Ecomodernism embraces substituting natural ecological services with energy, technology, and synthetic solutions as long as they help reduce impact on environment.
Debates that form the foundation of ecomodernism were born from
disappointment in traditional organizations who denied use of advanced
technologies such as nuclear power thus leading to an increase of
reliance of fossil gas and increase of emissions instead of reduction
(e.g. Energiewende). Coming from evidence-based, scientific and pragmatic positions,
ecomodernism engages in the debate on how to best protect natural
environments, how to accelerate decarbonization to mitigate climate change, and how to accelerate the economic and social development of the world's poor. In these debates, ecomodernism distinguishes itself from other schools of thought, including ecological economics, degrowth, population reduction, laissez-faire economics, the "soft energy" path, and central planning. Ecomodernism draws on American pragmatism, political ecology, evolutionary economics, and modernism. Diversity of ideas and dissent are claimed values in order to avoid the intolerance born of extremism and dogmatism.
Ecomodernist ideas have been associated in the United States with the California-based Breakthrough Institute and internationally with WePlanet NGO. While the word 'ecomodernism' has only been used to describe modernist environmentalism since 2013, the term has a longer history in academic design writing and Ecomodernist ideas were developed within a number of earlier texts, including Martin Lewis's Green Delusions, Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Discipline and Emma Marris's Rambunctious Garden. In their 2015 manifesto, 18 self-professed ecomodernists—including scholars from the Breakthrough Institute, Harvard University, Jadavpur University, and the Long Now Foundation—sought
to clarify the movement's vision: "we affirm one long-standing
environmental ideal, that humanity must shrink its impacts on the
environment to make more room for nature, while we reject another, that
human societies must harmonize with nature to avoid economic and ecological collapse."
Key among the goals of an ecomodern environmental ethic is the
use of technology to intensify human activity and make more room for
wild nature. Among other things, ecomodernists embrace:
Green nanotechnology
(nanofilters for water purification, nanomaterials for air pollution
control, nanocatalysts for more efficient chemical processes,
nanostructured materials for improved solar cells, nanomaterials for
enhancing battery performance, nanoparticles for soil and groundwater
remediation and nanosensors for detecting pollutants)
Artificial intelligence for resource optimization (predictive
maintenance in industrial settings to reduce waste, optimized routing
for transportation to reduce fuel consumption, AI-driven climate modeling for better environmental predictions and supply chain optimization to reduce transportation emissions).
Ecomodernism did not appear suddenly. It grew out of several decades
of thinking about how humanity can improve its quality of life while
reducing pressure on the environment. The movement emerged because many
researchers and environmental thinkers began to notice a pattern. In
some areas, modern technologies were actually helping nature recover,
rather than harming it.
The roots of ecomodernism go back to ideas from the 1980s and
1990s, when some scholars argued that environmental protection did not
always require stopping economic growth. Instead, they suggested that
cleaner technology, better planning, and smarter use of energy could
allow modern societies to “use less to make more” This idea was later called decoupling, meaning that human well-being could rise while environmental impact fell.
During the 1990s and 2000s, a number of writers and scientists
helped shape this mindset. Figures like Jesse Ausubel, Vaclav Smil, and
Stewart Brand pointed out long-term trends showing that many countries
were using less land, less energy, and fewer materials per person as
technology advanced.These trends suggested that modernization was not always the enemy of nature but it could sometimes protect it. At the same time, some environmental thinkers in the United States began
to argue that traditional environmentalism had become too focused on
limits, regulations, or pessimistic messages. Instead, they believed
that solutions such as clean energy, high-yield farming, dense cities,
and advanced materials could allow people to thrive while shrinking the
human footprint on nature.This
group, many of whom later became associated with the Breakthrough
Institute, played an important role in forming what would become
ecomodernism.
By the early 2010s, these ideas were coming together into a clearer vision. Supporters of this emerging approach believed that:
• Cities allow humans to live well while using less land.
• High-yield agriculture can spare forests and habitats.
• Nuclear and renewable energy can reduce carbon emissions.
• New technologies can replace older, more destructive ways of producing goods.
These beliefs formed the basis of what became known as ecomodernism.
