing CO2 but mainly methane a g
with 87 times the greater warming effect
during the first two decades in the
atmosphere, now accelerating beyond the
predictions. Forest fires release carbon
locked in trees. If the thawing
permafrost and the proliferating wildfires
that were accounted for there would be
even less of a margin to stay below
1.5C.” Malm, p. 66.
• If current emission rates continue, global
warming will surpass 2.0 °C (3.6 °F)
by 2040 or earlier, and this is a level
scientists say is dangerous. ~
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC)
What are fossil fuels?
Fossil fuels — coal, oil, and gas — lie at the heart of the
interconnected crises we face, including climate change,
racial injustice, and public health. Each stage of the fossil fuel
life cycle — extraction, processing, transport, and
combustion — generates toxic air and water pollution, as well
as greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions that drive the global
climate crisis.
Environmental racism
Historical and present-day injustices have both left black, indigenous and people-of-colour
communities exposed to far greater environmental health hazards than white communities –
Veronica Mulenga
The public health risks from climate breakdown (including air and water pollution fall
disproportionately on Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor communities. Systemic racism is
deeply intertwined with the fossil-capitalism. The costs of biospheric damage – such as
placements of oil refineries by those actively protecting and promoting continued production of
fossil fuels—are too often borne by communities of color.
Black communities in the US are resisting coal power stations and chemical plants in their
communities. Increased exposure is exacerbated by insufficient access to healthcare, legal costs,
and political power. A 2021 map of US exposure to coal ash production shows that “nationwide,
the burden of coal ash pollution is carried disproportionately by communities of colour and lowincome communities”. See the map here: https://earthjustice.org/feature/coal-ash-contaminatedsites-map
Fossil fuel racism involves the disproportionate and racialized effects of climate change, fossil
fuel extraction, transportation, processing, and consumption on Black, Brown, Indigenous and
poor populations (Donaghy et al, 2023).
How can we collectively challenge this?
Zambia
•
•
•
People of colour across the Global South are most adversely affected by climate breakdown
even though their carbon footprints are comparatively low.
Zambia demonstrates this. Average carbon footprints are very low, less than one tenth of the
UK average. But the country is on the frontlines of climate breakdown. In 2021 a prolonged
drought resulted in crop failure and left more than one million people food insecure. Climate
scientist Mulako Kabisa observes that, “Zambia has been experiencing the negative impact
of climate variability and change for the last three decades …The biggest impact has been
increased temperature and reduced rainfall, resulting in climate shocks that include droughts
and floods.”
“Droughts in particular have led to livelihood loss for the smallholder-dominated agricultural
sector, because production is dependent on availability of adequate rain …The production
season will shift, and drought incidents will be more frequent.”
See Jeremy Williams, “Why climate change is inherently racist” 26 January 2022. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220125-why-climate-change-is-inherentlyracist#
“Mitigating climate breakdown and ending
fossil fuel racism require political and policy
solutions that disrupt the power and actions of
the fossil fuel industry and their state allies.” ~
(Donaghy et al, 2023).
How can we pressure the state to do this?
What would Malm suggest?
See Timothy Q. Donaghy, Noel Healy, Charles Y. Jiang, Colette Pichon Battle,
“Fossil fuel racism in the United States: How phasing out coal, oil, and gas can protect communities,”
Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 100, 2023.
Most of us can more easily envision
the end of the world than the end of
capitalism, even knowing that
market forces are largely responsible
for climate change.
Capitalist governments, prioritizing
free market economic growth and
protection of private property,
continue to avoid effective
environmental protection requiring
radical action, even though it risks
vast destruction of life.
Anthropocene or Anthropocene: overlooks the 1% who
cause the most —and actually profit
Capitalocene? from—climate change.
In 2017, eight people owned as much
wealth as half of humanity, and they have
a GIANT carbon footprint!
Why is the term
ANTHROPOCENE
problematic?
The emissions of the wealthiest 1% are
two thousand times more than those of the
world’s poorest; their carbon footprint is
175 times that of the poorest 10%. One
tenth of the global population accounts
for 50% of current emissions, and half the
population accounts for one tenth.
The more fossil fuels we
burn, the faster the climate
continues to change
The total costs of addressing rising temperatures will increase by
2027 – to $360 billion annually, which will eat up almost 55
percent of the expected economic growth in the U.S.
