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Climate writing navigates the tension between raising awareness and maintaining ecological authenticity. Eco-fascism is represented through text as a justification for violence and exclusion.

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Environmentalism as a Cover for White Supremacy

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Environmentalism as a Cover for White Supremacy

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Sarah Manavis’s observations demonstrate how ecofascists cloak racist ideologies in environmental language. When she writes that ecofascists believe “living in the original regions a race is meant to have originated in” is necessary to save the planet (Manavis, 5), she highlights the ethno-nationalist core of this worldview. Environmental purity is equated with racial purity, and diversity is framed as a threat to both ecological and cultural integrity. This becomes clearer when Manavis quotes a far-right extremist calling for a “day of remembrance” for those “killed by diversity” (11), a grotesque reimagining of multiculturalism as a form of violence. This greenwashed rhetoric reveals eco-fascism’s ability to masquerade as environmental concern. It’s not the planet they care about; it’s a racialized, exclusionary version of who gets to belong on it.

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Sarah Manavis reveals the ethno-nationalist foundation of this logic: racial purity is imagined as environmental purity. This narrative reframes immigration and multiculturalism not as social goods but as environmental threats, using green language to disguise racial hatred. This is not new and is part of a longer eco-fascist tradition with Nazi roots, where nature was tied to blood, soil, and nation. As noted in course materials, this lineage imagines white people as a kind of endangered species. This rhetoric directly opposes the climate justice framework introduced by the UNFCCC in 2000, which emphasizes historical responsibility, naming the industries and nations most responsible for environmental destruction. Climate justice demands accountability and equity, not exclusion and racial gatekeeping. Manavis’s critique underscores how urgent it is to distinguish between environmental advocacy and eco-fascist propaganda. Recognizing when green language is being used to promote anti-democratic, violent ideologies is an important tool in recognizing eco-fascism.

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Eco-fascism's Intellectual Lineage in Environmental Thought 

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Eco-fascism's Intellectual Lineage in Environmental Thought 

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April Anson pushes the critique further by connecting eco-fascist rhetoric to the foundations of Western environmental thought. Her reference to the tweet, “‘Wow...Earth is recovering. Air pollution is slowing down. Water pollution is clearing up. Natural wildlife returning home. Coronavirus is Earth’s vaccine. We're the virus’” (Anson, 2)” during COVID-19, shows how quickly misanthropy, when paired with ecological romanticism, becomes dangerous. It’s not just that humans are the problem, it's which humans are implicitly imagined as expendable. Anson also critiques the colonial and racial underpinnings of American environmentalism. Locke’s theory of land as “empty” if not cultivated by Europeans (Anson, 5) fed the genocidal logic of settler colonialism. When Anson warns that we ignore ecofascist logic “in much of what is considered the canon of American environmental thought” (5), she argues that even mainstream environmentalism often carries embedded assumptions about who deserves land, nature, and survival. Her call to heal the vision of “nature as an object to be extracted...or kill” (Anson, 6). She demands a radical rethinking of environmental values which are entangled with justice.

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April Anson pushes the critique of eco-fascism beyond individuality by exposing how its logic is embedded in the very foundations of Western environmental thought. By defining land as “wasted” if not cultivated by Europeans, the groundwork for a racialized geography was formed. This was where only certain people were seen as legitimate stewards of the environment. This connects directly to the cultural narrative that sees nature as pure and under threat from “outsiders,” a narrative that ecofascists continue to exploit today. Anson warns that much of the mainstream environmental canon still carries these assumptions, which is why she calls for a radical rethinking of environmental values. As our course explored through the climate justice paradigm, environmental crises cannot be addressed without also addressing racial injustice, colonialism, and economic exploitation.

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Laura Polido’s quotes provide a structural lens. She explains that ecological problems arise from social systems of hierarchy, elitism, and exploitation (Pulido, 3). This connects directly to eco-fascism where instead of dismantling these exploitative systems, they reaffirm them by blaming marginalized groups and reinforcing domination. She also shows how the Anthropocene is constructed as being part “of the racial process” (Pulido, 1). This sense of superiority fuels both environmental destruction and ecofascist ideology. By justifying racism, conquest, and control over both land and people, eco-fascists spread their racism and hate of marginalized groups through a guise of environmental protection and passion.

