Talk:Eco-imperialism

Very Argumentative language
This line, found at the end of this article seems highly argumenative, and distinctly non-encylopedic. "Driessen's arguments, in short, amount to little more than a slick reversal of words to discredit environmental concerns and to support the economic interests of polluting corporations such as ExxonMobil." I'd suggest removing or rewording this line. 99.249.168.4 (talk) 20:35, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Removed the specifed line for the above reason. 99.249.168.4 (talk) 01:21, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

NPOV
This article almost reads like propaganda against the environmentalist movement. Yes it should state that Eco-imperialism is about criticising environmentalism but the article should be balanced with the reponses to the claims and criticism. I think the best way to describe it is as being one side of an argument with nothing at all from the otherside. That one book, however influential to the movement is not gospel, I'm sure people must have made criticisms of it, and responded to the claims made. If they haven't, why haven't they? Is this not as notable as it claims to be or are they just hoping if they ignore it it will go away? Thryduulf 15:08, 14 March 2006 (UTC)

I have not been able to find a single review outside of "The Hindu" (seriously!), Feb. 21st, 2006, which is not too critical but does acknowledge that the author is "a senior fellow at the Atlas Economic Resources Foundation, a right wing U.S. think-tank". This title is published out of the Wise-Use Movement's vanity press. Although the term 'eco-imperialism' has been used a few times in articles critical of the environmental movement, I have also seen it used in the context of those who claim dominion (for commercial purposes) over natural resourses, "popularized" may be a bit of an overstatement. (Cronos1 02:51, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

--It should be added that many other environmentalist utilize the phrase 'Eco-Imperialism' in a very different context. For these environmentalist such as Vandana Shiva, Anil Agarwal, Arturo Escobar and others utilize the term eco-imperialism to refer to the colonization of Third World ecosystems through the inappropriate transplanting of northern crop varieties, technologies and agricultural methods on the Developing World. Alfred Crosby's essay titled, "Ecological Imperialism: The Overseas Migration of Western Europeans as a Biological Phenomenon", published in Donald Worster's volume, "The Ends of the Earth", offer a great analysis of this aspect of Eco-Imperialist history.

68.82.183.127 19:34, 30 November 2006 (UTC)Khalil Tian Shahyd PhD Student - Political Ecology Center for Energy and Environmental Policy University of Delaware

I don't like the use of 'we' in below quoted sentence, seems almost as though Mr Driessen wrote this.

"American politicians feared that if we were forced to cut back on production in order to reduce emissions and developing countries were not held to any emissions standards, then the U.S. economy would suffer dramatically because of it, and fall behind in the extremely competitive world economic market." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 158.223.34.27 (talk) 21:47, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

This talk page discussion began more than 7 years ago, but the bias remains uncorrected. There are other articles on Wikipedia with an apparent anti-environmental bias, including Eco-fascism and Criticism of the environmental movement in the United States. Jarble (talk) 00:51, 7 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Bias still exists. These problems must be amended. Dustin  ( talk ) 03:22, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Nolink template
I moved the nolink template here. The Google search in it indicates that there's a good number of linking articles. BioTube 03:30, 19 July 2006 (UTC)


 * There were no linked articles (use "what links here", not Google, to find that), but Google found a few it made sense to link. --Alvestrand 12:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Term versus concept
Cut from intro:


 * Proponents of the concept argue that the attitude of some environmental groups towards Africans and Asians continues the patronising and paternalistic attitude of colonial-era environmental policies.

I think this means opponents of the (alleged) practice make this argument. It is an awkward way of saying:
 * Critics of the practice oppose the practice
 * These critics have coined a neologism to label the practice negatively (associatie it with "imperialism" which socialists generally hate)
 * These critics advocate the use of this neologism.
 * Others dislike the use of the neologism.

Perhaps, if there are rebuttals to the views of the "opponents of eco-imperialism", we should describe these views.

