Recent studies confirm that unchecked climate change is disrupting oceanic systems at an unprecedented scale. The Arctic, warming nearly four times faster than the global average, is a bellwether for planetary collapse. As Carlo warns, the convergence of ocean circulation breakdown and toxic algal blooms could render Earth uninhabitable for most mammals, leaving only the ultra-rich in artificial bunkers—a dystopia where sensory deprivation replaces lived experience. This article verifies his arguments, synthesising climate science, critiques of anarcho-capitalism, and democratic reform proposals to avert systemic collapse.

The climate science foundation

The Arctic’s sea ice loss—12.2% per decade since 1979—exemplifies climate feedback loops. Ice reflects sunlight (albedo effect), but its retreat exposes dark ocean waters that absorb nine times more heat, accelerating Arctic amplification . This destabilises the jet stream, triggering extreme weather in mid-latitudes, such as prolonged droughts and intensified storms.

The 2025 Arctic sea ice maximum was the lowest recorded, with the Greenland Ice Sheet nearing irreversible disintegration at 1.5–2.2°C of warming. Thawing permafrost releases methane, a greenhouse gas 84 times more potent than CO₂ over 20 years, further accelerating warming.

Warming, acidifying oceans are exacerbating HABs, which have expanded poleward since the 1980s due to marine heatwaves and nutrient runoff . The IPCC attributes these blooms to “high confidence” linkages with climate change, noting their devastation of fisheries, tourism, and human health. For instance, algal toxins poison shellfish, disrupting food chains and risking mass starvation in coastal communities.

Anarcho-capitalism as an accelerant

Anarcho-capitalism—a system privileging privatised governance and stateless markets—fails to address climate externalities. The Arctic exemplifies this: melting ice has spurred oil and mineral extraction, yet thawing permafrost is rendering infrastructure unusable, creating a cycle of sunk costs and ecological ruin. For example, Russia’s Yamal LNG project faces escalating risks from ground instability, yet corporations prioritise short-term profits over long-term viability.

Climate mitigation requires enforceable global coordination, but anarcho-capitalist frameworks reject regulatory oversight. Fossil fuel firms socialise costs (e.g., BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill) while privatising profits, with lobbying thwarting policies like carbon pricing. The 2025 Arctic ice minimum coincided with record fossil fuel subsidies (€6.2 trillion globally in 2024), highlighting systemic hypocrisy.

Democratic reforms for survival

The “30x30 Initiative”—protecting 30% of oceans by 2030—demonstrates democratic efficacy. In Norway, Indigenous Sámi communities co-manage marine reserves, blending traditional knowledge with science to curb overfishing. Such models prove equitable policy boosts public compliance; carbon taxes with revenue redistribution enjoy 68% support where fairness is prioritised.

Antitrust measures and fossil fuel divestment are critical. The UK’s 2024 Climate and Ecology Bill, mandating corporate carbon audits, mirrors successful EU policies that reduced emissions 23% since 2005. Meanwhile, Iceland’s prosecution of oil executives for ecocide sets a legal precedent for accountability.

Those bunkers for the elite?

The elite’s retreat to fortified enclaves—like Elon Musk’s proposed Mars colonies—ignores biodiversity’s role in mental health. A longitudinal study in Tel Aviv observed that during COVID-19 lockdowns—when access to nature was significantly reduced—participants living in the least green neighborhoods showed notable declines in well-being, particularly in personal and social domains, rendering a screen-bound existence unsustainable.

Bunkers depend on external supply chains.

A ResearchGate study analyzed the 2021 Ever Given blockage, showing that it held up approximately USD 15–17 billion of goods and triggered cascading disruptions across multiple industries due to “panicked rerouting and port congestion”.

Via Medica’s analysis on the incident confirms that the canal obstruction caused shortages of essential medicines and medical supplies, demonstrating how critical healthcare systems—supposedly insulated against disruption—are in fact fragile.

