Giddens (1990) explains that due to developments in Modernity changes have occurred as regards to our emphasis or focus on issues relevant to our times. One of these issues is ecological matters and a number of ecological movements have come into being. For these movements the environment is their area of concern, he explains.
like peace movements, they are not completely new. In the nineteenth century, ecological movements were linked with romantiscm and mainly intended to counter the impact of modern industry on traditional modes of production and upon the landscape' in the late twentieth century they assumed greater prominence'
(Giddens. A (1990) cited in Halambous & Holburn, Sociology themes and Perspectives. Collins. London 2000)
With catastrophes such as 2005 Tsunami and oil spills and burning Iraqi oil fields, there has never been so much importance in ensuring we look after our environment. However with Americas refusal to sign up to a United Nations statement at Kyoto, aimed at tackling climate change, the second phase is in jeopardy. While we can only hope that the rest of the world leaders continue to take it forward in order to stop the rapidly changing climate. This assignment will explore what eco-literacy is and how we as individuals may be able to compensate in some way for the United States lack of commitment.
Ecology is based on systems thinking, inputs from the external environment effect the internal environment, affecting the output, therefore it means on a semi permeable basis that everything we do has an impact. The main emphasis for ecological campaigns is often aimed at the bigger corporations and government policies, but reality is that we as individuals through our external inputs create the external exports of contributing to the growing