Environmentalism: A Challenge to Modernity

This chapter discusses the environmental movement vis-à-vis modernity in the last century. Starting in the early 70s, the contemporary environmental movement consists of articulated collective action opposing polluting agents in different areas of the world, and pursuing a new planetary natural equilibrium. This movement aims to construct a new more balanced model for natural development by scientific and technical means. This movement doesn’t pursue a romantic project to protect nature against modernity and modernization, nor a denial of modernity, nor modernity as a crisis, but a new way to understand and change the world. The environmental movement produces a critical consciousness of both itself and modernity.

Against Doomsday Scenarios: What Is to Be Done Now?

We should avoid offering a fatalistic worldview. In fact, the environmental movement in general and ecosocialism in particular are all about combating the current trend toward ecological destruction. Climate change is now "code red for humanity." This is not a doomsday forecast but a call to action.

Apocalyptic Visions and Anthems of Hope: Climate Change Communication and Future Possibilities

Within the emerging field of evolutionary psychology a consensus is developing that the triggering of emotions is integral to the human response to threats. This understanding of human psychology underlies a vigorous debate within the contemporary activity of climate change communication regarding the efficacy of the emotions of fear vis-à-vis hope for mobilising human behavioural change. Noting the contours of this debate and the paucity of radical future vision casting within contemporary western political discourse, the article examines how images of terror function within the ‘Little Apocalypse’ passage in Matthew 24 and potential insights this offers to our contemporary situation. Building upon this biblical reflection, the article contends that the Christian practices of preaching and singing have significant power to shape communal imaginative visions of alternative futures. As such, these practices are critical gifts that the church can offer the environmental movement and broader society in this moment of time.

Development and Structure of Environmental Worries in Germany 1984–2019

Referring to a survey question in the German socio-economic panel, which measures worries about protecting the environment, the article looks at the development of environmental worries in Germany for the timespan 1984–2019. The analyses mainly have descriptive character. We explore several expectations and assumptions discussed in historical accounts of the environmental movement in Germany and in empirical studies on environmental attitudes and their determinants. Results show that the overall development can be divided into a period of rising environmental worries in the 1980s, a considerable decline in the 1990s, and a relative stability since 2000. From 2018 to 2019, however, a sizable upswing can be observed. Environmental worries are associated negatively with the unemployment rate and economic worries over time. In the 1980s and early 1990s, younger people were more worried than older people, but, in the meanwhile, this no longer holds. Education and (less so) income yielded significant differences in the 1980s and 1990s, but also these differences have faded away since 2000. Data confirm that environmental worries are shared more broadly in the population and that previously important group differences are increasingly leveling out.

“Environmental movement” in architecture and related areas

The concept of “environmental approach” in the theory of architecture, urban planning and design is usually used in the singular, but its content is often interpreted in different ways. Basing on the author’s concept of the “circle of environmental knowledge” and conceptual and terminological analysis of texts with an environmental focus, the author proves the necessity to speak about multiplicity of environmental approaches and considers the content and specific characteristics of seven enclaves of environmental knowledge and practice. The author describes the matter of each of them, connections with segments of environmental knowledge, and the design strategies under development. Due to the fact that the “design approach” has lost its singularity and ability to characterize the whole environment-oriented area of design, the usefulness of another umbrella concept for this is shown. The author demonstrates the necessity to choose the environmental “movement” as a concept that has a high degree of universality and tradition to be used in architecture to identify large fragments.

Environmental Activism in the Digital Age

The development of new digital technologies was predicted to be a boon for environmental activism. Internet and social media platforms were expected to facilitate broad bottom-up change, enabling activists worldwide to communicate and organize more effectively. However, the emergence of digital technologies may not have revolutionized the methods and impacts of activist organizations, especially for the environmental movement, wherein meaningful change has not yet been realized regarding climate change and nature preservation. Given the many challenges activists face, it is essential to understand how collective action can be undertaken with digital media to produce positive consequences for nature and human relations. Moreover, the neoliberal economic context from which digital technologies emerged and grew further accelerates environmental destruction through overproduction and overconsumption. This paper examines the relationship between environmental activism and digital technologies. While the environmental movement may have benefitted from newer organizational and communication tools on the international stage, the neoliberal economic framework in which digital technologies operate fundamentally contradicts the goals of the environmental movement.

Art activist: nature, culture, and art-based environmental movement

This article aimed to discuss how the environmental movement is carried out by art activists. Environmental movement is essential given the increasingly massive and worrying ecological crisis. Environmental damage triggered by the pace of industry is increasingly eroding the natural ecosystem. Ecological spaces that should support life in general are turned into economic spaces on a large scale which in the process creates a lot of environmental degradation. Likewise, the ecological chain that is broken due to industry and the replacement of natural product use with synthetic materials have contributed to the destruction of nature. Without us realizing it, most environmental problems also stem from our lifestyle, our political choices, and our role as consumers. In this condition, art actors and designers take a cultural role to be involved in the environmental movement. This cultural role becomes important considering that environmental issues are close and, even at a certain point, intertwined with cultural issues. The cultural roles of these art activists can be the starting point for responding to environmental problems by offering creative solutions. Creative solutions can open up a space for joint discussion regarding the environmental movement.

City Care: Historical and Contemporary Lessons from Environmental Justice Coalition-Building

This article examines the historical roots of the challenges facing contemporary climate justice advocacy campaigns, and draws lessons from this history regarding how to more comprehensively address racial equity in resilience planning and environmentalist advocacy. As the modern US environmental movement gained momentum in the 1970s, fault lines developed between environmentalists and civil rights advocates. A key source of tension was debates over whether urban environments were deserving of the same kinds of environmental protections as more traditional and pristine forms of “nature.” African Americans’ prioritization of economic equity alongside legal equality also led to a critical dialogue about economic growth and the economic externalities of regulating industry and safeguarding the environment. This article draws on environmental justice and environmental history scholarship as integrated lenses for analyzing racialized debates during the early years of the modern American environmental movement. I trace how public deliberations played out regarding the first Earth Day in 1970, and the City Care Conference of 1979—the first national conference that brought together major environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and civil rights organizations such as the National Urban League to deliberate the linkages between racial equity and environmentalism. Finally, I connect these historical analyses to recent data from the Indiana University Environmental Resilience Institute’s Hoosier Life Survey in order to better understand contemporary racialized disparities of climate change vulnerability, and relatedly, of climate change opinion.