Environmental politics relates to the study of political theories, opinions, policies, and ideas linked to the natural world.
Its main idea is to study how the environment affects politics and how politics affects the environment since our nature cannot advocate on its own behalf and it has been through an endless number of movements and constant pressure put upon by a lot of proponents over our politicians after which necessary steps have been taken, popular examples of which include the Chipko Movement and the Narmada Bachao Andolan.
Now getting into a more formal language, environmental politics on a global level is somewhat a new area of research and study enclosed by international relations whose main focus lies on subjects related to the interaction of human beings and the environment.
The studies are related to a super wide variety and range of subjects including international relations, anthropology, sociology, science and technology, economics, environmental ethics, history, etc.
How does environmental politics work?
The initial steps involve the analysis of the evolution of environmental movements and parties.
Moving on, it provides data based on the forming and execution of policies relating to the environment at national, international, and even at local levels.
Then it observes the policies and ideas formulated by different environment conservation movements, bodies, and individuals.
Lastly, its motive is to accentuate as well as inculcate the environmental issues which are at a global level and of increasing gravity into various movements and campaigns across different countries.
Neil Carter, the writer of Politics of the Environment, has distinguished environmental politics into conservationist and preservationist types based on the time period when it was followed. Conservationist environmental politics (the contemporary approach), he says, was driven by the idea of a worldwide ecological crisis that was threatening the very actuality and quiddity of humanity. And preservationist environmentalism (modern approach), marking his words, was a political and activist multitude movement that cried out for a radical transformation in the ethics of the society.
If we relate various environmental issues like pollution and unsustainability of resources with politics and policies formed, we find a pervasive mismatch between the promises made and the actual performance and execution of the plans, this is actually nothing but an instance of environmental politics.
Inequality of resources between nations makes solutions involving the use of technology insufficient by a large margin for response to climate change and its factors. Rather, political ways and policies can navigate the particularities of various aspects of deterioration of the environment. All this is a part of environmental politics.
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