Environmental movement

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The environmental movement (sometimes inclusive of the conservation or green movements) is a diverse global social and political movement, which advocates for the protection, sustainable management and restoration of the natural environment in an effort to satisfy human needs, including spiritual and social needs, as well as for its own sake. Towards these aims, environmentalists usually engage in or support advocacy for social change, public policy reforms, and changes in the behaviour of individuals, governments and firms. On the one hand, the movement is united by a reverence for the natural world, a commitment to maintain the health of natural systems, and in its recognition of humanity as a part of and not separate to ecosystems. On the other, environmentalists come from many different political traditions, countries and walks-of-life.

Environmentalists are often motivated by a sense that the natural world and humanity's relationship to it is deteriorating. The roots of this 'environmental crisis' are thought to lie in the rapid increase in global population (and hence growing demand for natural resources and energy, and growing pressures on natural systems), as well as a growing alienation of industrialised humanity from the natural environment, short-sightedness, reductionist thinking, avarice and material poverty.

The movement is represented by a range of non-governmental organisations, from the global to the local (grassroot) scale. Some a more or less permanent and professional, whilst others may be spontaneous. At its broadest, the movement includes businesspeople, religious devotees and those working in governments.

The environmental movement expressed itself most passionately at the very apex of the industrial era: around the third quarter of the 20th century. "Classic" modern environmentalism began in that period with the work of Rachel Carson who provided the first clarion call of the coming death of the planet due to mankind's activities.

During the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, as industrial and vehicle pollution levels became overwhelming, the early environmental movement focused heavily on pollution reduction for the protection of basic air and water supplies. Rapidly expanding development pressures in this period also spurred major efforts to preserve unique lands and wildlife habitats, and to protect endangered species before they disappeared. In the United States, the 1970s saw the passage of key laws, such as the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Environmental Policy Act, which have been the foundation for environmental standards since.

As public awareness and the environmental sciences have improved in recent years, environmental issues have broadened to include key concepts such as "sustainability" and also new emerging concerns such as ozone depletion, climate change, and biogenetic pollution.

Most environmentalists have similar value systems and moral codes, and cite common heroes and moral examples, although they often diverge in details such as emphasis, priorities, means of action, and specific goals.

Environmental movements often interact or are linked with other social movements with similar moral views, e.g. for peace, human and animal rights; against nuclear weapons and/or nuclear power, endemic diseases, poverty, hunger, etc..


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Scope of the movement

  • The Conservation movement which sought to protect natural areas on traditional aesthetic, consumptive use (hunting, fishing, trapping), and spiritual grounds.
  • The Environmental movement is broader in scope, including all landscapes and human activities.
  • Environmental health movement dating at least to Rachel Carson, and more related to nutrition, preventive medicine, aging well and other concerns specific to the human body's well-being. In these, the natural environment is of interest mostly as an early warning system for what may happen to humans.
  • Ecology movement which focused on Gaia theory, value of Earth and other interrelations between human sciences and human responsibilities. Its spinoff Deep Ecology was more spiritual but often claimed to be science.
  • Environmental Justice is a movement that began in the U.S. in the 1980s and seeks an end to environmental racism. Often, low-income and minority communities are located close to highways, garbage dumps, and factories, where they are exposed to greater pollution and environmental health risk than the rest of the population. The Environmental Justice movement seeks to link "social" and "ecological" environmental concerns, while at the same time keeping environmentalists conscious of the dynamics in their own movement, i.e. racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, and other malaises of dominant culture.
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Rationale for the Environmental movement

A report published in 1972 by the Club of Rome called Limits to Growth outlined some of the concerns of the environmentalists. Another report called The Global 2000 Report to the President, released later by the Council on Environmental Quality, reported similar findings but was largely ignored. More recently the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment gives the movement vindication.

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Environmental rights

Many environmental lawsuits turn on the question of who has standing; are the legal issues limited to property owners, or does the general public have a right to intervene? Christopher D. Stone's 1972 essay, "Should trees have standing?" seriously addressed the question of whether natural objects themselves should have legal rights, including the right to participate in lawsuits. Stone suggested that there was nothing absurd in this view, and noted that many entities now regarded as having legal rights were, in the past, regarded as "things" that were regarded as legally rightless; for example, aliens, children and women. His essay is sometimes regarded as an example of the fallacy of hypostatization.

One of the earliest lawsuits to establish that citizens may sue for environmental and aesthetic harms was Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, decided in 1965 by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The case helped halt the construction of a power plant on Storm King Mountain in New York State. See also United States environmental law and David Sive, an attorney who was involved in the case.

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Role of science

Largely due to this political critique and confusion, and a growing concern with the environmental health problems caused by pesticides, some serious biologists and ecologists created the scientific ecology movement which would not confuse empirical data with visions of a desirable future world.

Today it is the science of ecology, rather than any aesthetic goals, that provide the basis of unity to most environmentalists. All would accept some level of scientific input into decisions about biodiversity or forest use. Conservation biology is an important and rapidly developing field.

