Environmentalism

Environmentalism is a blanket term for philosophies and activist movements that seek to slow, halt, or even reverse the damage humans are doing to the systems that sustain life on Earth. Most environmentalists are primarily motivated by anthropocentric concerns, such as human health issues due to toxins in the air and water, limits on "natural resources" used by humans, or the loss of "ecosystem services" that provide benefits to humans. However, many environmentalists at least aspire to a more ecocentric philosophy that views living beings other than humans as having intrinsic value. The most prominent sub-movement that espouses this idea is the animal rights movement.

The term "environmentalism" itself is somewhat suspect from an ecocentric perspective, tending to imply a separation between humans and an "environment" consisting of everything else on Earth, like the stage and backdrop for a play with humans as the only actors. By contrast, Gaian Thinking places humans in a more coequal role with other species, acknowledging our shared membership in the community of life that constitutes the Gaia superorganism.

History of environmentalism in the United States
The history of environmental movements is additive, with new concerns arising over time but old concerns remaining important.

First wave: conservation of natural resources
Environmentalism in the 19th and early 20th century concerned itself largely with how to manage and conserve resources such as wood from forests, as well as how to protect wilderness areas from development, although mainly for the sake of human recreational activities. Prominent figures in this era include John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club; Henry David Thoreau, author of the famous book Walden about living in nature; and Theodore Roosevelt, generally considered the United States's first conservationist President. Notable achievements in this era were the establishment of national parks and wildlife refuges.

Second wave: stopping pollution and extinction
The American environmental movement expanded radically in the 1960s and '70s, energized particularly by Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring about the potentially disastrous side effects of toxic pesticides for both humans and other species such as songbirds. Another important factor was the general wave of political activism on college campuses triggered by the Vietnam War; the connection between pacifism and environmentalism is underlined by the name of one of the major environmental groups founded during this period, Greenpeace. The omnipresent threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union also drove environmentalists to join peace protests, while expanding their concerns about toxins to encompass radiation from nuclear power plants. Arguably, another major contributor to the massive growth of environmental awareness and action was the Apollo program, which enabled the image of the whole Earth to enter public consciousness and become an environmentalist symbol. Notable achievements in this era include the founding of Earth Day, the banning of the pesticide DDT, and the passage of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, Endangered Species Act, and National Environmental Policy Act (the latter being the law that created the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency).

Concern over conservation of natural resources remained strong throughout this era, with the publication of the report The Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome being a key event. The report warned of catastrophic consequences if civilization were to persist in expanding its consumption of resources. As with Silent Spring, business leaders worked to discredit the findings of The Limits to Growth, and though the campaign against Silent Spring largely failed, the one against The Limits to Growth succeeded. To this day, public opinion about the report is mostly skeptical or dismissive.

Third wave: building a green economy
The 2004 release of an article by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus called "The Death of Environmentalism" helped drive a shift in both rhetoric and strategy in the environmental movement. The key idea was to move away from "I have a nightmare" speeches and toward a vision of a bright future, one that focused on the economic benefits of "clean technology" industries, and thus appealed to labor unions and poor minority communities that had previously ignored or even opposed environmental movements. New organizations founded on these principles included the Apollo Alliance and Green for All. Van Jones, cofounder of Green for All and author of a book called The Green Collar Economy, is a major figure in this era, as is the other cofounder Majora Carter. As African-Americans, they represent what third-wave supporters hope is a trend toward more leadership from "frontline communities" that are impacted by environmental justice issues, such as lacking the political power to prevent toxic industrial projects from being sited near their homes.

This era is also characterized by growing alarm about one particular pollution trend, that of greenhouse gases precipitating the growing global climate crisis. Environmental justice activists point out that the impacts of climate disruption usually fall disproportionately on the poor, while the benefits of the industrial activities that generate greenhouse emissions largely go to the rich and middle classes.

The climate crisis also drives a renewed focus on preserving wild lands, especially forests, since deforestation markedly reduces the ability of Earth's plant life to reabsorb the human-generated excess of carbon dioxide that is currently the dominant driver of global warming.