Militant Climate Manifesto Calls for Sabotage of Industrial Civilization
Executive Summary
On August 15, 2025, the anarchist platform Act for Freedom Now! published a manifesto titled Message to the Climate Movement that sharply criticizes mainstream climate activism for failing to reduce emissions and argues instead for direct attacks on infrastructure and “industrial civilization itself.” The text praises past acts of sabotage against railways, power grids, and airports, dismisses reforms such as the “green transition” as capitalist expansion, and urges decentralized, clandestine escalation. While framed as ideological critique, it advocates militant tactics that overlap with known extremist activity.
Key Judgments
Key Judgment 1
The manifesto portrays the climate movement as a failure due to reliance on lobbying and public visibility, and promotes sabotage as the only viable strategy.
Evidence: It states that mainstream groups like Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future merely “lobby politicians,” and insists that “the only realistic response to the climate crisis is to attack industrial civilisation.”
Key Judgment 2
Past infrastructure disruptions are valorized as inspiration, potentially normalizing sabotage and arson as legitimate tactics within radical climate circles.
Evidence: The text cites the 2023 Hamburg rail sabotage, the 2024 Berlin-area Tesla Gigafactory arson, and a May 2025 French power plant blackout, presenting them as models of effective action.
Key Judgment 3
The manifesto rejects renewable energy transitions as “a massive lie,” framing green technologies as further ecological devastation, thus channeling disillusionment toward destructive rather than reformist pathways.
Evidence: It argues wind, solar, and battery industries depend on mining and land expansion, and labels them extensions of the “megachmachine.”
Analysis
The publication marks another articulation of militant eco-anarchist strategy, seeking to distinguish itself from mass climate movements by advocating underground, high-impact sabotage. Its argument rests on the claim that conventional activism has failed to slow emissions, and that political or technological solutions are structurally impossible under capitalism.
By citing specific past sabotage incidents across Europe, the text functions both as ideological justification and implicit encouragement of replication. The rejection of “Green Transition” narratives underscores an ongoing radical critique of renewable energy and “net zero” frameworks, a theme increasingly prominent in eco-extremist discourse.
While such manifestos do not always translate into immediate operational activity, they serve to radicalize disaffected activists by reframing despair at climate inaction into justification for clandestine militancy. The blending of historical sabotage case studies with prescriptive language (“shutting down the power stations, airports, motorways, and factories”) may make it particularly resonant among individuals already sympathetic to direct action.