One way to avoid the stigma of an "ism" was to evolve early anti-nuclear groups into the more scientific Green Parties, sprout new NGOs such as Greenpeace and Earth Action, and devoted groups to protecting global biodiversity and preventing climate change. But in the process, much of the emotional appeal, and many of the original aesthetic goals were lost - these groups have well-defined ethical and political views, backed by hard science.

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Renewed focus on local action

However, the environmental movement today persists in many smaller local groups, usually within ecoregions, furthering spiritual and aesthetic values which Thoreau or those who rewrote Chief Seattle's Reply would recognize. Some resemble the old U.S. conservation movement - whose modern expression is the Sierra Club, Audubon Society and National Geographic Society - American organizations with a worldwide influence.

These "politically neutral" groups tend to avoid global conflicts and view the settlement of inter-human conflict as separate from regard for nature - in direct contradiction to the ecology movement and peace movement which have increasingly close links: While Green Parties and Greenpeace, and groups like the ACTivist Magazine for example, regard ecology, biodiversity and an end to non-human extinction as absolutely basic to peace, the local groups may not, and may see a high degree of global competition and conflict as justifiable if it lets them preserve their own local uniqueness. This seems selfish to some. However, such groups tend not to "burn out" and to sustain for long periods, even generations, protecting the same local treasures. The Water Keepers Alliance is a good example of such a group that sticks to local questions.

The visions and confusions, however, persist. The new tribalist vision of society, for example, echoes the concerns of the original environmentalists to a degree. And the more local groups increasingly find that they benefit from collaboration, e.g. on consensus decision making methods, or making simultaneous policy, or relying on common legal resources, or even sometimes a common glossary. However, the differences between the various groups that make up the modern environmental movement tend to outweigh such similarities, and they rarely co-operate directly except on a few major global questions.

Groups such as The Bioregional Revolution are calling on the need to bridge these differences, as the converging problems of the 21st century they claim compel us to unite and to take decisive action. They promote bioregionalism, permaculture, and local economies as solutions to these problems, overpopulation, climate change, global epidemics, and water scarcity, but most notably to "peak oil"--the prediction that we are likely to reach a maximum in global oil production which could spell drastic changes in many aspects of our everyday lives.

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Criticisms of the Environmental Movement

Some people are skeptical of the environmental movement and feel that it is more deeply rooted in politics than science. Although there have been serious debates about climate change and effects of some pesticides and herbicides that mimic animal sex steroids, science has shown that the claims of environmentalists have creedence, that we are indeed experiencing human-induced climate change, and that there are serious side effects in the over-application of pesticides and herbicides.

Claims made by environmentalists may be perceived as veiled attacks on industry and globalization rather than legitimate environmental concerns. Detractors are quick to note that a significant number of environmental theories and predictions have been inaccurate and suggest that the regulations recommended by environmentalists will more likely harm society rather than help nature. Specific examples include when Rachel Carson, in her book Silent Spring, suggested that the pesticide DDT caused cancer and drastically harmed ecosystems. Despite a lack of supportive data, policy makers in a number of countries banned the production and sale of DDT. It was later found that DDT did not seem to cause cancer, but there is substantial evidence to suggest that it is harmful to plants or animals, especially birds, whose eggshells are made so weak that they cannot effectively breed. However, many have since suggested that the ban caused a subsequent spike in malaria cases in Africa where DDT was previously serving to stop its spread through mosquitoes, resulting in the deaths of millions.

Though a number of controversial environmental theories, like ozone depletion and global warming caused by greenhouse gas emissions, are supported by scientific data, there is equally compelling research used by others to disprove those theories. Debates surrounding environmental issues are so political that both camps tend to cherry pick data to support their claims. This tendency has prompted a number of scientists and politicians to call for better checks on environmental research.

Prominent author and Harvard Medical School graduate Michael Crichton appeared before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to address such concerns and recommended the employment of double-blind experimentation in environmental research. A standard in medicine and many other scientific fields, double-blind experiments take each phase of research and analysis and place them in the hands of different, separated groups so that the resulting data is unbiased and consequently more reliable. Crichton suggested that because environmental issues are so political in nature, policy makers need neutral, conclusive data to base their decisions on, rather than conjecture and rhetoric, and double-blind experiments are the most efficient way to achieve that aim.

A consistent theme acknowledged by both supporters and critics (though more commonly vocalized by critics) of the environmental movement is that we know very little about the Earth we live in. Most fields of environmental studies are relatively new, and therefore what research we have is limited and does not date far enough back for us to completely understand long-term environmental trends. This has lead a number of environmentalists to support the use of the precautionary principle in policy making, which ultimately asserts that we don’t know how certain actions may affect the environment, and because there is reason to believe they may cause more harm than good we should refrain from such actions. In essence, environmentalists tend to advocate following the precautionary principle until we know more about how the actions of mankind affect the environment. Opponents, on the other hand, view our current lack of environmental knowledge as precisely the reason we shouldn’t use the precautionary principle. They contend that comprehensive facts and data should be gathered before policy is formed. Critics further suggest that employing the precautionary principle (particularly in matters concerning industry) could have the effect of stifling development - especially in third world countries, with little or no clear benefit to society or the environment.

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See also

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External links

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