ABSTRACT
Environmental activism has been provoked by deep concern about deteriorating conditions for life on Earth. The list of problems, from global warming through loss of biodiversity and pollution to fraying life support systems, is now well known, and much of the concern is fuelled by scientific data and models of nature. What happens if we deconstruct words like ‘nature’, ‘Earth’, ‘environment’ and ‘wilderness’ in a way which radically questions their status as referents to anything in the world, and then we call into question all our models of reality, including the scientific ones, to concentrate instead on such things as the role of these models in privileging certain social groups? For some, all you are doing is standing in the way of the growing momentum of environmental concern and playing into the hands of anti-environmental forces. This constructivist-realist debate has become a central theme in environmental philosophy.
