"Universal suicide": An imprisoned climate activist on why the fight for the planet still matters

Many people don’t need something as dramatic as Hurricane Milton to tell them our climate is spiraling out of control. It’s evident everywhere, from the U.K. recently reporting its second worst harvest on record to Antarctica turning green to the U.S. spending $150 billion a year on climate change-related extreme weather events.

But this isn’t some mysterious crisis. We know fossil fuel companies are responsible for the emissions heating the globe. But instead of fixing it, these corporations have lied to the public, bribed politicians and sowed distrust in science. Meanwhile, governments are giving more money than ever to fossil fuel companies via subsidies, with a record $7 trillion cashed out to Big Oil in 2022.

Some climate activist groups would like to bring your attention to this issue. But they are often arrested and get the book thrown at them when they demonstrate. Climate activist Roger Hallam knows this all too well, as he serves a five-year prison sentence for blocking traffic — and, as he explained to Salon, his plight is a warning to Americans who vote for politicians that deny climate science.

Hallam, who described himself as a political prisoner, was incarcerated for his role in leading and participating in an anti-climate change demonstration in November 2022. For four days, Hallam and more than three dozen other activists climbed a gantry and thereby blocked traffic in London’s critically important M25 motorway.

Hallam, who co-founded the climate activist groups Just Stop Oil and Extinction Rebellion, was given his sentence in July while his fellow activists Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin were each given four year sentences. They were all denied the right to speak about climate science during their trials.

Now when Roger Hallam speaks to the outside world, he must do so in 500 word spurts. That is the word limit in the primitive email system with which Hallam is hooked up to the rest of the world. While the British legal system has not silenced him, they have undoubtedly made it extremely inconvenient for him to spread his message of climate activism to the world.

When he spoke with Salon, Hallam didn’t want to dwell on his personal situation. He is well-read on American history, comparing his own plight to that of the anti-Vietnam War protesters who were arrested for allegedly starting riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. With such history in mind, Hallam had a warning for the American public: He believes the rest of the world is relying on America to lead. If we go the way of politicians, like those who incarcerated Hallam and his friends, we will lead the planet in the worst possible direction. As he bluntly put it, “It's not a cause. The end of the world is not a cause. It's a total disaster. It is the end of civilization.”

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

First, I want to talk about the length of your sentence. I compare it to the sentence that Eugene Debs, the leader of the American Railway Union, received in 1894 for shutting down America's railway system during a strike. He received a six-month sentence. You received a five-year sentence for what was comparatively a much lighter transportation disruption, what you did to the M25. My question is, why do you think your sentence was so severe?

I suppose the obvious at the outset is Just Stop Oil has been the biggest climate resistance campaign in the U.K. for several years. It's done many, many confrontations with the British regime, as you might say. Hundreds of people have already been put in prison. New legislation came in an attempt to stop this “agitation.” And for that reason, they started giving people three, four, five year sentences. It's really a matter of attrition, as you might say, over the next few years until we finally push these regimes into some sort of shape or replace them.

You may have heard that right-wing politicians like former president Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis are censoring and banning mention of climate change in government documents while also banning the teaching of it in schools. Do you see a connection between these political attempts to stifle climate change awareness and what you are experiencing by being incarcerated?

Again, it’s quite understandable in a way, because if we are going to decarbonize to the extent that is objectively necessary to prevent social breakdown in the coming two decades, then we are inevitably the heart of the catalyst system, broadly defined. And we all know that if you substantially challenge the powers that be, then they'll use all available means to respond to that: Repression, manipulate the public sphere so it doesn't get talked about or doesn't get mentioned.

Co-Founder of Just Stop Oil Roger Hallam (L), Mike Lynch-White (C) and Dr. Larch Maxey (R) pose for photographs outside Isleworth Crown Court ahead of their sentencing on charges of causing a public nuisance during environmental protests, on April 05, 2024 in London, England. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)Of course, it should be added the phrase “climate change” itself is the sort of phrase which was dreamed up by PR advisors to fossil fuel companies. It distracts us from what's really going on, which is the extraction of resources by the global elites, and the global elites are involved in a universal suicide project for humankind. We don't need to talk about the climate, we don't need to talk about change. What we need to talk about is power and criminality and evil. What we're talking about is a death project, and that's what we should call it.

It's interesting that you referred to Trump and DeSantis as global elites because they and people like them try to flip it and claim that those who acknowledge climate science is real are the true global elites. Are you familiar with that conspiracy theory?

Yes, this is the usual routine of right wing populism, isn't it? It is to take on the language of the left and as a sort of smokescreen for the continued extraction of power and resources for the billionaire class. It's nothing unusual either.

I think the important point here is the failure of the left to connect with working classes around the Western world and promote their concerns and recognize their situations rather than continuing to complain to each other in various university-educated intellectual silos, as you might say. So we've only got ourselves to blame really. And people have been making this point, as I'm sure you know, for a good 10 or 20 years now. Trump is the consequence of us not talking to the working class.

