ABSTRACT
We situate our work by considering the human-environmental interface, and the growing seriousness of ecological overshoot. Considering the mismatch between societal institutions and the alienated individualism of modern humanity; we explore the collective influence on the natural environment. We examine problems of cultural lag, particularly as they have come to dominate the ethics around environmental issues, and the blockages to making the environment a central organizing principle of sustainable, just, and healthy societies. We then seek to offer a more adequate way of approaching environmental ethics. We consider impediments to re-centering late modern culture and institutions around an environmental ethic that incorporates and facilitates regenerative development practices. Finally, we examine practical steps to best prepare society to live not just sustainably, but regeneratively, in our habitat. Education and religion, broadly defined in both the formal and social senses, have the potential to be lead institutions in an emerging ecological ethic.
