Definition of "environmentalism"

environmentalism

noun
countable and uncountable, plural environmentalisms
1. (medicine, social sciences) A theory that views environment, rather than heredity or culture, as the important factor in the development of an individual or group.
  Quotations
  The first is that the present work in no sense represents a relapse toward the old environmentalism which believed it could find the causes of culture in environment.
  1939, Alfred L. Kroeber, “Objectives”, in Cultural and Natural Areas of Native North America, published 1963, page 1
2. (politics) A political and social ideology that seeks to prevent the environment from degradation by human activity.
  Quotations
  The need for environmentalisms engaged with the commons rather than relegated to the individual consumer or tied to the middle-class principles of private property.
  2018, Nicole Seymour, Bad Environmentalism, page 196