What the thing is
The environmental movement, sometimes called the ecology movement, is a social movement that aims to protect the natural world from harmful environmental practices in order to create sustainable living. It recognises humanity as a participant in ecosystems, not an enemy of them, and is centred on ecology, health and human rights.
It is international, represented by organisations from enterprises to grassroots groups, and it varies from country to country. At its broadest it includes private citizens, professionals, religious devotees, politicians, scientists, nonprofit organisations and individual advocates such as Gaylord Nelson and Rachel Carson. The climate movement can be regarded as a sub-type of it.
Where it came from
In Europe and North America the origins lay in smoke abatement programs, a response to the smoke pollution that followed the great factories and their growth in coal consumption during the Industrial Revolution. After 1900, industrial chemical discharges added to the load.
In Britain, systematic efforts grew out of the amenity movement of the 1870s. The Public Health Act 1875 required furnaces and fireplaces to consume their own smoke. The Plumage League, later the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, formed in 1889, and the National Trust was formally inaugurated in 1894. The artist Sir William Blake Richmond founded the Coal Smoke Abatement Society in 1898, frustrated by the pall of coal smoke.
In the United States the movement began in the late 19th century out of concern for the natural resources of the West, with John Muir and Henry David Thoreau among its philosophical voices. In India, the first seed was the 1964 foundation of Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh, a labour cooperative started by Chandi Prasad Bhatt, followed by the Chipko movement from 1974.
What it gets right
It covers a wide field, from conservation through reforestation, recycling and pollution control, to environmental health, which dates at least to the Progressive Era and deals with clean water and sewage handling. Environmental justice addresses harm to poor or marginalised communities from hazardous waste and resource extraction. The movement holds a number of subcommunities with different approaches in different parts of the world.
What it gets wrong
The movement is not always united in its goals. The early movement experienced a deep tension between conservation and broader environmental protection. Conservative critics characterise it as radical and misguided and say laws such as the US Endangered Species Act and Clean Air Act conflict with property rights, corporate profits and economic growth. Some critics challenge the scientific evidence for global warming.
Western environmental activists have also been criticised for performative activism, eco-colonialism and white savior tropes, especially celebrities who promote conservation in developing countries.
Why it matters now
Since the 1970s its focus points have grown to include ozone depletion, climate change, acid rain and genetically modified crops and livestock. The rise of environmental justice, indigenous rights and the climate crisis has produced other environmentalist identities.
Protest is part of its record. After the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, the largest of many anti-nuclear demonstrations, in New York City in September 1979, involved 200,000 people. Julia Butterfly Hill spent 738 days in a California Redwood, and the Yellow Finch tree sit blockaded the Mountain Valley Pipeline for 932 days from 2018 to 2021.
Is it worth your time
Yes, if you want to know where environmental concern came from and why people who share the label disagree. In Europe and North America it began with smoke abatement, it now spans climate, justice and protest, and it carries real internal tension and outside criticism.
