Pentti Linkola
| Pentti Linkola | |
|---|---|
Pentti Linkola in 2011
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| Born | Kaarlo Pentti Linkola December 7, 1932 Helsinki, Finland |
| Period | 1955– |
| Subject | Nature, environmentalism, deep ecology |
| Notable awards |
Eino Leino Prize 1983 |
Kaarlo Pentti Linkola (born December 7, 1932) is a radical Finnish deep ecologist, polemicist and fisherman. He has written widely about his ideas and in Finland is a prominent, and highly controversial, thinker. Linkola was a year-round fisherman from 1959 to 1995. He has fished on Keitele, Päijänne, Gulf of Finland and from 1978 he fishes on Vanajavesi.
Linkola blames humans for the continuous degradation of the environment. He promotes rapid population decline in order to combat the problems commonly attributed to overpopulation. He is also strongly in favour of deindustrialization and opposes democracy, which he calls the "Religion of Death," believing it to be an agent of wasteful capitalism and consumerism. He considers the proponents of economic growth to be ignorant of the destructive effects which free market policies have had on the biosphere over the past two centuries.
Linkola grew up in Helsinki, spending the summers in the countryside, at the farm of his grandfather Hugo Suolahti. His father Kaarlo Linkola was a botanist and phytogeographer and the Rector of Helsinki University and his grandfather had worked as the Chancellor of that same university. Pentti Linkola chose not to continue his zoological and botanical studies after his first year.
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. His latest books Johdatus 1990-luvun ajatteluun (Introduction to the Thinking of the 1990s) (1989) and Voisiko elämä voittaa? (Could Life Prevail?) (2004), translated in 2009 into English as Can Life Prevail? are collections of his writings that have been published in various Finnish newspapers and magazines.
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