Sami Grover at Treehugger has a thoughtful post today about what ecofascism truly looks like. I’ve always been the first to admit that the environmental movement has some absolute nutjobs, and one of the reasons that I try to maintain this blog is to call out those nutjobs for the negative impact they have on long-term green goals. Sami seems to be of the same mindset:
“The only possible way we can dig our way out of the mess we are in is by offering a positive, vibrant and engaging vision of the future for everyone—a vision that encourages as many people as possible to come along for the ride.”
There really is no other way to go about this successfully. Unfortunately, there are myriad ways to go about it unsuccessfully, and Sami links to a Guardian article by Micah White that mentions, among others, a Finnish gent named Pentti Linkola whose ideas to save the environment include authoritarianism, centralized government control, eugenics and re-education camps. How refreshing.
Unfortunately, Micah’s alternative solution to the anti-democratic ecofascists is making advertising illegal, which is almost as implausible as the re-forestation of parking lots that Linkola is advocating. Believe me, I appreciate the sentiment and I’m all for fighting corporatism and blind consumption as a means to improving our climate policies. I also understand the cultural impact of the millions of images and pitches and jingles that we’ve been inundated with since the day we were born. But the end of advertising? Really? Why not just advocate time travel to pre-global warming days?
If Rolex or Jaguar or McDonalds or Northrop Grumman wants to put up billboards, you’re just going to create more pushback against your cause when you start tearing them down or prohibiting them altogether. They’ve got the money to fight you and to make you look like an idiot. Stick to the basics. Give me something that my mom and dad and my Uncle Ralph will respond to. What about something as simple as preserving our environment by creating a sustainable economy that will ensure job creation for the next hundred years? Does it really need to be more complicated than that?
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