environmentalist

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   One who advocates for the protection of the environment and biosphere from misuse from human activity through such measures as ecosystem protection, waste reduction and pollution prevention.

   The Santa Barbara oil spill has environmentalists and California officials scrambling as an estimated 105,000 gallons of oil may have spilled into the Pacific Ocean and onto the Golden State’s coast.

2. 2
   noun

   One who holds the view that environment, rather than heredity or culture, is the primary factor in the development of an individual or group.

   As we remarked once before, there are two extreme views with respect to life, one attributing everything to the environment, the other to inherent abilities. If, for example, an unusual number of distinguished men are born and reared in the same locality, the environmentalists assert that the causes for their appearance were entirely external and that had their parents changed habitats with those residing elsewhere the result would have been the same, except that the family names of these eminent men would have been different.

3. 3
   adj

   Of, or relating to environmentalism.

   The environmentalist explanation would be that tropical environment retards or depresses culture through its physiological effect on the human organism.

4. 4
   noun

   someone who works to protect the environment from destruction or pollution

Etymology

From environmental + -ist.