‘Ecocentrism’: A Brief History of The Radical Environmental Movement
In his book ‘The Ecocentrists,’ historian Keith Makoto Woodhouse traces the 1970s radical environmental movement in the U.S.
“No compromise in defense of Mother Earth”
– The slogan of Earth First!
Ecocentrism is a key discourse taken up and developed by the radical environmental movement in the U.S., especially by activists during the 1970s and 1980s. In his 2018 book The Ecocentrists: A History of Radical Environmentalism, environmental historian Keith Makoto Woodhouse traces this fascinating history. He gives the following definition of ‘ecocentrism’ as a starting point:
“Ecocentric thought assumed that trees, bears, fish, and grasshoppers should receive as much consideration as humans in decisions large and small about the shape of modern society. An ecocentric outlook granted no more value to people — at least in terms of a basic hierarchy of existence — than it did to plants, animals, and ecosystems…[the ecocentrists] believed, fundamentally, that as modern human society gradually destroyed wild nature it veered toward catastrophe, and that its self-destruction would take much of the planet with it.”
