This study aims to understand and compare the characteristics of two major approaches to solving global environmental problems - an academic approach including scholarly activities of environmental sciences and a practical approach of environmental movements led by NGOs - by employing informetric analysis methods. Knowledge structure of environmental sciences is depicted through co-citation networks of subject categories assigned to the cited journals in the discipline of environmental sciences for the 10-year period from 2000 to 2009. Furthermore, major interests of environmental NGOs are identified on the basis of external link data collected from web sites of the NGOs. Co-word analyses are also performed using the texts of journal papers in environmental sciences as well as news articles provided by NGO sites. Through the analyses, dominant subject areas of environmental sciences and environmental movements are identified demonstrating similarities and differences between the two approaches.