Amerika

There are two environmental crises: a fake one and a real one.

The fake one, comprised of worries about climate change and plastic straws, exists to convince us that we can avoid changing our approach to life if we just apply a few band-aids. Drive an electric car, use a paper straw, recycle condoms, put up solar panels, and buy green appliances and all will be well.

The real one consists of The Ecocide, or the logical fact that on a finite planet, the more humans we add the more land they will take up because each human needs more resources. Even if we cut those down, at some point there is a minimum, and at some number of people this overwhelms the carrying capacity of Earth.

Before that time, of course, humans will obliterate nature by taking over every scrap of land that can be used to make farms, parking lots, movie studios, hospitals, schools, shopping malls, water treatment facilities, server farms, factories, stores, condominiums, power plants, courts, churches, and single-family homes.

Each person requires a hundred times the space of their dwelling for the support structure that keeps them alive. People need food, medicine, clothes, tools, and entertainment; even if everyone rides public transport, eats bugs, and lives in 400 sqft condos, their needs will take up much more land.

With eight billion people on the planet, we are already taking over three-quarters of the land for human needs. As more people are added, that number will inevitably and inexorably go up, and soon there will be even less space for natural ecosystems and species to survive.

The Ecocide will not stop in the hands of democracy. When everyone is equal, which is the theory behind democracy, you cannot stop people from realizing their dream. The WEF/UN solution is to make life so expensive that most people die out, but this will only lead to war, revolution, and restoration of the “everyone do whatever they want” order because it is popular.

Capitalism does not drive The Ecocide. If left up to capitalism, society would not subsidize the many poor, diverse, mentally disabled, refugees, immigrants, and bureaucrats that democracy produces. If left up to culture, society would not pursue a policy of wealth transfer that encourages more poverty and immigration.

Immigration drives human expansion. When immigrants move into a wealthy place, the inhabitants move farther into the countryside, causing a spate of new homes to be built. At the same time, in the place the immigrants came from, the population rises to replace the people it has lost. No one wins.

In the 1990s, some forward thinkers like Pentti Linkola recognized that democracy would never stop the endless growth cycle, in part because it is dependent on it for taxes to subsidize poverty and immigration. The only solution would be ecofascism: a fascist state that would end mass immigration and limit human use of land and other resources.

Many of us like the idea in the abstract, which translates to “strong power” that wants a civilization-based order instead of an economy- or vote-based one. If you let people vote, they always choose whatever is easiest, which ends up with government taking over all roles and eventually becoming a Soviet-style total state.

However, fascism also wants the total state, which means that it, too, replaces culture, and culture is needed to maintain a healthy society that does not seek endless growth. This means that ecofascism like regular fascism and National Socialism is a dead end.

The change in Rightist thinking after WW2 involves the use of incentives (soft power) in preference to government authority (hard power). This means less government and more culture, but requires taking out the core of the State, which is wealth redistribution through social programs.

In this way, the post-ecofascist environmental alternative grafts in a little libertarianism instead of trying to be a nice version of the Soviets, and because it recognizes the threat of the state, wants a strong power to rule it, but not a bureaucratic one. This means reverting to monarchy which has lower overhead than the state.

All of the benefits of ecofascism are there, but through soft power instead. Without the free stuff from government, growth slows and stabilizes toward efficiency instead of sprawl. Immigration ends with the free stuff, and culture drives out the remaining foreigners.

Following the example of the aristocracy, who did this centuries ago, soft power uses sequestration of land as a method for limiting reckless economic growth and land overuse, an idea resurrected in the modern time by the Half Earth Project:

The Half-Earth proposal offers [a solution] commensurate with the magnitude of the problem: only by setting aside half the planet in reserve, or more, can we save the living part of the environment and achieve the stabilization required for our own survival. — E.O. Wilson (1929-2021)

We have found something that, in the paradoxical way of variation, is both more extreme and less radical than ecofascism. While it is clear that a society based on individual appetites, desires, whims, and judgments will lead to The Ecocide, a soft power solution will work as well.

Imagine a society where half of the land and sea were set aside for nature, wealth transfer was prohibited by law, and civil rights had been replaced by natural rights, or basically that government cannot stop you from doing something that is not harmful to others, nature, or civilization itself.

Visualize this society as centered around culture instead of the individual. To pass a law, politicians must show that it benefits the civilization, its culture, and (but not only) its people. This society would have very few laws.

Ruled by aristocrats, it is no longer involved in constant political debate and news. Instead people focus locally and help others through charity and volunteering. The currency is worth the same year after year because it is not manipulated in order to keep taxes going.

There are no benefits, but in exchange, life is less expensive. People can survive on a few hours of work a week and tend to have more free time. Nature around them is untouched, peerless, and beautiful, which although they cannot articulate gives them a sense of hope and beauty.

There is a dark side to this story, similar to that of ecofascism. This society works to exclude useless people and allow them to perish. Then again, this means less suffering, since just about everyone who is left over is useful and can have a normal life.

Tags: climate change, ecofascism, logical fact, the ecocide