Environmentalism began in the nineteenth century as Romantic poets such as William Blake and William Wordsworth denounced the industrial era’s “dark satanic mills,” which threatened the “green and pleasant land” of an earlier England. The “scientific management” of nature, both in industrializing countries and in European colonies, represented another element of emerging environmental awareness among a few. So did the “wilderness idea,” which aimed to preserve untouched areas from human disruption, as, for example, in the U.S. national parks.27 None of these strands of environmentalism attracted a mass following or provoked a global response. Not until the second half of the twentieth century, and then quite rapidly, did environmentalism achieve a worldwide dimension, although it was expressed in many quite different ways.

This second-wave environmentalism began in the West with the publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, exposing the chemical contamination of the environment. (See the Portrait of Rachel Carson.) Here, as virtually everywhere else, the impetus for action came from the grass roots and citizen protest. By the early 1990s, some 14 million Americans—one in seven adults—had joined one of the many environmental organizations. In Europe, the Club of Rome, a global think tank, issued a report in 1972 called Limits to Growth, which warned of resource exhaustion and the collapse of industrial society in the face of unrelenting economic growth. The German environmental movement was distinctive in that its activists directly entered the political arena as the Green Party, with a focus on opposition to nuclear energy. Beyond addressing environmental pollution, Western activists focused much attention on wilderness issues, opposing logging, road building, and other development efforts in remaining unspoiled areas.

Quite quickly, during the 1970s and 1980s, environmentalism took root in the developing countries as well. There it often assumed a different character: it was more locally based and had fewer large national organizations than in the West; it involved poor people rather than affluent members of the middle class; it was less engaged in political lobbying and corporate strategies; it was more concerned with issues of food security, health, and basic survival than with the rights of nature or wilderness protection; and it was more closely connected to movements for social justice.28 Thus, whereas Western environmentalists defended forests where few people lived, the Chikpo, or “tree-hugging,” movement in India sought to protect the livelihood of farmers, artisans, and herders living in areas subject to extensive deforestation. A massive movement to prevent or limit the damming of India’s Narmada River derived from the displacement of local people; similar anti-dam protests in the American Northwest were more concerned with protecting salmon runs.

Western environmentalists often called on individuals to change their values by turning away from materialism toward an appreciation of the intricate and fragile web of life that sustains us all. In the Philippines, by contrast, environmental activists confronting the operation of foreign mining companies have sought fundamental changes in the political and social structure of their country. There, environmental protest has overlapped with other movements seeking to challenge established power structures and social hierarchies. Coalitions of numerous local groups—representing various religious, women’s, human rights, indigenous peoples’, peasant, and political organizations—frequently mobilized large-scale grassroots movements against the companies rather than seeking to negotiate with them. Occasionally these movements have included violent actions by “green armies.” Such mass mobilization contributed to the decision of the Australian-based Western Mining Corporation in 2000 to abandon its plans for developing a huge copper mine in Mindanao.

By the late twentieth century, environmentalism had become a matter of global concern. That awareness motivated legislation aimed at pollution control in many countries; it pushed many businesses in a “green” direction; it fostered research on alternative and renewable sources of energy; it stimulated UN conferences on global warming; it persuaded millions of people to alter their way of life; and it generated a number of international agreements addressing matters such as whaling, ozone depletion, and global warming.

The globalization of environmentalism also disclosed sharp conflicts, particularly between the Global North and South. Both activists and governments in the developing countries have often felt that Northern initiatives to address atmospheric pollution and global warming would curtail their industrial development, leaving the North/South gap intact. “The threat to the atmospheric commons has been building over centuries,” argued Indian environmentalist Vandana Shiva, “mainly because of industrial activity in the North. Yet . . . the North refuses to assume extra responsibility for cleaning up the atmosphere. No wonder the Third World cries foul when it is asked to share the costs.” A Malaysian official put the dispute succinctly: “The developed countries don’t want to give up their extravagant lifestyles, but plan to curtail our development.”29 Western governments argued that newly industrializing countries such as China and India must also agree to specific limits on their growing emissions if further global warming is to be prevented. Such deep disagreements between industrialized and developing countries have long contributed to the failure of global efforts to substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But in late 2011, at an international conference in Durban, South Africa, delegates from 194 countries agreed to move toward a climate change treaty that would be legally binding on all parties.

Beyond these and other conflicts, global environmentalism, more than any other widespread movement, came to symbolize “one-world” thinking, a focus on the common plight of humankind across the artificial boundaries of nation-states. It also marked a challenge to modernity itself, particularly its consuming commitment to endless growth. The ideas of sustainability and restraint, certainly not prominent in any list of modern values, entered global discourse and marked the beginnings of a new environmental ethic. This change in thinking was perhaps the most significant achievement of global environmentalism.