Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
1923, as a psychological theory (in the nature vs. nurture debate), from environmental + -ism. The ecological sense is from 1972. Related: Environmentalist (n.), 1916 in the psychological sense, 1970 in the ecological sense.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context medicine social sciences English) A theory that views environment, rather than heredity or culture, as the important factor in the development of an individual or group. 2 A political and social ideology that seeks to prevent the environment from degradation by human activity.
WordNet
n. the philosophical doctrine that environment is more important than heredity in determining intellectual growth [ant: hereditarianism]
the activity of protecting the environemnt from pollution or destruction
Wikipedia
Environmentalism or environmental rights is a broad philosophy, ideology, and social movement regarding concerns for environmental protection and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements. Environmentalism advocates the lawful preservation, restoration and/or improvement of the natural environment, and may be referred to as a movement to control pollution or protect plant and animal diversity. For this reason, concepts such as a land ethic, environmental ethics, biodiversity, ecology, and the biophilia hypothesis figure predominantly.
At its crux, environmentalism is an attempt to balance relations between humans and the various natural systems on which they depend in such a way that all the components are accorded a proper degree of sustainability. The exact measures and outcomes of this balance is controversial and there are many different ways for environmental concerns to be expressed in practice. Environmentalism and environmental concerns are often represented by the color green, but this association has been appropriated by the marketing industries for the tactic known as greenwashing. Environmentalism is opposed by anti-environmentalism, which says that the Earth is less fragile than some environmentalists maintain, and portrays environmentalism as overreacting to the human contribution to climate change or opposing human advancement.
Usage examples of "environmentalism".
Hiaasen says, and now environmentalism and water quality are big agenda items in Florida because writers, journalists, concerned citizens and activist groups spoke as one voice.
A girl in the class asked about the relationship between nineteenth-century Luddism and twentieth-century environmentalism.
This Point publication had enjoyed a strong vogue during the late 60s and early 70s, when it offered hundreds of practical (and not so practical) tips on communitarian living, environmentalism, and getting back-to-the-land.
This Point publication had enjoyed a strong vogue during the late 60s and early 70s, when it offered hundreds of practical (and not so practical) tips on communitarian living, environmentalism, and getting back-to the-land.
POPPA's so-called party platform was a wildly jumbled hodgepodge of rabid environmentalism, unsupportable social engineering schemes with no basis in reality, and an economic policy that was, at best, a schizophrenic disaster begging the egg for a chance to wreak uncountable chaos.
How will we manage to get environmentalism out of the clutches of religion, and back to a scientific discipline?
Back before the turn of the century, the nations of the Old North had preached environmentalism to an unheeding Third World-after already reaping most of the planet’.