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Social Ecology against Ecofascism

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ISE Program Director Blair Taylor was recently interviewed by Vox on rising right wing environmentalism and ecofascism, the difference between the two, and how to counter authoritarian ecological discourse:

Ecofascism refers to “groups and ideologies that offer authoritarian, hierarchical, and racist analyses and solutions to environmental problems,” Blair Taylor, program director at the Institute for Social Ecology, told me.

The solution to those problems, ecofascists believe, is “the same as the right’s answers to many other issues: more walls, more borders, more exclusion, and more justification of hierarchy and elite rule,” said Taylor, author of “Alt-Right Ecology: Ecofascism and far-right environmentalism in the United States.”

What is the answer to right wing and fascist ecologies? Understanding the longer history of environmental discourse, and articulating a liberatory social ecology:

… To recognize [and counter] ecofascism requires understanding the tropes and the longer history of environmentalism’s racist, classist, and sexist components. The environmental movement must offer an articulation of environmental concerns that is emancipatory and social and doesn’t fall into the traps it has fallen into in the past. Avoiding those mistakes means having a bit of sensitivity and understanding that ideas can point us in better and worse directions politically.

This is why I’ve argued for a social ecology — not just looking at numbers and population growth but looking at how different groups and systems are disproportionately to blame and face disproportionate impacts. This is largely the kind of work we do at the Institute for Social Ecology, offering democratic and emancipatory answers to environmental and social problems.

You can read the full article here.