Abolishing Fossil Fuels - Lessons from Movements That Won

"Climate destruction is a problem of political power. We have the resources for a green transition, but how can we neutralize the influence of Exxon and Shell? Abolishing Fossil Fuels argues that the climate movement has started to turn the tide against fossil fuels, just too gradually. The movement's partial victories show us how the industry can be further undermined and eventually abolished. Activists have been most successful when they've targeted the industry's enablers: the banks, insurers, and big investors that finance its operations, the companies and universities that purchase fossil fuels, and the regulators and judges who make life-and-death rulings about pipelines, power plants, and drilling sites. This approach has jeopardized investor confidence in fossil fuels, leading the industry to lash out in increasingly desperate ways. The fossil fuel industry's financial and legal enablers are also its Achilles heel. The most powerful movements in US history succeeded in similar ways. The book also includes an in-depth analysis of four classic victories: the abolition of slavery, battles for workers' rights in the 1930s, Black freedom struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, and the fight for clean air. Those movements inflicted costs on economic elites through strikes, boycotts, and other mass disruption. They forced some sectors of the ruling class to confront others, which paved the way for victory. Electing and pressuring politicians was rarely the movements' primary focus. Rather, gains in the electoral and legislative realms were usually the byproducts of great upsurges in the fields, factories, and streets. Those historic movements show that it's very possible to defeat capitalist sectors that may seem invulnerable. They also show us how it can be done. They offer lessons for building a multiracial, working-class climate movement that can win a global green transition that's both rapid and equitable"--

List of contents

Introduction
Part I: Breaking the Fossil Fuel Chokehold
Chapter 1: “We Provide the Products on Which Society Depends”: The Industry’s Power of Obstruction
Chapter 2: “The Risk Is Us”: How Movements Have Begun to Turn the Tide
Part II: Learning from Other Movements
Chapter 3: “A Measure of Necessity”: The Abolition of Slavery
Chapter 4: “Behaving as Though Management Is the Enemy”: Workers Defeat the Auto Industry
Chapter 5: “The Boycott Road to Rights”: A Forgotten Weapon against White Supremacists (and Climate Criminals)
Chapter 6: “Continued Operation Has Become Intolerable”: Confronting Air Polluters
Conclusion: Building the Climate Movement We Need
Suggested Resources
Acknowledgments
Index

About the author

Kevin Young teaches history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He has published several other books, including Levers of Power: How the 1% Rules and What the 99% Can Do About It (with Tarun Banerjee and Michael Schwartz) and the edited volume Making the Revolution: Histories of the Latin American Left.

Summary

Climate destruction is a problem of political power.
We have the resources for a green transition, but how can we neutralize the influence of Exxon and Shell? Abolishing Fossil Fuels
argues that the climate movement has started to turn the tide against
fossil fuels, just too gradually. The movement’s partial victories show
us how the industry can be further undermined and eventually abolished.
Activists have been most successful when they’ve targeted the industry’s
enablers: the banks, insurers, and big investors that finance its
operations, the companies and universities that purchase fossil fuels,
and the regulators and judges who make life-and-death rulings about
pipelines, power plants, and drilling sites. This approach has
jeopardized investor confidence in fossil fuels, leading the industry to
lash out in increasingly desperate ways. The fossil fuel industry’s
financial and legal enablers are also its Achilles heel.
The most
powerful movements in US history succeeded in similar ways. The book
also includes an in-depth analysis of four classic victories: the
abolition of slavery, battles for workers’ rights in the 1930s, Black
freedom struggles of the 1950s and 1960s, and the fight for clean air.
Those movements inflicted costs on economic elites through strikes,
boycotts, and other mass disruption. They forced some sectors of the
ruling class to confront others, which paved the way for victory.
Electing and pressuring politicians was rarely the movements’ primary
focus. Rather, gains in the electoral and legislative realms were
usually the byproducts of great upsurges in the fields, factories, and
streets.
Those historic movements show that it’s very possible to
defeat capitalist sectors that may seem invulnerable. They also show us
how it can be done. They offer lessons for building a multiracial,
working-class climate movement that can win a global green transition
that’s both rapid and equitable.

Product details

• Authors: Kevin A. Young, Young Kevin A.
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 16.04.2024
• EAN: 9798887440330
• ISBN: 979-8-8874403-3-0
• Series: Spectre
• Subjects: Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Nature / Environmental Conservation & Protection, HISTORY / United States / 21st Century, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Environmental Policy, HISTORY / United States / 20th Century