Mary Harrington is a contributing editor at UnHerd.

Nothing produces true believers today quite like the environmental movement. Gluing yourself to London or pouring soup over a priceless painting is all in a day’s work. For your green stunt to stand out, you need to do something eye-catchingly disgusting such as pouring human faeces over a statue of Captain Tom.

For conservatives, it may be tempting to dismiss green activism as a stalking-horse for communism, a movement that has certainly produced enough ideologues in the last century. And it’s true that a great deal of green activism is broadly Left-aligned, while for much of my lifetime, economic and technological growth has been broadly associated with a Right-liberal worldview espoused by Margaret Thatcher. Recently that has roared to life again under the questionable guidance of Liz Truss, with her rants against the “enemies of growth”, a group, in her view, that includes environmentalists.

It seems that defending trees in particular drives many “enemies of growth” to extremes. One famous Left-wing tree hugger and enemy of Thatcherite growth, “Swampy”, was briefly famous in 1997 for living in a tunnel under the Newbury bypass site, to protect ancient woodland from being destroyed.

But despite what Right-liberals say, “tree hugging” — and direct action — is by no means confined to the Left. Once you leave the relatively safe confines of Roger Scruton and promoting land stewardship (like our King), a green movement shorn of Left-wing shibboleths reveals two things.

First, just how much of the moral framework we still inhabit, even in a secularised world, is unreflectingly Christian. And second, that contrary to how it may seem from a glance at the self-styled pagans of Left-leaning green activism, in truth one of the last remaining bulwarks against genuine paganism may be those remnants of Christian thought that persist in the progressive moral framework.

As many recent writers have observed, the roots both of liberalism and its mutant child, progressivism, lie in our Christian heritage. Nor, as thinkers such as Jacques Ellul and Lewis Mumford have argued, is it easily possible to separate our extractive relation to technology — the principal driver of climate change — from that heritage.

Nowhere is this revealed more clearly than the points where the green movement overlaps with the far-Right. For where environmentalism is concerned, in truth, Left and Right are obsolete. Instead, the real battles concern deep questions such as our standing relative to other species, the nature and value of progress and technology, the value of human freedom, and the value of humans ourselves. Most of this, whether we like it or not, still takes place within the dying embers of Christianity. And the coming battle over climate policy is fundamentally over which parts of this Christian heritage we’ll end up sacrificing, as we confront the end of cheap energy and never-ending growth.

Two decades before Swampy hit the headlines for burrowing under the Newbury bypass site, one Theodore Kaczynski was roaming the woodlands around his area of rural Montana on a campaign of environmental sabotage. His methods, though, were orders of magnitude more focused and brutal. According to letters he later wrote from prison, Kaczynski spent two decades as a proto-Swampy on steroids: stringing wires across motorbike trails, burning logging machinery, pouring sugar into the tanks of motorised vehicles and smashing up holiday cabins, in a one-man campaign against what he called the “octopus” of technology.

Kaczynski is better-known as the Unabomber: he sent 16 mail bombs to university and corporate targets, killing three and injuring 23 over a 20-year campaign. He’s also the author of Industrial Society and its Future, a 35,000-word manifesto that attacks Leftism and justifies bombings as an extreme but legitimate start to a necessary revolution against the harms of “industrial society”.

For Kaczynski, the most offensive feature of industrial society is its centralised and impersonal systems of control, from media propaganda to huge corporations: all methods aimed at adapting human nature to fit the needs of the machine. In Kaczynski’s view, “industrial-technological society cannot be reformed in such a way as to prevent it from progressively narrowing the sphere of human freedom” which he defines as “being in control […] of the life-and-death issues of one’s existence”, such as food, clothing and shelter, as well as going through “the power process” which is to say setting and attaining meaningful goals via one’s own agency.

“Uncle Ted” has become a cult figure of Gen-Z veneration, but his legacy is an ambivalent one. Some on the green “anarcho-primitivist” subculture celebrate his call to return to simpler ways of life. Meanwhile, “incels” and other political fringe groups are drawn to his willingness to kill in order to get his message out; Kaczynski’s manifesto has been quoted by subsequent terrorist attackers. But he is not the only individual inspired to political extremism by tree felling, or the only environmentalist associated with shady memes on the far-Right.

“Eco-fascist” is used (again, usually by those Right-liberals who are definitely not “enemies of growth”) as an epithet to describe anyone who proposes authoritarian measures to address climate change. “Eco-fascism” proper, though, is an altogether stranger and darker doctrine. Energetically disavowed across the more mainstream environmental movement, it’s a fringe worldview that argues against immigration and for sharp reductions in the human population, sometimes forcibly and (per some proponents) along racist lines.

