Movements in Society

Since eighth grade, I have been involved in the environmental movement. The environmental movement is an ecological, science and political change movement whose aim is to protect the natural resources of the world as well as the sanctity of planet Earth (Kline 1). Via improvements in individual actions as well as public policy, the campaign promotes sustainable use of resources.
The movement is global and, thus, consists of both small and large non-profit organisations, as well as scientists, leaders, religious devotees, professionals, and private citizens. The movement also encompasses other campaigns with almost equivalent aims, such as the environment movement. The movement’s areas of concern include wildlife management, sustainable forestry, soil conversation, fisheries, biodiversity, land use and pollution, and preservation of wilderness areas among other issues. Movements within the environmental movement such as the wilderness preservation movement, antinuclear movement, and antitoxic groups have made great strides in solving and reducing environmental problems in their specific areas. The wilderness preservation movement has relied on the writings of John Muir, an activist in the 20th century, as well as Henry David Thoreau’s “Walden”, a reflective text on living in natural surroundings. Others include the 1949 “A Sand County Almanac’, by ecologist Aldo Leopold of the wilderness society (Kline 80). Other philosophical foundations have been offered by Thomas Jefferson and Ralph Emerson. The US antinuclear movement, on the other hand, is consists of antinuclear groups that have been opposing nuclear weapons’ use and nuclear power. These include the Clamshell Alliance, Abalone Alliance, and Physicians for Social Responsibility among others. These groups have forced the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to strengthen nuclear plants’ safety regulations.

As it is an international movement composed of different groups with different roles, there is no specific group of leaders rather each movement has its leaders. In the US, people influential in the environmental movement campaigns include Kandi Mosset, a climate campaign and Native energy organizer in the Indigenous Environment Network, Julian McQueen of the Green For All group, Heidi Cullen of the Climate Central, and Adrianna Quintero of the NRDC. The movement arose as a result of the spread of an ecological consciousness in which the natural world was viewed as the interaction of a geological and biological system. It was feared that the increased human disruptions in the ecosystem threatened the planet’s survival. There was, therefore, a need for human responsibility in their daily living to ensure a beautiful, cleaner and safer environment.

The environmental movement relies on funding from non-governmental organizations. These organizations, however, fund large environmental organizations, ignoring the many grass-root groups and organizations yet they are very crucial in large-scale change realization. This situation has seen very little achieved in policy and mindset change despite billions of dollars being pumped to the movement in the US. The movement mainly relies on campaigns to sensitize the people on better land use methods, climate protection, and pollution control among other areas and through pressuring legislatures to make environmentally favorable policies.

Work Cited

Kline, Benjamin. First along the river: A brief history of the US environmental movement. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2011.