About these notes. This is the sub-topic lookup version. For the narrative scrollytelling lesson with the strand, dimension, thinker and core-idea figures, use the Walk-through. For active recall, use the MCQ Quiz. For comparison practice, use the Strand comparison exercise. The cards below open one at a time and cover everything Paper 2 expects you to know on ecologism: the three strands, the five named thinkers, the six core ideas and the exam method.
Likely exam angles. The 24-mark question lands on a dimension (human nature, the state, society, the economy) or on one of the spec core ideas (ecology, holism, environmental ethics, environmental consciousness, post-materialism, sustainability). Whichever it is, run the three strands across it, then judge whether agreement or disagreement weighs more.
Ecologism takes ecology - the study of how living things relate to their environment - as a guide to politics. It rejects the post-Enlightenment mechanistic world view that treats nature as a machine and a commodity, and replaces it with a holistic view of nature as a connected whole that humanity cannot be separated from.
The most radical strand. Key thinker: Leopold (the Land Ethic), with Schumacher on the economy and Merchant on the mechanistic critique.
The reformist strand. Key thinker: Carson (Silent Spring; nature seen holistically).
The structural strand. It reframes the whole question: the root of the crisis is human-on-human hierarchy, not humanity versus nature. Key thinker: Bookchin, with Merchant for the ecofeminist form and Schumacher for the small-scale economy. The spec lists three forms.
| Thinker | Key idea | Strand | What to use them for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leopold (1887-1948) | The Land Ethic | Deep ecology | Extend the moral community to the non-human world; an action is right when it preserves the integrity, stability and beauty of the biotic community. Conservation fails inside an economic model. Ecocentrism and intrinsic value. |
| Carson (1907-1964) | Nature seen holistically | Shallow ecology | The state and society cannot dominate nature; the long-term harm of chemical pesticides damages sustainability; nature does not exist for the convenience of man. Holism plus enlightened anthropocentrism. |
| Schumacher (1911-1977) | Buddhist economics | Crosses the strands | Economics as if people mattered - maximum wellbeing with minimum consumption. Traditional economics wrongly puts goods before humans. Post-materialism; the deep green and social ecology small-scale economy. |
| Bookchin (1921-2006) | Social ecology | Social ecology (eco-anarchist) | The environmental crisis emerges from social structures of oppression; the state and hierarchy must be overthrown; a future of decentralised self-sufficient communes. |
| Merchant (1936- ) | The death of nature | Social ecology (ecofeminist) | The death of nature is linked to gender oppression; reject the mechanistic, male view of science; restructure gender relations. The mechanistic critique is also shared ground. |
| Core idea | What it means | Which strands |
|---|---|---|
| Ecology | The study of human-nature relationships, taken as a guide to politics. | Read ecocentrically (deep - Leopold), anthropocentrically (shallow - Carson), or socially (social - Bookchin). |
| Holism | Nature as a connected whole, against the mechanistic post-Enlightenment view (Carson, Merchant). | Central to deep and social ecology. Shallow ecology accepts interconnection but keeps the scientific frame. Shared ground, pushed differently. |
| Environmental ethics | New moral standards for human relations with each other and the non-human world; how far moral standing extends. | All life and the ecosystem (deep - Leopold); humans only (shallow); across human oppressions too (social - Bookchin, Merchant). |
| Environmental consciousness | A sense of self realised through deep identification with nature; whether the crisis needs a change in human nature. | The heart of deep ecology. Shallow ecology says not required. Social ecology ties it to social transformation (Bookchin). |
| Post-materialism | The criticism of materialism and consumerism and how to move beyond them (Schumacher's Buddhist economics). | Deep ecology and social ecology reject consumerism. Shallow ecology is cool - green capitalism can keep consumer society running. |
| Sustainability | The capacity of the ecological system to maintain its health over time. | Strong sustainability (deep, social - Schumacher, Bookchin) against weak sustainability (shallow - Carson). The spec pairs them explicitly. |
Agreement: all three reject the mainstream view that nature is a commodity for human exploitation, and all take a holistic view (Carson). Disagreement: ecocentrism (deep - Leopold) against enlightened anthropocentrism (shallow - Carson), with social ecology rejecting the frame: the problem is human-on-human hierarchy (Bookchin). The 2024 mark scheme names 'deep divisions about the world view that should replace anthropocentrism'.
Agreement: all three want the state to accept limits to growth and drop its focus on GDP. Disagreement: reform the existing state (shallow - Carson), reject it as rooted in anthropocentrism (deep - Schumacher), or replace it with decentralised bioregional communes (social - Bookchin). The 2023 mark scheme frames it as whether the state is part of the problem or part of the solution.
Agreement: all three reject the mainstream materialist consumerist society and the mechanistic world view (Merchant). Disagreement: ecocentric transformation (deep), green-consumer reform (shallow), or decentralised communes free of hierarchy (social - Bookchin). The 2025 and 2023 mock mark schemes treat reform-versus-transformation as the central social divide.
Agreement: all three reject materialism and consumerism and accept limits to growth. Disagreement: strong sustainability outside capitalism (deep, social - Schumacher, Bookchin) against weak sustainability through green capitalism (shallow - Carson). The 2024 mark scheme calls this a 'fundamental division'.