Avocado Politics feat. Nils Gilman

On the progressive side of the political spectrum, it is assumed
that with an increasing acknowledgment of the reality of climate
change will come default support for a progressive Green New Deal
agenda. There is, however, another possible outcome of the
far-right abandoning climate denial: Avocado Politics, green on
the outside, brown(shirt) on the inside. 


In the words of Nils Gilman, "The strong state demanded by
right-wing environmentalists will not be one that is liberal,
tolerant, or inclusive but rather one that prioritizes the
welfare of the native-born and ethnically pure while enforcing
punitive restrictions against foreigners, immigrants, and the
ethnically impure."


A Green/Far Right alliance has sprung up in Austria which calls
not just for 100% renewable energy, but also banning Islamic
headscarves and detaining asylum seekers. The El Paso and
Christchurch shooters both centered their manifestos around
ecological justifications for their mass murders. 


There is a deep intellectual history for these ideas going back
to Social Darwinism and beyond. The founder of the term "Ecology"
Ernst Haeckel also invented the term Lebensraum which the Nazis
used to justify their destruction of the peoples of Eastern
Europe. In America, up until the 1990s, the Sierra Club was one
of the fiercest anti-immigrant organizations in America. 


Nils offers a sweeping history and analysis of the phenomenon of
Avocado politics and cautions progressives that catastrophist
language may have unintended and unfortunate consequences.