ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the social psychological research explaining the theoretical foundation for evaluating the real-world effects of environmental values. It describes the historical development of environmental sociology as a sub-discipline of sociology; and then the development of the interdisciplinary field of political ecology. The chapter considers the indications of where on the egoistic/humanistic/biospheric scale the two fields fall, and whether there are clear divides within the fields as to these environmental values. It reflects on the ramifications, if any, of these value systems for both environmental sociology and political ecology. Environmental sociology and political ecology are communities of academic practice made up of individual humans. These communities inevitably express, at least in part, the personal meaning systems (the religions) of these academic practitioners. In analyzing the environmental values in environmental sociology and political ecology, the chapter analyses to what extent they are humanistic or biospheric within Dietz's framework.