An Ecomodernist Manifesto
In April 2015, a group of 18 self-described ecomodernists collectively published An Ecomodernist Manifesto.The
manifesto argued that humans can “decouple” from nature through
technology and eventually leave more of the planet for wildlife and
ecosystems.
Reception and criticism
Some environmental journalists have praised An Ecomodernist Manifesto. At The New York Times, Eduardo Porter wrote approvingly of ecomodernism's alternative approach to sustainable development. In an article titled "Manifesto Calls for an End to 'People Are Bad' Environmentalism", Slate's Eric Holthaus wrote "It's inclusive, it's exciting, and it gives environmentalists something to fight for for a change." The science journal Nature editorialized the manifesto.
Ecomodernism has been criticized for inadequately recognizing what Holly
Jean Buck, Assistant Professor of Environment and Sustainability, says
is the exploitative, violent and unequal dimensions of technological modernisation. Sociologist Eileen Crist, Associate Professor Emerita, observed that ecomodernism is founded on a western philosophy of humanism with no regard to "nonhuman freedoms". Of the Manifesto Crist says
the mass extinction
of life forms that the human enterprise has set into motion receives no
mention in the Manifesto. (And extinction of species is mentioned
once.) This is a startling omission for an eco manifesto: mass
extinctions are geologically rare and catastrophic events; following
such past cataclysms, it took millions of years for biological diversity
to rebound—a timescale irrelevant for all future human generations. And
yet the omission of mass extinction makes sense from the Manifesto's
point of view.
Human Geographer Rosemary-Claire Collard and co-authors assert that ecomodernism is incompatible with neoliberal capitalism, despite the philosophy's claims to the contrary. By contrast, in his book "Ecomodernism: Technology, Politics and the
Climate Crisis" Jonathan Symons argues that ecomodernism belongs in the
social democratic tradition, promoting a third way between laissez-faire and anti-capitalism, and calling for transformative state investments in technological transformation and human development. Likewise, in "A sympathetic diagnosis of the Ecomodernist Manifesto",
Paul Robbins and Sarah A. Moore describe the similarities and points of
departure between ecomodernism and political ecology.
Another major strand of criticism towards ecomodernism comes from proponents of degrowth or the steady-state economy.
Eighteen ecological economists published a long rejoinder titled "A
Degrowth Response to an Ecomodernist Manifesto", writing "the
ecomodernists provide neither a very inspiring blueprint for future
development strategies nor much in the way of solutions to our
environmental and energy woes."
At the Breakthrough Institute's annual Dialogue in June 2015,
several environmental scholars offered a critique of ecomodernism. Bruno Latour argued that the modernity celebrated in An Ecomodernist Manifesto is a myth. Jenny Price argued that the manifesto offered a simplistic view of "humanity" and "nature", which she said are "made invisible" by talking about them in such broad terms.
The Ecomodernist philosophy invites a very techno-optimistic outlook towards the environment and in the “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” a 2023 self-published essay by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen
states that many significant problems of humanity have been solved with
the development of technology, particularly technology without any
constraints, and that we should do everything possible to accelerate
technology development and advancement. The philosophy from Ecomodernist Manifesto
stresses on the viewpoint that climate change and other global
ecological challenges are not the most important immediate concerns for
the majority of the world’s people. So the richer and more urbanised nations become, the less their people
care about their environmental impact, notes George Monbiot in the
article "Meet the ecomodernists: ignorant of history and paradoxically
old-fashioned". So, ‘Limits, ecomodernism and degrowth’ that the concern
is more dependent on a modernist ‘fix’ mentality that searches for
salvation in technology, Giorgos Kallis says.
In this very techno-optimist
nature, the ecomodernist are decoupling humans from nature and the
dependence upon it. But there is a risk here of what Rob Wallace calls
‘red washing capital’: justifying real-existing technologies and the
relations that produce them, with the excuse that in some undefined
future, a hypothetical socialism could put them to good use.
