Talk:Environmental movement

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[edit] Tough!

A very tough entry to write.

There is a clear thread of support for the idea of humans as a "keystone species" and having material obligations to participate in nature, in the growth of American culture. Some would say, as it was assimilated by the natives!

This is separate from the Conservation_movement idea of "reserves", which, like the idea of isolating natives, came from the larger Christian culture.

Both movements still exist - although their differences are less given modern diversity. From here on in I'd call this MY OWN OPINION which is why it's not in the article:

Scientific ecology made this a more robust and empirical point of view, just as modern cultural anthropology changed the "noble savage" or "naked beast" notion of natives. So the ecology_movement is distinct from both of these, and probably began with Rachel Carson in its modern form.

Then there's the peace_movement which is different again and is primarily now distinguished from the nature-focused groups by a belief that humans can settle their disputes amongst themselves AND THEN create a bounty of nature. The opposite of the environment, ecology, and conservation movement assumptions that your dealings with nature pre-determine your dealings with others.

I agree with the person asserting POV in the article. It reads more as a polemic than an appraisal of prevalent attitudes. I see the validity of the movement being described, but I imagine it but a subset of those who would claim to be participants of an "environmental movement". The main distinction being made between what is advocated here and what is disparaged is a subjective absolutism as opposed to a rational-objective relativistic utilitarian approach. Conservationists and ecologists advocate whats "good for you" -- the environmentalists of the article advocate what's good -- period. BobCMU76 19:56 May 12, 2003 (UTC)
It's courtesy of user:The Anome, from wikipedia:pages needing attention. Martin

[edit] Note 1

I tried to make the first sentence more "definitional" and added a link to the natural environment page. The comments aboyt similar value systems were merged with the text after the list of movements. I also deleted the following sentences

often with the perceptual psychology notion that one's perception of one's environment, and of oneself, are always of a kind. One way to state the difference is that conservationists and ecologists advocate whats "good for you" -- while many environmentalists advocate what's good -- period.

The first part is incomprehensible as its stands. The second part does not seem to be correct: AFAIK, few "common folks" will make that distinction, and even fewer would agree to that criterion. Besides, "ecologists", as scientists, are not supposed to advocate anything (except more grants, better salaries, and friendlier referees for their papers. 8)Jorge Stolfi 14:56, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Note 2

I kept the link to the peace and anti-nuclear movements, but removed them from the list of "environmental movements" since they do not belong there. BTW, the rest of the page still needs lots of work in this respect... Jorge Stolfi 15:09, 28 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Historical role of Earth Day

The history of the environmental movement is not a specialty of mine, but I believe that especially in the U.S. the first Earth Day (U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson's brainchild, in 1970) was pivotal for the modern environmental movement, especially after that first celebration - the years immediately following. I believe that it also had importance for Canada and Western Europe. Eventually, the annual Earth Day celebration had a catalytic effect in other parts of the industrialized world too, I believe.

I think a lot of things coalesced from that point (Earth Day 1970), and as an indirect result of the boost given by that first national celebration.

[edit] Long essay on anti-environmetalism in the US

I reverted the essay on anti-environmentalism, because I'm (1) not sure if it is really on topic in this article, (2) is it US-centric, (3) it is written in essayistic style, not article style, and (4) it is too long in relation to the rest of the article. -- till we ☼☽ | Talk 08:56, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Let's improve this

