In the earliest days of the lockdown, pictures of peaceful blue waters and clear skies were all over social media, with captions like 'Nature is healing, we are the virus.' People were struck by the fact that there was less traffic, and less air pollution - to the extent that one could even hear birdsong that had previously been drowned out.

But this seemingly innocuous narrative is one that serves a rather dark agenda: that of ecofascism. Ecofascism is an ideology that appropriates environmentalism and uses it to claim that overpopulation causes environmental degradation. It has its root in the ideals of racial purity first propagated by Germany's National Socialist party - aka the Nazi Party.

If you dig a little deeper into ecofascism, you will find that its proponents blame the global south and its environmental practices for all the issues afflicting the environment. It is nothing less than white supremacy in disguise.

To the ecofascist, the sacrifice of people of colour is "worth it" for the preservation of the environment. When they say things like "Nature is healing" (often accompanied by doctored photos of clear canals in Venice), the implication is clear: *certain* people are the virus, and those people must be eradicated for the sake of affluent, white Western people.