Labels

It's amazing how many different branches of environmentalism there are. You can declare yourself a follower of

• shallow ecology
• deep ecology
• preservationism
• conservationism
• ecofeminism
• environmental justice
• environmental [insert religion here]
• radical environmentalism
• environmental anarchy
• "OMGCameronDiazIsDoingItSoItMustBeCool" ism
• etc, etc, etc

The list goes on and on... and I am coming to believe that is a good thing. The more multi-faceted our work towards mitigating environmental issues the more likely we are to succeed. We need people fighting to stop pollution as much as we need people fighting to change the way our culture views the planet. We need to protect large areas of Wilderness as much as we need to find a way to use natural resources more sustainably. We need to fight for the rights of the humans (often those already in poverty or otherwise discriminated against) negatively affected by environmental degradation as much as we need to fight to protect endangered species. We need to change national and global policy as much as we need to participate in local, community based service days.

Maybe I am being an idealistic college kid, but I truly think it all helps and is all making a difference. Even in environmental sci 101 you are taught that diversity strengthens an ecosystem (or a bioregion, or a species, or the earth as a whole) by making it less susceptible to disaster. It seems the same principle should apply to the environmental movement.

So why all the arguing? Why the either/or decisions? Why not be some crazy combination of everything (excluding ecoterrorism perhaps...)? Perhaps there is more work to be done emphasizing all the ways the different frames connect instead of tearing apart why one or another is "wrong"...