Cumulative emissions
The rise in temperature on earth is a function
of cumulative emissions since the time of the
steam engine; the more emitted, the hotter it
gets. Malm, 89.
Science confirms humans have no biological
requirement for animal products
In virtually every respect, the human anatomy resembles that of
herbivorous animals (such as the gorilla and the elephant) more than
that of carnivorous and omnivorous species.
Your Canine Teeth
Don’t Make You A
Meat-Eater: The Hippo
Most mammals, including herbivores like the
hippo, have canine teeth.
Largest canine teeth of any land mammal
belong to the hippopotamus.
Hippos are extremely territorial and aggressive;
their sword-like canines, which can reach sixteen
inches in length, are used for combat and play no
role in feeding.
Diet: grass.
Almost exclusively
herbivorous.
Mountain gorillas: foliage
(leaves, stems, pith, and
shoots), and occasional fruit.
Lowland gorillas eat more
fruit. Also eat leaves and pith,
and sometimes, tiny ants or
termites.
Sabre-toothed deer
Musk deer – forested
mountains of Southern Asia.
They use elongated canine
teeth in territorial disputes.
Diet: leaves, flowers,
grasses, mosses and lichens.
Gelada baboon
Geladas are the only primates
who primarily eat grass –
grass blades make up to 90%
of their diet. The rest consists
of flowers, rhizomes, roots,
herbs, small plants, fruits,
creepers, bushes and thistles.
Insects are eaten, but rarely.
Geladas use their sharp, twoinch canines to attack
potential predators.
CAMEL
Herbivores. Lifespan
averages 40 years.
Diet: foliage: dry grasses
and desert vegetation —
thorny plants.
Sharp canine teeth in both
the upper and lower jaws
enable them to crush
woody plants for food.
JAVELINA
The Javelina (deserts of southwestern
U.S., Central and South America): cousin
of the pig.
Diet (primarily herbivorous): agave,
mesquite beans, prickly pear, roots, tubers,
nuts, and other fruits and vegetation.
Their spear-like canine teeth are used for
self defense, and to shred cactus pads, a
primary source of nourishment.
Comparative anatomy of carnivores,
omnivores, herbivores
•.
• “[M]ammalian arnivores and omnivores – anatomy for killing and tearing apart
prey.” ~ S. F. Colb
• Wide mouth opening relative to head size
• Simple jaw joint that operates as a stable hinge for effective slicing (not for side-toside chewing)
• Dagger-like teeth spaced apart – meat doesn’t get stuck in their teeth!
• Sharp claws.
• Huge stomachs that enable gorging (one kill/ week).
• Very low gastric pH (stomachs are very acidic). This helps break down/digest
concentrated protein and protects them against dangerous bacteria that infiltrates
decaying meat.
Herbivores
• fleshy lips, small mouth, thick, muscular tongue, mobile jaw joint for
chewing, crushing, and grinding. No sharp claws.
• Smaller stomach ? regular, smaller portions: plant based diet. Higher pH –
less acidic. Food poisoning from the illness-causing bacteria in rotting flesh
that easily survive in our stomachs. Plants lack dangerous bacteria.
• Small intestines of herbivores are long — time-consuming breakdown of
carbohydrates
• Unlike carnivores and omnivores, we have long small intestines, enabling
complex carbohydrates digestion, a process that begins in our mouths, where
we, like herbivores, have carbohydrate-digesting enzymes.
Andreas Malm
Fossil fuel combustion is the major cause
of global warming
Our choice to drive cars, for example, has
been normalized over time, such that other,
once possible forms have been
marginalized and exclude – prevented from
being a real choice.
This is “Carbon lock-in” a normalization of
fossil-fuel based technologies, deflecting
alternatives and obstructing policies of
climate change mitigation.
In the Heat of the Past: Towards a History of the Fossil
Economy,” in Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and
the Roots of Global Warming.London: Verso, 2016. pp. 1-19.
Greenhouse
gases
Dangerous greenhouse gases in
Earth’s atmosphere include CO2
(carbon dioxide), methane, nitrous
oxide and ozone.
Immediate global action is needed cut
emissions to zero and begin repair
and regeneration – we need to
radically reorient human economic
production (Malm, 141).
