The Coronavirus Pandemic Rejuvenates the Ecofascism Movement

Ecofascism (or, as Sierra Garcia describes it in an article for Grist, the dark side of the environmental movement) has become more visible and vocal as the world reels from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. 

"Minimizing or even encouraging human death and suffering so long as it helps the environment is an excellent example of the dark ideology — and yet variations on the coronavirus-is-good-for-the-climate theme have been cropping up more and more as the virus spreads," writes Garcia.

The purpose of Garcia's article is to highlight the shortcomings of this worldview, and the kind of social media messages that might inadvertently propagate the darker ideology as a misdirected expression of solidarity for the environment. 

This stance has some serious flaws, like its disregard of the disproportionate impact different people and societies have on the environment, and its questionable assumption that human society and 'the planet' are somehow discrete and utterly separate actors. But the most disturbing facet of this argument is how it echoes strains of the environmentalist movement that have advocated for reducing nonwhite, non-Western populations.

Numerous examples of the racist connections between environmentalism, conservation, and population follow, along with a call to action to call out ecofascism when its identified in public and social media.