As far as I'm concerned, [we need] to create assembly movements, for instance, that reconnect with local communities and empower those communities to get what they really want, which is acknowledgement and real democratic power. We don't provide opportunities, and then they all go to fascist rhetoric like they are doing all across the Western world at the moment.

What relationship does Big Oil have with controlling democracies in the Western world?

Well, I think the way that democracies are controlled is a much bigger situation than simply oil. That said, of course, we can say the fossil fuel company has a massive structural power, and that's no doubt the case. However, that's not the real problem here. The real problem is the very structure of what we call democracy, which enables elites to interfere before elections, during elections and after elections, because we have a representational voting system. That, as you know, evolved in the U.S. after the War of Independence to exclude the common people from participation in the political process and to favor and support the elites.

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So we've never had proper democracy, [even] going back to ancient Athens and such. Instead, it’s actually people being selected randomly by sortition that say that the powers that be cannot interfere with who actually gets the rule, and ordinary people do not rule rather than people selected by political parties.

Given the extremity of the crisis we're in, we're not in some run of the mill “democracy versus the elites” situation. What we're in is a complete crisis of the whole basis of how we make decisions, and the short-termism and the irrationality and immorality of those decisions. And that's a function of, of how we actually make those decisions. So there's a lot of things [that] need to be done, and this is something that needs to be thought about, not least of course in the United States, where as everyone knows the process is completely set up by the elites.

Do you suspect that the United States will start imprisoning people who speak out against climate change, much as you've been imprisoned? Do you think that if Trump and his people win, that is a possibility?

I don't think we should fear the act of resistance in the sense that the powers that be will put people in prison. I think there's a tendency to do that.

Some people have done that; there are people that are in prison in the U.K. We're not in prison because we want to complain about being in prison. Being in prison is part of the process. Political change always has needed to strategically focus on: How do we increase our own power in the face of that oppression? And that's to do with how we frame things, not in a defeatist way of, “Oh, isn't it terrible they've done this, so we should all be suffering?” What we should be saying is “Good, they're imprisoning people. Good, it means they're on the back foot.”

How do we increase our power? How do we enable communities to gather together in assemblies and connect with the big objective struggles that we see over the next 10 years over inequality, over the climate and such? That's the work that we should be doing. And I think the radical media should be focusing practically on pathways towards creating mass movements, which we miserably failed to do over the last 20 or 30 years. Sustainable organizations, a bit like what happened before the neoliberal period with the unions, with the civil rights struggles, where there were proper structures, proper leadership, functional hierarchies. We haven't got time to just be miserable.

What is inevitable? Obviously, I can only speak for myself, but I certainly know that people in the U.K. would like to make that clear as well. We don't want to be put on a pedestal. We want the people that listen to this to look at the literature, get together, make smart collective decisions, and actually create. Not the least to say in America, where whatever we do in the rest of the world, if America comes up with Trump… that’s unfortunate, with that. But you see what I'm trying to say.

I see your point. Some people feel like it's too late to do anything about the climate. We're doomed, so why do anything at all? What are your thoughts on this point of view?

What I'd say to that is, you don't exist to do what you want in life, right? That's a neoliberal reactionary perspective: If it's not worth it, I'm not going to do it. That's how capitalists think. If you want to think in terms of the great traditions of solidarity, the Indigenous wisdom of will, it's not about you thinking about you, it is about what you can actually be proud of. When we come to the end of this life, then we're going to resist because it's right to resist. And I can tell you without a shadow of doubt, the main determinant of the success of social struggle is when people resist because it's the right thing to do, not because they're trying to work out whether they get a return on their investment.

The worst elements of neoliberal accountancy culture think that, “I'm not going to go to a demonstration because it's not worth it.” Do your duty, you know? All those people that died in past generations, they didn't die in the past for you to go, ‘What the hell? It's not worth it anymore because you're all going to die.”

There's nothing more obscene. And this is the problem that we promote this utilitarian “me first” sort of attitude on the left, and we've just been colonized by the right wing ways of thinking. What we need to do is connect with our traditions and the glory of going out and saying, “No way! Not on my shift! Over my dead body!” That's the glorious thing about what we're doing. It's enjoying our life, living our life, and living our life counts. Not trying to make calculations on whether we're going to be successful, you know? That's ridiculous.

Many people look up to you as a hero for the sacrifice you've made for the cause of raising awareness about climate change. Are there any moments from your life that are particularly inspiring, which you can share that might help people?

I don’t want to say this to try to get ideological brownie points, but the fact of the matter is there's nothing enormously brave about me, right? In every prison, there are hundreds of guys who are total heroes because of the life that they've had to put up with and the injustices that they've had to deal with. And I'm not saying that because they're all great guys, right? Obviously many of them have done objectively really bad things.

