Environmentalism: A Challenge to Modernity

Abstract

This chapter discusses the environmental movement vis-à-vis modernity in the last century. Starting in the early 70s, the contemporary environmental movement consists of articulated collective action opposing polluting agents in different areas of the world, and pursuing a new planetary natural equilibrium. This movement aims to construct a new more balanced model for natural development by scientific and technical means. This movement doesn’t pursue a romantic project to protect nature against modernity and modernization, nor a denial of modernity, nor modernity as a crisis, but a new way to understand and change the world. The environmental movement produces a critical consciousness of both itself and modernity.