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Eco-fascism misdirects environmental concern rather than confronting the exploitative structures. Ecofascists double down on them, blaming marginalized groups and reinforcing domination in the name of environmental “purity.” If humans (and especially white Europeans, historically) see themselves as superior to nature, they also feel entitled to conquer and control both land and people, especially those racialized as “closer to” or “less than” nature. This dynamic reveals how racism, colonialism, and environmental harm are tightly intertwined, a point reinforced by our course’s shift from the wilderness/ecology paradigms to the environmental justice and climate justice paradigms. Pulido’s work helps show why centering justice-based approaches to climate and ecological crises is so important. Without naming and dismantling the systems of supremacy and extraction that caused these problems, any environmentalism risks becoming a vehicle for inequality.

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The “We Are the Virus” Narrative and Its Dangerous Universality 

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The “We Are the Virus” Narrative and Its Dangerous Universality 

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April Anson’s critique of the viral “we’re the virus” meme during the early COVID-19 pandemic offers a clear example of how ecofascist logic can slip into mainstream environmental rhetoric. At first glance, this meme seems like a poetic reflection on human impact on the Earth. But as Anson writes, this idea that “Coronavirus is Earth’s vaccine. We're the virus” (2) dangerously universalizes responsibility while masking the actual agents of environmental destruction. This narrative erases the asymmetrical impacts of climate change and ecological degradation, where Global South communities and low-income populations suffer the most but contribute the least. By flattening all human impact into a singular “virus,” the statement subtly echoes ecofascist calls for population control and even human extinction which are ideas that have been used historically to justify sterilization, forced migration, and genocide. This is why Anson insists that “nature will heal when we heal the white supremacist vision of nature” (6). Environmental healing must be linked to social justice. The “virus” is not humanity, it is the systems of extraction, supremacy, and profit that continue to devastate the planet and its most vulnerable inhabitants. The danger lies in how seductive and normalized these violent simplifications have become, even among those who see themselves as “environmentalists.”

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As Anson makes clear, "we are the virus” dangerously universalizes responsibility while erasing the structural causes and uneven consequences of environmental destruction. This flattening of blame mirrors what our course identified as a key flaw in the wilderness and ecology paradigms of treating “humanity” as a monolithic actor, rather than recognizing the asymmetrical sources of climate change. As discussed in class, the Global North emits the overwhelming majority of CO₂, while low-income and Global South communities bear the brunt of the consequences. By ignoring this, the “we’re the virus” meme subtly reinforces the ecofascist idea that reducing the human population, especially certain populations, is the path to planetary healing.

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Eco-fascisms False Purity and Romanticized Landscapes 

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Eco-fascisms False Purity and Romanticized Landscapes 

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Visual culture and aesthetic language are also used by eco-fascists to deceit ideology into seemingly innocent environmental discourse. When Manavis writes that “underneath the pictures of idyllic country scapes and environmentally-friendly rhetoric, eco-fascists are pushing a murderous, racist ideology” (15), she’s warning people about the power of representation. These landscapes of purity such as untouched forests, rolling fields, and pastoral villages aren’t just backdrops. They become symbols of racial purity and nostalgia, imagined spaces without immigration, multiculturalism, or “urban decay.” Ecofascists use this imagery to craft a story of loss and return, in which returning to nature means returning to a mythic, white, homogeneous past. This is not just aesthetic, it’s political. As Manavis shows, when ecofascists argue that multiculturalism is destroying both heritage and the planet (9), they use environmental language to disguise xenophobia as ecological concern. These romanticized landscapes become tools for white supremacy, pushing the idea that only some people are natural inhabitants of the land and others are contaminants.

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Visual culture and aesthetic language are powerful tools that eco-fascists use to seem like innocent environment discourse. This is in direct contrast to the climate justice paradigm, established by the 2000 UNFCCC Climate Justice Summit and solidified through the Environmental Justice and Climate Change Initiative in 2001. This movement explicitly challenges the global systems that profit from climate change while undermining democracy and fostering human rights violations and environmental disasters. Rather than appeal to purity or nostalgia, climate justice emphasizes historical responsibility, demanding that those who have benefited most from polluting industries take accountability. Where eco-fascism weaponizes nature to justify racial violence, climate justice reframes the crisis as one of structural inequality, focusing on protecting the most vulnerable and holding power to account. This shows how aesthetic representation and cultural narrative are not just tools of persuasion but are battlegrounds for political meaning.

