ABSTRACT
In popular imagination, the environment is "everything out there": it is the outdoor world of fields and trees, birds and bees. Actions and policies for environmental protection implicitly relate to this domain, some focusing upon the intrinsic qualities of nature, others viewing the environment as a finite stock of natural resources, or as an endangered and fragile system. This, it seems, is the world which is to be saved and valued. It is important, however, to acknowledge that this is not the place in which we routinely live. Athough whales and the ozone layer are critical elements in the environmental iconography, this outside world is not the one which most people inhabit most of the time. The environment of everyday life, is, of course, the indoor environment. Current definitions of the environment as "everything out there" place people in a specific relationship to nature, setting them apart from the real environmental action. This has not always been the case for meanings of "out there" and "in here" have changed over time. This chapter examines a few moments in the history of this evolving relationship and in doing so provides a new way of looking at familiar debates about nature and culture, about science, technology and the mastery of nature, and, most recently, about theories of environmental change and strategies for minimizing environmental damage.
