Pentti Linkola

Kaarlo Pentti Linkola (7 December 1932 in Helsinki – 5 April 2020) was a prominent Finnish deep ecologist, ornithologist, and is linked by some authors to ecofascism and to authoritarian deep ecology. Linkola was a year-round fisherman from 1959 to 1995. He fished on Keitele, Päijänne and the Gulf of Finland, and since 1978 he fished on Vanajavesi.

Linkola blamed humans for the continuous degradation of the environment. He promoted rapid population decline to combat the problems commonly attributed to overpopulation. Linkola's half-brother, Anssi, was killed during the Continuation War against the Soviet Union in 1941, at the age of 20. One year after Anssi died, Kaarlo died of prostate cancer. Hugo then died in 1944 due to a heart attack. Linkola had an elder sister, Aira, and a younger brother, Martti.

In 1995, Linkola founded the Finnish Natural Heritage Foundation (), which concentrates on preserving the few ancient forests still left in southern Finland and other nature conservation. The foundation receives donations from private individuals and companies, then purchases forest areas deemed unique enough to deserve protection.

Linkola was married from 1961 to 1975, and had two children.

Ideas

Linkola's views have been sometimes described as "ecofascist". He believed that democracy was a mistake, saying he preferred dictatorships, and only radical change can prevent ecological collapse. He contended that the human populations of the world, regardless if they are developed or underdeveloped, do not deserve to survive at the expense of the biosphere as a whole. In May 1994, Linkola was featured on the front page of The Wall Street Journal Europe. He said he was for a radical reduction in the world population and was quoted as saying about a future world war, "If there were a button I could press, I would sacrifice myself without hesitating, if it meant millions of people would die."

Linkola's writings describe in emotional detail the environmental degradation he witnessed. He dedicated his 1979 (From the Diary of a Dissident) to German far-left militants Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof, stating that "they are the signposts, not Jesus of Nazareth or Albert Schweitzer".

Linkola was pleased to see the rise of Greta Thunberg, a Swedish activist seventy years younger: "I follow very closely what is said about her. After all, she's even a great girl in a little crazy way. Let's see how long she can still fight."

Reception

In the 2009 book Environmental Change and Foreign Policy: Theory and Practice, Mika Merviö, Professor of International Relations at the Kibi International University, contended that while most environmentalists in Finland distanced themselves from Linkola, those concerned about the environment avidly read his writings. Merviö said that Linkola represents "a very Finnish and dark version of 'an inconvenient truth'."

Linkola, Pentti and Osmo Soininvaara: Kirjeitä Linkolan ohjelmasta. Porvoo: WSOY, 1986.
Linkola, Pentti: Voisiko elämä voittaa. Helsinki: Tammi, 2004.
Linkola, Pentti: Can Life Prevail?: A Revolutionary Approach to the Environmental Crisis. UK: Arktos Media, 2nd Revised ed. 2011. (English translation of Voisiko elämä voittaa, 2004).

Pentti Linkola

Ideas

Reception

References

Further reading

External links