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• For comprehensive information on environmentalism, see the award-winning Environmental Encyclopedia, Edition 3. Published by Gale.

Iron-On Instructions

Environmental Science - An Overview

Environmentalism is the ethical and political perspective that places the health, harmony, and integrity of the natural environment at the center of human attention and concern. Although there are many different views among environmentalists, as a group they tend to emphasize the interdependence of life and the conditions that make life possible. All animals, including human beings, need clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and nutritious food to eat and all living things on our planet are interconnected by these needs. For example, fish contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB), mercury, and other toxic substances are not only hazardous to humans but to bears, eagles, gulls, and other predators. Likewise, mighty whales depend on tiny plankton, cows on corn, koala bears on eucalyptus leaves, bees on flowers, and flowers on bees and birds, and so on through all species and ecosystems. All animals, human and nonhuman alike, are interdependent participants in the cycle of birth, life, death, decay, and rebirth.

Utilitarian vs. Deep Ecology

While environmentalists agree on some issues, there are a number of disagreements among them about the purposes of environmentalism and about how to best achieve those ends. Some environmentalists emphasize the desirability of conserving natural resources for recreation, sightseeing, hunting, and other human activities, both for present and future generations of human beings. Proponents of deep ecology believe that the natural environment has its own intrinsic value apart from any aesthetic, recreational, or other value assigned to it by human beings.

Methods

Environmentalists also differ on how best to conserve, reserve, and protect the natural environment. Some groups, such as the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy, favor gradual, low-key legislative and educational efforts to inform and influence policy makers and the general public about environmental issues. Other more radical environmental groups, such as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Earth First!, favor carrying out direct action by employing the tactics of ecotage (ecological sabotage), or monkey-wrenching, to stop strip mining, logging, drift net fishing, and other activities that they deem dangerous to animals and ecosystems. Within this environmental spectrum are many other groups, including the World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace, Earth Island Institute, Clean Water Action, and other organizations that use various techniques to inform, educate, and influence public opinion regarding environmental issues and to lobby policy makers.

Iron-On Instructions

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