Thread by @syntropian

Today is both Christchurch and #ClimateStrike.

Let's talk about how they are related.

"If there were a button I could press, I would sacrifice myself without hesitating, if it meant millions of people would die."
- Pentti Linkola, Finnish 'deep ecologist'

CW: climate, violence

On climate change, there is no more ambiguity. It is not a future abstraction. It is happening now. We have entered the time of real consequences.

It is no longer possible to ignore climate change.

This will provoke responses. From the left, from the center, and from the right.

There are multiple possible responses to the climate apocalypse already in progress.

The ECOSOCIALIST response,
the ECOMODERNIST response,
and the ECOFASCIST response.

These do NOT map 1:1 with the traditional political spectrum.

Let's address each one of these in turn.

ECOMODERNISTS are soft denialists. They believe that economic growth can be fully 'decoupled' from environmental impacts using new technology implemented by existing governments & corporations, which implies that large-scale social change is unnecessary.

ecomodernism.org

Unsurprisingly, this is the unstated environmental ideology of the center-left and center-right.

However, you also see it from leftists; there is a strong productivist tendency in some strains of socialist thought (e.g. the idea of fully automated luxury communism, for instance)

Ultimately, ecomodernism is doomed as an ideology, regardless of what its proponents choose to believe. Whether it comes in its capitalist or state-capitalist form, it is ecologically & thermodynamically incompatible with the restoration of our biosphere.

resilience.org/stories/2015-0…

Ecosocialists and ecofascists both believe that economic growth cannot be decoupled from environmental impacts.

Both call for a transition to a new ecological political economy.

The difference between them is Rosa Luxemburg's choice: socialism or barbarism.

ECOSOCIALISM calls for a democratically planned just transition to a steady-state, net-negative carbon economy integrated with a restored biosphere where production is for the benefit of all, especially historically marginalized people on the front lines of ecological struggle.

What I am calling the 'ecosocialist response' is not limited to those that self-identify as ecosocialists, but is also found as part of various left tendencies, including libertarian and democratic socialism as well as left anarchism and communalism/social ecology.

Ecosocialism does not elevate humans above nature or vice versa, but recognizes humans and nature as one and the same, two parts of a whole, inextricable.

It is humanistic and universally inclusive, and consistent with all major world religions and secular ethical frameworks.

I firmly believe that the ecosocialist response to climate change is the only way we can possibly survive and keep our humanity intact at the same time.

Of course, there is another choice...

ECOFASCISM may seem like a new ideology, but it has very deep roots

Like ecosocialists, ecofascists believe that a new society is needed for humanity to survive ecological crisis

But that new society is not for all

It is xenophobic, exclusionary, hierarchical

It is... fascist

The origins of ecofascism can be traced to late 19th and early 20th century Germany, in Rudolph Steiner's anthrosophy, and in concepts like Volk and Naturdenkmal and Landschaftspflege

Land belongs to peoples (races) and must be defended in their interests

Blood and soil...

These concepts were enthusiastically taken up by Nazis

Here is a propaganda poster of Himmler being given the Hitlergruß by lab animals, to thank him for laws banning vivisection, alongside a quote from a Nazi that expands on how National Socialism (fascism) and ecology relate

The Volkish movement that later bloomed into Nazism and the budding conservation movement (tainted as it was by xenophobia and nationalism) were easy allies in Germany at that time

Environmentalist activists joined the Nazi party at 6 times the rate of the general population

If you're curious about the history here, I highly recommend Janet Biehl's "Ecofascism..." either the original 1995 work or the 2011 update.

You can find a copy here free online if you're too broke to buy it: archive.org/stream/Ecofasc…

Arne Naess introduced the term "deep ecology" in 1973 to describe a radical biocentrist worldview seeking to address the deep political, economic, social, and cultural roots of the environmental crisis, rather than shallow technological bandaids

deepecology.org/platform.htm

Now they will say Not All Deep Ecologists, but they will certainly acknowledge that some who use that label hold views that blur into ecofascism

Both ecomodernists and what I'm going to label "dark" deep ecologists philosophically identify humans as separate from nature...

The difference being that ecomodernists privilege humans ABOVE nature, while dark deep ecologists place humans BELOW nature.

