From critique to resistance

With the coming of green business, or ecological modernization, or whatever it is we choose to call it, the more radical, or critical, components of the ecological culture have tended to be marginalized. And yet everywhere we look there are signs of resistance, of activism, some new and some not so new, some merely updating the environmental critique of the 1970s to changing times, and some contending that they represent a new movement, or a new generation, or a new strategy, or a “new age” altogether.

There are those who foresee the abrupt demise of green businessmen and the coming of a grand synthesis of, among others, deep ecologists, ecofeminists, the “left” and “true democrats” (Dowie 1996). There are those who are aggressively “reclaiming” the streets on behalf of a generally vague sense of dissatisfaction with the workings of transnational, corporate capitalism (Wall 1999).