Make-up Post: Environmentalism

Before the enlightening exercise of debate regarding ideologies in class, I never considered environmentalism to be a legit ideology. 

Of course, I always knew that the environment is important for sustaining the earth and everything that lives upon it, and I admitted that its significance was even more pronounced for people I considered to be tree-huggers, some of whom may have found their way to the chambers and halls of power. I had just assumed that the environment was a completely different topic of discourse, failing to realize that it is relevant to all socioeconomic and political spheres. I simply never figured it to be something that has a noticeable bearing on things as different as the free market economy or legislation, much less consider it to be a political ideology as relevant as liberalism or conservatism.  

At its most basic, environmentalism advocates the coexistence of mankind and nature in a way that can be maintained for ages to come, and as such could be argued to be the most relevant ideology we have today.