A Little Bit About the Environmental Movement

The modern Environmental Movement in the United States came into existence in the late 1960's and early 1970's.  It evolved from the American Conservation Movement of the 1800's which continued to grow right through the first half of the 20th century.  Other major influences on the creation of the Environmental Movement included Native American philosophy and religion, the "Greens" Movement in Europe and advances in ecological science taking place around the world in the mid twentieth century.

The Environmental Movement in the USA is a continually evolving and changing entity and has a right and left wing, but can better be described politically as a circle of extremely diverse opinions with each individual within the Movement having slightly different views from anyone else.  For example, many environmentalists are hunters and fishermen, while others (including myself) are vegetarians and animal protectionists.  Regarding immigration, some believe in open borders and that it's a fundamental human right for every person to live wherever they want to live, while others (including myself) believe that each country has the right to democratically determine the level of immigration that it would like to support.  Some people in the Movement now believe that nuclear power is an energy resouce that can help to significantly reduce climate change, while most others (including myself) are still very skeptical that fission nuclear power will ever be a viable option, either environmentally or economically, for partially solving our extremely critical energy problems.  Some environmentalists are very distrustful of technology. Others fully embrace modern technology and science as the ultimate tool for solving our environmental problems. Many of the rest of us fall somewhere in between the two positions.

A few organizations within the Environmental Movement, including the Sierra Club, are over 100 years old and were created in the Conservation Movement of the previous centuries, many other groups are several to a few decades old, and other organizations have just been established within the last few years.  Some organizations have already experienced a natural death, and others have merged with or been absorbed by healthier environmental groups.  Meanwhile new groups are continually being formed in the United States and around the world.