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Scapegoating Immigrants in Environmental Decline 

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Scapegoating Immigrants in Environmental Decline 

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This article focuses on how environmentalism gets tied with nationalism to contribute to the rise of eco-fascism. In both statements from Edward Abbey and Tucker Carlson, environmental concern is used as a thin veil for xenophobia. Abbey warns that immigration from Mexico would “degrade and cheapen American life downward to the Hispanic standard” (Calvert, 2020), while Carlson blames immigrants for polluting the Potomac River, claiming it is littered “almost exclusively by immigrants” (Calvert, 2020). These claims reflect a dangerous ecofascist narrative: that environmental decline is caused not by systems of overconsumption or industrial pollution, but by racialized “outsiders.” This narrative displaces blame from the true sources of environmental harm. Capitalist industry, deregulation, and colonial land use are ignored and instead immigrants are framed as ecological threats. It turns environmentalism into a tool for border policing and cultural exclusion. As with other ecofascist rhetoric, nature becomes a stand-in for racial purity, and protecting the environment becomes synonymous with protecting whiteness. In doing so, these figures perpetuate a racialized myth of ecological decline that undermines true environmental justice.

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These views reflect a broader cultural narrative in which whiteness is equated with purity, both cultural and ecological, while immigration and multiculturalism are portrayed as pollutants. Such rhetoric draws directly from historical ecofascist thinking, including Nazi ideology, which imagined a mystical union between racial purity and natural purity. As cited in class materials, the idea that “whites need to be protected with their own border, like an endangered species” reflects how environmental protection is twisted into a project of racial preservation. Nature becomes a justification for exclusion, and “multiculturalism” is framed not as diversity, but as ecological threat. By constructing whiteness as endangered and nonwhite others as the problem, these narratives don’t just reflect prejudice, they enforce policies, borders, and violence. Cultural narratives inform the value systems held by both individuals and whole cultures, which means they have real, material effects in the world. Environmentalism, stripped of justice and context, can be weaponized into a tool for ecological nationalism. Thus, eco-fascist narratives don’t just misdiagnose the environmental crisis, they actively reproduce it through racist scapegoating and social division.

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The pandemic’s global disruptions were often narrated as a “healing” period for the planet, with headlines celebrating "less illegal wildlife trade" and clearer skies. However, as the quote from David Beasley warns, this environmental “pause” came at a devastating human cost: “hundreds of millions of jobless people worldwide” facing famine “of biblical proportions” (“Can Nature Heal Itself”). This contrast reveals how climate and environmental narratives often rely on selective framing. Celebrating “nature’s recovery” without acknowledging the underlying human suffering reflects what April Anson calls the “dangerous appeal” of ecofascist logic: nature improves when people, especially the poor or marginalized, disappear. These narratives, though not always intentionally malicious, can erase the unequal burdens borne by the Global South and working-class communities during ecological or economic crises. The idea that fewer people or less human activity automatically results in a better world oversimplifies the complex relationship between ecological systems and human justice.

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There is a representational tendency to paint society as bad and nature as good. It reflects a “wilderness paradigm,” or a romanticized idea of nature as separate from, and better without, human influence. Yet this paradigm obscures structural inequality, suggesting that environmental improvement requires human absence rather than systemic reform. This strong divide was furthered during the pandemic when the idea that “nature was healing” began trending. Continuing to promote the idea that humanity is a disease that has infected Earth only perpetuates the problematic idea that humans and nature cannot live in harmony. It is more beneficial to look at the changes seen in the environment to inspire people that their actions can have a positive impact on the environment.

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Anson, April. “No One Is a Virus: On American Ecofascism.” The Nation, 22 May 2020.

Calvert, Brian. “The Road to Ecofascism Is Paved with Green Intentions.” High Country News, 24 Jan. 2024, www.hcn.org/issues/52-4/west-obsessed-the-road-to-ecofascism-is-paved-with-green-intentions/.

Manavis, Sarah. “Eco-Fascism: The Ideology Marrying Environmentalism and White Supremacy Thriving Online.”

Pulido, Laura. Racism and the Anthropocene.

“‘Can Nature Heal Itself? What the Pandemic Has Shown US.’” Conservation Through Public Health, 13 June 1970, ctph.org/can-nature-heal-itself-what-the-pandemic-has-shown-us/.