228 Ecology and Applied Environmental Science
• Convergence of economic and environmental goals in decision making
is important; convergence can be achieved through acceptance of
social responsibility and recognition of the long-term consequences of
today’s decisions.
• Sustainability requires wider participation in responsibilities and decisions as well as wider access of the citizens to the sources of information.
13.4 Ecological aPProachES oF dEvEloPMEnt
The role of the social system to determination of the development model
and, by extension, the environmental impacts caused, is important. Trust
in the liberating prospects of scientific and technological progress has put
forth the goal of limitless growth as a progressive promise. Conversely,
it has been accepted by many social groups that a socialist organization of
society could bring about reconciliation between man and nature. However,
ning have been exposed and the impasse of those views has become apparent. Thus the importance of freedom, critical thinking and the essential
social control of the developmental procedure has emerged. The creation
of a worthwhile ecological movement in various countries is more related
to their economic, cultural and political level and less to the existence of
intense environmental problems.
Ecological movements have emerged in most countries; however, they
appear mainly in areas of higher social development. They present a dissimilar geographic distribution and a great variety in regard to their approach
to the problems, the proposals and the action forms. They constitute an
sophical views, social notions and political ideas, from conservative or religious to extremely radical, coexist. A widely accepted fixed characteristic
of those movements is local action that is expressed by the slogan “think
globally, act locally”; the groups that implement it have acquired significant
local roots in many developed countries.
Through the fertile activity of ecological movements as well as the multiple view-shaping processes by scientists and environmental organizations,
different approaches to development and the man-nature relationship have
been established:
• The most radical approaches insist on the negation of development.
The rejection of antagonism, of individualism and so-called artificial needs, the emphasis on collectivity, on human communication
and the satisfaction of fundamental needs would gradually lead to a
society that would function according to the ecosystems’ patterns. The
• Convergence of economic and environmental goals in decision making
is important; convergence can be achieved through acceptance of
social responsibility and recognition of the long-term consequences of
today’s decisions.
• Sustainability requires wider participation in responsibilities and decisions as well as wider access of the citizens to the sources of information.
13.4 Ecological aPProachES oF dEvEloPMEnt
The role of the social system to determination of the development model
and, by extension, the environmental impacts caused, is important. Trust
in the liberating prospects of scientific and technological progress has put
forth the goal of limitless growth as a progressive promise. Conversely,
it has been accepted by many social groups that a socialist organization of
society could bring about reconciliation between man and nature. However,
ning have been exposed and the impasse of those views has become apparent. Thus the importance of freedom, critical thinking and the essential
social control of the developmental procedure has emerged. The creation
of a worthwhile ecological movement in various countries is more related
to their economic, cultural and political level and less to the existence of
intense environmental problems.
Ecological movements have emerged in most countries; however, they
appear mainly in areas of higher social development. They present a dissimilar geographic distribution and a great variety in regard to their approach
to the problems, the proposals and the action forms. They constitute an
sophical views, social notions and political ideas, from conservative or religious to extremely radical, coexist. A widely accepted fixed characteristic
of those movements is local action that is expressed by the slogan “think
globally, act locally”; the groups that implement it have acquired significant
local roots in many developed countries.
Through the fertile activity of ecological movements as well as the multiple view-shaping processes by scientists and environmental organizations,
different approaches to development and the man-nature relationship have
been established:
• The most radical approaches insist on the negation of development.
The rejection of antagonism, of individualism and so-called artificial needs, the emphasis on collectivity, on human communication
and the satisfaction of fundamental needs would gradually lead to a
society that would function according to the ecosystems’ patterns. The