环保运动之历史来源

摘要：虽然人和环境的关系长久以来很密切（第一节）对现在的环保思想除非传统的“浪漫”的自然重视（第二节）以外，本世纪科技发展的矛盾（第三节）及资源有限（第五节）对发展环保思想，哲学（第六节）是很关键的。在社会上，模仿六十年代的公民权，学生运动的若干方法（第四节），在环保运动在七十年代反对核电站等大型工业项目的时候变成了群众运动，八十年代以来在欧洲此使“绿色党”进许多国家的国会（第七节）。最近，在所谓发展国家也开始形成环保运动（第八节）。

各节题目：
1。人开使农业以来，他的活动平常诱导环境破坏；但是因为这种破坏一般是地方性，此对人类不是威胁 ［10000BC―1900］
2。 在欧洲的浪漫运动虽然重视自然，但是那时环境破坏还没得到群众关注［1600―1850］
3。 在二十世纪科技发展的危险变得突出［1914―45］
4。 公民权及学生运动给环保运动提供方法［1960―70］
5。 “石油打击”阐明工业社会的脆弱点，说明“生长之限”［1973］
6。 ”深生态学“找寻新的综合的世界观确［1975―85］
7。大型环保运动［1975―］，环保主义进入国会［1980―］
8。非“西方”环保运动
9。天人合一：中国呢？

ORIGINS OF ENVIRONMENTALISM

Abstract: Although the relation between man and the environment has been close for a long time (I), and romantic thought has been appreciated untouched nature for a long time (II), today's environmental thought is characterized by this century's experiences like the ambivalence of technique (III) and limits of resources (V) demanding radical changes in world-view and lifestyle (VI). In the society, popular movements modelled after the Civil Rights' Movement and the Students' Movement (IV) against nuclear power plants and other large-style technical projects merged into Green parties in several European countries (VII). Recently, environmental movements from developing countries become numerous as well (VIII).

It is not easy to explain what "environmentalism" is and most environmentalists will have different ideas about it. Unless Christianity, Confucianism儒教 or Marxism there is no single "prophet" the idea can be derived from and there is no Bible, Lunyu or "Capital". Though some environmentalists refer to "classics", there is no shared belief in which works these actually are. Nevertheless, the environment is in everybody's mouth and environmentalism might be the most important stream in late 20th century thought. My temptative definition of environmentalism is a "a modest way of life and thought which sees man (and woman) as part of a fragile ecosystem". To make more transparent what environmentlaism is composed of, first I'd like to point to the historical development of environmentalism in the West.

1. Concern about local environmental destruction has been old, but for a long time it was local and isolated [...500BC-1900]

"In the time of the Trojan wars then Argive land was marshy and could only support a small population, whereas the land of Mycenae was in good condition (and for this reason Mycenae was the superior). But now the opposite is the case...the land of Mycenae has become...dry and barren, while the Argive land that was formerly barren owing to the water has now become fruitful. Now the same process that has taken place in this small district must be supposed to be going on over whole countries and on a large scale." - Aristotle, from Meteorologica, Book 1, Chapter 14
"不违农时，谷不可胜食也；数罟不入污池，鱼鳖不可胜食也；斧斤以时入山林，林木不可胜用也/When agriculture is not done too much, grain will not go out;when not too much nets are thrown into the ponds, fish and turtles will never go out; when the axe is not used in the mountains, wood will not be exhausted." - Mengzi

From the neolithic新石代 revolution (i.e. the development of agriculture) in the Middle East 8000-10000 BC, in Europe and China 5000 BC (rice paddies near Shanghai,@Bray 1994), man's activities have had sound impacts on the environment.
For example it is well known that the Greek(@Runnels 1995) as well as Roman agriculture and timber industry ruined huge parts of their environment by creating soil erosion and creating the characteristic Mediterranean landscape; by the way, similar things happened in the Sichuan plain at just those times, too (see pollen analysis studies,@Luo 1987). Though the fall of the Roman civilization might have reverted attention to other topics, in Western medieval中世纪 times, people cared about water pollution水污染 (in Austria pollution laws date back to the 13th century), mining lung diseases矿工人病(Agricola on Jaochimsthal miners 1555) etc. In Sichuan, some adverse affects of the Kangxi-Qianlong expansion politics were felt by contempories, too.
More drastically更严厉, the industrial revolution triggered by large-scale exploitation of fossil reserves化石资源 intensified environmental stress on air and water. But although, for example Engels in "The situation of the English working class" 1830s didn't fail to mention the pollution of the Manchester industries, his and other contempories found social issues more pressing than environmental ones.
Essentially, before very recently, environmental problems, though often severe for a local community, were seen as local events without implications for mankind as a whole. And of course, due to lack of information, only a minute amount of the complex web of global interactions was known to contemporaries, example: only recent research shows that one of the factors contributing起一份作用 to the 1789 French Revolution, the mid 80s misharvests, can be linked to a several years atmosphere temperature drop caused by atmospheric dusts emitted by an 1783 explosion of Mt. Asama in then fairly-unknown Japan(@Gore 1992)!

