Mainstream American Environmental Movement - Essay Example

Mainstream American Environmental Movement In the United s, environmentalism continues to be as diverse as the nation itself, with different racial, social and class divisions pursing self interests. The environmental movement is made up of many discursive communities, with each having specific issues of focus. In this sense, race has deeply impacted the environmental experiences of the citizens of the United States, in turn affecting activism, ideology and political development (Merritt 114). The different communities have also developed under varying political and historical environments with different levels of economic capital. Further, immigration policies and occupational experiences have also shaped the environmental encounters of different races. Rather than culminating into the intended functional marriage of conservation and liberalism, limitations of the environmental reform agenda has led marginalized races, people of color as well as working class Whites to develop alternative agendas related to environmental movements (Rosemarie 83). This paper will analyze the role of race in the American environmental movement, and why environmental groups have had difficulties in building racial diversity in the past. It will further suggest why mainstream American environmental movement has been overwhelmingly white in the past and what can be done to change the trend among religious groups. As early as the 19th century, African-American abolitionists were fighting against the use of the poisonous arsenic, alongside slavery, by tobacco plantation owners who were Whites (Bernstein 212). More recent history has shown that some middle class Whites fled urban cities and shifted their focus on wildlife issues, wilderness and outdoor explorations while those who remained developed urban parks as they attempted to progress environmental conditions. At the same time, the urban environmental activists accorded the white working class better safety and worker health as compared to people of color. Instead, the environmental activists drove them off their land into reservations where they were put into slavery and used as laborers earning low wages. This forced them (people of color) to develop environmental discourses and activist agendas that addressed, or sought to address, oppression and racism alongside violation of human rights, denunciation or loss of land ownership, restricted access to resources and safety and health issues (Bernstein 212). To bridge the gap between these historically diverse issues, modern day environmental movement in the United States is characterized by an array of social movements or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) representing international, national and local interests (Rosemarie 69). Founded on different political views, the stake they seek from their influence on the environmental policy also varies widely. To analyze the complexity of the environmental movement, research must view it in terms of the distinct memberships based on their world views. Just like organized religious groups, participation in the environmental movement is based on prescribed sets of beliefs. The beliefs are made up of cultural perspectives that define a community’s practices concerning environmental movements. For instance, one such group, the Center for Health, Environment and Justice is aligned with the concerns of environmental health. Oriented by this perspective, its objective is to safeguard the health of residents of urban areas by getting rid of toxic substances from the environment. On the other hand, another group, the Wilderness Society is concerned with the discourse of protection of biodiversity and perpetuation of intact environmental systems. Informed through this perspective, the Wilderness Society emphasizes on the creation and maintenance of wilderness areas in a bid to guarantee an enduring ecological diversity in their areas of interest. Viewed from the angles of these two different communities, it is apparent that they both have environmental concerns, but their specific interests, and probably economic resources, are varied. A research into these diversities reveals eleven key elements that have defined the United States’ environmental movement and, from their diverse backgrounds, an understanding of their different views can be drawn. They include Wildlife Management; Conservation; Preservation; Reform Environmentalism; Deep Ecology; Environmental Justice; Environmental Health; Ecofeminism; Ecospiritualism; Animal Rights; and Anti-Globalization (Greens) (Merritt 119). While some among the White middle class were interested in open spaces and environmental issues, others explored recreational issues in urban cities. Conflict arose when the perpetrators of urbanization and minority races expressed different interests in activism, recreation and environmental concerns. The wilderness-aligned Whites and the urban park builders were also distinguished by these conflicts, which marked the beginning of different orientations. While Whites owned and enjoyed the produce of farmlands and products of industrialized land by the turn of the 20th century, minority races were living in poor conditions. Native Americans lost their traditional sacred sites, fishing, hunting and gathering grounds. The federal government signed treaties in places considered unwanted or inaccessible by Whites in California outlining reservation outlines and prevented Native Americans from holding land (Bernstein 220). At the same time, African Americans were subjected to exploitation of resources, bondage and slavery, where they worked the agrarian Southern states while the Northern states industrialized. This explains why the mainstream American movement has been predominantly White in the past. The government even bought exhausted land from the Whites to settle the minorities to guard them (Whites) against going bankrupt. Such histories are still held as memories among those from ancestral lineages that were oppressed, making it difficult to get a common view from all the communities interested in environmental matters (Merritt 116). From these diversities, environmental justice organizations have been formed in the last half of the 20th century, with as many as 300 serving colored persons recorded in 1994. As a religious environmental organization, the Green Neighbors Project (GNP) can create diversity among its leadership and followership by emphasizing the biblical command that calls for the earth’s proper stewardship and link it to environmental activism. The leaders and followers need to be made to understand that the environmental concern is essentially a concern of values. Therefore, religion, being a fundamental source of values in all cultures, is deeply implicated in all decisions arrived at by humans related to the environment (Rosemarie 94). A moral practicing framework is the basic asset religions offer that followers are obliged to abide by, and since most environmental problems are rooted in human activity, religion can offer solutions that may mitigate some of the destructive patterns. Works Cited Bernstein, S. The Compromise of Liberal Environmentalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. Print. Merritt, Jonathan. Green like God: Unlocking the Divine Plan for our Planet. New York: FaithWords, 2010. Print. Rosemarie, Bernard. Shinto and Ecology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004. Print. Read More