Deep ecology

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A bunch of tree-huggers

Environmentalism

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Deep ecology is the belief that human beings are equal in value to the rest of Mother Earth's children, including rabid opossums, spiders, slime molds, polio and the AIDS virus. [1]

Part of the greater hard green extreme branch of environmentalism, the term "deep ecology" was coined in 1973 by Norwegian environmental philosopher Arne Naess, to differentiate it from those pesky "shallow" environmentalists who feel like it's worthwhile to have excessive luxuries such as running water, electricity and antibiotics.

While deep ecologists think of themselves as generally apolitical, in practice believers in the ideology often support misanthropic and racist ideas such as population control. [2] This puts deep ecology somewhere in that in-between space where the far left wraps around and meets the far right yet again.

"Eco-nazi" is actually a fitting slur for deep ecology as an ideology when you consider that despite the fact First World countries use many times more resources per capita, deep greenie Bill Duvall said a population decline needs to happen in Third World countries.

Earth First! is perhaps the most well known deep ecology movement. David Foreman, founder of Earth First! suggested that we should "allow Ethiopians to starve" in order to reduce human numbers for the good of Gaia.

Making all species equal would do nothing but destroy any concepts of human rights that have been developed and fought for over the past few centuries, because killing a human would be morally equated to eating a peanut butter sandwich. Ironically many deep ecologists are not vegetarians or vegans and eat meat, seeing this as part of the "natural order". They fetishize biodiversity but do not care about the individual rights of humans or animals.

[edit] References

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