2. Nevertheless a romantic emotion about nature and wilderness existed for at least several centuries, but at that time environmental destruction was not a major issue [1600-1850]

In Christianity, man is ordered to dominate nature (representing god's will). Thus, from medieval times to New England Puritans清教徒, wild woods were seen as a dark place belonging to the uncivilized, untamed, dangerous and bad world. However, as societies became more affluent富裕, more romantic feelings about nature arose. One important factor for this was colonialism, which brought Europeans into the contact with primitive societies and pristine原始 environments. Of course, colonialism was destructive of both (for example, the island of St. Helena圣赫勒拿岛 became transformed to karsts by the introduction of goats within a century, @Grove 1995); but the fascination of the noble wilderness inevitably found its way into European literature (e.g. Shakespeare's Tempest, Rousseau, Romantic movement). However, these ideals weren't dominant at that time (rather a reaction反应 to absolutism and industrial revolution) and certainly didn't lead to political movements.
Nevertheless inspired by romantic ideas about nature, naturalist博物学 societies flourishing since the beginning of the century like the Sierra Club (California-based; 311,000 members in 1985;@Siegmann 1985), Audubon Society (US;470,000 members), Royal Ornithological Society (UK) or (founded after 2nd World War) the B.U.N.D. (Germany) originally attracting an upper class membership concerned about leaving wilderness resorts for recreation readily aligned with the environmental movement in the 70s. Of course, not all naturalist societies are active on environmental issues: for example the US National Wildlife Federation (having some 4.2 million members, mostly "conservative" fishers and hunters) in environmental issues is calmer than many smaller societies.

3. In the 20th century the dangers of technical progress have become obvious [1914-1945]

Though in the 19th century industrialization also sometimes ment unemployment for some professions (weaver upheavals in 1811-13 in England, 30s-40s in central Europe), technic was seen as mostly beneficial and definititely not as a threat to the survival of mankind. Even Marxist critique of capitalism never abandoned this belief.
Most people of the time thought the technical progress will help mankind to become more civilized, enlightened开明 and happy, the optimistic spirit of the Nobel prizes signifies this optimism.

The first shock打击 came with World War I, when the most industrialized European powers turned science and technology to an instrument to destruct each other. Besides more refined missiles飞弹, new weapons like poison gases like chlorine氯气 and phosgene光气 were used by German and French forces beginning with Ypres at 1915 and during the long trench war堑壕战.
The second shock was totalitarism极权主义, first signified by fascist Italy, Germany, Japan，authoritarian Spain and Stalinist Russia. Whereas the first world war had elucidated阐明 the abuses滥用 of the natural sciences, fascism showed the perversion邪路 of the modern bureaucratic state; industrialization was suddenly turned against the citizens. For example, it wouldn't have been possible to set up fascist government and concentration camps集中场 in Germany, had not been a skilled workforce, a trained elite and a good infrastructure基础结构 been available to support the system.
And the third blasts were those that finished World War II: the explosions of the nuclear bomb on August 6th and 9th, 1945, have initiated the age of nuclear deterrence威聂. It become very clear to the involved physicists what they had done; and perhaps from a feeling of guilt, many physicists tried to limit the damage they had done (Einstein in 1945 unsuccessfully urged the government to stop further continuing with the bomb program, Oppenheimer in 1949 unsuccessfully opposed to the hydrogen bomb program; Heisenberg, Bohr, and Weizsaecker in the late 50s participated in a successful campaign against an atom bomb program proposed by the German government).

