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.