Law enforcement agencies across the country are worried that environmental thrillers How to blow up a pipe will inspire real attacks on fossil fuel infrastructure.
Twenty-three different state and federal agencies sent at least 35 dispatches about the film, according to government documents obtained by Rolling Stone.
“The film has the potential to inspire those who threaten to attack oil and gas infrastructure with explosives or other destructive devices,” April 6 newsletter from the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate of the FBI said.
“The consensus among law enforcement agencies and the private oil sector is that this film could spur attacks or disrupt critical infrastructure across the country,” warned from ATF added.
Although the agencies did not warn of a specific threat, the plot of the film, about a group of young activists trying to sabotage an oil pipeline in Texas, clearly caused they must be vigilant.
Daniel Goldhaber, who directed the film, said Rolling Stone The film is “a work of fiction that addresses one of the most pressing real-world problems by telling the story of eight characters who believe the destruction of an oil pipeline is an act of self-defense. The fact that audiences are so closely connected to it only demonstrates the seriousness of the climate crisis and reinforces our urgent need to tackle it.”
How to blow up a pipe based on the 2021 book of the same name by Andreas Malm, a Swedish professor of human ecology and climate activist.
The book is not a literal guide to attacking oil pipelines, but rather an argument that the urgency of the climate crisis requires direct destruction of fuel infrastructure. fossil because governments have not heeded grassroots calls for more peace on climate action.
“To say that the signals have reached the ears of the ruling classes of this world would be an overstatement. If these classes ever had any senses, they have lost everything,” he wrote in the book.
Infrastructure attacks have occurred in recent months.
The vandalism of four power plants in Washington state left thousands without power in December, while substations in North Carolina and Oregon were also hit.