Bunkers relying on complex global supply chains—whether for pharmaceuticals or microchips—are fundamentally unsustainable in the face of major logistical disruptions.

A call to leash and rebuild (change from within)

The IPCC’s “now or never” warning underscores the urgency of dismantling systems that prioritise profit over planetary survival. To avoid Carlo’s dystopia of ecological and sensory impoverishment, ordinary Europeans can take concrete steps.

Join or initiate citizens’ assemblies

The Global Citizens’ Assembly for People and Planet, launching at COP30, is to provide a structured way to influence policy beyond electoral cycles.

The Global Citizens’ Assembly site is the main hub. It presents itself as the home for global and community-level assemblies, with mention of the People and Planet focus and alignment with COP processes like COP30. However, it seems to represent the model and vision rather than a single, already-convened Global Citizens’ Assembly for People and Planet. The assembly appears to be in the mobilisation or design phase, not convened yet. The design intends to replicate previous national “successes”.

In the French Citizens’ Convention for Climate, held in 2019–2020, 150 French citizens were brought together in the Citizens’ Convention for Climate to design policy recommendations—including strategies for a 40% emissions cut by 2030—with social equity as a guiding principle. 149 policy proposals were developed by the randomly-selected citizens. The government initially committed to adopt all but three but ultimately diluted most of them. Notably, A constitutional amendment to guarantee biodiversity preservation was proposed but refused and never submitted for a referendum.

While there was no single consolidated “climate law” passed from the UK’s first national citizens’ assembly on climate, the Assembly’s ‘Path to Net Zero’ report influenced parliamentary debates and shaped evidence considered by select committees. Many proposals were referenced in legislation and policy discussions in the years afterward.

In short, citizen assemblies can generate rigorous, actionable policy proposals; Few proposals are adopted exactly as drafted; Political and business pressure routinely dilutes bold measures. Nonetheless, assemblies often move public discourse, nudge legislators and plant seeds for future action.

Demand that local councils establish legally binding climate assemblies, not just advisory ones. For those facing council resistance, independent assemblies with legal backing can pressure authorities into action.

Demand climate-literate governance

Advocate for urban planning that prioritises people over cars. Push for 15-minute cities, expanded cycling infrastructure, and renaturalised urban spaces—all proven to reduce emissions while improving quality of life. The IPCC highlights that such policies are most effective when integrated into long-term zoning laws, rather than treated as temporary experiments.

Divest and boycott with precision

Move personal banking and pensions away from institutions funding fossil fuel expansion. Ethical banks, such as Triodos or local credit unions, offer fossil-free alternatives. For collective impact, join campaigns pressuring universities, municipalities, and religious institutions to divest. While the 2024 Hague Court of Appeal overturned the specific 45% emissions reduction order for Shell, it affirmed that corporations have a duty of care to combat climate change under human rights law.

Support ecocide legislation

Vanuatu’s 2024 proposal to criminalise environmental destruction at the International Criminal Court marks a turning point. Europeans can lobby their governments to endorse this, citing the 72% global public support for ecocide laws. Legal recognition of ecocide would force corporations to weigh profits against criminal liability—a deterrent currently lacking in environmental law.

Adopt low-carbon lifestyles with community leverage

Individual actions matter, but their impact multiplies when communities act together. Energy cooperatives, such as those in Germany and Denmark, allow citizens to collectively own renewable energy projects, cutting emissions while reducing energy poverty.

These cooperative models directly cut emissions by accelerating renewables uptake—Denmark achieves upwards of 54% electricity from renewable sources, supported by citizen ownership.

They also have a significant social impact—by providing local ownership and dividends, they help reduce energy poverty, allowing lower-income households to benefit financially from energy generation.

Similarly, plant-based food initiatives in schools and workplaces can normalise sustainable diets without relying on individual willpower alone.

Combat energy poverty through policy

Advocate for universal access to renewables, ensuring green transitions do not leave vulnerable households behind. Policies like subsidised home insulation and public energy grids reduce both emissions and inequality. The IPCC notes that energy poverty exacerbates climate vulnerability—making this a moral and practical imperative.

