Pentti Linkola passed away in his sleep on April 5th, 2020. I don’t have much to say about the passing of Linkola. What I believe I have said in my piece on Pentti Linkola at American Sun. One of my Finnish translators, Fatidicus Aeternus, brought two articles about Linkola to my attention that are likely the last public comments Linkola made and helpfully translated them for me.

This is believed to be one of the last interviews that Linkola gave before he passed away

Erkki Kiviniemi had a short phone conversation with the philosopher, author and fisherman Pentti Linkola. ”Man gets agitated when its economy is under threat, not for the earth.”

What is your reaction to the current pandemic and its impact?

The corona virus may slightly throttle the destruction of planet earth, but when it has been vanquished, the same way of life will continue. For as long as economic progress and development are the central objectives of man, saving earth has been lost.

How do you see the future on earth?

I’m a pessimist. Man is the most awful species produced by evolution, even if it has created great culture and civilization. There are minor actors in the cultured sphere which can slightly slow down bad trajectories. The virus can create some good as well. Air quality has improved in many places already as the amount of flights has declined. One of the good actors is the Finnish Nature Heritage Foundation, whose executive manager is Anneli Jussila. Still, the big picture is destructive. Man harnesses his intelligence for economic growth. That is the constant central and unquestioned telos. And then there is no hope.

Some young people seem to have hope for change. What if this virus is harder to beat than the previous ones?

This will be beaten too. I don’t want to deny holding hope, even if the outlook is terrible.

How are you feeling personally?

I am an old cripple. I walk with a cane indoors. I don’t have the energy to keep track of these corona things. It helps some amount, but climate change and the extinction of species are overwhelmingly more extensive things. Now man gets agitated, when its economy is under threat, not for the earth.

And the other of the last of his interviews

Pentti Linkola: Corona delays the final destruction of humanity

Hämeen Sanomat interviewed Pentti Linkola in March. At the time Linkola saw a positive side to the corona pandemic: long-haul flights are useless as man is not a bird.

The year 2020 will be remembered for corona virus.

Nature conservationist, forest philosopher, fisherman and deep ecologist Pentti Linkola doesn’t see mankind learning from the ongoing worldwide pandemic.

Linkola calls for lifestyle changes but:

-When corona has been has been staved off, it will be easy to return to the old model. Modern medicine will defeat this bug.

Linkola, who criticizes the western consumer society, has often scolded Finnish lifestyle, which he says is dependent on the ecstasy created by a market economy, uncritical worship of technology and industrialized forestry and agriculture.

Even though corona has closed down entire countries, Linkola sees a positive side in the pandemic for humans.

-It indeed delays the final destruction (of humanity) when the strain of air travel is reduced. Long-haul flights are completely useless for living in the first place, man is not a bird.

What has been left in the shadow of corona? Should we be more concerned with something else?

-Man should be worried about climate change and the threat of extinction.

Linkola has since the 1950s spoken out about how the strain on the environment should be reduced and the human population explosion prevented.

Many researchers have estimated that human life will end because of viruses for which humans don’t have no immunity. It has been speculated that as climate change progresses the permafrost could reveal superviruses which have been inside ice for tens of thousands of years.

For example the French researchers Chantal Abergel and Jean-Michael Claverie revived a 30 000 year old virus sample which was harmless to humans, found in Siberian permafrost in 2015.

Have you prepared for corona somehow, Pentti Linkola?

-I live by myself, corona doesn’t concern me.

Published in Hämeen Sanomat on the 21st of March 2020.