From Envirowiki

The environment movement is an extremely broad, loose, and diverse set of groups, sub-cultures, and individuals acting to protect the natural environment. It includes activists, environmentalists, bureaucrats, punks, politicians, artists, economists, hippies, ratbags, suburban families, farmers, volunteers, scientists, anarchists, green capitalists, social justice activists, engineers, and countless unique individuals working alone or in groups, government agencies, co-alitions, alliances, and networks.

The movement, being so diverse, has many different view points, some of which are more or less compromised by other values held by each individual. Stemming from those views and values are numerous different ideas on what needs to be done, and what strategies and tactics are best used to meet those ends.

[edit] History

The environmental movement has it's beginnings it the writings of a number of 19th and 20th century authors, such as Henry David Thoreau. Taking after a number of social movements, especially those employing strategies like to Gandhian non-violent direct action and protest, environmentalism became popular in the 1960 with the flower-power hippy movement, and then through the 70s and 80s diversified and solidified into various campaigns on things like nuclear disarmament, old growth logging, saving the whales, and energy.

Currently, large parts of the movement are focussed on big issues like climate change.