Too Busy For Words - the PaulWay Blog

I had a realisation last night that there's a new word that I suspect will be entering the news lexicon soon. That word is

Enviropath

An enviropath is a person or company who has a warped or distorted view of how to treat the environment, most commonly seeing it simply as something to exploit without consequence. Just as a sociopath cares little about their effect on society, and a psychopath cares little for their effect on people's psychologies, an enviropath cares little about their effect on the environment in the course of doing what they want.

The Urban Dictionary, which I won't link to here, has an alternate definition which basically is a derogatory term for someone too obsessed with the environment. I don't think this is using the -pathy suffix - meaning 'suffering or disease' - correctly; but then I'm sure the Urban Dictionary doesn't really care.

What it comes down to, for me, is that I believe that there are people and companies whose view point on the Earth and the natural world is that it is simply there for exploitation. They seem to believe that we can not just keep on doing what we've been doing, but actually find new ways to exploit the world, and the consequences simply don't apply to them. In this, my basic stance is completely the opposite - I believe it's time to do everything we possibly can to save the planet we live in. I also side with my dad's line of reasoning on this, in that I can afford to be wrong, but they can't.