While ecomodernists see human technology as capable of
transcending ecological and energetic limits, Clive Hamilton in his
“Growth Fetish” mentions this ideology as the essential for the
reproduction of the capitalist system, one that perpetuates and
reproduces the unequal relations of exchange and enables the
international capitalist class to capture embodied labor and energy in
pursuit of accumulation and growth. This is also not very far away from Chris Smaje’s argument published on
the Dark Mountain website, “modernisation” of the kind they celebrate
may have liberated many people from bondage, oppression and hard labour,
but it has also subjected many to the same forces. Cindy Isenhour in her article “Ecomodernism and contrasting definitions
of technological progress in the Anthropocene” mentions that perhaps
the contemporary moment calls for a reconceptualization of progress, one
that recognizes the capacity of technology to mystify unequal relations
of exchange and the shifting of environmental burdens in a highly
unequal global society.
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses on the environmental and nature-related aspects of green ideology and politics, ecologism combines the ideology of social ecology and environmentalism. Ecologism is a term more commonly used in continental European languages, while environmentalism is more commonly used in English, but the words have slightly different connotations.
At its crux, environmentalism is an attempt to balance relations
between humans and the various natural systems on which they depend in
such a way that all the components are accorded a proper degree of sustainability. The exact measures and outcomes of this balance is controversial and
there are many different ways for environmental concerns to be expressed
in practice. Environmentalism and environmental concerns are often
represented by the colour green, but this association has been appropriated by the marketing industries for the tactic known as greenwashing.
Environmentalism is opposed by anti-environmentalism,
which says that the Earth is less fragile than some environmentalists
maintain, and portrays environmentalism as overreacting to the human
contribution to climate change or opposing human advancement.
Definitions
Environmentalism denotes a social movement that seeks to influence the political process by lobbying, activism, and education in order to protect natural resources and ecosystems. Environmentalism as a movement covers broad areas of institutional oppression,
including for example: consumption of ecosystems and natural resources
into waste, dumping waste into disadvantaged communities, air pollution, water pollution,
weak infrastructure, exposure of organic life to toxins. Because of
these divisions, the environmental movement can be categorized into
these primary focuses: environmental science, environmental activism, environmental advocacy, and environmental justice.
An environmentalist is a person who may speak out about
our natural environment and the sustainable management of its resources
through changes in public policy or individual behaviour. This may
include supporting practices such as informed consumption, conservation
initiatives, investment in renewable resources, improved efficiencies in the materials economy, transitioning to new accounting paradigms such as ecological economics,
renewing and revitalizing our connections with non-human life or even
opting to have one less child to reduce consumption and pressure on
resources.
In various ways (for example, grassroots activism and protests), environmentalists and environmental organizations seek to give the natural world a stronger voice in human affairs.
In general terms, environmentalists advocate the sustainable management of resources, and the protection (and restoration, when necessary) of the natural environment
through changes in public policy and individual behaviour. In its
recognition of humanity as a participant in ecosystems, the movement is
centered around ecology, health, and human rights.
The environmental movement (a term that sometimes includes the conservation and green movements) is a diverse scientific, social, and political movement.
Though the movement is represented by a range of organizations, because
of the inclusion of environmentalism in the classroom curriculum, the environmental movement has a younger demographic than is common in other social movements (see green seniors).
A concern for environmental protection has recurred in diverse forms, in different parts of the world, throughout history.
The earliest ideas of environmental protectionism can be found in Jainism, a religion from ancient India revived by Mahavira in the 6th century BC. Jainism
offers a view that is in many ways compatible with core values
associated with environmental activism, such as the protection of life
by nonviolence,
which could form a strong ecological ethos for global protection of the
environment. Mahavira's teachings on the symbiosis between all living
beings—as well as the five elements of earth, water, air, fire, and
space—are core to environmental thought today.
Within the religious tradition of the Catholic church, the friar Francis of Assisi gave expression to a profound mystical reverence for the natural environment as early as 1224. In his lyrical poem Canticle of the Sun Francis offered both an ethical and spiritual context for the practice of environmentalism. He extolled mankind to affirm a divine presence within the natural
realm while calling into question mankind's dominance of the
environment, personifying God's living presence in his creation and
urging humanity to offer thanksgiving for that presence by extending
praise through "...Sister Mother Earth, who sustains us and governs us
and who produces varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.. Praised
be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind, and through the air, cloudy and
serene, and every kind of weather through which you give sustenance to
Your creatures."