This misanthropy-as-environmentalism blurs into anti-civ, primitivism, etc and results in viewpoints like advocacy for voluntary human extinction

When Bookchin was railing against deep ecology in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, this is what he was arguing against

Even his opponents acknowledge the common ground they hold with ecofascists:

1 Population reduction
2 Immigration controls
3 A spiritual transformation around identity

This brings us to Pentti Linkola, the Finnish ornithologist & fisherman who I quoted in my opening tweet.

He fuses deep ecology & ecofascism: a deep respect for the Earth and a lifetime's work in conservation, alongside a deeply reactionary worldview and a disdain for human life

I'm not going to burden you with having to read too many of his words. I will sum up his work in a handful of quotations.

This is high-intellectual ecofascism, of course, not the lumpen sort we saw on display in Christchurch.

To understand that, we must see how Linkola's ideas, and those like them, have filtered through to the right-wing radicalization pipeline of the chans & social media generally

From the moment they first log on, modern young white downwardly-mobile males are faced with a panoply of racist, xenophobic, anti-semitic and anti-feminist memes and propaganda designed to ease them into fascist organizing.

The Christchurch shooter was radicalized on 8chan.

This is "stochastic terrorism" - there is no central coordination of actions, but an ongoing propagation of terroristic ideology by a multitude of actors who can all disclaim responsibility, a memeplex of interlocking bad ideas, a script for lone-wolf attacks that anyone can use

The ideology of the chans, and of /pol/, and of Gab, is fascism.

The response to climate change of fascists is ecofascism: population reduction, no immigration, identity occultism.

Protip: when a political ideologue says they are neither left nor right wing, they are a fascist.

These attacks will continue. They will accelerate.

Their climate change adaptation and mitigation program is mass murder.

From a world of 7 billion people of all religions and races, down to a half-billion whites.

They will start with lone wolf shootings and go from there.

To stop fascists in the short term, they have to be deplatformed, doxxed, physically confronted. Prevent them from organizing. Prevent them from radicalizing others. By any means necessary.

Antifascism is self-defense.

We will keep us safe.

https://twitter.com/syntropian/status/1106408766466076672

To stop fascists in the long term, the conditions that allow for the development of fascism must be removed & replaced with conditions that allow for human flourishing.

Any ideology with an ecosocialist climate response (demsoc, libsoc, left anarchism, communalism) can do this.

As long as the climate crisis continues to accelerate, automation keeps destroying jobs, and waves of climate migrants wash over the shores of the global North, fascists will find hundreds of millions of frustrated and angry people ready to hear what they have to say.

Which finally brings me full circle, to #ClimateStrike and the ecosocialist response the world needs right now.

The ongoing wave of youth climate activism has filled my heart with hope.

Today over 1 million students went on strike for the climate.

https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg/status/1106638130290049024

NO existing government or corporation will EVER implement a global ecosocialist climate response

We have to uphold a fierce urgency in this struggle. The time has come for ALL OF US to acknowledge the existential crisis in which we find ourselves, and to stand up and be counted

Our choice is simple.

We can seek a WORLDWIDE MASS MOVEMENT for system change. A global network of organizations to BUILD POPULAR POWER: unions, assemblies, cooperatives, commons, self-defense groups.

Or we can let ecomodernists and ecofascists compete over who gets to kill us.

If we mobilize to reverse the climate crisis and restore the biosphere democratically and for the benefit of all, there will come a point at which there will never be another Christchurch. The conditions that allow for the development of fascism will no longer exist.

One day soon we will build a free and just and equal society, beyond the hierarchy and domination of the past, a paradise world of universal flourishing, where the thought of murdering others because they look or dress or pray differently than you do would be anathema to anyone

Until then, we keep fighting for our future, together.

I use the Apollo 8 Earthrise photo as my avi because I believe that we are all one biosphere, a thin layer of organic fecundity between Earth's atmosphere & mantle suspended in an infinite void

As far as we know, we are all there is

The fate of all life is our responsibility

(I want to link some resources for people to read more about ecosocialism, but I'm mobile and away from sources right now, so consider this tweet a placeholder)