Environmentalism as a Political Ideology

Paper Summary:

In this paper the concept of environmentalism is looked at from a political point of view. Like communism, feminism, and anarchism, environmentalism was born out of people's concerns about the health of society, in this case, such concepts as resource quantity and quality. Covered in this paper are three core principles that have been determined by the course of history, three stages of growth for political application of ecological ideas, and the evolution it has undergone and how it has changed.

From the Paper:

"It was only relatively recently that humanity had become so concerned with the state of the environment that people began to look at the issue from a political angle. Only when decades of environmental degradation began to affect that quality of life for everyone did certain groups of people want to center their ideology around a sustainable lifestyle. These events in our history were paramount to the naissance of a new political ideology, known as environmentalism. During the last century, environmentalism evolved far beyond what the originators could have envisioned, gaining three core characteristics, increasing the amount of influence on politics, and undergoing changes that would help in creating a case for putting greater emphasis on the Earth. In the last hundred years, environmentalism has become an anti-anthropocentric, post-materialistic, and modern liberal ideology which has evolved from activism to bureaucracy to political parties and has changed its focus from isolated ecosystems to how our world is affected by people's actions."

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