In Europe, King Edward I of England banned the burning and sale of "sea-coal" in 1272 by proclamation in London, after its smoke had become a prevalent annoyance throughout the city. This fuel, common in London due to the local scarcity of wood, was
given this early name because it could be found washed up on some
shores, from where it was carted away on a wheelbarrow. King Philip II of Spain was noted by his love of nature, which according to historian Henry Kamen, turned him into one of the first ecologist
rulers in European history. He issued orders to conserve the Spanish
forests, noting in 1582 the great disservice they would do to future
generations by depleting them.
At the advent of steam and electricity the muse of history holds her nose and shuts her eyes (H. G. Wells 1918).
The origins of the environmental movement lay in the response to increasing levels of smokepollution in the atmosphere during the Industrial Revolution. The emergence of great factories and the concomitant immense growth in coal consumption gave rise to an unprecedented level of air pollution in industrial centers; after 1900 the large volume of industrial chemical discharges added to the growing load of untreated human waste. The first large-scale, modern environmental laws came in the form of Britain's Alkali Acts, passed in 1863, to regulate the deleterious air pollution (gaseoushydrochloric acid) given off by the Leblanc process, used to produce soda ash.
In industrial cities, local experts and reformers, especially after 1890, took the lead in identifying environmental degradation and pollution, and initiating grass-roots movements to demand and achieve reforms. Typically the highest priority went to water and air pollution.
The late 19th century saw the passage of the first wildlife conservation laws. The zoologist Alfred Newton published a series of investigations into the Desirability of establishing a 'Close-time' for the preservation of indigenous animals
between 1872 and 1903. His advocacy for legislation to protect animals
from hunting during the mating season led to the formation of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and influenced the passage of the Sea Birds Preservation Act in 1869 as the first nature protection law in the world.
The movement in the United States began in the late 19th century, out of concerns for protecting the natural resources of the West, with individuals such as John Muir and Henry David Thoreau
making key philosophical contributions. Thoreau was interested in
peoples' relationship with nature and studied this by living close to
nature in a simple life. He published his experiences in the book Walden,
which argues that people should become intimately close with nature.
Muir came to believe in nature's inherent right, especially after
spending time hiking in Yosemite Valley and studying both the ecology and geology. He successfully lobbied congress to form Yosemite National Park and went on to set up the Sierra Club
in 1892. The conservationist principles as well as the belief in an
inherent right of nature were to become the bedrock of modern
environmentalism.
The prevailing belief regarding the origins of early
environmentalism suggests that it emerged as a local response to the
adverse impacts of industrialization in Western nations and communities.
In terms of conservation efforts, there is a widespread view that the
conservation movement began as a predominantly elite
concern in North America, focusing on the preservation of local natural
areas. A less prevailing view, however, attributes the roots of early
environmentalism to a growing public concern about the influence of
Western economic forces, particularly in connection with colonization, on tropical environments. Richard Grove,
in a 1990 publication, points out that little attention has been given
to the significance of the colonial experience, particularly the
European colonial experience, in shaping early European
environmentalism.
Photos of the Earth from outer space
provided both new insights and new reasons for concern over Earth's
seemingly small and unique place in the universe (composite images of
Earth generated by NASA in 2001 (left) and 2002 (right)).
In 1916, the National Park Service was founded by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. Pioneers of the movement called for more efficient and professional
management of natural resources. They fought for reform because they
believed the destruction of forests, fertile soil, minerals, wildlife,
and water resources would lead to the downfall of society.
"The conservation of natural resources is the fundamental problem.
Unless we solve that problem, it will avail us little to solve all
others".
In the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, several events illustrated the magnitude of environmental damage caused by humans. In 1954, a hydrogen bomb test at Bikini Atoll exposed the 23-man crew of the Japanese fishing vessel Lucky Dragon 5 to radioactive fallout. The incident is known as Castle Bravo,
the largest thermonuclear device ever detonated by the United States
and the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design
tests. In 1967 the oil tanker Torrey Canyon ran aground off the coast of Cornwall, and in 1969 oil spilled from an offshore well in California's Santa Barbara Channel. In 1971, the conclusion of a lawsuit in Japan drew international attention to the effects of decades of mercury poisoning on the people of Minamata.