I propose a rewrite, wherein we set up two opposing views:
 * 1) The idea that environmentalists place the well-being of the environment over the well-being of humans, particularly those living in developing countries
 * 2) *This has been labeled "eco-imperialism" by advocates who claim (1) that environmentalists do this and (2) that doing this is akin to "imperialism"
 * 3) The idea that environmentalists are either (A) not doing this or (B) doing this with justification
 * 4) *Perhaps Thryduulf can find a source who complains about the use of the neologism "eco-imperialism" to describe the alleged practice

I'll wait a few days, and if no one objects I'll go ahead and make the above changes. --Uncle Ed 13:41, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

Recast as book article
On second thought, maybe it's better to turn this into an article about Dreisser's book. It seems to be entirely about his views (with one supporter "chiming in"). Let's discuss this. --Uncle Ed 13:54, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


 * My personal opinion is that the book article should be separated out to prevent it from being the primary issue. The "political term" article should be put in almost a dictionary definition format for the first segment, then link to the book article under "origin" and finally conclude with each side of the issues stated opinion, being careful to state each side by their views on international environment regulation, not by their name.
 * Also before edit wars start appearing, please remove the word "westerners" from the article. Frankly, generalizing the opinions of entire regions is very bad politics. --RuediiX 13:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Also before edit wars start appearing, please remove the word "westerners" from the article. Frankly, generalizing the opinions of entire regions is very bad politics. --RuediiX 13:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

No references
This article doesnt cite one single reference. If no references are cited soon the page should be nominated for deletion. At the moment it is pointless OR. Willy turner 15:33, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

December 2011 revisions
Would the editor that made the sweeping revisions in the first part of the month please follow WP:CITE & WP:REF? Many of the sources cannot be easily found. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cronos1 (talk • contribs) 19:14, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Article lead/ origin of term?
Several of the references in this article would suggest that this term predated Driessen's use of it. Is it accurate to say, then, that he coined it? As such, and beyond this, in my opinion the article lead needs to be rewritten to more broadly reflect the content of the article, including the multiple contributions and perspectives on it. Thanks, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 00:43, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Good catch. I think that given the lack of reliable sources, it would be safe enough to change it to 'popularised' for the moment. Guettarda (talk) 01:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I've taken another step towards making the lead more generalizable. Further contributions welcome! Regards, DA Sonnenfeld (talk) 03:07, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Notability
I'm struggling to see how this topic is notable. It seems to be a WP:FRINGE opinion on environmentalism, combined with an occasionally dusted off (twice in the last decade) rhetorical device. Seriously considering converting this page to Environmental_movement Simonm223 (talk) 19:10, 20 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It seems it's really all about the ideas of Paul Driesson. But he isn't notable enough to have his own page. Other sources like Innis mention things like DDT not being allowed but they don't compare it to imperialism so I don't see the connection and why it's in the article. I second your motion to convert. Popish Plot (talk) 13:28, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose This topic is a frequently appearing concept in science and news. It might be considered a political slur or a reasonable objection. Anyway, there enough articles, which this issue in deep. Basically, it is about the question of poverty vs enviromental polution in the context of international relationships.--Geysirhead (talk) 13:17, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Paul Driesson is not the first and not the only one.--Geysirhead (talk) 13:32, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The sources used to re-create this article are very weak. This does not appear to be a notable concept or phenomenon. To what extent the term is thrown around, it does not even seem to have a consistent meaning. Since there was agreement to re-direct this article years ago, I think it's inconsistent with guidelines to restore it in the absence of consensus. Thenightaway (talk) 20:39, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Dear @Thenightaway: thank you for the answer. Gardian, reuters and peer-reviewed science, which the cover the topic in depth does not look weak. "Eco-imperialism" and "Ecoimperialism" get over 1000 hit on Scholar, but I would rather call it "Green imperialism", since this concept gets over 4000 Scholar hits on Scholar and is less ambiguous and older. In etymology, I actually linked articles, which say that the meaning of "Eco-imperialism" changed and equals now to "Green imperialism". The original consensus creation was not given enough time to arise and resulted in deletion of content instead moving it to Ecological imperialism. Basically, the content was deleted instead of moving it. A deletion requires a deletion discussion. Geysirhead (talk) 20:57, 14 August 2022 (UTC)
 * My read is that it meets notability guidelines, and the rename is probably appropriate. The article itself appears in need of neutrality edits. signed,Rosguill talk 04:31, 15 August 2022 (UTC)
 * @Rosguill thank you very much! I found here a very old description of the idea from 1993. "There is a contemporary movement of idealists in the West -- the global environmentalists -- who might trigger another round of imperialism" (Page 6) and "what are the bets on the emergence of a green variant of the 19th century's white man's burden" (Page 7) So, I'll move it to Green Imperialism Geysirhead (talk) 05:47, 15 August 2022 (UTC)