Environmentalism started with the Nazis. I read a book on it years ago. It may have been The Greening or something Unmasked. Anyway, well documented from what I remember.
Actually, it goes back to at least early 19th-century Romanticism.
http://theatheistconservative.com/2010/01/22/green-roots-the-origin-of-ecology/
OTOH, anyway, would you rather live in present day China and cough your lungs out on your way to work each morning?
Balance. Some degree of preserving the environment you live in is good. Going over the top like the Greens, EPA etc. and making it into some faux religion is bad. That cannot be too hard to understand.