Talk:Environmentalist

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 26 August 2020 and 13 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Sel22, Crh200.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:44, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Comment

I am putting my best perspective in the article which I hope is NPOV. It is based on my experiences here in New Zealand and what I have read from other countries. I am of the opinion that the differences around the world may be subtle and the differences are only a false perception by those who deride the environmental movement. Alan Liefting 19:41, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Category

Can environmentalists be categorized under "activists"? Shawnc 10:55, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Some environmentalist are activists however ALL environmental activists are activists! Alan Liefting 08:58, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Merge

Comment moved to Talk:Environmentalism. // Habj 19:58, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Note that the merge will happen as soon as I or someone else gets around to it. —Centrx→talk 02:42, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Eco-terrorism?!

Is there really a need to include a mention of eco-terrorism on the environmentalism article? Not only is it a highly loaded and controversial word - it's debatable whether violence or threats of violence against specific people or companies is terrorism or just ordinary crime - it's also not at all fair to say that such people make up anything other than a tiny sliver of a minority of people who would call themselves environmentalists (who range from conservatives to socialists to kids with a passion about nature). Besides, the entire section was in garbled text with strange characters and a lack of spacing. I'm going to remove the section for now, but would prefer a discussion on the issue. JF Mephisto 14:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Merge into environmentalism

Environmentalism is a higher level concept than environmentalist. I think environmentalist should be merged into environmentalism not the other way round. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.115.165.35 (talk) 14:21, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Reinstated as its own page

Given the level of interest in the environment and the number of links to this page I have decided that it deserves its own page. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 09:04, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

It is used as an occupation in infoboxes of subjects of biography articles. Ghostofnemo (talk) 12:50, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Notable environmentalists

The "Notable environmentalists" section needs some sore of metric for determining who should be on the list. How about the top thirty based on a google search by name with the word "environmentalist"? I have removed Elizabeth May but my edit was questioned. -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 00:52, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

• Agree that it needs some clear criteria for inclusion and that the list is too long. Google rank is a poor metric, however. Anybody have another suggestion? Pburka (talk) 17:34, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

• I am interested in adding Pope Francis to the notable environmentalist list. There is a lot of information in support of his interest in preserving the environment, especially based on the Saint (Francis) whom he chose his Papal name to represent. Twillisjr (talk) 17:17, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Political views

The two paragraphs discussing political views of environmentalists are completely unreferenced and appear to be original research or personal opinions. Claiming that most environmentalists are aligned with the Green Party is very dubious. I'm removing the text. Pburka (talk) 05:05, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge of Environmental defender into Environmentalist

Re merging Environmental defender into this article:

• Oppose merge Reading the sourcing provided here and comparing it with Environmentalist, I definitely see overlap and a very shaky concept of the exact term "Environmental defender", but conceptually I do think there is something distinct. Environmentalism is the broad term/concept, while this specifically refers to people directly at the site of environmental degradation, regardless of how they're called "land defenders, water protectors" etc.. in a way that many prominent environmentalists are not Greta Thurnberg, Al Gore, Bill McKibben, Jane Fonda etc who are not directly living on the site of ecological impact (debatable of course and we can include that)...
  I am fine with keeping the article name Environmental defender absent a clear alternative, (Frontline environmental defender maybe? But I would remove the portions that don't refer to front line work, such as environmental advocacy, or the Human Rights legal frameworks that don't make any explicit references to frontline defense.
  I do think Wikipedia was missing a generalized article about frontline defenders until this article came along, and it does a great job of also explaining the nuanced/varying self identifications. A short section in Environmentalist can reference frontline defense work, but it would be WP:UNDUE to merge/equivocate them when most of the prominent environmentalists, and environmentalist organisations are not frontline defense related. pinging buidhe, Larataguera and Canadianerk ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:11, 28 December 2021 (UTC) ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:14, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

OK, if there is a way to frame this as a distinct and notable subtopic of environmentalist than the merge is unnecessary IMO. (t · c) buidhe 11:16, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment if there's going to be a merge, it would be with Land defender which actually has significant overlap. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 11:19, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

According to Environmental defender (disambiguation) the term environmental defender covers Land defender and Water protector, which supports Land defender as a potential target. TSventon (talk) 11:27, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Alternatively, Land defender and water protector could be merged into environmental defender as subtopics. (t · c) buidhe 12:46, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this generally. Water protector mostly refers to the Dakota Access Pipeline event whereas land defender is more general so they're not equivalent in that sense. Still both can be incorporated/mentioned in the Environmental defender article, without a need for a disambiguation article. I'd change the redirect of Environmental defender (disambiguation) to Environmental defender, but we first need to resolve what to do with the Environmental defender article itself. ~ 🦝 Shushugah (he/him • talk) 12:53, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

There was some discussion of this proposal on my talk page prior to my creating the ED article. I recommend that we handle this proposal separately from the current discussion, but I oppose this merge as well for the time-being Larataguera (talk) 13:17, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Weak support. After reading some of the sources, it looks like it's basically an "IRL POV fork", where the concept is used specifically in literature that argues in favor of more protection and more rights for a certain type of environmentalists who face criminal charges and harassment from the powers that be. It doesn't help that it's one of those areas where the lines between scholarship and advocacy are blurred. However, we are supposed to follow and not lead, hence my weak support. JBchrch talk 12:35, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose. The difference is that Environmental Defenders are part of the Environmental justice framework. Environmentalism is often critiqued for emphasis on conservation and abstract concerns that don't represent the place-based concerns of people who are directly impacted by environmental degradation and conflicts. Also, several sources say that environmental justice can be in tension with environmentalism, and that environmental protection is not always the agenda of environmental defenders (being more concerned with human rights/environmental justice issues). Larataguera (talk) 13:13, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  It's not exactly what the sources say, though. For instance Scheidel et al. at 2.2 say that environmental defenders may include environmental activists. JBchrch talk 13:55, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

That's a pretty selective reading of the source though. This same source devotes several paragraphs to setting the context of their use of the ED term within the EJ framework. The whole study is based on data from the "Environmental Justice Atlas". Larataguera (talk) 14:45, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

I know, but the original claim was that "Environmental Defenders are part of the Environmental justice framework". The source does not make such a claim, although it recognizes that the two are historically and conceptually linked. JBchrch talk 15:01, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Correct. And environmentalist is not historically and conceptually linked with EJ. In fact, they are often at odds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Larataguera (talk • contribs) 15:09, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Just a note @Larataguera: it might be easier if you could reference the specific pages that you are citing (in discussion and in articles), because otherwise it's difficult to check your sources. JBchrch talk 15:24, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Sure. I'll provide some quotes/page numbers when I have more time. Also feel free to use the quotation request template on the article for any statements that you're having trouble verifying. Thanks for your attention to this article. Larataguera (talk) 16:07, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay on this. here is a pretty good article discussing the tensions between environmentalism and environmental justice. Pg 302: environmental justice activists argue that the inequitable distribution of environmental degradation and systemic exclusion of the poor and people of color from environmental decision making is perpetuated by traditional environmental organizations, also known as mainstream environmentalism.. I don't think I should have to spend too much energy supporting the case that there is a significant difference between environmentalism and environmental justice. The sources in the environmental defenders article clearly discuss the topic in the context of environmental justice. Larataguera (talk) 14:24, 1 January 2022 (UTC)