Thinking Like a Mountain: An Investigation into the Philosophy, History, and Legacy of Deep Ecology

Listen to our five minute Deep Dive “Deep Ecology Unpacking Its Radical Challenge and Lasting Relevance” to get a flavor of this article

Deep Ecology: The Call for a Deeper Questioning

The 1960s and 1970s were a period of profound cultural and political upheaval, marked by a burgeoning consciousness of the fragile state of the global environment. The ecological crisis, once a concern of a few conservationists, entered the public imagination with startling force, spurred by landmark publications and a growing sense of unease with the trajectory of industrial society. Rachel Carson’s 1962 exposé,  Silent Spring, served as a powerful catalyst, revealing the insidious and far-reaching impacts of pesticides and challenging the modern human belief in its own separation from, and superiority to, the natural world. Carson’s work, along with the intellectual lineage of figures like Aldo Leopold and his “land ethic,” helped cultivate a new environmental awareness that was ripe for a more radical philosophical framework.  

It was within this context of escalating environmental concern and social activism that the Deep Ecology movement emerged. Many activists and thinkers grew tired of the compromises inherent in mainstream environmentalism—what would later be termed “shallow ecology”. Organizations like the Audubon Society and the National Wildlife Federation were seen as too willing to engage in policy trade-offs, treating environmental protection as one of many competing interests rather than a fundamental necessity. For some, like Dave Foreman, a future founder of the radical group Earth First!, the mainstream approach of lobbying and compromise was failing to protect the last wild places from the relentless pressures of resource extraction and industrial growth. This dissatisfaction was further amplified by the political climate of the 1980s, particularly the anti-environmental policies of the Reagan administration in the United States, which sought to dismantle environmental regulations and accelerate the exploitation of public lands, creating a sense of fear and frustration that pushed many toward more radical stances.  

It was the Norwegian philosopher and mountaineer Arne Naess who gave this nascent, more radical sentiment its name and its first philosophical articulation. In his seminal 1973 article, “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement,” Naess drew a sharp distinction between two competing approaches to the ecological crisis.  

He defined Shallow Ecology as the dominant, reformist environmentalism of the day. Its focus was anthropocentric, or human-centered, primarily concerned with fighting pollution and resource depletion for the sake of the health, affluence, and well-being of people, especially in developed nations. This approach, Naess argued, did not question the underlying values of industrial society. It sought technological fixes and managerial solutions—recycling, energy efficiency, pollution control—that would mitigate the worst effects of environmental degradation without fundamentally altering the ideologies of consumerism, materialism, and perpetual economic growth. It was an attempt to make a destructive system more sustainable, rather than to question the system itself.  

In stark contrast, Naess proposed Deep Ecology as a movement that asks deeper questions, seeking to uncover the philosophical and cultural roots of the environmental crisis. It called for nothing less than a fundamental shift in consciousness, a “major paradigm shift” in perception, values, and lifestyles. This deeper approach moves beyond a purely instrumental view of nature to recognize the   intrinsic value of all life forms, asserting that the non-human world has a right to exist and flourish independent of its usefulness to human beings. Deep Ecology, therefore, is not merely a set of environmental policies but a comprehensive “ecosophy”—an ecological wisdom—that challenges the core economic, technological, and ideological structures of modern society and calls for a profound transformation in worldviews.  

This report offers a thorough investigation into the history, philosophy, and legacy of the Deep Ecology movement. It posits that Deep Ecology, while profoundly influential in its ethical challenge to anthropocentrism, was simultaneously defined by a strategic philosophical vagueness and a primary focus on individual consciousness over social and political structures. This central tension both enabled its broad, cross-cultural appeal and exposed it to significant, often valid, critiques regarding its political blind spots and social justice implications. This report will trace this foundational duality through an examination of its core philosophical tenets, its key figures and texts, its contentious dialogues with competing environmental philosophies, and its enduring, if controversial, legacy in the era of the Anthropocene.

Part I: The Philosophical Foundations

The intellectual architecture of Deep Ecology rests on a series of radical philosophical propositions that seek to reorient humanity’s relationship with the non-human world. These tenets are not merely academic exercises; they are intended to serve as the foundation for a new way of being, thinking, and acting on the planet. The movement’s core logic proceeds from a fundamental critique of the dominant Western worldview to the articulation of a new, relational ontology and a corresponding ethic of biocentric equality.