I nominated this article for Wikipedia:Collaboration of the week. Such an important topic needs more, and it should be much more global. I began by merging the old Environmentalism article into this and spinning off the US-centric parts of it into Environmental movement in the United States. --Erauch 15:08, May 10, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the article can be a lot better. I did some work on the related article nl:Milieubeweging, but i must say that it is quite hard to write a good comprehensive article on this subject. Especially because each country has it's own distinct political situation to which the environmental movement has to respond. There is of course also an international environmental movement working on a global level. That is however only visible sometimes (for example at global UN conferences), but most of the time they do quite invisible lobby work at international governmental platforms.
Probably each country needs its own article describing the national situation. Maybe this article can include a description of the international environmental movement, or maybe this article should just try to generalize it all.
Pointing to Non-governmental organization in the first sentence seems a good idea, although that article is also very limited.
Some other issues:
  • Is the conservation movement part of the environmental movement (using a different strategy), or are those related, but seperate things. The conservation movement is focussed on nature - and nature is beautiful. With the environment there is nothing but problems which need to be solved. Conservation is connected with biology, environment with chemics and physics, conservation does not require any changes in society, but environmental protection does (that's why the grey environmental movements easily connects with other movements striving for social changes). But of course both the green and the grey movement in the end have usually similar goals. But there are issues like wind energy where grey groups usually are quite fond of, but green groups are of the opinion that large windmills spoil the landscape and kill too many birds.
  • As is usefull for every political movement, it is quite informative to write not only something about their political goals, but also about which political powers they are aiming at. Every (democratic) political movement knows what it wants to be changed, and where this change should happen (local, national, international). And it is also informative to write how those organizations are trying to reach their goal. But on the other hand that is quite generic information for every political movement.
  • Blueprints. The environmental organizations have produced several blueprints for a sustainable society. Probably the views in the different blueprints have changed (a bit) over the years.
  • Results. Of course you can never know for sure what political changes the environmental movement has caused (because maybe the changes may have happened anyway), but it should be interesting to give at least some examples of changes which the environmental movement desired and which have happened, and examples of desired changes that did not happen. Interesting is of course the situation around nuclear energy - very few countries are currently expanding nuclear energy, but the global warming issue might change that in the near future. Other issues (beside energy) are agriculture (pesticides, GMO's), traffic, waste.... Of course the fields can also be divided into spheres: water, air and soil pollution, but as i see it the environmental movement since long has learned to focus on the causes of problems.
Taka 12:43, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
I'll respond later, but add your name to the Collaboration of the Week vote if you agree. --Erauch 14:15, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
I did put my vote there. But there's no reason to not try to improve this article even if it's not a collaboration project.
I noticed that the link to the German wikipedia is to "Umweltschutz", which is "environmental protection" (and thus something different). My Russian and Korean are not enough to tell if those are correct links.
An article like this can not go without mentioning the main international environmental organizations. Of the ones that i think of currently, only Greenpeace is mentioned. Other very influential international groups are Friends of the Earth and WWF. Apart from Greenpeace, those have quite poor articles as well.
Calling the conservation movement a Christian initiative sounds very strange in my ears. It might however be the case in the USA. In several articles I see hardly a distinction between "conservation" (which includes museums) and "nature conservation", although in my perception those are quite different things. Maybe the people who are interested in nature prefer to go outside in stead of writing articles :).

N.B.=>It is however an environmentaly sociological study by (I think) White that connects Christianity with the current society that uses the natural environment as 'just raw material'. As such this view was countered with the "Stewardship" mentality as preached by Christianity. Also is it important to note that 'the' environmental movement started in the '70's was a white men middle class radicalism => mostly Christians and that the earlier nature-groups were also white elitair groups (=>Christian) and that as such Christianity is not the prime reason, but nevertheless a common aspect.

In the Dutch wikipedia the different views on nature conservation are quite well described, see main article nl:Natuurbescherming and the seperate views in nl:Klassieke Natuurbeschermingsvisie (Classical nature conservation), nl:Functionele Natuurvisie (Functional nature conservation) and nl:Natuurontwikkelingsvisie (Nature development). There's a main article about the current governmental policy on nature conservation: nl:Ecologische hoofdstructuur (Ecological Main Structure), with some sub articles. Most of the specific articles have no interwiki links, they might describe a Dutch situation (the Netherlands are small and densely populated, so there is no room for vast nature reservations and that's maybe why there are big discussions on how to use the available space), but at least they should connect to some ways of thinking elsewhere. The discussion is about seperating human activities from nature, or integrating nature & human activity, about what is worth conserving: small populations of endangered species or giving room to (semi-)natural developments which includes acceptance of extinction of species.
And this is apart from blueprints for a sustainable society (or sustainable development), apart from views from and about the Third World (with its water problems, the tension between economic and population growth on one side and the environment on the other side etc), the role of the World Bank. About all those things discussions are going on, decisions are being made which the environmental movement tries to have influence on.
Last, but not least, the environmental movement is being seen as quite important for democracy. I know that the Dutch government and the EU are spending money to support environmental groups in Central & Eastern Europe. Of course I can not know exactly what the reasons are for this, but for sure democratization of those countries plays a role in this: citizens who organize themselves in order to protect their own environment is an nice step in democratization.
Ok, so I am just writing down some ideas for what could be written in the article. Not sure how to structure it though.
Taka 19:03, 11 May 2005 (UTC)
Probably each country needs its own article describing the national situation.

Yes. US and Britain are there.

Maybe this article can include a description of the international environmental movement, or maybe this article should just try to generalize it all.

I think both.

Is the conservation movement part of the environmental movement (using a different strategy), or are those related, but seperate things. conservation does not require any changes in society, but environmental protection does

I think it is a subset. Originally the conservation movement was the whole environmental movement. Mention the differences you listed.

Blueprints. The environmental organizations have produced several blueprints for a sustainable society. Probably the views in the different blueprints have changed (a bit) over the years.

