A sociology of “climatage”: the appeal and counterproductivity of property destruction as a climate change strategy

ABSTRACT Calls for the use of property destruction as a climate change strategy are understandable given social conditions that make such ‘climatage’ appealing, including the chronic failure of institutions to address climate change and the widespread sense that these institutions are illegitimate and will continue to fail to act (post-legitimacy); the inability of atomized individuals to successfully transform the forces driving climate change (real helplessness); the virtualization of politics into inconsequential moralism (hyper-politics); and widespread despair about the environmental crisis and future of the world. Despite the appeal, property destruction as a climate change strategy will likely prove counterproductive for at least three reasons, deduced from research on social movements: (1) property destruction will likely decrease public support for climate activists and climate policy, (2) property destruction will almost certainly increase state repression, a fight that climate activists will likely lose, and (3) alternative tactics that do not involve property destruction will likely prove more effective. In addition to our pragmatic intervention, we make a theoretical contribution to our understanding of social movements and strategy.