At the same time, emerging scientific research drew new attention to
existing and hypothetical threats to the environment and humanity. Among
them were Paul R. Ehrlich, whose book The Population Bomb (1968) revived Malthusian concerns about the impact of exponential population growth. Biologist Barry Commoner
generated a debate about growth, affluence and "flawed technology."
Additionally, an association of scientists and political leaders known
as the Club of Rome published their report The Limits to Growth in 1972, and drew attention to the growing pressure on natural resources from human activities.
In the United States and several other countries, the boom was manifested in suburban development and urban sprawl, aided by automobile ownership.
Another major literary force in the promotion of the environmental movement was Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring about declining bird populations due to DDT,
an insecticide, pollutant, and man's attempts to control nature through
the use of synthetic substances. Her core message for her readers was
to identify the complex and fragile ecosystem and the threats facing the
population. Her book sold over two million copies.
The book cataloged the environmental impacts of the indiscriminate spraying of DDT
in the US and questioned the logic of releasing large amounts of
chemicals into the environment without fully understanding their effects
on human health and ecology. The book suggested that DDT and other
pesticides may cause cancer and that their agricultural use was a threat to wildlife, particularly birds.
The resulting public concern led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 1970 which subsequently banned the agricultural use of DDT in the US in 1972. The limited use of DDT in disease vector
control continues to this day in certain parts of the world and remains
controversial. The book's legacy was to produce a far greater awareness
of environmental issues and interest into how people affect the
environment. With this new interest in environment came interest in
problems such as air pollution and petroleum spills, and environmental
interest grew. New pressure groups formed, notably Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth (US), as well as notable local organizations such as the Wyoming Outdoor Council,
which was founded in 1967. Greenpeace was created in 1971 as an
organization that believed that political advocacy and legislation were
ineffective or inefficient solutions and supported non-violent action.
From 1962 to 1998, the environmental movement founded 772 national
organizations in the United States.
In the 1970s, the environmental movement gained rapid speed around the world as a productive outgrowth of the counterculture movement.
The world's first political parties to campaign on a predominantly environmental platform were the United Tasmania Group of Tasmania, Australia, and the Values Party of New Zealand.The first green party in Europe was the Popular Movement for the Environment, founded in 1972 in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel. The first national green party in Europe was PEOPLE, founded in Britain in February 1973, which eventually turned into the Ecology Party, and then the Green Party.
Protection of the environment also became important in the developing world; the Chipko movement was formed in India under the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and led by Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Sunderlal Bahuguna and some local leaders. They set up peaceful resistance to deforestation by literally hugging trees (leading to the term "tree huggers"). Chipko
literally translates as an open call to hug, and has become a widely
recognised and oft replicated action in public protests to save trees.
Their peaceful methods of protest and slogan "ecology is permanent
economy" were very influential.
Another milestone in the movement was the creation of Earth Day. The first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970. It was created to give awareness to environmental issues. On 21 March 1971, United Nations Secretary-General U Thant spoke of a spaceship Earth on Earth Day, hereby referring to the ecosystem services
the earth supplies to us, and hence our obligation to protect it (and
with it, ourselves). Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and is celebrated in more than 192 countries every year. Its founder, former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, was inspired to create this day of environmental education and awareness after seeing the oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara in 1969.
In 1972, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in Stockholm,
and for the first time united the representatives of multiple
governments in discussion relating to the state of the global
environment. It marked a turning point in the development of
international environmental politics. This conference led directly to the creation of government environmental agencies and the UN Environment Program.
By the mid-1970s, many felt that people were on the edge of environmental catastrophe. The back-to-the-land movement started to form and ideas of environmental ethics joined with anti-Vietnam War
sentiments and other political issues. These individuals lived outside
normal society and started to take on some of the more radical
environmental theories such as deep ecology. Around this time more mainstream environmentalism was starting to show force with the signing of the Endangered Species Act in 1973 and the formation of CITES in 1975. Significant amendments were also enacted to the United States Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.
Nancy Pelosi
meets with the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize recipients – six
individuals who have made a profound impact in their communities and
throughout the world by fighting for environmental justice.
