The Convoluted Rise of Ecofascism

Before Peyton Gendron, 18, allegedly shot and killed 10 people in a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket on Saturday, he posted a 180-page screed with the clear intention of killing “as many Blacks as possible.” But lesser publicized has been the fact that Gendron identified himself as an “ecofascist,” meaning he thinks people of color are taking up too much space on the planet, thus ruining the environment — and degrading his race.

“The left has controlled all discussion regarding environmental preservation whilst simultaneously presiding over the continued destruction of the natural environment itself through mass immigration and uncontrolled urbanization,” Gendron wrote.

He said he believes that the left in America espouses climate change as a way to maintain a diverse society. Far-right ecofascists tie together their desire for a “pure” white society with what they say is the destruction of the land, and therefore their race. These jumbled white nationalist ideas are connected to what is known as the “great replacement” theory: that people of color are trying to replace white people. And it’s not a new idea.

In 1916, a eugenicist lawyer Madison Grant argued that the “Nordic race” was in danger of dying out — to be replaced by other, “lesser” races. He proposed anti-immigration and sterilization policies. A similar argument was put forward by a man named Lothrop Stoddard, who blamed Jews and other peoples for this potential white annihilation. Countries from Canada to Nazi Germany supported Stoddard’s ideas, and Hitler embraced Grant’s book as his “bible,” according to The Atlantic.

From there, this white supremacy theory of the threat of “replacement” continued to rear its ugly head in everything from The Bell Curve to Tucker Carlson’s rants. Within Gendron’s screed is this: “There is no Green future with never ending population growth,” and he called the immigration influx in Europe “environmental warfare.”

Alex Amend, a researcher of far-right movements wrote in 2020 for Public Research Associates, a social justice think tank:

"The devaluing of human life — particularly of populations seen as inferior — in order to protect the environment viewed as essential to White identity is at the core of Far Right environmentalism and ecofascist thought. The ecofascist dream is a not just a White ethnostate but a ‘green’ one too."

Besides Gendron’s murderous spree, there have been other high-profile shootings by ecofascists in recent years, including the 2019 attack on a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, and one at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in which 23 people were killed. The Texas gunman, Patrick Crusius, wrote: “This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

He continued: “The environment is getting worse by the year. Most of y’all are just too stubborn to change your lifestyle. So the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.”

The attack in Christchurch left 51 people dead. The shooter, Brenton Harrison Tarrant, described himself as an “ethno-nationalist ecofascist,” calling for “ethnic autonomy for all peoples with a focus on the preservation of nature, and the natural order.” Gendron borrowed heavily from Tarrant’s writings for his own.

These extremists may seem fringe, but their ideas are supported by elected politicians and popular pundits.

Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas said on a visit to the Texas-Mexico border last year that he’d seen a lot of trash, which he blamed on migrants. Later, he would decry the “environmental crisis at our southern border” in a press release. In November 2020, Carlson, in discussion with Justin Haskins from the climate-denying Heartland Institute, asked an inane, nationalist question: “Isn’t crowding your country the fastest way to despoil it, to pollute it, to make it a place you wouldn’t want to live?” There is no shortage of examples of hatred spewed by the paranoid far right.

The unfortunate truth amid all this racist hate is that it is actually people of color who are suffering the most from the effects of climate change. Look at the unremitting heat in South Asia. Or the flooding in Somalia, or in Panama. And it is wealthy, often white, countries — and individuals— that continue to be the largest polluters in the world. They are accelerating climate change in their greed for fossil fuels and lives of luxury, while giving little or no thought to how their actions are heating the planet.

Shootings like the ones in Buffalo, El Paso, and Christchurch, unfortunately, are an added terrifying element that likely signify future violence as land becomes less available, and resources dry up.