WHY WOULD A 4 YEAR OLD WANT TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE?

How do you communicate with your kids about climate?… 

Well, yeah. Both of them have watched the film, “How to Blow Up a Pipeline.”

Generally we teach kids that violence or breaking people’s things is bad. Do you feel you can honestly give your kids the same message?

 I hope that I communicate through my parenting that generally you shouldn’t break things. But I hope that they get the impression that I consider there to be exceptions to this rule. 

My 4-year-old, for instance... he would be on the lookout for S.U.V.s. He knows these are the bad cars. I think they have an awareness of the tactic of deflating S.U.V. tires.

Is there not a risk that smashing things would cause a backlash that would actually impede progress on climate? 

I fundamentally disagree with the idea that there is progress happening and that we might ruin it by escalating

EARLIER EXCERPTS FROM  ANDREAS MALM'S NYTIMES INTERVIEW:

It’s hard for me to think of a realm outside of climate where mainstream publications would be engaging with someone, like you, who advocates political violence. Why are people open to this conversation? 

If you know something about the climate crisis, this means that you are aware of the desperation that people feel... the logic of the situation fundamentally drives this conversation: All attempts to rein in this problem have failed miserably. Which means that, virtually by definition, we have to try something more than we’ve tried.

I know you’re saying historically this is not the case, but it’s hard to think that deaths don’t become inevitable if there is more sabotage. 

Sure, if you have a thousand pipeline explosions per year, if it takes on that extreme scale. But we are some distance from that, unfortunately.

Don’t say “unfortunately.”...