Environmentalism continues to evolve to face up to new issues such as global warming, overpopulation, genetic engineering, and plastic pollution.
However, research in 2013 showed a precipitous decline in the United
States' public's interest in 19 different areas of environmental
concern.
Since the 2000s, the environmental movement has increasingly focused on climate change
as one of the top issues. As concerns about climate change moved more
into the mainstream, from the connections drawn between global warming
and Hurricane Katrina to Al Gore's 2006 documentary film An Inconvenient Truth,
more and more environmental groups refocused their efforts. In the
United States, 2007 witnessed the largest grassroots environmental
demonstration in years, Step It Up 2007, with rallies in over 1,400 communities and all 50 states for real global warming solutions.
Publicity and widespread organizing of school strike for the climate began after Swedish schoolgirl Greta Thunberg staged a protest in August 2018 outside the Swedish Riksdag (parliament). The September 2019 climate strikes were likely the largest climate strikes in world history. In 2019, a survey found that climate breakdown is viewed as the most
important issue facing the world in seven out of the eight countries
surveyed.
Many religious organizations and individual churches now have programs and activities dedicated to environmental issues. The religious movement is often supported by interpretation of scriptures.
Themes
One notable strain of environmentalism comes from the philosophy of the conservation movement.
Conservationists are concerned with leaving the environment in a better
state than the condition they found it distinct from human interaction. The conservation movement is associated with the early parts of the environmental movement of the 19th and 20th century.
The adoption of environmentalism into a distinct political
ideology led to the development of political parties called "green
parties", typically with a leftist political approach to overlapping
issues of environmental and social wellbeing (green politics).
Light green, and dark green environmentalism are yet other sub-movements, respectively distinguished by seeing environmentalism as a lifestyle choice (light greens), and promoting reduction in human numbers and/or a relinquishment of technology (dark greens).
Evangelical environmentalism is an environmental movement in the United States in which some Evangelicals have emphasized biblical
mandates concerning humanity's role as steward and subsequent
responsibility for the care taking of Creation. While the movement has
focused on different environmental issues, it is best known for its
focus of addressing climate action from a biblically grounded theological
perspective. This movement is controversial among some non-Christian
environmentalists due to its rooting in a specific religion.
Free market environmentalism is a theory that argues that the free market, property rights, and tort law provide the best tools to preserve the health and sustainability of the environment. It considers environmental stewardship to be natural, as well as the
expulsion of polluters and other aggressors through individual and class action.
Labor environmentalism
The concept of labor environmentalism refers to the efforts of trade unions to create environmental policies, advocate for environmental issues, and collaborate with environmental groups. Trade unions and international organizations such as the International Labour Organization face the dilemma of having to "navigate the structures of global capitalism and the economic growth paradigm, on the one hand, and the global ecological crisis on the other hand".
Environmental organizations can be global, regional, national or local; they can be government-run or private (NGO).
Environmentalist activity exists in almost every country. Moreover,
groups dedicated to community development and social justice also focus
on environmental concerns.
More radical organizations, such as Greenpeace, Earth First!, and the Earth Liberation Front,
have more directly opposed actions they regard as environmentally
harmful. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has determined some
of these groups as a terrorism threat.
Criticism
When environmentalism first became popular during the early 20th
century, the focus was wilderness protection and wildlife preservation.
These goals reflected the interests of the movement's initial, primarily
white middle and upper class supporters, including through viewing
preservation and protection via a lens that failed to appreciate the
centuries-long work of indigenous communities who had lived without
ushering in the types of environmental devastation these settler
colonial "environmentalists" now sought to mitigate. The actions of many
mainstream environmental organizations still reflect these early
principles. Numerous low-income minorities felt isolated or negatively impacted by
the movement, exemplified by the Southwest Organizing Project's (SWOP)
Letter to the Group of 10, a letter sent to major environmental
organizations by several local environmental justice activists. The letter argued that the environmental movement was so concerned
about cleaning up and preserving nature that it ignored the negative
side-effects that doing so caused communities nearby, namely less job
growth. In addition, the NIMBY movement has transferred locally unwanted land uses
(LULUs) from middle-class neighborhoods to poor communities with large
minority populations. Therefore, vulnerable communities with fewer
political opportunities are more often exposed to hazardous waste and
toxins. This has resulted in the PIBBY principle, or at least the PIMBY (Place-in-minorities'-backyard), as supported by the United Church of Christ's study in 1987.
