[1] Malm told Bookforum that he had been studying Ancient Egypt in the first half of 2018, but stopped spending time on that research later that year because he felt a need to focus on climate change, stating that he "was in total despair mode".

[5]: 22–23  He criticizes what he defines as "moral pacifism" for failing to account for defensive violence[5]: 30–32  and argues that "strategic pacifism" as advocated by Bill McKibben and Extinction Rebellion is ahistorical, discussing the radical flank effect in the context of the civil rights movement and questioning whether there are "convincing reasons" to believe that "the struggle against fossil fuels ... will succeed only on condition of utter peacefulness".

[10] In a negative review in Canadian Dimension, a left-wing magazine, James Wilt criticized the book for not discussing the potential repercussions of sabotage, describing that omission as "an astonishing abdication of responsibility".

Wilt wrote that "to advocate for [property destruction] without any mention or planning for the inevitable backlash, particularly outside of situations of armed conflict, is to do the work of the carceral state for it".

Magazine said that How to Blow Up a Pipeline "offers a humble and nuanced case for how sabotaging fossil fuel infrastructure and machinery might be 'synergetic and complementary' to a movement largely centered around nonviolent mass mobilization".

[3] DeChristopher criticized the book for not explaining "how to avoid association with a rogue act of violence against humans if a sizable portion of the movement were to abandon the commitment to nonviolence", and praised Malm's "six-point analysis of why luxury emissions are the most strategic and symbolically important target", describing it as "so compelling that it’s hard to read this book without daydreaming about sabotaging the private jets of the ultra-rich".

[3] In an opinion article in The New York Times, columnist Ezra Klein wrote that "[a] truer title would be 'Why to Blow Up a Pipeline'", characterizing Malm's answer as "[because] nothing else has worked".

[13] In The New Republic, Benjamin Kunkel wrote that the book "does not explain how to blow up a pipeline so much as argue for why to do so", stating that Malm's argument "provokes a few natural objections" and concluding by agreeing with the author's position that individual political tactics should not be fetishized.

[14] After being asked about the ethics of the eco-terrorism depicted in his novel The Ministry for the Future, author Kim Stanley Robinson told The World Today that he personally believed in nonviolence.

[16] After Malm was a guest on The New Yorker Radio Hour in September 2021 and spoke about central ideas from the book, another article in Fox News by the same author described him as a "climate change extremist who advocates for 'intelligent sabotage'".

[17][18] In The Spectator World, Grayson Quay argued the fact that the interview took place was hypocritical because an anti-abortion activist who had written a book titled "How to Blow Up an Abortion Clinic" would not have gotten the same opportunity, describing Malm as a "scofflaw".

[21][22] Malm called the group's actions a form of "extremely peaceful and gentle sabotage...anyone can deflate an SUV: it is virtually child's play.