In this, it’s not new: some crossover of “green” and nativist thinking goes all the way back to the “Blood and Soil” doctrines of Nazi-era Germany, and informs the thinking of the Nazi occultist and animal-rights campaigner Savitri Devi, whose 1959 The Impeachment of Man argued that humans shouldn’t be set above animals.

But what does characterise this thinking, just like that of Nazism, is its profound repudiation of Christian values. This comes across clearly in the doctrine of deep ecology, which — like Devi’s writing — argues that we shouldn’t grant humans any kind of special value. Rather, deep ecologists argue that we should reserve this reverence for the biosphere as a whole.

This sounds harmless and hippy-ish enough, until you consider its ramifications — notoriously set out by the king of eco-fascist tree-huggers, the Finnish deep ecologist Pentti Linkola (1932-2020). Again inspired to activism by the destruction of ancient woodland, much of what’s shocking to mainstream sensibilities in Linkola’s writing comes from his blunt willingness to consider profoundly anti-humanist (which is to say non-Christian) solutions to the ecological crisis.

Every Christian or humanistic value, in Linkola’s view, is not just useless but actively pernicious. Technological progress is the enemy of the natural world, while the idea that there’s something special about humans justifies its exploitation. The belief that we’re all equal and valuable legitimises human multiplication beyond the earth’s carrying capacity, while egalitarian political systems are a disaster because they stop authoritarian political leaders from taking effective action to prevent us careering toward extinction. And human rights are not the foundation of civilisation, but “a death sentence of all Creation”.

In the place of human exceptionalism, Linkola deems diversity and harmony in the biosphere as the highest value: “The whole, the system, the maximum amount of species and diversity is the most sacred thing.” And from this it follows that there’s a natural ceiling on how many of any given species can be supported. In his view, we have long since surpassed that limit, thanks to our use of technology. Therefore, any means which might halt technological development and reduce what he calls “the human flood” are in principle justified.

For him this includes euthanasia; state control of reproduction, including forced abortions, forced sterilisation and infanticide; and even mass genocide. “If there were a button I could press, I would sacrifice myself without hesitating if it meant millions of people would die,” he declares.

Linkola is a fringe figure in environmental thinking, a fact that attests to the hold Christian values still have, for all that observant Christianity has been declining across the West. Inasmuch as they violate these white-labelled forms of Christianity, even relatively dilute descendants of Linkola’s extreme ideas, such as the militant group Deep Green Resistance, get tarred with the “ecofascist” brush.

And Ted Kaczynski also gets cited as an eco-fascist influence — despite the fact that he and Linkola are radically at odds in some respects, such as their views on the moral standing of individual freedom. For Kaczynski, human freedom is a central good: the central problem with industrial civilisation is the way freedom is limited by the demands of industrial life. In contrast, for Linkola, an excess of human freedom is partly to blame for industrial civilisation.

But it would be simplistic to call Kaczynski the more “Christian” thinker here: he has been sharply critical (from prison) of “anarcho-primitivism”, a movement that proposes total abandonment of technology. In Kaczynski’s view, by claiming that this would produce more sex equality and sharing, and less racism and violence, this in practice smuggles “mushy utopianism” — actually a disguised set of Christian-heritage values — into a revolutionary vision that ought to be grounded and practical.

Meanwhile, more conventionally radical Left-wing environmental arguments are often overtly hostile to Christianity, usually (paradoxically) from a vantage-point that places central importance on deeply Christian-inflected tenets such as egalitarianism and the value of love.

But perhaps the question isn’t “who is the inheritor or rejector of the Christian legacy” as “which bits are being jettisoned, and by whom?”. Overtly post-Christian progressive environmentalists such as the examples linked above, for example, often reject the Christian idea that humans take precedence over the natural world, that the cosmos is ordered hierarchically, or the belief that we’re all born fallen. Green salvation, in this vision, means we need only reject hierarchy and free ourselves from the taint of civilisation for peace and harmony to reign.

Or perhaps we could abandon democracy? It is, after all, increasingly clear that few environmentalists place much faith in democratic politics to address the existential crisis most believe we now face. If Linkola thinks democracy is a disaster, and Deep Green Resistance argue for violent revolutionary eco-vanguardism, recent demands by the otherwise broadly progressive group Extinction Rebellion for a “citizens’ assembly” to address climate change also look, on closer inspection, suspiciously like an extra-democratic body of appointees.

