If youāve been following my account for a while, you have probably seen me mentionĀ ecofascism before, but for those of you who havenāt, Iām going to address it a bit more in detail, given the increase in narratives lately regarding covid-19, and because I think itās partly my responsibility as someone who is majoring in environmental science to do so.
Arguments Iāve seen lately:
Humans are a āvirusā/āplagueā/etc and the pandemic is the earthās immune systemĀ ācuringā itself of us
Humans are all evil and the pandemic is our punishment
Earth would be better off without any humans
All of these statements have some things in common whether theyāre from a religious or non-religious perspective:Ā
They homogenize humans as if weāre all equally responsible for environmental degradation, which is patently false (1Ā - 2Ā - 3)
They are anti-Indigenous and erase the fact that Indigenous communities have lived sustainably for centuries prior to settler colonialism (1 - 2Ā - 3)
They likewise erase the work done and sacrifices made by humans for environmental protection and efforts to repair the damage done by others (1 - 2 - 3)
They presuppose that humans are separate from nature, and that we donāt belong as part of the entirety of the earthās ecosystem, which is also a myth propagated by Western-European idealism and settler colonialism (1 - 2 - 3)
These arguments are therefore not only unscientific, but also reinforce certain ideologies which suggest:
That certain members of the population are expendable (elders, people who are disabled, people with chronic illnesses, poor people, homeless people, migrants, refugees, etc.)
That despite the fact the BIPOC make up the majority of those who are below the poverty line and are at most risk to dying from infectious diseases as well as our exposure to environmental racism, that whatever befalls us is still deserved
That oppressed peoples mustĀ āsacrificeā our wellbeing for the earth by any means necessary, despite the fact that human and environmental welfare arenāt mutually exclusive (they are interconnected)
I urge anyone who falls in line with this type of thinking to please read the articles linked above and spend some time contemplating your internal motivations for these beliefs; are you truly concerned about the environment or are you merely angry and feel the need to project that anger by misplacing blame rather than finding solutions? There is a difference between genuine care for the environment versus using the rhetoric of environmentalism to justify an underlying problem of misanthropy. Remember that you cannot address unhealthy coping mechanisms for your emotions by adopting politics which only serve to enable them.Ā
I want to emphasize, however, that itās perfectly fine to feel anger at the state of things. But instead of allowing your motivations to be controlled by it, learn to use it to your advantage by showing solidarity with others who feel the same way and are also searching for solutions.Ā A movement will never succeed if we give in to misanthropy and individualism.
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