ABSTRACT
There is persuasive evidence that our concerns about the environment, as well as our attitudes and values, are influenced by the extent to which we feel ourselves to be part of the natural world.1 On a continuum of connectedness with Nature, some people experience themselves as wholly separate and have an ego-centred self-concept, while others experience themselves as inseparable from the natural world so that their sense of self expands to encompass the biosphere and beyond. Cultures vary. Reviewing some of the evidence, Wesley Schultz and colleagues conclude:2
On the other hand, the rise of Western environmentalism since the 1960s, stimulated by the works of writers such as Aldo Leopold, Henry David Thoreau and Arne Naess, can be understood as an attempt to persuade us to reconnect.
