Arcadian Environmentalism

For the past several years, I’ve had an interest in environmentalism that stemmed from a deep passion for understanding how our society powers itself.  These interests have pushed me to write several articles and editorials for sites like the Sentinel and Atomic Insights, a leading nuclear energy blog.  Now these interests have pushed me to study Arcadian Environmentalism, the form of environmentalism that romanticizes nature and argues that we need to live in harmony with nature, for my research paper.  I would consider myself an eco-modernist or pragmatist, which falls into a minority of the environmental movement that tends to believe that decoupling from nature through increased energy consumption will lead to more effective conservation efforts.  As a result, my belief set tends to fall in conflict with many of the ideals of the Arcadian belief set.  For the paper, I suspect that I will be closely examining the origins of the philosophy that drives much of the environmental community (which follows a set of Arcadian views).   I’ll be studying early forms of environmentalism, and looking at how the philosophy behind the movement has shifted throughout the decades as new environmental concerns have come into play.