The environment and environmental issues are complex, organically connected, and massively detailed. To understand them, and then to act in ways that will protect the environment, avert disasters, and maintain both global and human health, requires nothing less than a redefinition of what it means to be human. Any one program or statement is insufficient. A new environmental consciousness will alter daily habits, economic planning, politics, spiritual orientations, the dedication of educational efforts, and the direction of scientific thinking.

Full introduction to the chapter Go

Selections in this chapter:

• Scott Russell Sanders, “Buckeye” in Writing from the Center (1995), [862] Go
• Archie Carr, “A Dubious Future” (1963) in A Naturalist in Florida: A Celebration of Eden (1994), [867] Go
• David S. Wilcove and Thomas Eisner, “The Impending Extinction of Natural History” (2000), [872] Go
• David Orr, “Is Conservation Education an Oxymoron?” (1990), [875] Go
• Richard White, from “Are You an Environmentalist or Do You Work for a Living?” (1995), [879] Go
• U.N. Convention on Environment and Development, Earth Charter Preamble (1991), [884] Go
• James Gustave Speth, from Red Sky at Morning: America and the Crisis of the Global Environment, A Citizen’s Agenda for Action (2004), [885] Go