Environmentalism

Noun

noun

1. (medicine, social sciences) A theory that views environment, rather than heredity or culture, as the important factor in the development of an individual or group.
• 1939, Alfred L. Kroeber, Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America Chapter Objectives, The first is that the present work in no sense represents a relapse toward the old environmentalism which believed it could find the causes of culture in environment.
2. A political and social ideology that seeks to prevent the environment from degradation by human activity.

Related terms

• environment
• environmentalist