Environmental Problem Solving can be seen as attempting to manage the problems of the environment using public policy while simply taking the economic and political situation as it is. Problem solving is done through rational policies that are usually used in liberal and democratic governments. It becomes environmental problem solving as they take in the input about the environmental issue and adapt the original rational policies to the context of an environmental problem.

However, within the discourse of environmental problem solving, there are other sub-discourses that follow the same principle of dealing with the issue at hand and viewing them as something that can be resolved. This is in contrast with the limits and survivalism, where it paints a more apocalyptic view of the world due to our environmental actions .

Varieties of Environmental Problem Solving

Despite the different sort of principles that each of the discourse variety holds, they still go back to the same ideology of solving the problem at hand. It is just the means of how they go about it which differs and how this can impact the type of social relationship that occurs within each type of discourse.