A Clemson philosophy argued recently that he wants all humans to die off as a punishment for their treatment of animals and the environment. Since his article was published in the New York Times, he has refused to defend his opinion.

According to a report from The College Fix, Clemson University Professor Todd May recently called for the end of human existence and has refused to defend his argument. May argued that humans do far more bad than good. What are humanity’s worst crimes according to the professor? These include oppression of animals and destruction of the environment.

The New York Times column, which was titled “Would Human Extinction Be a Tragedy?” was published in late December. In the column, May weighs humanity’s positive contributions to the world against its negative contributions.

First, human contribution to climate change is devastating ecosystems, as the recent article on Yellowstone Park in The Times exemplifies. Second, increasing human population is encroaching on ecosystems that would otherwise be intact. Third, factory farming fosters the creation of millions upon millions of animals for whom it offers nothing but suffering and misery before slaughtering them in often barbaric ways. There is no reason to think that those practices are going to diminish any time soon. Quite the opposite. Humanity, then, is the source of devastation of the lives of conscious animals on a scale that is difficult to comprehend.

And then May hit his readers with his conclusion. “It may well be, then, that the extinction of humanity would make the world better off and yet would be a tragedy. I don’t want to say this for sure, since the issue is quite complex,” May wrote. “But it certainly seems a live possibility, and that by itself disturbs me.”

Students at Clemson University have tried to reach out to May to speak about his column. May has refused to defend or comment on the piece since it was published.

One New York Times commenter bashed May for his “ultimate liberal fantasy” perspective on humanity.

“This is the ultimate liberal fantasy belief, that humans are “bad” because they are “destroying the planet”, and we don’t deserve to survive, that we’ve ruined the beautiful peaceful earth, that the earth would be “better” without us,” the commenter wrote. “Such utter nonsense. We have changed the earth, mostly for the good, we are the first species to have that capability.”