“Even under optimistic assumptions
the pathways to a tolerable future are
narrowing.” Malm, 66
• “The northern zone of permafrost is a
subterranean storehouse of carbon frozen
for hundreds of thousands of years. As
this soil thaws microbes set to work on
the organic matter and decompose it
releasing CO2 but mainly methane a g
with 87 times the greater warming effect
during the first two decades in the
atmosphere, now accelerating beyond the
predictions. Forest fires release carbon
locked in trees. If the thawing
permafrost and the proliferating wildfires
that were accounted for there would be
even less of a margin to stay below
1.5C.” Malm, p. 66.
• If current emission rates continue, global
warming will surpass 2.0 °C (3.6 °F)
by 2040 or earlier, and this is a level
scientists say is dangerous. ~
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC)
What are fossil fuels?
Fossil fuels — coal, oil, and gas — lie at the heart of the
interconnected crises we face, including climate change,
racial injustice, and public health. Each stage of the fossil fuel
life cycle — extraction, processing, transport, and
combustion — generates toxic air and water pollution, as well
as greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions that drive the global
climate crisis.
Environmental racism
Historical and present-day injustices have both left black, indigenous and people-of-colour
communities exposed to far greater environmental health hazards than white communities –
Veronica Mulenga
The public health risks from climate breakdown (including air and water pollution fall
disproportionately on Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor communities. Systemic racism is
deeply intertwined with the fossil-capitalism. The costs of biospheric damage – such as
placements of oil refineries by those actively protecting and promoting continued production of
fossil fuels—are too often borne by communities of color.
Black communities in the US are resisting coal power stations and chemical plants in their
communities. Increased exposure is exacerbated by insufficient access to healthcare, legal costs,
and political power. A 2021 map of US exposure to coal ash production shows that “nationwide,
the burden of coal ash pollution is carried disproportionately by communities of colour and lowincome communities”. See the map here: https://earthjustice.org/feature/coal-ash-contaminatedsites-map
Fossil fuel racism involves the disproportionate and racialized effects of climate change, fossil
fuel extraction, transportation, processing, and consumption on Black, Brown, Indigenous and
poor populations (Donaghy et al, 2023).
How can we collectively challenge this?
Zambia
•
•
•
People of colour across the Global South are most adversely affected by climate breakdown
even though their carbon footprints are comparatively low.
Zambia demonstrates this. Average carbon footprints are very low, less than one tenth of the
UK average. But the country is on the frontlines of climate breakdown. In 2021 a prolonged
drought resulted in crop failure and left more than one million people food insecure. Climate
scientist Mulako Kabisa observes that, “Zambia has been experiencing the negative impact
of climate variability and change for the last three decades …The biggest impact has been
increased temperature and reduced rainfall, resulting in climate shocks that include droughts
and floods.”
“Droughts in particular have led to livelihood loss for the smallholder-dominated agricultural
sector, because production is dependent on availability of adequate rain …The production
season will shift, and drought incidents will be more frequent.”
See Jeremy Williams, “Why climate change is inherently racist” 26 January 2022. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220125-why-climate-change-is-inherentlyracist#
“Mitigating climate breakdown and ending
fossil fuel racism require political and policy
solutions that disrupt the power and actions of
the fossil fuel industry and their state allies.” ~
(Donaghy et al, 2023).
How can we pressure the state to do this?
What would Malm suggest?
See Timothy Q. Donaghy, Noel Healy, Charles Y. Jiang, Colette Pichon Battle,
“Fossil fuel racism in the United States: How phasing out coal, oil, and gas can protect communities,”
Energy Research & Social Science, Volume 100, 2023.
Most of us can more easily envision
the end of the world than the end of
capitalism, even knowing that
market forces are largely responsible
for climate change.
Capitalist governments, prioritizing
free market economic growth and
protection of private property,
continue to avoid effective
environmental protection requiring
radical action, even though it risks
vast destruction of life.
Anthropocene or Anthropocene: overlooks the 1% who
cause the most —and actually profit
Capitalocene? from—climate change.
In 2017, eight people owned as much
wealth as half of humanity, and they have
a GIANT carbon footprint!
Why is the term
ANTHROPOCENE
problematic?
The emissions of the wealthiest 1% are
two thousand times more than those of the
world’s poorest; their carbon footprint is
175 times that of the poorest 10%. One
tenth of the global population accounts
for 50% of current emissions, and half the
population accounts for one tenth.
The more fossil fuels we
burn, the faster the climate
continues to change
The total costs of addressing rising temperatures will increase by
2027 – to $360 billion annually, which will eat up almost 55
percent of the expected economic growth in the U.S.
