ABSTRACT
Humankind has initiated a new geological epoch known as the Anthropocene. The anthropos are dramatically affecting Earth system processes and are now responsible for cascading crisis conditions. Ecological theory is a foundation for informed decision making and problem solving on environmental issues. Ecological thought challenges the intellectual tradition wherein the environment is available to be endlessly exploited and where humanity must conquer the non-human natural world to survive. Attitudes towards nature have a variety of philosophical origins. The word ecology was coined by Ernst Haeckel as the science of relations between an organism and the surrounding outer world. A critique of reductionist science with its atomism, dualism and anthropocentrism is a basis for ecological theory. Ecological thought describes a historic and systemic undervaluing or dismissal of non-human nature in modernist thought. Ontology is the study of the nature of being.
