Pulling Up Grassroots: A study of the right-wing “popular” adult environmental education movement in the United States

In the United States many non-government organisations (NGOs) champion progressive political agendas, yet some popular movements are highly conservative. The political right has mobilised effectively in the past two decades on a variety of domestic issues, including the construction of an environmental discourse in reaction to modest environmental gains. Such endeavours, branded as "anti-environmental", have been neglected in serious discussions on popular social movement learning. Few studies explore the educational and activist moments in this "Other environmentalism". This paper, using historical/textual analysis and drawing on experiences of the author, enquires into rightwing natural resource initiatives. It describes and analyses the methods they employ to alter gains made in the progressive environmental movement. Conservatives were found to have both grassroots as well as elite sponsorship and are effective sites of adult learning, resistance, and meaning making. Many elements of this Other environmental discourse seek to change understandings, dispositions, behaviours, attitudes, and knowledge--the adult educational politics and policies--of society.