Cumulative emissions
The rise in temperature on earth is a function
of cumulative emissions since the time of the
steam engine; the more emitted, the hotter it
gets. Malm, 89.
Population
900 million in 1800 to 7.8 billion in 2020.
We consume 1.5 times what the planet can
sustainably produce on a sustainable basis.
Right now we are overshooting Earth’s
carrying capacity by a crushing 64% each year,
in terms of our resource use and greenhouse
gas emissions.
“Our economic system and our planetary system
are now at war, and it’s not the laws of nature that
can be changed.” ~ N. Klein
Protest vs. resistance
• A protest is a public expression of disapproval. Protesters may organize a
protest as a way of publicly making their opinions heard; to influence
government policy. Protests can politicize people/public opinion.
• Direct action is economic and political behavior in which participants use
•
economic or physical power to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is
to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a government’s laws or actions) or
to solve perceived problems (such as social inequality). Direct action may be
nonviolent or violent. It sometimes targets institutions, actions, or property.
Nonviolent direct action includes civil disobedience and strikes.
Resistance: strikes, boycotts and occupations, and the creation of parallel
institutions of government.
Politicians
discussing global
warming
Sculpture in Berlin
by Isaac Cordal
Capitalism = ecological disaster
• Capitalism must expand at an ever-increasing rate or go into
crisis
• Evolution: this trait is not found in nature. Any such creature
would quickly go extinct as maladaptive.
• A. Malm: Expropriation of the wealth of the world’s
wealthiest one to ten percent would be an efficacious climate
policy because it would reduce emissions by one half, and
would additionally finance a global transition to green tech
several times over.
1991 Philippines Mount
Pinatubo eruption
Lanchester’s paradox
“In the world of climate activism, there exists a stifling
inaction on the part of all people. A general inability to rally
for change afflicts not just activists, but the everyday people
as the climate worsens over time.” Andreas coins the term,
Lanchester’s Paradox to express his confusion as to why
nobody is reinforcing direct action over climate change.”
~ R. Walters, 2023.
https://rtwalter.medium.com/theory-practice-blog-2-andreas-malms-lanchester-s-paradox-and-the-inflation-reduction-act64a82aa698ba
Feasible policies
1. Dismantle the meat industry
2. Ban new facilities for oil, natural gas or coal extraction, and closure of
existing plants
3. Wind and solar power for electricity, as well as road and sea travel
4. Expansion of mass public transit, including intercontinental high-speed
trains and subways.
5. End the expansion of airports, rationing remaining flights until ff air travel
can be technologically replaced.
6. Promote local supplies over transported food
7. Insulate old buildings; require zero-carbon power in new construction
8. Large scale reforestation; protection of tropical forests.
9. Massive government investment in green technologies.
Degrowth
• “Degrowth” – coined to signify a deliberate political
action to downscale the economy on a permanent and
voluntary basis.
• The eventual reduction of all available resources will lead
to a forced reduction in consumption. Controlled
reduction of consumption would reduce the trauma of
this change assuming no technological changes increase
the planet’s carrying capacity.
Degrowth
• A paradigmatic re-ordering of values, and a
(re)politicisation of the economy
• The resources of between three and eight planet
Earths would be required for those in the
Global South to enjoy the living standards
typical in the Global North
• Good news from Malm
Protest vs. resistance
“Protest is when I say I don’t like this.
Resistance is when I put an end to what I don’t
like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along
with this anymore. Resistance is when I make
sure everybody else stops going along too.”
(see Malm, 70)
• Dog https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bHoLsU_W14
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaRW4Dwu86k
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSpglxHTJVM
Discourses
Structured ways of thinking. Widely accepted reference
points
Some ideas will come to seem like commonsense, while
others are marginalized as deviant or unimportant.
They coexist, compete, and can become obsolete.
The question of whether a discourse is true or false is less important
than whether it is effective in practice.
When it is effective, it is called a regime of truth.
Facts can be perceived in different ways. Language (discourse) has real
effects in practice.
Normalizing discourses
• Dominant discourses inform what we have come to see as self-evidently
true about how “normal” it is to be
• We may be “free to choose” alternatives, but will find ourselves having to
defend our position
How
much
is one
billion
• Consumes flesh
• “If I wasn’t meant to
eat meat, then I
wouldn’t have these
canine teeth!”