In the three decades from 1st to 2nd WW science and scientific progress had lost their innocence to a very tangible extent. In the cold war age the direct open threat of nuclear destruction was imposed very directly on the public of most industrialized countries, and for those happening to be neutral the theory of nuclear winter destroyed any illusions of survival.

Western culture was far less optimistic about science & technology in 1945 than in 1914. For example in the "Dialectic of Enlightenment" Adorno and Horkheimer outlined the limits of a technological conscious and rational society, criticizing it had so far only cleaved society in powerful technocrats and ignorant dull masses.

4. The environmental movement was developed from techniques in the civil rights and students' movements [1960-70]

In the early 1960s, the US civil rights movement公民权 began with protests of black individuals against segregation laws in transportation, restaurants and private schools in the US South (1960-61). Instruments of arising public attention were acts of minor civil disobedience, such as sit-ins. Swiftly, isolated acts of protest merged to a mass movement staging huge demonstrations in Washington (one of the charismatic leaders being Martin Luther King) in 1964.
Beginning slightly later, the student's movement in the US and Europe as well as Japan initially wanted to reorganize and democratize campus life (e.g. Berkeley free speach movement 1964-70) and gradually began to ask for deeper reforms in postwar Western society which was considered as authoritarian and capitalist. What was criticized was both Protestant work ethics as well as the remnants of fascism (in Germany). Besides be unsatisfied with unjust institutions the students' movement also advocated more relaxed attitudes towards drugs and sex. In 1968 students occupied university offices in the US, Germany, Japan and Paris students brought down the de Gaulle government in a strike in May; at the same time there was a reform movement at Prague. Another focal point for the US (and European) movement was the Vietnam war which included unpopular drafting of more than 500,000 US young men, dropping more bombs than in World War II, some types of chemical warfare ("defoliation"使落叶programs) and even threats of use of the atom bomb by some US officials. Mass demonstrations on and out campuses eventually forced the US government to get out of this too unpopular war in 1970-72.
The environmental movement has evolved right after the students' movement. It was notably not beginning with civil rights activists or students but with local citizen iniatives against certain symptoms of environmental pollution (most often air pollution, which subsequently received relatively early attention). These local initiatives gradually merged to national organizations or activities. For example, in April 1970, in the US, Earth Day was held for the first time in Washington urging for faster environmental action. The are several other indicators to put the beginnings of public environmental awareness around 1970; for example in the 60s and early 70s many books on ecological doom or danger appeared (the most famous being one early work on pesticide pollution, "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson in 1962). In 1969, US congress passed the national environmental policy act (NEPA; @Caldwell 1992:17), which stipulated setting up governmental environmental organizations and Present Nixon also spoke on the environment (e.g. 8 Feb 1971).
Also in Europe, with a "lag" of several years, local environmental iniatives stimulated a first wave of legislation in the early 70s in most European countries. But it should be noted that in this first time, environmental concerns about air pollution, forest destruction etc. at that time still were rather local and without a far-reaching perspective.
At that time, on a global scale, the first United Nations Conference on Human Environment was held in 1972, resulting in a United Nations Environmental Program (equipped with a modest 100million US dollars for 5 years).

5. The oil shock shows the limits to growth to everybody [1973]

Though the above-mentioned movements concerned wide parts of the intelligentsia, it was the oil shock (a sharp rise in petroleum prices after the OPEC(石油输出国组织) oil embargo in 1973) which made the resource dependancy to be felt in everybody's pockets. The oil shock made a publication called "Limits to Growth" prepared since 1968 by the "Club of Rome", a group of 70 individuals convening upon invitation by an Italian industrialist, tremendously popular. "Limits to Growth", essentially being an application odf population biology to mankind, uses a complicated global computer model to predict the relations of man, capital, resources and environment etc. and calculates trends from 1900-2100, longer than any "scientific" prediction model before. Essentially, the model shows that, unless world population and world capital/industry are limited, a soaring cionsumption of resources and widespread pollution will result in collapsing and impoverished world population in the early or mid 21st century. So the authors demand another "Copernican revolution" (@Meadows 1974:199) from the growth ideology to a more modest self-sustaining way of life.

