Talk:Environmentalism

The article had been moved to Environmental movement in the United States. See Talk:Environmental movement in the United States for the past history. I have moved and cut'n'pasted relevent info back to this page (Environmentalism). I feel there is justifiction for an Environmentalism page and an Environmental movement page. Along with Environmentalist it divides the subject up neatly and avoids a cluttered Environmental movement article. It seem to me that moving a page on the international environmental movement with some stuff about the US to Environmental movement in the United States was a little geographically blinkered. Alan Liefting 07:05, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

File under Religion?

Should this article be filed under Religion. From a neutral POV, the following quote indicates to me that environmentalism is just another religion.

"Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths. There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe. Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith. And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them."

Njh 10:12, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

njh. Dont be absurd. Environmentalism is not a religion! (Well only in the sense that capitalism is).. Unsigned comment by 81.137.168.249

The quotation (which you did not reference) comes from a Michael Crichton speech. Environmentalism is no more a religion than is say sport or shopping etc. One can have a passion for environmentalism (or sport, or shopping) with a religios zeal but is does not make it a religion. Like many words religion has more than one meaning. In his speech Crichton tries to write off the environmental movement as if it were a fringe religion. It is an oft quoted speech on Wikipedia but the central tenet of the speech is not widely held. Alan Liefting 08:52, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

religion ?

hello sorry, my english isnt good, but I can object something : from an encyclopedian point of view there are different streams of environmentalism, including some very materialistic, economical-driven streams (some speak of green capitalism). others point out the spiritual aspects perhaps but from an ethical point of view. And others pragmatic, including a lot of NGO, reformists want to apply precaution principle, international conventions protecting flora and fauna because they only "see" the pollution, the decline of biodiversity, the deforestation, the climate change ... and there are lots of reports, counterreports made by scientifics, they try to analyse the reality of the impact, not just "believe". the United nations (with de world bank) is also alarmed : they create a lot of initiatives, voluntary, non volontary : UNEP, protocole, conventions, global impact ... another metaphor ; if i'm living like diane fossey, seing how they kills gorillas, i didn't need to be in a religious mood : poacher kills and destroys the country; collectively it would be ok to obtain collective consensus to solve the problems. --Ayanoa 17:09, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Suggested merges: environmentalism and ecologism

This article should be merged with environmentalism. -- Centrx 19:46, 4 June 2006 (UTC) Comment moved from talk:environmentalist by habj

That is, environmentalist should be merged with this article. -- Centrx 21:18, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, having one article on the ideology and another of those who share it makes no sense. The article ecologism was also labelled as a possible merge, and I agree on that one two although not equally strong. Ecologism might be a slightly different thing than environmentalism, but the concepts are close enough to probably be better explained in the same article. // Habj 19:58, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about it to say, but if, in fact, "ecologism" is nothing more than what is stated in the ecologism article, then it should be merged here. Even if it is somewhat different, if it is just a subset or branch of environmentalism, but still falls into the class "environmentalism", then it should be included here unless and until it becomes so massive that it wouldn't fit. -- Centrx 21:20, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that ecologism and environmentalism should be merged. Ecologism is not a commonly used term at present so a seperate article for it is not justified. Alan Liefting 09:03, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Environmentalism and environmentalist should have seperate articles. Both articles are hardly stubs and I am also in the "small article is beautiful" camp. Both articles may well grow in time. The environmentalist article is also a suitable place for those who end up at Category:Environmentalists. Alan Liefting 09:03, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

How is an environmentalist anything other than someone who believes in or supports environmentalism? -- Centrx 02:33, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I am not claiming that envionmentalist and environmentalism are not linked by my stance of having seperate articles. Having the environmental movement (environmentalism) seperate from the people (environmentalists) allows for two neatly packaged pages rather than one cluttered one. The pages also do not have any overlap. I am quite sure that the two pages will grow with time especially given that it is a contentious subject. There is a recommendation that pages are kept under a certain size. At some point these pages may reach that point and will have to be split. Keeping them as seperate pages for the start is a cleaner way of allowing the pages to evolve. Alan Liefting 02:49, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

What belongs in environmentalist that does not more properly belong in environmentalism? Right now, the only thing that would belong in environmentalist is the last sentence about derogatory names, which, being simply a dictionary definition and slang at that, hardly deserves its own article. -- Centrx 04:12, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that Environmentalist and Environmental movement should be merged into this article. Sunray 18:43, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Text from Ecologism

Ecologism, is the ideology of caring for nature, environment. There are different streams in ecologism, some emphasing, caring more for nature than men (directly) because the initial thought is that nature will sort things out and help mankind itself if we devoted more energy to it than ourselves, others emphasizing the responsability of human beings (The Imperative of Responsibility).

People with this ideology are often called environmentalists, and an example of that is Green Peace.

Copy of the old text

I don't know about administration of article "history", but just in case i copy the definition, perhaps something come up for the final result. --Ayanoa 21:45, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

WIkipedia never forgets! The old version of the page is still available. Incidently, the word "ecologism" is not listed on a couple of the more comprehensive online dictionaries the I checked. Alan Liefting 01:00, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

but I can forget, juste to help (copying), and if we don't use the definition, we clean. for ecologism and environmentalism, I can't help; I'm french speaker and we use more environnementalisme than ecologisme, and sometimes as simple synonym (so it is in french wikipedia,(except that fr:ecologisme is the name of the article) some authors (but I 've no references) use ecologism for the radical wing. --Ayanoa 12:22, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Michael Crichton and environmental religion

Michael Crichtons speech to the Commonwealth Club, where he compares religion to environmentalism, seems to crop up quite often on this page. I have removed from the article the word "Some" linked to his speech. One opinion is not the same as some. Alan Liefting 07:09, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Environmentalism as a distinct political ideology

A question: should there be some discussion of Environmentalism as a political ideology? I have found this listed in Wikibooks on .[1]Political Theory. If so, there is a case for not merging this article.

If this is an important political theory—though apparently never attempted and with no major philosophers as adherents—then it would likely belong in its own article and is irrelevant to the mergers. —Centrx→talk • 05:21, 27 June 2006 (UTC)