By threatening the intricate pattern of the biosphere, we are jeopardising not just our own species, but the whole fabric of life. The appalling predicament we have thoughtlessly placed ourselves in requires nothing less than a dramatic change of consciousness in which we envisage ourselves as a creative and responsible part of Nature: not exploiters and profiteers, but conservers, guardians and witnesses. Among the first to truly appreciate this were the Romantics.
Most of them, like Goethe and the early Wordsworth, were pantheists – they saw God as permeating all parts of the biosphere – but ...
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