6. Deep ecology searches for an holistic worldview [1975-85]

Since the late 70s, the evolving movement was looking for a broader philosophical background. The actions of the early 70s (pollution regulation) had some fast successes like keeping urban sulphurdioxide emissions at a constant level; but as it is much easier to curb down the first 30% of emissions than the second 30% and third 30%, most pollution policy failed to reduce overall pollutions substantially while the level of industrialization was still rising. It has been argued that the environmental administration was more efficient when banning pollutants like lead (used in petrol) or aerosols (containing chlorofluorocarbons) entirely than by gradually limiting outputs (@Commoner 1990).
After the oil crisis demands for a change in technology evolved to demands for a change in lifestyle demanding a less energy-consuming way of life and a new view towards life. Take for example, Hans Jonas and Gregory Bateson. The former has been arguing by philosophical arguments for adopting a principle of responsibility for later generations. In his "Mind and Nature" Bateson tries to tell a new story/view of life and argues that in education, instead of teaching mere science, a sense for the aesthetic and the sacred are equally important as consciousness.
Of course, remaking public consciousness is based on clarifying former misapprehensions on the role of science: The physician-philosopher Fritjof Capra explains why the limitations of reductionist, "Cartesian" physics are overcome by 20th century discoveries (like quantum theory particle-wave dualism, Heisenberg's 1927 uncertinity principle and modern particle physics) and tries to reunify these limitations to Eastern philosophy ("The Tao of Physics"). In a second work ("Turning Point") he emphasizes that a second paradigm shift is necessary, a kind of second Copernican revolution (the first Copernican revolution meant the abandonment of geocentric world-view, the second one would be the abandonment of the anthropocentrist persepctive). And as Capra points out, former materialist reductionism (stating like the followers of Descartes and Newton that the whole universe could be explained as inter action of isolated molecules) has indeed given given place to more coherent or holistic world-views by 20th century developments as illustrated by:
- in biology, Darwinian evolution as well as modern cellular biology and genetics (DNA and cellular organization being quite similar in most organisms) have generated a unified view of life
- ecology shows the intricate interactions of ecosystems
- the view of the astronauts from Apollo VIII seeing the whole Earth in 1968 brought the fargile beauty of the globe on everybody's television screens
- chaos theory and cybernetics gave an idea of the fragility of feedback circles
- developments in analytical chemistry and computer science have given ecologists powerful tools to analyze disturbance in the system
Often, these attempts to reunify a fragmented worldview do have some religious overtones (therefore, the movement is sometimes called "New Age" movement), although most environmentlists do not explicitly believe in a God or Spritual Being.

Notably, a holistic world-view does not always work in favor of direct environmental action. The most prominent (but not the first one, cf. @Ghilarov 1995) example might be James Lovelock. While working on gas chromatography, Lovelock in 1970 per chance discovered high concentrations of chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere, and this discovery eventually led to the discovery of the stratospheric ozone losses. However Lovelock, doing research in other fields, developed the very holistic thesis of Gaia (after the Greek godess of the Earth; see his 1979 book "Gaia") saying that the Earth behaves as an organism willful protecting most life-forms on it by feedback mechanisms; for example Lovelock points out that, life on Earth successfully managed shocks like a 30% brightening of the sun since the Earth was formed and the sudden emergence of an oxidizing atmosphere after photosynthesis had evolved. From that point of view, Lovelock for a long time doubted that man's influence (e.g. by chlorofluorocarbons) could do much harm to the atmosphere, a view he has recently slightly taken back (@Kerr 1988).

