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Title: How soft, deep, or left: present constituencies in the environmental movement for certain world views

Journal Article · · Nat. Resour. J.; (United States)
OSTI ID:5191273

Given a future characterized by both scarcity and the threat of continued environmental degradation, this paper examines the attitudes of present members of some of the mainstream national environmental organizations. The survey asked a variety of questions on issues, attitudes, and values to forecast the likely direction of environmentalism in the future. The questions addressed concern the degree to which the appropriate-technology notion has influenced mainstream environmentalists, the degree of acceptance of the deep-ecology worldview by the environmental organizations' members, and the extent to which a potential constituency exists among members for a radical solution to the problems that are created by resource scarcity. The author concludes that environmentalism seems destined to a continued role as a reformist movement, which harbors a vision of an appropriate society but which presses for reforms that are neither too deep nor too left to alienate either its middle-class consitituency or its potential allies among the less-affluent sectors of society. 14 footnotes, 2 tables. (SAC)

Research Organization:
Resources for the future, Washington, DC
OSTI ID:
5191273
Journal Information:
Nat. Resour. J.; (United States), Vol. 20:2
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English