Alternatively, instead of giving up democracy, we could give up our affinities to home and family, in defence of the universal value of human life? Gaia Vince’s 2022 Nomad Century argues for large-scale technocratic efforts to accommodate mass migration driven by climate change, a policy that presupposes the fundamentally Christian idea that all humans have equal value and it’s wrong to prioritise your kin, tribe or nation.

Of course those on Liz Truss’s side will wave away the prospect of hard choices. We can set aside eco-alarmism and go on chopping down trees that took hundreds of years to grow, in the name of growth. But even this, in effect, means choosing the fundamentally Christian faith in progress — at the expense of literally every other Christian value.

And if that seems pagan enough, out where the ashes of Christianity are cold and grey lurk those, like Linkola, who suggest we should retrieve the idea of human stewardship of the natural world — but at the expense of valuing the human full stop. And it’s in these ideas, even more than the barbarous vandalism of the “growth at all costs” cabal, or what Kaczynsky called the “mushy utopianism” of the “anarcho-primitivists”, that we see a glimpse of what a genuinely post-Christian paganism looks like.

Those progressives who cheer on the decline of observant faith in the West, and denounce the Christian Right, would do well to reflect on how much less they’re going to like the post-Christian Right.

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The modern world is not evil; in some ways the modern world is far too good. It is full of wild and wasted virtues. When a religious scheme is shattered (as Christianity was shattered at the Reformation), it is not merely the vices that are let loose. The vices are, indeed, let loose, and they wander and do damage. But the virtues are let loose also; and the virtues wander more wildly, and the virtues do more terrible damage. The modern world is full of the old Christian virtues gone mad. The virtues have gone mad because they have been isolated from each other and are wandering alone. Thus some scientists care for truth; and their truth is pitiless. Thus some humanitarians only care for pity; and their pity (I am sorry to say) is often untruthful.

Chesterton, G. K.. Orthodoxy, pp. 25-26.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)

Great article as usual – but all I see is the narcissism, petulance and arrogance of a generation never rebuked for bullying behaviour as children and therefore unable, as adults, to engage with society on any other basis.

In my experience, intelligent middle-class kids tend be anarchists unless they’re yuppies. This may have started to take on a more eco colour recently, but hasn’t changed all that much probably. Talking to such people, my experience is that this comes from a kind of intellectual honesty on how the Soviets failed, yet an unwillingness to give up on utopian progressivism. Therefore anarchism is a kind of a safe harbour which remains untainted by Bolshevik failures.

An apposite essay, given two juxtaposed events from yesterday: the attacking of Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” and the collapse of the plan for Growth by Liz Truss.

The painting would’ve been chosen not just for its fame, but as a direct symbol of both the natural produce of the Earth and the human existential suffering that Van Gogh seems to epitomise. That the work was protected by glass also has a resonance. It symbolises the technological protection afforded to the elites, who’ve abrogated the artistic value to their own ends.

Meanwhile, the Truss plan for Growth is rejected. It wasn’t quite “growth at all costs” but it might as well have been, i.e. ideological growth. There has to be a limit, surely? How much can economic growth continue to be pursued as a primary endeavour? The argument that it’s necessary to fund social services (in their widest sense) simply results in a never-ending spiral of demands upon the environment and upon human nature.

Mary highlights extreme views on how that should change. How we all go about finding a better balance without the iniquities of communistic or other forms of authoritarianism is what faces us now, and brings into sharp focus what precisely each of us use our individual agency to pursue. Calls for a return to a more religious world view, however well-intentioned, simply won’t help in the slightest. We can’t go back, only forwards.

Whenever ‘growth’ is discussed by the largely unproductive intelligentsia it is invariably on the basis that it always involves greater consumption of resources and is therefore a BAD thing. Not so – it can just as easily mean doing more with less.

Your article convinced me that you are a very intelligent person, so well done. But please simplify your ideas. Whilst your grasp of written English might seem impressive, it is the idea that counts and half of what I read was over-intelligent meaningless. Communicate your ideas broadly, not cleverly to yourself.

Have you over reached in your narrative making? Christianity does not have a monopoly on these many virtues that you suppose are animating certain groups, although your story seems to require that it does. And ‘paganism’ is not necessarily a threat to these virtues, as I’m sure you know.

