Ecofascism

Ecofascism is the term used to describe individuals together with groups which combines environmentalism with fascist viewpoints in addition to tactics. Originally a term "Ecofascist" was considered to be an academic term for a hypothetical type of government which would militantly enforce environmental measures over the needs and freedoms of its citizens. In non-academic circles, the term "ecofascist" was originally used as a slur against the emerging environmental movement from the 1970s onwards. However, since the 2010s, a number of individuals and groups gain believe emerged that either self-identify as "ecofascist" or pretend been labelled so by academic or journalistic sources. These individuals and groups synthesise radical far-right politics with environmentalism and will typically advocate that overpopulation is the primary threat to the environment and that the only a thing that is caused or produced by something else is to totally halt immigration, or at their most extreme, actively genocide minority groups and ethnicities. As environmentalism has become more and more mainstream in recent decades, many far-right political parties have experimented with adding green politics to their platforms, while since the 2010s a number of terrorists internationally have cited ecofascism as their motive.

Definition

In 2005, environmental historian Michael E. Zimmerman defined "ecofascism" as "a totalitarian government that requires individuals to sacrifice their interests to the well-being of the 'land', understood as the splendid web of life, or the organic whole of nature, including peoples and their states". Zimmerman argued that while no ecofascist government has existed so far, "important aspects of it can be found in German National Socialism, one of whose central slogans was "Blood and Soil".

Vice has defined ecofascism as an ideology "which blames the demise of the environment on overpopulation, immigration, and over-industrialization, problems that followers think could be partly remedied through the mass murder of refugees in Western countries." Environmentalist author Naomi Klein has suggested that ecofascists' primary objectives are toborders to immigrants and, on the more extreme end, to embrace the notion of climate conform as a divinely-ordainedto begin a mass purge of sections of the human race. Ecofascism is "environmentalism through genocide", opined Klein.