| • Science | • People | • Locations | • Timeline |
| Contents | ||
One concern common to most types of environmentalism is opposing pollution. In this sense, most people in the world are "environmentalists" since hardly anyone wants to breathe air choked with fumes or swim in dirty water. For people in underdeveloped countries, the problem is often finding clean drinking water.
In another sense, the meaning of the term "pollution" has been extended to include industrial emission of carbon dioxide, which is beneficial to plant growth and harmless to human beings in ordinary concentrations. Proponents of the global warming hypothesis and supporters of the Kyoto Protocol classify carbon dioxide as a "pollutant" due to their belief that it contributes to harmful global warming (see climate change issues).
The term in both senses was first used in the early 20th century. They are related by the observation that if one's surroundings play a great role in individual development, and those surroundings are either green, beautiful, healthy and thriving, or gray, ugly, degraded, unhealthy and unable to sustain themselves, two different attitudes to life develop. This is reflected in the modern controversy over measuring well-being, which often places importance on aesthetics and experience of a healthy natural environment, e.g. gardens.
Numerous events in the world of English-language publishing after the middle of the twentieth century contributed to the abrupt rise of environmentalism, especially among college and university students and the more literate public. One was the publication of the first textbook on ecology, Fundamentals of Ecology, by Eugene Odum and Howard Odum, in 1953. Another was the appearance of the best-seller Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, in 1962. The wide popularity of The Whole Earth Catalogs, starting in 1968, was quite influential among the activistic and hands-on younger generation of the 1960s and 1970s.
Environmentalists can conserve resources in many ways. Driving a fuel-efficient car, taking short showers, and eating vegan food are among these. Fuel-efficient cars have lower emissions and consume less oil, which is a limited resource. Short showers consume less fresh water. Vegan food (soybeans, rice, green vegetables) takes less land, water, and oil to grow and eat directly than to grow soybeans, feed the soybeans to a pig, and then eat the pig.
Much environmental activism is direct towards conservation, as well as the prevention or elimination of pollution. However, conservation movements, ecology movements, peace movementSocial Justice Pacifism The global peace movement refers to a sense of common purpose among organizations that seek to end wars and minimize inter-human violence, usually through pacifism, non-violent resistance, diplomacy, boycott and moral purchasing.s, green parties, green-Green anarchism is system-opposed anarchism suggesting that hierarchies in general and the ecological unbalance, economism, authority-power, international injustice, war, racism and centralism of today are a direct result of a cruel industrialistic rule o and eco-anarchistsEco-anarchism argues that small eco-villages (of no more than a few hundred people) are the correct scale of human living, and that infrastructure and political systems should be re-organized to ensure that these are created. It combines older trends towa often subscribe to very different ideologies, while supporting the same goals as those who call themselves 'environmentalists'. To outsiders, these groups or factions can appear to be indistinguishable.
As humanHuman beings are defined variously in biological, spiritual, and cultural terms, or in combinations thereof. Biologically, they are classified as Homo sapiens ( Latin for knowing man , a primate species of mammal with a highly developed brain. In spiritua populationFor the use of the word population in statistics, see statistical population. In the most common sense of the word, a population is the collection of people—or organisms of a particular species—living in a given geographic area. Populations are studied in and industrial activity have increased, the growth of (political, nature-promoting) environmentalism reflects considerable controversy, with those who place high importance on environmentalism (environmentalists) coming into conflict with those who accord it lesser importance or who otherwise disagree with various elements of the environmentalist's current agenda.
Environmentalists often clash with others over issues of the management of natural resourcesnatural resource Natural resources are natural capital converted to commodity inputs to infrastructural capital processes. They include soil, timber, oil, minerals, and other goods taken more or less as they are from the Earth. A nation's natural resource, e.g. the atmosphereEarth's atmosphere is the layer of gases surrounding the planet Earth and retained by the Earth's gravity. It consists of nitrogen (78. 1% by volume) and oxygen (20. 9%), with small amounts of argon (0. 9%), carbon dioxide (variable, but around 0. 035%), as a "carbon dump", the focus of climate change and global warming controversy. They usually seek to protect commonly owned, or unowned, resources for future generations.
Those who take issue with new untested technologies are more precisely known, especially in Europe, as political ecologists. They usually seek, in contrast, to preserve the integrity of existing ecologies and ecoregions, and in general are more pessimistic about human 'management'.
Various extreme ideologies of radical environmentalism, and several ecology-based theories of anarchy (known as (small-g) green anarchism) are often cited to justify equipment sabotage, logging or fishing blockades, and even burning of houses impinging on a natural ecology. Environmentalists differ in their views of these ideologies and groups, but almost all condemn violent actions that can harm humans. They are somewhat more tolerant of the destruction of property not essential to sustaining or saving human life. The most extreme, sometimes called terrists, often claim to view themselves as part of nature, simply acting to protect itself from man.