1.1 The Great Reversal: From Anthropocentrism to Ecocentrism

The primary intellectual target of Deep Ecology is the pervasive worldview of anthropocentrism, or human-centeredness. Deep ecologists argue that the dominant traditions of Western thought, particularly since the Enlightenment, have constructed a dualistic and hierarchical reality in which humans are positioned as separate from and superior to the rest of nature. Thinkers like Francis Bacon and René Descartes are often cited as architects of a mechanistic worldview that strips nature of its inherent life and spirit, reducing it to a collection of inert resources to be managed, controlled, and exploited for human ends. This “man-in-environment” image, as Naess termed it, underpins the modern industrial growth society and is identified as the ultimate philosophical root of the ecological crisis.  

In response, Deep Ecology calls for a revolutionary shift in perspective from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism (ecology-centered) or biocentrism (life-centered). This is not a minor adjustment but a call for a fundamental overhaul of “religion, morality, and social institutions”. The goal is to dissolve the artificial boundary between humanity and nature. Instead of viewing organisms as discrete objects in a passive environment, Deep Ecology proposes a “relational, total-field image”. In this model, all entities, including humans, are understood as “knots in the biospherical net or field of intrinsic relations”. An “intrinsic relation” is one so fundamental that it defines the very constitution of the beings it connects; without the relation, the beings themselves would not be what they are.  

This relational ontology means that the well-being of any individual part is inextricably linked to the well-being of the whole. It rejects the narrative of human supremacy and stewardship, which still implies a managerial role, in favor of seeing humanity as one strand among many in the complex web of life. This perspective seeks to replace the image of humanity as conqueror of nature with an image of humanity as a plain member and citizen of the biotic community, a concept deeply influenced by Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic”.  

1.2 Intrinsic Value and Biospherical Egalitarianism

Flowing directly from this ecocentric and relational worldview is the cornerstone ethical principle of Deep Ecology: the concept of intrinsic value. This is the assertion that all forms of life, both human and non-human, possess value in and of themselves. This “inherent worth” is independent of the usefulness or instrumental value that the non-human world may have for human purposes. A mountain, a river, a species of fungus, or a single bacterium has a right to exist and flourish on its own terms, not because it provides resources, aesthetic pleasure, or scientific data for humans. This principle extends beyond individual organisms to encompass the “richness and diversity of life forms” and the integrity of entire ecosystems, which are also seen as possessing intrinsic value.  

This assertion of universal intrinsic value leads logically to Naess’s early formulation of “biospherical egalitarianism—in principle”. This principle posits an equal right for all forms of life “to live and blossom”. For the ecological field-worker, Naess argued, this is an “intuitively clear and obvious value axiom”. The restriction of this right to humans alone is a form of arbitrary prejudice—a “speciesism”—that is not only ethically unjustifiable but also detrimental to the quality of human life, which is enriched by partnership with other life forms.  

However, the qualifier “in principle” is of paramount importance. Naess and other deep ecologists recognized that any “realistic praxis necessitates some killing, exploitation, and suppression”. Humans, like all other organisms, must consume and alter their environment to survive. This acknowledgment creates a profound ethical tension that the movement attempts to resolve through the concept of “vital needs.” The eight-point platform, which superseded Naess’s earlier seven-point characterization, states that “Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs”.  

A closer examination of the platform reveals a crucial ambiguity at its core: the definition of “vital needs.” The term was left “deliberately vague,” a strategic choice made by Naess and Sessions to create a broad, inclusive platform that could be endorsed by people from diverse philosophical and religious backgrounds without getting bogged down in dogmatic prescriptions. A rigid definition would have undermined the movement’s goal of fostering a pluralistic coalition, so flexibility was built in to allow for interpretation based on different cultural and local contexts.  

This strategic vagueness, however, created a significant philosophical and political vulnerability. Without a clear framework for distinguishing “vital” from “non-vital” needs, the principle lacks prescriptive power and becomes open to vastly different, and even contradictory, interpretations. It could be used to justify anything from the subsistence lifestyle of an indigenous hunter-gatherer to the high-consumption patterns of an affluent Westerner, depending on how broadly one defines what is “vital” for a flourishing human life. This ambiguity became a primary target for critics, particularly social ecologists and ecofeminists. They argued that what society deems “vital” is not a neutral determination but is profoundly shaped by dominant social structures of class, race, and gender—structures that Deep Ecology, in its focus on a monolithic “humanity,” failed to adequately analyze. The unresolved tension within the concept of “vital needs” thus stands as a central pivot point where the philosophy’s universalist claims collide with the messy particularities of human social existence, a recurring theme in the debates that would come to define the movement’s legacy.  

