ABSTRACT

We are now twelve years into a unique century, the fi rst century in the 35 million centuries (3.5 billion years) of life on Earth in which one species can jeopardize the planet’s future. There has been a crescendo of concern in recent decades: an environmental crisis. The environment has become a signature issue, of both timely and timeless, relevant and perennial interest. Philosophers and religious scholars have thought about nature for millennia, in ancient Greece, India, or China. Although there is an ethic implicit in many of these worldviews, this was never developed as an environmental ethics.