Environment Support

Hues of Green Among Environmentalists

Environmentalists and green-advocacy groups have found diverse ways to advocate the earth's right to be respected and protected. Environmentalism and its supporters fight for many things and believe in many concepts and objectives. Like politics, environmentalism can range from the radicals to the reformists, and they are sometimes tacitly categorized into the fields of the dark greens, the light greens, and the bright greens.

Dark Green Environmentalism

Dark Greens have a more radical point of view, believing that we need to change our worldview drastically in order to be in harmony with the earth. They also hold the concept of human beings as being merely another species among many others, as opposed to humans being lords of creation, with a right to use and abuse the environment and its resources to meet our needs and wants. Dark green environmental philosophy is founded on the belief that all living things have the same right to live and flourish.

They believe that ideologies like industrialism and capitalism are corrupt and go hand in hand with environmental dilapidation because such concepts are rooted in a desire for ruthless growth or "growth mania."

This sort of environmentalism also embraces ideas like deep ecology, which puts emphasis on the importance of non-human species, ecosystems and nature's courses of action rather than on environmental movements, all leading to an entirely new system of environmental ethics.

Another idea is the theory of Post-materialism, which is a desire for individuals and societies to become increasingly liberated from the tension of basic materialistic needs.

They also support the idea of Holism, which is established on the concept that all the properties of a given system cannot be explicated by its component parts alone, but it is the whole system per se that ascertains how its parts perform.

Additionally, they believe in the Gaia theory, which suggests that living and nonliving parts of the earth are a part of a complex network system thought of as a single organism.

Dark greens are usually not willing to compromise such beliefs and thus negotiations between corporate and political powers become difficult.

Light Green Environmentalism

Light Greens, on the other hand, are ‘reformists' and view environmentalism as a lifestyle preference. They deem that environmentalism should be concerned with making human society more sustainable and place value on practicality and stewardship of humanity. They do not see environmentalism as a separate ideology but as something that needs greater importance within political schools of thought like conservatism, socialism, and liberalism. Examples of groups belonging to this category are Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and Friends of the Earth. Light greens' environmental strategies range from activism to negotiation. They campaign to reform laws and seek a working relationship with policy makers.

Bright Green Environmentalism

Recently, a new shade of green has sprung up among environmentalists: the Bright Greens. The term was coined by Alex Steffen in 2003. Apart from the traditional environmentalism, this group clings to the concerns of environmentalism but discards its answers. They believe that economic growth and sustainability can be achieved through new technology, improved and modified designs of products, plus eco-communities and sustainable lifestyles. This group is a firm advocate of renewable energy, nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, dense urban settlements (versus suburb sprawl), and efficient industrialized schemes, and other sustainable product designs.

Resources about Shades of Green in Environmentalism