But the point is, the whole of life is an act of heroism. You know you're going to be dead at some point. It's difficult. Life is difficult for everyone, so obviously, the cool thing to do is to resist. You get to prison. It's nice for people to support you, don't get me wrong, but we can't lionize people being in prison. They're doing the job that we need to do. Everyone needs to do their job.

Extinction Rebellion co-founder Roger Hallam seen at a demonstration. (Andres Pantoja/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)Obviously people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, all that sort of stuff. What I feel inspired by are the amazing people who put their egos behind them and act in service. Every organization has its problems, but it is a wonderful organization to be in. What it shows is, if we do come together in that sense of humility and service, we can create large scale organizations, and that's what we need. We need to inspire each other rather than have some big guy in history that thinks “Great!”

Obviously, it's great to know there've been great guys in history and wonderful people in various resistance struggles. There's no question about that. But I would invite people to be inspired by each other and just those little things we do for each other to help each other out, turn up on the day. These are crappy jobs that no one gets their support for, taking people from police stations, dealing with conflicts. All these things are the real moments.

What are your feelings on drastic attempts to reduce climate change like carbon capture and proposals to block out the sun?

There's no question that there is a need for earth repair like investments and geo-engineering because we're in an objective situation. Nature is not a political construction. If you have cancer, you go to surgery or you die — it's not like you can complain about that sort of thing. And information as I understand it — and if I'm wrong, I'm more than happy to be wrong — we’re heating the atmosphere 30 times faster than any point in the last five, six billion years of history and have passed the point of no return in terms of many of the tipping points.

I know I'm into the details, people presumably know them. So when new regimes emerge over 10, 20 years, they will be required to work together and invest in technologies that remove carbon from the atmosphere or put mirrors up. It's not really my patch to say what should happen. I think the key thing is there's a time limit and everyone has to totally dedicate their lives to overturning the regimes that are taking us to extinction.

Let's not delude ourselves, we're looking at human extinction, the death of eight billion people, and there's no way that people will be able to survive in anything like an increase of 5º centigrade. That's what I'm trying to say, and that's what we're heading for. When new regimes are in power, then if you really need to do geoengineering, we're going to do it. And my understanding is, we'll need to do it.

You said at one point that you presume people understand the science. I don't presume that they understand the science. In fact, my observation is that many people deny the climate science. They believe whatever is politically convenient. What do you do to make change in society when millions of people stand in the way because politicians like Trump deny the science?

Just to clarify, what I'm saying is most of your audience, which obviously doesn't cover everyone in America, so I totally agree with you. Obviously in many countries, and particularly in America, there are people who, for one reason or another, deny the realities that we face. There is a long answer to that question, so I just summarized the key points. Number one is, we need to stop calling it science. The word science is a word which puts many people off associated with power and the power to oppress ordinary people.

We need to talk about what's going to happen or say what the reality is. That's one thing. The second thing is, we need to obviously give people the information, but no one's interested in information unless it's connected to emotion and values and confrontation. In other words, we need to say, what does it mean to betray your children, your community?

And our children did public talks, and it's that part of the talk where people start coming around. They need to know the situation and they need to know what it is to be the person they are at this point in history and what it is to be responsible. They're responsible adults and all the rest of it. No one is going to give a flying [inaudible] basically until there's much resistance.

Critical change definitely doesn't happen for giving information when you're dealing with entrenched power. That's the first rule of critical theory, right? It just doesn't happen. Martin Luther King Jr. said that, he said that every resistance movement knows that there's got to be a resistance in order to make change. And you need to be able to reach out to your oppositions and talk in their language and say, what are you doing? I have no problems talking to right-wing populist people. Republican Americans? Bring them on, because I know what I'll say, which is why are you standing by and allowing America to be destroyed?

You see what I mean? This is not a “rich versus the poor” thing. Ultimately, it is the rich committing suicide, killing us first, and then killing themselves. That's what the reality is.

During your trial, when you tried to present information about climate science to the jury, you were stifled. Do you believe there is something symbolically significant in terms of how people in general who speak out against those entrenched powers face risk of being stifled and even imprisoned? Do you feel that this is, in a sense, a cautionary tale?

It's part of the system of creating change, which is to speak truths to power that are meant to be dragged out of court. The main takeaway is you just need to do it right. It took people in the U.K. like two or three years to start challenging the judges. That's what we need to do and that's what we need to do all around the world.

Whenever someone says something true that isn't relevant in court, then we need to interrupt that person and say, "That's simply not the case." And then when they tell us to shut up, we say, "I'm not shutting up because it's my legal and moral and patriotic right." To actually speak to the judge, and then you talk over the judge and then the police come in and bug you out. Like "The Trial of the Chicago Seven," you know at a certain point the system has no legitimacy anymore.