The intuition expressed in deep ecology that we can, and perhaps should, align ourselves with nature rather than set ourselves apart is something most people experience during their time spent in the countryside on holiday or over a weekend. I would argue that this experience is restorative and precisely why people flock to the countryside for recreation or move there to live. All of this seems more like a kind of Aristotelean paganism than Christianity. It is not The Church that restores our tired souls but time in the green places. This is a truth expressed by many down the ages from all kinds of religious backgrounds. The demand this truth sets us is to align our lives with it. If we did that then we’d feel much less inclined to damage our green places, for we wouldn’t feel alienated from them, separated by some gulf which leaves us collectively indifferent to its plight (Liz Truss). My question to the church is to what extent is it culpable for creating or at least widening this gulf? I expect at least somewhat culpable and for that it has much to answer for.

The green revolution will be a spiritual one. That is surely a necessity. This new alignment requires individuals to change. There is nothing lame or hippyish about this – it is a demanding enterprise. It seems to me the only way out of our current habit of destroying our home is to change our minds. That is a kind of spiritual work but not the kind I associate with most forms of Christianity and at the least it certainly is not confined to it. This is not to say the church isn’t or can’t be part of the solution but I wouldn’t assume it will be or even wants to be.

I think as Christianity fades we are more prone to idealistic or utopian fantasies. The idealistic impulse ‘to renew the face of the earth’ in Christianity is still there, but that’s about it. No faith in man per se and the humility – or muddled reality – of original sin, grace and forgiveness.

I expect that, as the essay implies, the post-Christian Right (or Left for that matter) is sliding into various weird forms, including a post -Christian paganism. If you examine a really old church you may well find carvings of the Green Man underneath pews or as stone ornamentation. No one today appears to know the source of this irreligious carving. But I wonder if it is echoes of the pre-Christian ‘paganism’ continuing to exist ‘under the radar’. The interest in environmentalism may hark back to this pre-Christian era, and perhaps draw moral strength from it.

“The interest in environmentalism may hark back to this pre-Christian era,”

It depends what you mean by environmentalism. Pre-Christian environmentalism would, I imagine, go not much further than a basic understanding of agriculture. Any understanding of the environment would be guess work. Environmentalism is a modern movement carried out by a wealthy society that can expiate its sins through self flagellation.

As ever a superb essay from Mary Harrington.

Important, researched, and deeply thought-through delineation Thank you. Apropos, I’m beginning to ask myself (very reluctantly, deferentially, reverentially considering friends, family and acquaintances), at a personal /unconscious /archetypal level whether abortion or a decision not to have kids is playing a part in the present.

I read the provided link on Deep Green Resistance and did wonder how much DGR’s position on trans politics had to do with the authors’ critique. I’d come across DGR’s Lierre Keith before – as an ardent opposer of veganism! She’d been vegan for many years and believed it destroyed her health.

Don’t be critical of these sacred cows of the environmental movement and expect a fair hearing.

Well the main plan of, and for, the World Economic Forum for driving the ‘Great Reset’ is Green. With Green energy the world will be poor and in chaos – with greening the food supply – removing fertilizers, they will be starving – and on and on.

WEF plan to use the Green Revolution to destroy the global economy, then basically establish their Corporatism Oligarchy.

Another side of them, and if you do not know Gates comes from radical Eugenicists, and is one, as is the WEF – they have an optimal number of humans to fit the planet – to make it perfect for them as the psychopathic Overlords – and is is a small amount. De-population is a tenent of theirs – they are Satanists, and Ultra Green anti-human. If Mary wants to see the scary side of Green it is the WEF she needs to check out.

”WEF Adviser Yuval Harari: ‘We Just Don’t Need the Vast Majority of the Population’ in Today’s World” ”Pfizer CEO at WEF: “By 2023 we will reduce the world population by 50%” (VIDEO)” Here The Pfizer boss says it (he is high in WEF) – Must Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-srH8sMKZ_Q

Green are going to destroy the world as we know it – but it will not be the super gluing neo-hippies, and definitely not the essentially non-existant Far Right eco-loons, (by the way, I spent time around the very few of them back in my weird youth…the Idaho/Montana and the Calif ones… but they are long gone…) but it will be the agenda driven by the real powers, the Davos guys, for our destruction.

Announcing that you’re going to halve the world population seems like a bad idea, if that’s your actual intention. So this is not believable.

A little digging shows that the Pfizer CEO actually said “By 2023, we will reduce the number of people in the world that cannot afford our medicines by 50%” — see https://youtu.be/9ccd3LMNMl8, at around 2:50.

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