ABSTRACT
The term ideology was first used by the French philosopher Destutt de Tracy to determine quite simply a science of ideas: By ideology he meant a science of ideas, a framework for scientifically analyzing theories and beliefs to discover the truth, eliminate errors and provide the basis of a theory of mental processes. The ideology of the environmental movement is an extremely diffuse affair, reaching as it does, from the extreme right to the extreme left of the political spectrum. It is so diffuse that the environmentalists themselves often have considerable problems in presenting a coherent vision of it. Perhaps the most widely-held image of environmentalists is that of the ‘brown rice brigade’ whose principal life-support is carrot juice and who live in candle-lit communes. This image stems from the romantic and conservationist tendencies which have existed within certain sections of the environmental movement, such as during the commune movement of the 1970s.
