Pentti Linkola

Kaarlo Pentti Linkola (born December 7, 1932 in Helsinki) is a radical Finnish environmentalist, dissident and fisherman. He has written widely about his ideas and is well-known in Finland. He lives a materially very simple life. Nowadays he is on old-age pension, but he still fishes on lake Vanajavesi.

Linkola is a misanthropist who blames humans for the destruction of the environment, and he has promoted ideas such as genocide for saving the environment and to keep the population in control.Fact|date=June 2008 He strongly promotes deindustrialization.

Life

Linkola grew up in Helsinki, Finland. His father Kaarlo Linkola was the Rector of Helsinki University and his mother's father Hugo Suolahti had worked as the Chancellor of that same university. Pentti Linkola chose not to continue his zoological and botanical studies after his first year. It has been said that he became a free naturalist.Fact|date=November 2007 During these years he wrote the "Suuri lintukirja" ("Great Bird Book") (1955) with Olavi Hilden.

Linkola's first political publication was the pamphlet "Isänmaan ja ihmisen puolesta" ("For the Fatherland and Human") (1960), in which he spoke strongly for pacifism and encouraged conscientious objection.

Linkola is known for his deep love for birds. In his writings Linkola often expresses his admiring feelings towards forests and nature in general. He advocates the extinction of cats, minks and some other species in Finland that he considers as foreign and destructive to the Finnish nature.

Ideas

In the essay collection "Unelmat paremmasta maailmasta" ("Dreams about a Better World") (1971) he explained for the first time his ecological attitudes. He has continued to speak against the modern Western way of life and the overconsumption of natural resources, and his latest books "Johdatus 1990-luvun ajatteluun" ("Introduction to the Thinking of the 1990s") (1989) and "Voisiko elämä voittaa" ("Could Life Win") (2004) are collections of his writings that have been published in various Finnish newspapers and magazines.

As a philosopher Linkola can be described as a biocentric empiricist. He demands that man return to a smaller ecological niche and abandon modern technology and the pursuit of economic growth. Sometimes however, he has said that the good society should have high military technology in order to defend itself from being conquered by non-environmental societies. He does not, however, explain how it is feasible to maintain such technology without a modern economy. Linkola considers human population growth the biggest threat to life on Earth. He advocates eugenics and genocide as a means to combat overpopulation. He has admired Stalinist and Nazi massacres, especially The Holocaust where "6 million" died by "ideally painless means".

On "kyettävä fasisminkin uudelleenarviointiin ja tunnustettava se palvelus, minkä tuo filosofia jo 30 vuotta sitten teki vapauttaessaan maapallon kymmenien miljoonien ylensyövien eurooppalaisten kuormituksesta, niistä kuuden miljoonan lähes ihanteellisen kivuttomalla, elinympäristöä haittaamattomalla tavalla" (Translation from Finnish: We even have to be able to re-evaluate the fascism and confess the service that that philosophy made 30 years ago when it freed the earth from the weight of tens of millions of over-nourished Europeans, 6 million of them by ideally painless means, without any damage to the environment") (Pentti Linkola: Toisinajattelijan päiväkirjasta. WSOY 1979)]

The book in which he wrote this later received the Eino Leino Award. [Cite web | url = http://www.kustantajat.fi/kirjasaatio/palkinnot/einoleino/ | title = Eino Leinon palkinto | language = fi | publisher = Finnish Book Publishers Association & The Finnish Book Foundation | accessdate = 2008-06-23] He has suggested that big cities should be attacked with nuclear weapons. Linkola has described humans as the cancer of nature. Fact|date=June 2008 When some particular war has started somewhere in the world, he has often given statements that the war is good since it decreases population.Fact|date=November 2007

Guru status

Pentti Linkola has encountered a lot of opposition to his criticism of the affluent Western society, but he has gained a guru status from some individuals, particularly by the merit of living as he teaches. He doesn't own a car or have running water. He used to earn his living by fishing from a rowing boat and selling the fish from door to door with a horse. He is now entitled to a pension but he continues to fish during wintertime.

Bibliography

*Linkola, Pentti & Olavi Hilden: "Suuri Lintukirja". Otava 1955, renewed edition 1962.
*"Isänmaan ja ihmisen puolesta: Mutta ei ketään vastaan". Fourth edition. Helsinki: Suomen sadankomitealiitto, 1981 (third edition 1970).
*Linkola, Pentti: "Pohjolan linnut värikuvin: Elinympäristö. Levinneisyys. Muutto". Otava 1963-67.
*Linkola, Pentti: "Unelmat paremmasta maailmasta". Fourth edition. Porvoo: WSOY, 1990.
*Linkola, Pentti: "Toisinajattelijan päiväkirjasta". Porvoo: WSOY, 1979.
*Linkola, Pentti & Osmo Soininvaara: "Kirjeitä Linkolan ohjelmasta". Porvoo: WSOY, 1986.
*Linkola, Pentti: "Johdatus 1990-luvun ajatteluun". Porvoo: WSOY, 1989.
*Ekologiseen elämäntapaan: johdantoartikkeli. Yliopistopaino, 1996.
*Linkola, Pentti: "Voisiko elämä voittaa". Helsinki: Tammi, 2004.

Also:
*Kämäräinen, Kauko: "Linkola, oikeinajattelija". Tampere: Määrämitta, 1992.
*Alén, Eero: "Linkolan soutajan päiväkirja". Turku: Sammakko, 2006.

External links

* [http://plausible.custompublish.com/cparticle233074-6698a.html Plausible Futures Newsletter] Traces Linkola's career in the Green movement, and the connections between fascism and ecology (he has often been called an "eco-fascist" - some say he styles himself one).
* [http://www.churchofeuthanasia.org/press/larouche.html Church of Euthanasia] reports a Wall Street Journal-Europe interview in which he expresses the view that World War III would be: "a happy occasion for the planet.... If there were a button I could press, I would sacrifice myself without hesitating, if it meant millions of people would die."
* [http://thefreshforests.no-ip.org/linkola/voisikoelamavoittaa_translation/index.html Finnish-English translation project of his 2004 book: Voisiko elämä voittaa] A project aiming at bringing writings of Linkola to a wider audience.
* [http://www.penttilinkola.com Pentti Linkola fansite]
* [http://www.corrupt.org/data/files/pentti_linkola Pentti Linkola biography on Corrupt.org]

Footnotes