This article places the study of rural environmental activism in the wider context of the Chinese government's promotion of Ecological Civilization (shengtai wenming 生态文明). Ecological Civilization is, we argue, a top-down imaginary of China's future that opens up space for environmental agency while setting authoritative standards for how to frame protests in a logic of science and social stability. The article compares how residents in a small cluster of villages in Zhejiang province dealt with different sources of air pollution over a span of ten years: how, when and why they chose to negotiate with local officials and industrial managers to prevent or reduce air pollution, and what the outcome was. We found that in addition to a consciousness of the right to protest, villagers had come to regard the ability to evoke science in negotiations with officials and industrial managers as crucial for success. We suggest that the forms of environmental activism we observed were in effect “containable protests” that befit the state-initiated national imaginary of an ecologically civilized world. 这篇文章把乡村环保行动置于中国政府推进的”生态文明”建设的大背景下进行研究。我们认为, “生态文明” 建设是一种自上而下的对未来中国发展的 “国家想象”, 它把环保抗争有效地纳入到科学发展和社会稳定的制度框架里, 更重要的是, 为环境保护行动打开了一个新的空间。文章从抗争方式、时间选择和原因诉求等方面, 通过对浙江省多个村落的村民进行调查, 比较研究他们十年来面对不同的空气污染源, 与地方官员、工厂老板协商阻止和缓解空气污染的环保抗争及其行动结果。我们发现, 除了 “依权抗争” 之外, 在与官方和老板协商过程中, 村民运用科学知识的能力成为他们成功的重要手段。我们建议, 环保行动中的 “包容抗争” 方式可能更利于实现由国家发起的生态文明建设 “国家想象” 的愿景。