equal intrinsic value, influencing the thinking of
some environmental activists. Although deep ecol-
ogy resonated with some would-be environmental
activists, it also alienated many lower-class Ameri-
cans who cared about the environment but not at
the expense of their livelihood. When taken to logi-
cal extremes, the precepts of deep ecology could lead
to massive plant closings and job losses for working-
class people. Many working-class Americans saw deep
ecology as an elitist movement.
Considered alongside a 1980’s intellectual move-
ment that proposed to protect the environment
by privatizing it, the development of deep ecology
helps illustrate the intellectual fragmentation of en-
vironmentalism. This fragmentation in theory oc-
curred at the same time some environmental organi-
zations were experiencing practical failures in the
face of White House opposition to their goals, as well
as the complications attending the organizations’ in-
creasing bureacratization. What had been a clearly
definable movement at the beginning of the 1980’s
had become fragmented and, as some critics opined,
seemed to have lost its way by the end of the decade.
As a result, some supporters had become disillu-
sioned by decade’s end.
In spite of these problems, though, there were
also some positive signs at the end of the 1980’s that
the environmental movement was expanding its fo-
cus and preparing to move forward. Some of the
major environmental groups began to reach out to
local grassroots groups that were dedicated to
achieving environmental justice, thereby expanding
both their focus and their support base. In some
cases, these outreach efforts helped revive the spirit
of grassroots activism that had permeated the envi-
ronmental movement during the 1970’s. Both the
Sierra Club and Friends of the Earth appeared to be
turning back to their earlier activist roots by the end
of the decade. The rise of new issues such as global
warming also helped revitalize the environmental
movement. Finally, American environmentalists be-
gan to forge alliances with environmentalists else-
where in the world, laying the groundwork for a gen-
uinely international movement.
Impact The environmental movement underwent
several transformations during the 1980’s, largely in
response to the economic and political climate of
the decade. The movement had become focused on
federal regulation in the 1970’s in the wake of its suc-
cess in convincing President Richard M. Nixon to
create the Environmental Protection Agency. The
White House of the 1980’s, however, was committed
to rolling back federal regulation, so lobbying orga-
nizations were forced to fight not to improve the
situation but simply to maintain the gains they had
already made. Moreover, environmental organiza-
tions found that they were not immune to the in-
creasing corporatization and bureaucratization of
all aspects of American society, and they struggled to
negotiate the consequences of those trends. The
movement also confronted the same issues of diver-
sity operative elsewhere in 1980’s American culture,
as it was accused of being too white, too male, and
too middle-class in its orientation. By the end of the
decade, environmentalism was struggling to recap-
ture some of the public’s enthusiasm, but it seemed
ready to turn a corner as it entered the 1990’s.Further Reading
Dowie, Mark.Losing Ground. Boston: MIT Press,- Argues that the major environmental
groups lost their focus beginning in the 1980’s.
Gottlieb, Robert.Forcing the Spring. Rev. ed. Washing-
ton, D.C.: Island Press, 2005. The leading history
of the environmental movement, with a focus on
events between 1960 and 1990.
Lewis, Martin W.Green Delusions. Durham, N.C.:
Duke University Press, 1992. Critique of radical
environmentalism.
Sale, Kirkpatrick.Green Revolution: The American En-
vironmental Movement, 1962-1992. New York: Hill
and Wang, 1993. Another history of the move-
ment, offering some information different from
that in Gottlieb’s work.
Snow, Donald, ed.Inside the Environmental Movement:
Meeting the Leadership Challenge. Washington D.C.:
Island Press, 1992. Essays on some of the leader-
ship issues faced by the environmental movement
in the 1980’s.
John M. Theilmann
See also Air pollution; Business and the economy
in the United States; Conservatism in U.S. politics;
Multiculturalism in education; Reagan, Ronald;
Water pollution; Watt, James G.The Eighties in America Environmental movement 339