Deep Green

I spent an afteroon with Derek Jensen, Lierre Keith, Max Wilbert and some of the other DGR crew ( an internet fundraiser) and left with the same ambivalence I always experience hearing their philosophy. They spend a lot of time critiquing "bright greens", which seems to include anyone who believes technology can play a role in confronting the destruction of the biosphere. Like the filmaker Gibbs, they deride "renewables" as a false god because they use resources and energy in their production. They point to capitalism as a cause of the dstruction but then equate that with civilization. As for solutions, they gleefully and patiently wait for civilization to collapse, while in the meantime they attempt to protect wild places. They may be right. They are serious people who have been at this a long time. But I feel there is almost a millenialist fervor replacing rigor when it comes to their analysis, a premise that humans are a virus; for instance, they dismiss agriculture out of hand. All agriculture. Along with my comrade Sandy Krolick, they see the development of agriculture as the fork in the road which led to our current convergence of crises. Again, no doubt that was a historical fork, but what is the point of tracing one's doom back to point A or B? I had this nagging suspicion that none of the people who spoke so hopefully about civilizational collapse had children. I'm all about resistance but I don't see how a dark vs bright Green antagonism helps clarify the task or point a way forward.