Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask. Double checked the rules and it doesn’t look like I’m violating any, but please point me in the right direction if there’s a better place for my questions. I genuinely am unclear and want to learn.

In this context, what are eco-facsists? And then how does that and Malthusian Population Theory inherently relate to Capitalism?

When I imagine Malthusian Population issues, I normally think of it as a left-wing / anticapitalist talking point. Assuming I’m missing the mark on that, what’s the Socialist proposed solution and/or explanation or why that’s not an issue? (Racked my brain for a better wording for that last sentence, but couldn’t think of one on the fly. Please pardon my ignorance if there’s a different phrasing I should have used).

The liberal take on the ecosystem is that the carbon footprint of individuals is too high, and therefore we must as INDIVIDUALS all choose to use less carbon of our own free will. And as liberals see that the individual will not choose to do that, instead of changing our entire system to something better that would improve the environmental impact en mass, they’d prefer that we keep capitalism, even if that means large parts of the global population must suffer and die. Thats what hes talking about here.

See and that feels like baby steps towards some flavor of eco authoritarianism (which I suppose I may be conflating with eco-fascism; to me, those both seem bad and in comparable measures).

You seem to be proposing that there is a system (ecologic + economic) that allows for humans to live sustainably at our current-ish population while being mostly free to live their lives with their communities as they see fit and at (at least) a modest level of prosperity.

If there is such a system that doesn’t lean into authoritarianism, I’m unfamiliar with it.

I think it will be difficult to ensure all three of those points (current population + non-authoritarian government + modest living conditions). While I agree Capitalism and Liberalism aren’t doing good on maintaining those three point (gods, are they doing so bad on those three points), I’m unclear what the Leftist suggestions are to fix them.

If you/others here have points that could fill in my gaps of understanding, be interested to hear them. (I worry I’m going to be taken as a Liberal infiltrator, but I feel I know little of the more concrete aspects of Leftist politics and am trying to learn).

You do sound like a liberal infiltrator. It in the off chance you aren’t and actually want to understand these things, unfortunately you generally have to do the hard work of actually reading books about them. On this topic specifically I would highly recommend Climate Change as a Class War by Matt Huber. There was a good Ted Talk that summarized the ideas behind this I saw years ago but I can’t find it.

Also baby steps to ecofascism? I cannot begin to imagine what this means. The ecosystem and how we deal with it has been highjacked by weapons manufacturers and energy companies and we are all told that you’d have to give up money and comforts and all kinds of austerity has been forced down our throats which is just simply not true. I cant remember if it was 70 percent or so of climate change variables were from military ventures alone, I know it was over 50 though. And a significant portion of the rest of it is just from non-military airplane fuel. I don’t know about you but MOST people could cut those things out of their lives almost entirely and not notice. Almost every climate change agitator can be fixed WHILE INCREASING THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR WORKING CLASS PEOPLE. But under a capitalist society that is not the goal. The goal is infinite growth through profit maximization and concentration of capital. That goal is literally antithetical to environmental protection AND improvement in proletariat quality of life. They literally cannot coexist on their own.

Thanks for the reading suggestion. I’ve a feeling I’m not going to agree with the conclusion of the book, but I’ll take a look at it and see what I see.

If you turn up the source on the military ventures = worsening climate change variables, I’d love to read about that.

Also #BigAgree with aviation being a major contributor to climate change. Like, of all the things, that is the one I hear about ad consistently contributing a surprising amount. I would like to see domestic air travel largely replaced by rail (from US, for context).