This is very important. Should be a major part of the article.

Results. Of course you can never know for sure what political changes the environmental movement has caused (because maybe the changes may have happened anyway), but it should be interesting to give at least some examples of changes which the environmental movement desired and which have happened, and examples of desired changes that did not happen.

Yes, this deserves a section, as does international organization.

Calling the conservation movement a Christian initiative sounds very strange in my ears. It might however be the case in the USA.

I don't believe the current paragraph does that. Originally, the environmental movement was quite distant from major religions, but these now incorporate environmentalism into their teaching.

In the Dutch wikipedia the different views on nature conservation are quite well described

It would be good to generalize these in a paragraph each. My Dutch is good enough to understand some of the articles but not good enough to translate, however I am fluent in German. (By the way, Natuurbescherming seems to be Nature Conservation, but the article equates it with german Umweltschutz, which means environmental protection, which is more than just wilderness.) Perhaps one paragraph on the original conservation movement (Klassieke Natuurbeschermingsvisie) and its modern equivalent of wilderness conservation (Natuurontwikkelingsvisie), and another on Functionele Natuurvisie which certainly exists on a global level, and could be called the "Ecosystem services approach".

Wikipedia is great, we can cross-pollinate ideas between countries.

--Erauch 13:30, May 12, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] User:Gringo300

i question the neutrality of this article. i'm not saying i necessarily DISAGREE with it- i'm just questioning the neutrality of it. to see what i'm talking about, locate the word "myths" in the article, and read the parts of the article surrounding that word. Gringo300 07:51, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

Consider merging with Ecology movement and Green movement. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 19:56, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ecology movement is a new, and in my opinion, incorrect synonym for the environmental movement. The Green Movement is the political section of the environmental movement. Alan Liefting 20:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

The English Wikipedia's coverage of environmental topics is highly disorganized right now. Some of the other languages show how to do it better. The current Environmentalism article should either be merged here, or changed to Environmentalism in Literature and the Media. Ecology movement should be merged here, and parts of these articles that are specifically about politics should be moved to Green Politics.

Reorganization should only be done after consulting some other languages, because the English-speaking world is rather divergent when it comes to this topic. So far I've looked at the German and Dutch Wikipedias. (Anyone speak any Scandinavian languages?) The Dutch seems the best; it distinguishes the environmental movement, environmental protection, and Green politics. This three-way division seems the best to me. --Erauch 20:57, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

I do not agree with the mergers that you suggest. Apart from the Ecology movement they are all worthy of seperate articles.
I am sure there are sufficient English speaking contributors that can help reorganise the Environment articles without having to resort to other languages. To this end I have started Wikipedia:WikiProject Environment. Alan Liefting 20:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV tag.

An anonomous contributer has done a POV edit. Claims are made that many environmentalists are "wrong". I also feel that the opinion of one writer of popular fiction, ie Michael Crighton, is not an appropriate source of information for this article. Alan Liefting 20:54, 6 December 2005 (UTC) N.B.=> I do not concur with this. Environment is both realas socialy constructed. And the latter is done based on views of people. Not just the experts. Why should pro-environmentalist only be the ones without knwoledge? On the other hand Bjorn Lomborg's book 'The Skeptical Environmentalist' is a prominent source of Crichton and Lomborg IS an expert.

How absurdist. What are you talkking about? Why did you rmove the excellent quote from Attenborough, one of the most famous and central movers of the environmentalist movemen? Are you American and you are stuck in an merican viewpoint? .... you've never heard of him?
What a crazy sentence. Exactly as it exactly points out, CERTAIN SPECIFIC *PREDICTIONS* of environmentalism HAPPENED to be INCORRECT...as is utterly accepted by environmentalists and is part of environmentalism. To characterize this part of the entry as "Claims are made that many environmentalists are 'wrong.'".... is silly and not coherent
What a nonsensical comment. If so, do you feel that Ayn Rand, Julian Simon, etc etc etc and everyone else mentioned in the "criticisms" section should be censored out, too? Perhaps you'd be happier if there was no critcisms section? Quite simply, far and away the most famous, influential critic of the Environmental movement, at present, is Michael Crichton, who as well as happening to be a popular author of thrillers, is a political figure, essayist, journalist, op-ed writer and commentator...on many learned fields. Absurdist comments like "I feel that the opinion of one writer of popular fiction, ie Michael Crichton, is not an appropriate source of information" do absoltuely nothing positve for the environmental movement. If you don't like the fact that there is a (trivial, tiny) critcisms section in the entry ... erase the whole section. How whacky. This is exactly why the Wiki will never work long term ... because of extremists who want one view. Unfortunate. (unsigned comment by anon 84.92.111.247)
(I have restored Alan Liefting's comment to its unbroken state. The breaking of a users comment into fragments to reply to each point destroys the flow and is in poor taste (verging on vandalism in my view). Vsmith 03:17, 8 December 2005 (UTC))
Here are a few points in reply:
  • The Attenborough quotation is not appropriate in a Wikipedia article. I moved it to Wikiquote.
  • Attenborough is NOT a central mover of the environmental movement. He is one of many in the movement. If the David Attenborough article is accurate then he is primarily involved with television rather than the environmental movement.
  • I am NOT an American. I have heard of and seen Attenborough.
  • "CERTAIN SPECIFIC *PREDICTIONS*" being incorrect does not make a complete publication "wrong".
  • If I was an "extremist" I would have deleted the complete edit but you will notice I did not do that. I have only removed the wildly inaccurate stuff and the inappropriate quotation. Alan Liefting 07:40, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Reasons for NPOV tag

