It is based around an understanding that the environment is important because it is where we live. So we cannot escape the consequences of environmental degradation. This understanding is coupled with action to protect the environment based on mobilising numbers in direct action against pollution etc. Many of these environmentalists are already using the label anarchist to distance themselves from the respectable reformism of the Green Parties. But others have come to anarchism because there is a distinct and powerful logic drawing them towards us.
Anarchism brings to environmentalism an understanding of why the environment is degraded.
That is the pursuit of profit by powerful interests over which we exercise little control in current society. It matters little to an anarchist if these powerful interests are the private ruling classes of western Europe or the state bureaucrats who previously ruled Eastern Europe and still control large sections of the economy on the global level. To summarise, as anarchists we are aware we are dependant on the environment in order to exist, we are aware that 'the Power' be it industry or state based is willing to locally destroy large parts of the environment in pursuit of power and profit. Finally we are aware that the only way to stop 'the Power' is by direct action against its projects in the short term and a revolutionary change of society in the long term. However there is another common element to the radical or progressive wing of the environmental movement.