Join or support climate-focused NGOs

Organisations like ClientEarth and Friends of the Earth combine legal action, policy advocacy, and public campaigns to force systemic change. Support them through donations, volunteering, or participating in their campaigns. Alternatives are offered by the EUCOMMEET platform facilitating cross-border climate dialogues and countering polarisation.

Use digital tools for corporate accountability

Platforms like Carbon Tracker and OpenSecrets allow citizens to monitor corporate emissions and political lobbying in real time. Share these findings publicly to pressure laggards—social media scrutiny has forced many firms to improve environmental policies.

Advocate for the “30x30” initiative

The goal to protect 30% of land and oceans by 2030 is scientifically backed and gaining political traction. Support campaigns to expand protected areas, particularly those managed with Indigenous leadership.

In Scandinavia, Indigenous Sámi communities have been (and are) actively involved in conservation efforts. For instance, the Sámi have collaborated with researchers to restore spawning grounds in rivers affected by forestry activities. Additionally, the Laponia World Heritage Site, located in traditional Sámi territories, operates under a governance model that includes a Sámi majority board, reflecting their leadership in conservation.

Avoid tokenistic conservation—true protection requires banning extractive industries, not just drawing lines on maps.

Engage in local rewilding responsibly

Urban greening projects, such as community gardens and wetland restoration, enhance biodiversity while cooling cities. If reintroducing species like beavers, ensure robust community consultation and habitat assessments to prevent conflicts. Rewilding must prioritise animal welfare and long-term ecological balance, not just short-term symbolism.

Support climate litigation NGOs

Despite clear scientific urgency to cut emissions rapidly, many courts hesitate to enforce strict, legally binding targets due to respect for political decision-making and legal complexities. This caution weakens climate law enforcement, making promises less accountable. Supporting specialised climate litigation NGOs—like ClientEarth and Urgenda—helps challenge insufficient action and build stronger legal precedents. Landmark cases, such as the Dutch Urgenda ruling, show litigation’s power to compel real emissions cuts. Continued funding for these groups is essential to push courts toward decisive climate enforcement aligned with science.

Demand stricter CSDDD enforcement and expanded scope

The CSDDD entered into force on 25 July 2024. EU Member States have until 26 July 2026 to transpose the directive into national law. The directive will apply to large companies with more than 1,000 employees and a net turnover exceeding €450 million, as well as non-EU companies meeting similar thresholds in the EU. The compliance obligations will be phased in starting from 26 July 2027, based on company size. It is a step forward, but loopholes remain. Worse, in 2025 the EU took a turn on it and decided to ease sustainability reporting rules to compete globally.

Partner to fight climate injustice

Establish enduring partnerships with activists and grassroots organisations from the Arctic and Global South, whose communities face the harshest climate impacts while having contributed minimally to the problem. These partnerships should focus on elevating their voices and lived experiences within European policy debates and public awareness campaigns.

By working together, we can clearly demonstrate the direct connections between European consumption patterns—such as reliance on fossil fuels, imports linked to deforestation, and excessive resource use—and the worsening climate crises in these vulnerable regions. This collaboration helps dismantle the misconception that climate change is a distant issue, highlighting its immediate and tangible effects on Indigenous peoples, coastal communities, and fragile ecosystems thousands of miles away.

Through coordinated campaigns, shared storytelling, and targeted advocacy at EU institutions, we can ensure climate justice becomes central to European climate policies. This means demanding greater accountability for supply chains, pushing for meaningful reductions in consumption, and empowering affected communities to participate actively in shaping global climate governance. Ultimately, such partnerships foster solidarity, amplify marginalized voices, and drive systemic change towards a fairer and more sustainable future.

The time for decisive action is now

The IPCC’s warnings are clear: delayed action risks irreversible damage. Europeans must act as voters, consumers, and activists to dismantle systems prioritising short-term profit over survival. The alternative—a world of escalating disasters and deepening inequality—is not an option worth considering.