(I have restored Alan Liefting's comment to its unbroken state. The breaking of a users comment into fragments to reply to each point destroys the flow and is in poor taste (verging on vandalism in my view). Vsmith 03:17, 8 December 2005 (UTC))

Since my previous brief comment did not make my reasons for the NPOV tag clear I will give a point by point reason for it. These points relate to this version.

  • The environmental movement is not focused industrial activity. All aspects of anthropogenic effects are considered and that includes population and consumerism as well as industrial activity.
  • A very important aspect of the present-day environmental movement is computer modelling. Not strictly true. Computer modelling is used by scientists. The environmental movement relies on the work of scientists.
  • The main historic problem with the environmental movement is that it's predictions are always wrong: the environmental movement predicts that the sky is falling, but it never does: the movement then moves on to a new set of predictions.
This is a bold and incorrect claim. The style is also "opinion style" rather than encyclopeadia style.
  • Simon Ehrlich lost every environmental bet to Julian Lincoln Simon. He lost ONE bet. See Wager between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich.
  • 1960s and 1970s factory and car pollution is gone. Wrong. The pollution is reduced but is not gone.
  • "Lomberged" has come to be used as a verb. Three Google hits means it is not worthy of mention.
  • Michael Crighton is given too much emphasis. The original one line comment would have sufficed. He is not an authoratative source. He has opinions.
(I have restored Alan Liefting's comment to its unbroken state. The breaking of a users comment into fragments to reply to each point destroys the flow and is in poor taste (verging on vandalism in my view). Vsmith 03:17, 8 December 2005 (UTC))

[edit] Embarassing and funny

- This entry is now utterly laughable and pointless - The person writing above can only be considered an "environmental troll." - This entire entry is now utterly pointless. - How embarassing, pointless and indeed funny. The WikiBlog.

(I have restored Alan Liefting's comment to its unbroken state. The breaking of a users comment into fragments to reply to each point destroys the flow and is in poor taste (verging on vandalism in my view). Vsmith 03:17, 8 December 2005 (UTC))

[edit] back to the drawing board

Wikipedia is either a public information resource or a platform for ranting. The article I found was badly written, heavily biased towards the United States, strikingly jaded and frequently inaccurate.

To be sure, it's a hard subject. Nevertheless, I've started to make some changes to this article which hopefully will render it more informative and broader in its scope.

More later.

[edit] Anon comment

I question whether any of us at all including the Planet Earth let alone the Environmental Movement really even exist.

Planet Earth is life and life is the environmental movement and the rest is just details. User:66.147.45.186 January 25, 2006

[edit] Contradiction between articles

This is an unedited excerpt from the article called "Environmental Movement":

       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 not only did DDT not cause 
       cancer, but there is little evidence to suggest that it is harmful to plants or 
       animals, and 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.

Here is an unedited excerpt from the article called "DDT"

       DDT is highly toxic to aquatic life, including crayfish, daphnids, sea shrimp and many 
       species of fish. DDT may be moderately toxic to some amphibian species, especially in 
       the larval stages. In addition to acute toxic effects, DDT may bioaccumulate 
       significantly in fish and other aquatic species, leading to long-term exposure.

Question: Do you know what is wrong between those two articles?

I think the article in Environmental Movement needs to be edited... AWDRacer Tuesday, February 28, 2006 (10:09 AM PST)

The information on DDT needs to be more closely researched. DDT used as widly in the Cotton Belt of the South Eastern United States did great harm. DDT not only kills harmful insects but helpful ones as well. In the southerstern US it caused the shells of birds including eagles to become so fragile that most would break before incubation could occur. As a result eagles as well as other foul including the Ivory Billed Woodpecker became almost extinct.

