Monday, September 8, 2014

Environmentalism


ENVIRONMENTALISM
by Antonio C. Antonio
August 30, 2014

What is “environmentalism”?

“Environmentalism” was first coined in 1922 although research materials are not too certain who coined it.  Environmentalism is characterized as a social movement aimed at influencing the public policies on environmental matters and concerns.  Environmentalism is a political process that involves education and research, lobbying and activism.

“Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements.  Environmentalism advocates the preservation, restoration and/or improvement of the natural environment, and may be referred to as a movement to control pollution or protect plant and animal diversity.  For this reason, concepts such as land ethic, environmental ethics, biodiversity, ecology and the biophilia hypothesis figure predominantly.

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 color green but this association has been appropriated by the marketing industries and is a key tactic of greenwashing.  Environmentalism is opposed by anti-environmentalism which takes a sceptical stance against many environmentalist perspectives.”  (Wikipedia)

A practitioner of environmentalism is an environmentalist.  “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, improves efficiencies in materials economy, transitioning to new accounting paradigms such as Ecological economics and renewing and revitalizing our connection with non-human life.” (Wikipedia)  Environmentalism involves deeper education and knowledge of the many factors involved in the field of environmental science.

I earlier wrote a blog entitled “A Consequence of Illegal Logging” (http://antonantonio.blogspot.com?).  In my research for materials in this article, I found it a bit disturbing to discover that an indigenous tribe living in the Amazon basin were referred to as “environmentalists” simply because they came up with a novel, yet savage, way of protecting the forest.  There is more to being an environmentalist than this… and environmentalism, with all the many allied disciplines involved, cannot be had and/or made with one single motion of protecting the forest from illegal loggers.  Besides, forest protection, just one of the many facets of the broad concept of environmental protection; it doesn’t necessarily translate to environmentalism.

I am also saying this so we don’t entertain the illusions that picking up a candy wrapper and throwing it in a trash bin automatically makes us environmentalists.  We may fit to be proverbial advocates, as opposed to being genuine environmentalist, because (again) there really is more depth and quality to environmentalism.  

Just my little thoughts…

REFERENCES: (Keywords: Environment / Environmental Advocacy / Environmentalism)


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