A call to rebel and rebuild (non-violent civil disobedience)

We have spent too long playing by rules designed to maintain the status quo. Governments continue approving fossil fuel projects while mouthing empty climate pledges. Corporations greenwash destruction as “sustainable development.” The time for polite petitions and symbolic marches has passed. When systems are designed to destroy life, disobedience becomes our moral duty. Across Europe, ordinary people are already taking matters into their own hands - blocking pipelines, occupying banks, and building alternatives that render these failing institutions irrelevant.

Build what they will not through direct action

Food sovereignty begins with reclaiming land from corporate control. In Bristol, the Incredible Edible Network transform vacant lots owned by an absentee landlord into community food forests. When served with eviction notices, they organize round-the-clock occupations, using the legal tactic of “adverse possession” to eventually gain ownership. Similar land reclamation movements across Europe show how persistent, organized civil disobedience can create lasting change.

Across Europe, grassroots movements advocate transforming farmland into commons. These efforts aim to counter land consolidation and corporatisation by securing land for agroecological farming, collective tenure, and community stewardship.

In April 2022, 15 members of Scientist Rebellion dressed in white lab coats blocked the Kronprinzenbrücke in Berlin’s government district for several hours. Their protest took place to mark the publication of the World Climate Report. The scientists had glued themselves to the roadway of the bridge, which crosses the Spree at the Reichstag building, and chained themselves together. They also unfurled a banner that read: “1.5 degrees is dead. Climate revolution now”.

In October 2022, members of the Scientis Rebellion participated in three actions against BlackRock, BMW and the German government for their responsibility as major contributors to the climate crisis. The first action happened at the entrance to BlackRock’s offices, where the activists performed a performance pouring molasses (symbolizing oil) and stuck to the windows and the floor. BlackRock is an investment fund known for its role in the expansion of fossil fuel exploitation and the debt of countries in the Global South.

Three days later, the group visited a showroom at BMW Welt headquarters where they smeared several show cars with molasses, glued scientific articles on the climate crisis to the cars and walls and ended up sticking their hands with glue to the BMW M8, the most luxurious and polluting car at the exhibition. The automobile company BMW invests large amounts of money to pressure governments to delay transport decarbonization policies and to greenwash its image.

Three members of the group were sentenced to fines.

Solidarity through strategic disruption

In early 2023, Sámi reindeer herders and allied activists staged a bold protest in Oslo to demand removal of the Fosen wind farms—built on herding lands despite a 2021 Norwegian Supreme Court ruling that found them illegal and a violation of Sámi rights.

Financial disobedience can undermine fossil fuel financiers. Climate campaigners in London have organized “debanking days,” where hundreds simultaneously close accounts with Barclays - Europe’s top fossil fuel funder. Inside branches, activists glue bank cards to counters while others outside help customers open accounts with ethical alternatives. Start to Bank Green Today.

Sabotage the Machine with precision

Some groups are at the forefront of tactical media activism—“weapons of mass disruption” that cut through the spin and expose corporate and political doublespeak in striking ways. Notable are the Peng! Collective, Berlin-based culture jammers who disrupt corporate and political events through creative direct action. Another notorious group is The Yes Men, US-originated pranksters who impersonate corporate/state figures to expose hypocrisy, regularly targeting global summits and oil companies.

Surveillance infrastructure is vulnerable to nonviolent sabotage. Protesters have been documented using laser pointers aimed at surveillance cameras to disrupt or blind facial-recognition sensors during demonstrations, especially to evade identification and maintain anonymity. These methods were employed in multiple protests and are widely shared in media and activist forums.

Degrowth through civil noncooperation

The repair movement has turned maintenance into resistance. Underground repair collectives in Amsterdam operate “guerrilla repair shops” in public squares, openly violating intellectual property laws by fixing smartphones and appliances manufacturers designed to discard. When police intervene, the volunteers simply relocate and continue, training new recruits each time.

