Oh, it’s been hammered back at me that the ML approach to environmentalism is that it’s purpose is to protect the environment for the sake its use to the people, that protecting it at the expense of whatever progress is deemed necessary is to deny humanity and therefore radical and unjust. My argument would be that, whether it’s a capitalist society or a socialist one, there’s a lot of commodities that don’t really warrant environmental harm just because humans would prefer to have it. Chinese reforms created a middle class, and just like in the west, a middle class becomes a consumer class. Both end up generating more one time use waste, both consume built to be obsolete technology, both consume more meat. At some point it ceases to be elevation from poverty to commodity fetishism. So while I can wish and hope all I want that people would consume ethically, mindfully, and with a goal of harm reduction, at some point I would simply say “fuck off, earth first” and deny my fellow humans access to whatever it is they are seeking.