I try to correct inserting data from DDT into environmental movement, if somebody can verify ? --Ayanoa 18:08, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] role of science

Well, the NPOV tag caught my attention, so I started skimming through the article to see what all the fuss might be about. Couldn't find anything warranting the big stop sign until I got to this part on "role of science." I doubt this is the reason for the tag, but . . . I think this section needs revision.

First, it is unclear what "this political critique and confusion" refers to (the previous section, or some earlier version of the article). Second, what is meant by "serious biologists and ecologists"? Third, I can see no real distinction between "ecology movement" and "environmental movement" (and several other redundant entries along these same lines). Sure, it's true that some trained academic biologists and ecologists are just as concerned with environmental quality as are non-academic activists. But that doesn't make their paricipation part of a separate "movement." For what it's worth, idealists of various stripes may be found in evey walk of life, including academic scientists. Idealists, whatever their technical expertise may be, are very likely to confuse emperical data and their idealistic visions. Biologists are not exempt.

I do not believe the following phrase: "Today it is the science of ecology, rather than any aesthetic goals, that provide the basis of unity to most environmentalists." Many environmentalists base their values strictly on ethical, aesthetic, or philosophical viewpoints. Even those who make use of science can often still trace their core values back to non-scientific beliefs.

I don't see any reason to "avoid the stigma of an "ism", " and I don't agree that the various organizations named in the paragraph do anything to avoid that stigma. Clearly, anti-nuclear groups, Green Parties, Greenpeace Earth Action all are environmentalist groups. Is there any reason to characterize Green Parties as "more scientific"? Sure, science supports them to some extent, but all these groups are advocacy organizations, and they use science as a tool when it helps to advance their causes.

I suggest revising this section. But, more important, I agree with the "merge" comments above, recommending merging the Ecology Movement page into Environmental Movement.

Best, Scott D. White 06:21, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

"Most environmentalists have similar value systems and moral codes, and cite common heroes and moral examples" This doesn't sound right. A fisherman may support large scale power plants and also want clean up the river used for fishing for example. A logger may oppose sprawl. One environmentlist may want to preserve land for hunting another thinks hunting is barbaric and believe eating meat is wrong etc. It not just facts, the "tone" of the article at this point seems slanted to me. KAM 11:55, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
The Article says "On the other, environmentalists come from many different political traditions, countries and walks-of-life." But the Washington Environmental Council, says "He found the average member of this organization to be white, highly educated, employed as a professional and about 50 years old" Also "the movement is united by a reverence for the natural world" Is this true? KAM 23:04, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Thou shalt be merged!

I also agree with the merging of the three articles. If you consider it, they really are essentially the same thing. It is redundant to have three articles covering similar, if not the same, subject.

I think that is right, Ecology movement, Environmentalism should be merged as mentioned above. KAM 13:39, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
There is now a lot of strange links for example David Helvarg book The War against the Greens (1994) describes organized opposition to the "environmental movement in the United States". How is the this different then Environmental movement in the United States? Perhaps the article about the United States should be merged also and be reoganized in a more logical way. As it is the article about the United States is an orphan. The article says it is about a global social movement but is almost all about the United States and is getting more so with time. KAM 14:16, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] why merge of environmental movement and environmentalism ?

both articles need clean up, but it's possible to separate concerns, philosophy, scope of environmentalism with environmental movement more "pragmatic", short definition from the point of view of social movement, collective action, examples, history, (with creation of movements, organizations), in different countries facts, case or actions related. as it is more or less in the articles. (as for pacifism and peace movement ; it's better to make a structure (why here in the discuss page) to decide collectively. sorry for my english. or the other solution, merging and create after the correct distinct article. --Ayanoa 19:56, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article title

Suggest the title becomes "Environmental movements" or "Environmental concern" or the like unless there's an identifiable single movement that may be described by the proper noun "Environmental Movement". Regards, David Kernow 01:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unfair association

POV:

Reputable environmental scientists, ecologists, and other upstanding citizens are often unfairly associated with environmental terrorists.

Whose POV is this? --Wing Nut 18:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] re: unfair association

I don't think that it is an opinion. Are you saying that environmental scientists, ecologists, and reputable citizens are fairly associated with ecoterrorists? Because that would be the opposite of the statement. These people are all part of the large environmental movement, but they are not necessarily allies. I think that it is a fair statement. Maybe you could explain your reasoning for removing it. Otherwise, I'll revert.

[edit] External links removed from article

I have removed all the exteral links. None were relevant.

Alan Liefting 21:09, 23 March 2007 (UTC)