WS: Palingenetic meaning a rebirth of the nation, the white nation, which is perceived to be at a crisis point?ĪM: Exactly. We modify it a bit and add this palindefensive component, which seems to be more what the far right is doing these days.

WS: You take pains in the book to avoid any frivolous or simplistic use of the term “fascism.” So how do you define fossil fascism?ĪM: It builds on the very influential definition of fascism proposed by Roger Griffin, and the idea of palingenetic ultranationalism. Perhaps the most devastating example is Brazil, with the destruction of the Amazon by Bolsonaro-which is not to minimize what Trump achieved during his four years in office, or for that matter the Polish right-wing regime, or the Norwegian right-wing petroleum policy. We’re not saying that this is only a potential danger in the future, but that the prefiguration of something like fossil fascism, the early trends in that direction, have already caused tremendous damage, including to the climate system and other types of ecosystems.

It would seem, then, that an urgent question, too rarely posed, is what a truly antifascist climate politics would look like. It’s been said before: The only thing worse than climate catastrophe is climate catastrophe plus fascism. The sudden U-turn on climate under the Biden administration, however refreshing, does little to address the threat of a growing reactionary movement-an alliance of fossil capital and neo-fascist white nationalism. It all feels frighteningly relevant to our American situation given the violent radicalization of the Republican Party base.

Exposing the connections between fossil-fuel industry denial and obstruction and the recently surging white-nationalist far right in Europe, the United States, and Brazil, the book goes on to trace the historical roots of “fossil fascism”-a term Malm credits to Virginia Tech political scientist Cara Daggett-back to British coal-powered imperialism and the European fascist movements and regimes of the 20th century. While that much shorter volume is a sort of manifesto addressing the climate movement (in which Malm is a longtime participant), this new book is the result of a significant research project in collaboration with the Zetkin Collective, an international group of scholars centered around the Lund University department of human ecology. Malm and I spoke last December about How to Blow Up a Pipeline (a far more nuanced book than the somewhat alarming title might suggest).

Fossil capital by andreas malm