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The mental and emotional stages of environmentalism
Chances are, if you know 10 people who consider themselves environmentalists or some version thereof (ecosocialist, ecofeminist, environmental anarchist, left-wing prepper) you will notice that they all have different approaches to their activism, and often different “takes” on what informs their beliefs, what matters the most, or how to reach others about environmental concerns. I don’t think these differences are just a matter of different personalities, backgrounds or strengths.
I think they’re different stages along essentially the same path. At first, I noticed that among people I’ve known for some time, their environmental position would move closer to that of someone else I knew, but that they didn’t know. Meanwhile that other person had also moved on to new perspectives.
And then I noticed it wasn’t just people I knew who were doing that. I was doing it, too.
Based primarily on my own journey of environmental consciousness, but checking it against that of others, I began to sort out the logic behind these stages. Some people may skip a stage, or spend so long in one stage that you wonder if they’ll ever get out of it. Not everyone takes the stages in the same order either, so the numbering below can be considered random, rather than sequential.
