Radical environmentalism is a grass-roots branch of the larger environmental movement that emerged from an ecocentrism-based frustration with the co-option of mainstream environmentalism.[1]
As a movement
Philosophy
The radical environmental movement aspires to what scholar Christopher Manes calls "a new kind of environmental activism: iconoclastic, uncompromising, discontented with traditional conservation policy, at times illegal". Radical environmentalism presupposes a need to reconsider Western ideas of religion and philosophy, including capitalism, patriarchy,[2][page needed] and globalization,[3] sometimes through "resacralising" and reconnecting with nature.[2][page needed]
While many people believe that the first significant radical environmentalist group was Greenpeace, which made use of direct action beginning in the 1970s to confront whaling ships and nuclear weapons testers,[6] others within the movement, argues as Earth Liberation Front (ELF) prisoner Jeff "Free" Luers, suggests that the movement was established centuries ago. He often writes that the concept of "eco-defence" was born shortly after the existence of the human race, claiming it is only recently that within the modern development of human society, and individuals losing touch with the earth and its wild roots, that more radical tactics and political theories have emerged.[3][7]
The alternative tactic of using explosive and incendiary devices was established in 1976 by John Hanna and others as the Environmental Life Force (ELF), also now known as the original ELF. The group conducted a campaign of armed actions in northern California and Oregon, later disbanding in 1978 following Hanna's arrest for placing incendiary devices on seven crop-dusters at the Salinas, California airport on May Day, 1977.[8] It wasn't until over a decade and a half later that this form of guerrilla warfare resurfaced as the Earth Liberation Front[9] using the same ELF acronym.
The ELF gained national attention for a series of actions which earned them the label of eco-terrorists,[14][15] including the burning of a ski resort in Vail, Colorado in 1998 that the ALF also claimed credit for [16][17]—and the burning of an SUV dealership in Oregon in 1999.[18] The defendants in the case were later charged in the FBI's "Operation Backfire", along with other arsons and cases, which were later named by environmentalists as the Green Scare; alluding to the Red Scare, periods of fear over communist infiltration of U.S.[19][20]
Following the September 11, 2001 attacks several laws were passed increasing the penalties for ecoterrorism, and hearings were held in Congress discussing the activities of groups such as the ELF. To date no one has been killed as a result of an ELF or ALF action since both groups forbid harming human or non-human life.[21]: 1–42 It was then announced in 2003 that "eco-terrorist" attacks, known as "ecotage", had increased from the ELF, ELA and the "Environmental Rangers", another name used by activists when engaging in similar activity.[22]
In 2005 the FBI announced that the ELF was America's greatest domestic terrorist threat, responsible for over 1,200 "criminal incidents" amounting to tens of millions of dollars in damage to property,[23] with the United States Department of Homeland Security confirming this regarding the ALF and ELF.[24]
Plane Stupid then was launched in 2005, in an attempt to combat the growing airport expansions in the UK using direct action with a year later the first Camp for Climate Action being held with 600 people attending a protest called Reclaim Power converging on Drax Power Station in North Yorkshire and attempted to shut it down. There were thirty-eight arrests, with four breaching the fence and the railway line being blocked.[25][26]
Radical environmentalism has been called a new religious movement by Bron Taylor (1998). Taylor contends that "Radical environmentalism is best understood as a new religious movement that views environmental degradation as an assault on a sacred, natural world."[21][27]: 1326–1335
Some writers have used it to refer to the hypothetical danger of future dystopian governments, which might resort to fascist radical environmentalist policies in order to deal with environmental issues.[28] Themes of eco-fascism and radical environmentalism can be found in movies and literature like Soylent Green, Hunger Games,[29]Z.P.G., and My Diary from 2091.[30]
Deep Ecology is attributed to Arne Naess and is defined as "a normative, ecophilosophical movement that is inspired and fortified in part by our experience as humans in nature and in part by ecological knowledge."[32]
A rising Deep Ecologist among radical environmentalist circles is Pentti Linkola, regarded as the founder of ecofascism, and author of the book Can Life Prevail? A Radical Approach to the Environmental Crisis.[33]
Ecofeminism originated in the 1970s and draws a parallel between the oppression of women in patriarchal societies and the oppression of the environment.[34][35][36]
Social Ecology is an idea attributed to Murray Bookchin, who argued that in order to save the environment, human society needed to copy the structure of nature and decentralize both socially and economically.[34]
Bioregionalism is a philosophy that focuses on the practical application of Social Ecology, and theorizes on "building and living in human social communities that are compatible with ecological systems".[34]
Davis, John. The Earth First! Reader: Ten Years of Radical Environmentalism, Gibbs Smith, 1991. ISBN0-87905-387-9
de Steiguer, J.E. 2006. The Origins of Modern Environmental Thought. The University of Arizona Press. Tucson. 246 pp.
Taylor, Bron, ed. Ecological Resistance Movements: The Global Emergence of Radical and Popular Environmentalism. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1995.
Taylor, Bron, "Radical Environmentalism" and "Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front" in B. Taylor, ed., Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature London: Continuum International. Additional articles by Taylor about radical environmentalism, including those that explore its history and political impacts, are also available online.
Garreau, Joel. "Environmentalism as Religion." The New Atlantis 28 (2010): 61–74.
^Matković, Aleksandar (2020). "The Relation Between Political Ideologyand Radical Environmentalism"(PDF). Serbian Political Thought. 70 (4). Institute for Political Studies: 171–187. doi:10.22182/spm.7042020.9. S2CID234069333. Retrieved 19 July 2022. However, actions of those movements mostly stay in the domain of classical environmentalism, without going into its more radical form. However, there are statements in literature that among radical environmentalists can be seen the whole spectrum of those who could not be described as admirers of political left-wing among others: Neopagans, Wiccans, anti-globalization protesters, Third Positionists, bioregionalists etc. (Manes 1990).
^Weyler, Rex (2004). Greenpeace: How a Group of Journalists, Ecologists and Visionaries Changed the World. Rodale.
^Taylor, Bron, 2005. "Radical Environmentalism," The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. ISBN1-84371-138-9
^Zimmerman, Michael E. (2008). "Ecofascism". In Taylor, Bron R. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, Volume 1. London, UK: Continuum. pp. 531–532. ISBN978-1-44-112278-0.