Guerrilla gardening in Europe has flourished as a form of ecological resistance and urban reimagination, particularly in cities where austerity, vacancy, or overdevelopment have left grey zones ripe for reclaiming. From Berlin’s abandoned lots transformed into community herb gardens to London roundabouts secretly seeded with wildflowers, these unsanctioned green interventions challenge the sterile logic of urban planning. Groups like Incredible Edible in the UK and Nomadisch Grün in Berlin—famous for Prinzessinnengarten—have demonstrated how food-growing and spontaneous horticulture can also rebuild fractured communities and subvert private control of land. Seed bombs, compost bombs, and wildflower raids often sit at the intersection of environmentalism and art.

In Southern Europe, where climate stress and land mismanagement are acute, guerrilla gardening has blended with agroecological revival. In Athens, activists have taken over vacant lots to grow drought-resistant crops as part of solidarity economies. Spanish collectives like Huerto del Rey Moro in Seville link gardening with anti-eviction movements and the fight for the commons. These gardens are not just aesthetic— they are edible, educational, and political. Whether beautifying motorway verges or resisting gentrification with sunflowers and kale, European guerrilla gardeners are quietly rewriting the rules of public space, one patch of dirt at a time.

Federated resistance for the long haul

Guerrilla and anarchist archives in Lisbon play a pivotal role in preserving movement history—especially as official records often erase or marginalize radical practices. A notable example is the recent creation of a new Anarchist Center by the Centro de Cultura Libertária, BOESG library, and the newspaper A Batalha, aiming to protect decades of activist documents, publications, and zines from eviction and cultural erasure. This project emphasizes collective ownership and safeguards memory through physical and digital archives housed in reclaimed spaces outside mainstream institutions.

While storage isn’t yet encrypted USBs hidden in squats, the ethos is clear: build resilient, community-controlled archives that withstand both state and market forces. Portuguese anarchist collectives like Disgraça in Lisbon support horizontal memory transmission—zines, oral history, communal libraries, and shared events that keep tactics, legal strategies, and protest stories alive by embedding them in social spaces, not siloed vaults.

Global justice through transnational disobedience

Patent piracy serves as economic justice. While not operating through the dark web or smuggling routes, groups like Open Insulin and the Four Thieves Vinegar Collective have made headlines by reverse-engineering treatments such as insulin, naloxone, and misoprostol. Their goal is to lower costs and provide open-source medical protocols—some report treatment costs dropping from tens of thousands to mere hundreds.

Embassy occupations are high-stakes political theatre. By physically entering or blockading these heavily symbolic and diplomatically sensitive sites, activists force states to reckon with the raw optics of their foreign policies— particularly when those policies reek of neocolonialism. Whether it’s France’s lingering military and economic entanglements in West Africa, or Morocco’s contested resource extraction in occupied Western Sahara, embassies represent the projection of sovereign power onto foreign soil. Occupying them punctures that illusion. It disrupts the normal order of diplomacy, triggers security responses, and—most importantly—demands media attention. For many movements, this is one of the few available levers to force a conversation in the global north about the cost of its continued dominance over the global south.

Since 2020, embassy occupations have re-emerged as tools of accountability in places where traditional mechanisms— like international courts or UN pressure—have either failed or been co-opted. Activists target these buildings not just because they’re visible, but because they serve as local conduits for broader, often exploitative geopolitical arrangements. The tactic reframes the diplomatic landscape. It turns embassies into contested spaces, sites where abstract policy becomes concrete, and where power must face its reflection—even if only briefly.

The choice before us

They will call us criminals. But when the law protects destruction and punishes compassion, only those who break unjust laws can claim moral clarity. This is not about hope - it is about determination. Every act of disobedience, no matter how small, frays the legitimacy of a system killing our future. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you must.

Organisations and networks

Organisations and networks fostering enduring partnerships with activists and grassroots groups from the Arctic and Global South:

Arctic-focused partnerships

Global South grassroots and activist networks