| The global ecology movement is one of several new social
movements that emerged at the end of the sixties, its growth has been stimulated by the widespread acknowledgement of the
ecological crisis of our planet. Its story has ran alongside the environmental narratives that have reached popular
consciousness. From the conservation movement at the beginning of the century then with concern in the sixties about chemical
pesticides the ecological movement was born with Racheal Carsons Silent Spring, there was a great deal of concern over nuclear
weapons and nuclear power in sixties and seventies, then there was acid rain in the eighties, ozone depletion and deforestation
in the ninties and now climate change is the biggest concern for many.As well as the bigger global issues like these and species
extinction the ecology movement also encompasses any group wishing to protect the environment. The ecoligy movement has evolved
and branched out to different means of affecting change. There is the political branch with the Green parties, and organisations
like Greenpeace were more radical taking direct action against environmental destruction. Its views on people, behaviors, events
centered around the political and lifestyle implications of the science of ecology
and the idea of nature as a value in itself. "Ecology movement" is an umbrella term for different groups, ideology and attitudes.
Looking under the umbrella
Many people confuse the ecology movement as a whole with political Greens - who have
social justice concerns beyond ecology. Green parties have roots in the ecology movement, though.
Today the term "ecology movement" is associated often with the more moral, more confrontational, and more rigorous stance
taken by Greenpeace and other even more radical NGOs, e.g. Earth First, Earth
Action, Sea Shepherd in favor of the Precautionary Principle and strong fundamental preventive
measures for biosafety, biosecurity and biodiversity. The methods of these groups
often involve the idea of Direct action.
A radical wing of the ecology movement opposes and actually sabotages or destroys infrastructural capital of what they deem to be "Earth rapist" activities. This includes the
Anarchist Golfing Association and the Earth Liberation Front, which are sometimes accused of "terrorism", despite no documented incident of either ever having harmed a single animal, humans included.
However, they have inflicated large economic losses on many economies. Their terrorist acts include fire-bombing a Forestry
Service installation in Erie, Pennsylvania. A very few in the ecology movement would accept doing bodily harm by non-legal means to achieve their goals - they have no organized presence and are rejected
by almost all players in the ecology movement. Some who hold property damage and bodily harm in moral equivalence, may reject
this distinction, e.g. the US FBI which has labelled the Earth Liberation Front as a "terrorist group" (although the
U.S. Department of Defense
does not).
On the other side of the spectrum, there are individuals and groups that believe in either a more political-lobbyist or more
scientific than activist approach.
At least since the Rio Earth Summit
in 1992, the discussion about sustainable development and sustainability has surfaced and partly replaced older ecological oriented ideologies. This and the
establisment of a global anti-globalization
movement in the late 1990s can be seen as follow-ups to the ecological movement.
See also:
Branches
Ideas
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