Movement for ecology and sustainable development

Main Topic: Coordinator Comments

Perhaps the strongest social movement of our era is the ecology movement, which continues to grow as people realize the impact of global warming produced by fossil fuel emissions. There are uncounted thousands of ecological initiatives throughout the world, associated with an unprecedented global consciousness of the issues. Typical of social movements they are distinguished by lack of hierarchical organization and by the mobilization of mass numbers of people around simple slogans. Unlike the case in many other social movements, ecological initiatives have received considerable favorable notice in the mass media as major sectors of the media are themselves convinced of the importance of the ecological message.

The ecology movement first came on the scene in a dramatic fashion at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, known as the Earth Summit. It attracted the largest number of heads of state ever assembled, as well as the largest gathering ever of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) devoted to ecology. The NGO's issued a statement called the Earth Charter.

More recently a new version of the Earth Charter has been created and gathered considerable support, as may be found on the earth charter website.

Of special importance is the great increase in recent years of work by cities and towns for ecology and sustainable development. Many of their initiatives are integrated into the framework of a global organization of local authorities, the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).