As a result, some minorities have viewed the environmental movement as
elitist. Environmental elitism manifested itself in three different
forms:
Compositional – Environmentalists are from the middle and upper class.
Ideological – The reforms benefit the movement's supporters but impose costs on nonparticipants.
Impact – The reforms have "regressive social impacts". They
disproportionately benefit environmentalists and harm underrepresented
populations.
Many environmentalists believe that human interference with 'nature'
should be restricted or minimised as a matter of urgency (for the sake
of life, or the planet, or just for the benefit of the human species), whereas environmental skeptics and anti-environmentalists do not believe that there is such a need. One can also regard oneself as an environmentalist and believe that human 'interference' with 'nature' should be increased. Nevertheless, there is a risk that the shift from emotional
environmentalism into the technical management of natural resources and
hazards could decrease the touch of humans with nature, leading to less
concern with environment preservation. Increasingly, typical conservation rhetoric is being replaced with
restoration approaches and larger landscape initiatives that seek to
create more holistic impacts.
Others seek a balance that involves both caring deeply for the
environment while letting science guide human actions affecting it. Such an approach would avoid the emotionalism which, for example, anti-GMO
activism has been criticized for, and protect the integrity of science.
Planting trees, for another example, can be emotionally satisfying but
should also involve being conscious of ecological concerns such as the effect on water cycles and the use of nonnative, potentially invasive species.
Anti-environmentalism
Anti-environmentalism
is a set of ideas and actions that oppose environmentalism as a whole
or specific environmental policies or environmental initiatives.
Criticism of environmentalism originates from multiple ideologies,
interest groups, and political objectives. Oppositions can take the form
of an organized countermovement,
aimed at scientific claims about climate change, environmental policies
and regulations, in both national or international spheres.
Anti-environmentalist actors may include workers in industries and
companies that are threatened by environmental policies, and
anti-environmentalist think tanks.
The reasons for opposition vary. They range from economic
interests to ideological and political positions that are hostile
towards environmental social and political change, including critical
perspectives that encourage environmentalists to think about more
inclusive approaches toward sustainability.
An environmentalist is a person who protects the environment. An environmentalist can be considered a supporter of the goals of the environmental movement, "a political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities". An environmentalist is engaged in or believes in the philosophy of environmentalism or one of the related philosophies.
The environmental movement has a number of subcommunities, with
different approaches and focuses – each developing distinct movements
and identities. Environmentalists are sometimes referred to by critics
with informal or derogatory terms such as "greenie" and "tree-hugger", with some members of the public associating the most radical environmentalists with these derogatory terms. Some of the notable environmentalists who have been advocating for environmental protection and conservation include:
In the early 1990s, multiple environmental activists in the United States became targets of violent attacks. Every year, more than 100 environmental activists are murdered throughout the world. Most recent deaths are in Brazil, where activists combat logging in the Amazon rainforest.
116 environmental activists were assassinated in 2014, and 185 in 2015. This represents more than two environmentalists assassinated every week in 2014 and three every week in 2015. More than 200 environmental activists were assassinated worldwide between 2016 and early 2018. A 2020 incident saw several rangers murdered in the Congo Rainforest by
poaching squads. Occurrences like this are relatively common, and
account for a large number of deaths.
In 2022, Global Witness reported that, in the preceding decade, more than 1,700 land and environmental defenders were killed, about one every two days. Brazil, Colombia, Philippines, and Mexico were the deadliest countries. Violence and intimidation against environmental activists have also been reported in Central and Eastern Europe. In Romania, anti-logging activists have been killed, while in Belarus, the government arrested several environmental activists and dissolved their organizations. Belarus has also withdrawn from the Aarhus Convention.
Another area of environmentalism is to use art to raise awareness about misuse of the environment. One example is trashion, using trash to create clothes, jewelry, and other objects for the home. Marina DeBris is one trashion artist, who focuses on ocean and beach trash to design clothes and for fund raising, education.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
