Can Life Prevail?
- A Radical Approach to the Environmental Crisis
Pentti Linkola

Pentti Linkola is the kind of thinker that surrounds himself with controversy. Commenting on the school massacre that took place in Finland in 2007, Linkola, as always, took the opportunity to flame the press:

- The massacre was too small. In the long run it doesn't help shooting some fellow students. What is needed is a larger movement to reduce the population.

It doesn’t get much more upfront than that, does it? But Linkola, despite appearing in the media as some kind of ultra-radical green troll, is far from the bitter old man people make out him to be. If this was previously unclear, he certainly presents a different side of his persona in his latest book, "Can Life Prevail?" The book is a collection of articles and shorter essays spanning more than a decade of radical environmentalist thought. The topics range from childhood reflections, food hygiene, and bird watching to deforestation and terrorism. Social issues neatly tie into politics, and vice versa.

Far from being a simple propaganda pamphlet, Linkola's writing is full of warmth and wisdom: the importance of growing up as a fisherman together with his family, his strong passion for birds and forests, and how he and his wife have travelled on bike through Europe. In short, Pentti Linkola is a man who has lived and seen the things he talks about. He's not just another trendy green trying to cash in on a political trend; Linkola lives environmentalism. He's protecting a heritage, or as he puts it himself: "Fighting for forests means fighting for Finland. If the forest is flayed, Finland is flayed."

The essence of Linkola's ecophilosophy, which he calls conservationism, is to view man and nature as one and regard ecosystems as holistic entities. Each entity as a whole carries a value higher than the individual value of its parts, and any part may be sacrificed to protect the value of whole. He convincingly applies this argument to society and describes how the technological, economic and industrial expansion is pushing away wilderness and species. His plan to stop ecocide is simple: roll back human expansion to sensible levels and return to a local, practical and simpler lifestyle in harmony with nature.

To back his views up, he cites tons of examples, addressing how serious the deforestation crisis in Finland is, how the import of foreign animals and the growth of predators have driven entire species to the brink of extinction, and how the Finnish agriculture is rapidly shrinking. Linkola, to be fair, is cynical about the situation. He recognizes that a population ruled by utilitarian democracy, in which political leadership panders to popularity and individual desire, will always satisfy special public interests instead of looking at the cold reality. Linkola's answer to our current society is a centralized government mercifully controlling its citizens, cutting down on technology and economy, and focusing on building a foundation for culture, education and practical knowledge.

Does it sound fascist, socialist and oppressive? It is. And Linkola isn't afraid of saying it. It's hard to tell whether he's trying to set new standards for environmentalist debate or if he's actually serious about his "ABC of the Deep Ecologist." Maybe it's ultimately irrelevant. As Brett Stevens notes in his insightful introduction, at the end of the day, Linkola's main motivation seems to be uncompromising love. He is, after all, not a bitter old man, but a surprisingly idealistic, warm-hearted and sharp thinker. Most of what he says, although it would force even the most radical green-leaning liberal to back down, is close to what many of us would call traditional common sense. We only have one planet. One life. We need to protect the biodiversity that inhabits this Earth, or else we fail as a species on what is possibly the most important mission before us. Linkola's cry, "Can Life Prevail?," does not just ask the question--it provides us with an answer to how we can win.