7. Environmentalism forms political movements [1980-]

Backed with the idea that fundamental lifestyle changes are (more or less) necessary the environmental movement took a more controversial role in opposing allegedly harmful megaprojects. Prime targets for environmental protest group action since the mid 70s have been nuclear power plants planned or under construction (e.g. Rocky Flats/Denver in the US; Brokdorf/Hamburg in Germany), but also huge other industrial megaprojects such as the Alaska oil pipeline (1975-77). The nuclear energy has been perceived as a source of radioactive contamination, is intensively linked with the arms industry, prone to terrorism and proliferation and could be replaced by energy savings and soft energies like solar and wind energies (@Lovins 1976). Major accidents at Three Miles Island/Harrisburg (Pennsylvania, 1979) and Chernobyl (Ukraine, 1986) and many minor accidents showed the danger of the technology. And as planning of nuclear power plants is a time-consuming, public and highly visible process, it is also relatively easy to organize huge demonstrations against it. Since the mid 70s, nationwide demonstrations blocked most works in power plants under construction in Germany and subsquently many projects (often in a range of 1 billion or more dollars) were given up.
For example, right after the Chernobyl accident, public pressure forced the Swedish government to give up nuclear power by the year 2000, and in Germany the Wackersdorf and Kalkar projects were given up in 1989 and 1991. Since the mid 70s, opening new nuclear power plants has become politically unfeasible in most Western countries (although few running power plants have actually been closed down for political reasons) and the absolute number of world-wide nuclear power stations seems to be declining slightly.
Another equal wave of nationwide protest in Germany erupted over nuclear rearmament in the early 80s.
Nationwide protest on the other hand, forged nationwide protest groups, like the Federation of Environmental Citizen's Initiaves (BBU) in Germany founded in 1976 and in 1980 a Green party movement/association was founded. In the 1980 elections this movement got a 0.8% of the total vote; but since 1983 they got more than 5% (enough to be represented in the Bundestag德国国会, where they have been since 1983）. In the 1984 elections for the European Parliament in quite a few countries Green movements also got similar results. In the beginning, most Green parties were organized as movements, with very informal decision procedures, rotation of parliamentary representatives. Most of the parties' agenda were concentrated on environmental politics and issues and many Green parties felt themselves as opposition parties not striving for government action so soon. This, of course, changed when Green parties got involved in coalition governments (such as in the state of Hessen 1985-87) where many concessions and compromises had to be done. As this is not always easy, coalition governments involving Green parties have usually not been very stable.
With the passing of the time, environmental parties have become more "professional" and they still mostly attract educated intelligentsia while failing to reach large strata of the working classes. Nevertheless, Green parties have also attained many goals indirectly by forcing other parties to care about a certain problem and bringing environmental issues to the media.
Though, like most other political parties, Green parties are cooperating in a pretty powerless European parliament, they do not flourish in either the USA (where it might be linked to the electorial system) or Japan. So in international affairs, environmental pressure-groups are represented by internationally operating groups, the largest being Greenpeace with over 3 million supporters, 43 offices world-wide, a 140 million US dollar budget and 1,000 employees (@Toufexis 1995). Groups like Greenpeace usually operate via huge public campaigns (such as boycotting a company's products or staging demonstrations; for example against in nuclear tests (did happen) and the planned dropping of an oil tower in the North Sea by Shell compoany (indeed abandoned) in 1995) to exert environmental pressure.
Another important forum for international environmental groups are international environmental conferences as e.g. the UN conference on the environment and development in Rio de Janeiro 1992, the Berlin climate conference and the Jakarta biodiversity conference (both in 1995).

8. Environmentalism in non-Western countries

In recent decades, in some non-Western countries environmental protest (usually against environmental destruction) has been become known world-wide. For example in 1973, the Chipko (embrace the trees) movement was originated by women protesting against deforestation of forest slopes in Northern India. The women embraced the trees when the logging compnay arrived. This kind of protest soon went to other villages and within several years the movement become so big that prime minister Indira Gandhi in 1980 asserted to stop tree logging for 15 years (@Siebert and Datta 1990:141). This and other kinds of resisitance against forest destruction can be traced back to the 19th century, when forest rights were first marketed during British colonial rule, and villages thus deprived of surrounding forrests.
Chipko now has over 50,000 members (75% women).Nevertheless, the movement failed to bring down a dam project in Tehri. Also in other parts of the world, indigenous people, such as in New Guinea, Indonesia and Brazil (@Gore 1992:283) have been protesting against destruction of their habitats by logging companies, a prominent victim being Chico Mendes, shot in 1988 by landlords. Chico Mendes had worked in the Labor Party and organised protest against a road project, which was indeed abandoned by the World Bank in 1987.
In an area already pretty devoid of trees, Wangari Maathai started the Greenbelt movement. In 1968 she began with planting of trees and hedges and founded an "Envirocare" organization, providing paid labor for women (working for landlords). In 1977 she began to raise public funds and private sponsoring for tree planting actions; if more than 1000 trees are planted this is called a Greenbelt, and the local village cares for this; care for woods usually includes the cooperation of school pupils, who work for the project. More than 1000 Greenbelts have been planted to now. Now the UN are promoting similar projects in 12 other African countries.

9. 天人合一: Which environmentalism "fits" to China?