第594期：Are you a tree hugger?

发布于 作者:

Have you hugged a tree?

I mean literally hugging a tree.

I guess most people haven’t but you could still be a tree hugger.

A tree hugger is an environmentalist or one who believes trees and all living things should not be cut down or harmed. Someone who works to protect the environment from destruction or pollution. (Urban Dictionary)

A tree hugger loves trees and is enthusiastic about environment protection.

However, this slang term is often used with negative connotation, sometimes derogatory.

Be careful when you want to call someone a tree hugger — it may not sound as cute as it actually implies.

Here is why.

The term was popularized during the Chipko movement (which means “to cling”) in the 1970s when a group of peasant women in Northern India threw their arms around trees designated to be cut down.


It later came to mean people who really like trees and the environment and are willing to do anything to protect them.

Sound a little fanatic, doesn’t it?

If you sense a tinge of extremity, you are right because that’s what ‘tree hugger’ indicates in modern English.

It’s like when you call someone an environmentalist, you don’t only mean he or she is active in protecting the environment, but you disapprove of some of his or her overly avid obsession with it.

It’s like when you see the word “activist”, you don’t feel the activists are only active, you picture a group of angry young men and women waving banners and flags, chanting slogans, demonstrating on the street.

That’s what ‘tree hugger’ can sound to some people — crazy about environemnt protection, zero carbon, reduction of carbon dioxide emission and all that, often times derogatory.

Check out this sample sentence:

She’s such a tree-hugger that now she’s out protesting against blowing your nose on Kleenex. (*Kleenex is a brand of tissue paper)

Here, a tree-hugger is a person who takes environmentalism to extremes.

You can feel the sarcastic and disapproval tone of the sentence.

Will people be ofended if you call them tree huggers?

Well, yes and no.

It all depends on who you talk to — some people won’t like it while some don’t mind at all.

Recommended articles for your reading pleasure:

Related posts: