Yes, I hear you, and agree. I love the outdoors myself, live on a farm, and used to being an avid hiker, with an occasional mountain peak under my belt. The problem is, however, that environmentalism is rooted in holism, and holism invariably leads to a totalitarianism precisely because it deprives man of his humanness. Holism denies the fundamental distinction between nature and history/culture, and forces people to live according to the dictates of nature, even though nature does not think, etc.
My environmentalism was rooted in 31 hours of college chemistry and a career in industrial chemicals.