1.3 The Ecological Self: Ecosophy and Relational Identity

Deep Ecology is more than an environmental ethic; it is presented as an “ecosophy,” a term combining “ecology” and “sophia” (wisdom) to mean ecological wisdom or philosophy. Naess believed that a lasting solution to the ecological crisis required not just new rules for behavior but a radical re-evaluation of human nature itself. The ultimate goal is a profound psychological and spiritual transformation from the narrow, atomistic, ego-driven self of modern Western culture to what is termed the  “ecological self”. This ecological self is not an isolated entity but is understood as being deeply connected with, and constituted by, its relationships with the entire web of life. The process of achieving this expanded sense of identity is called  Self-realization (with a capital “S”). This is not the self-actualization of individualistic psychology but the realization of a wider, comprehensive Self that encompasses the whole ecosphere. In this view, the flourishing of the individual self is inseparable from the flourishing of the whole. This concept draws heavily on a variety of philosophical and spiritual traditions, most notably the metaphysics of the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, who saw nature (Deus sive Natura) as a single, all-encompassing substance, as well as the non-dualistic philosophies of Mahayana Buddhism and the nonviolent principles of Mahatma Gandhi.  

The primary psychological mechanism for attaining this Self-realization is identification. Through deep experience and empathy, an individual can expand their circle of identification beyond their ego, family, and community to include other species, ecosystems, and the Earth itself. As this identification deepens, the perceived boundary between self and other begins to dissolve. Consequently, harming nature becomes akin to harming oneself. In this state of expanded consciousness, acting to protect the environment is no longer a moral duty imposed from the outside but a natural act of  

“Self-defense”. This represents a fundamental shift from an ethics of obligation, which presupposes a separation between the moral agent and the object of concern, to an ontology of connection, where compassionate action flows spontaneously from a realized sense of kinship with all beings.  

Part II: The Making of a Movement: Key Figures and Texts

While Deep Ecology’s philosophical roots run deep, its emergence as a coherent movement was driven by a handful of key figures who not only articulated its core principles but also translated them into accessible platforms and transformative practices. These individuals, a blend of academics, activists, and spiritual teachers, shaped the trajectory of the movement from an esoteric philosophical position to a global grassroots phenomenon.

2.1 Arne Naess (1912–2009): The Philosopher-Mountaineer

The undisputed father of Deep Ecology is Arne Naess, a figure as multifaceted and rugged as the Norwegian landscapes he so loved. Naess was not a typical armchair philosopher; he was, at once, a formidable academic who held the chair of philosophy at the University of Oslo for thirty years, a world-class mountaineer who led the first expedition to ascend Tirich Mir in Pakistan, and a committed activist who engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience. This unique synthesis of intellectual rigor, direct experience of wild nature, and political engagement was central to the development of his ecophilosophy.  

Born into a wealthy Norwegian family in 1912, Naess’s intellectual journey was eclectic. He was influenced by the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle, the psychoanalysis of Freud’s colleagues, and the behavioral psychology he studied at Berkeley. Yet, his most enduring inspirations were the 17th-century philosopher Baruch Spinoza, whose pantheistic vision of nature as a single, divine substance resonated deeply with him, and Mahatma Gandhi, whose philosophy of nonviolent resistance (satyagraha) provided a model for political action. Naess’s early academic work in semantics and communication theory, which emphasized that meaning arises from context and relation, laid a conceptual groundwork for his later ecological view of organisms as existing within a web of relations.  

Much of his thinking was forged in the solitude of his remote mountain cabin, Tvergastein, which he built high on Mount Hallingskarvet. It was here, surrounded by the power and austerity of the mountains, that he developed the ideas that would become Deep Ecology. In 1973, he published his foundational article distinguishing “shallow” from “deep” ecology, giving the burgeoning radical environmental sentiment a name and a philosophical framework. Naess consistently stressed that Deep Ecology was not a rigid dogma but a broad movement united by a common platform. He encouraged others to develop their own personal, compatible philosophies, which he called “ecosophies.” His own, “Ecosophy T” (the ‘T’ standing for Tvergastein), was centered on the ultimate norm of Self-realization. His commitment to “wisdom in action” was not merely theoretical; in 1970, he famously chained himself to rocks to protest the construction of a dam at the Mardalsfossen waterfall, embodying the fusion of philosophy and activism that he championed.  

2.2 George Sessions (1938–2016) and the Eight-Point Platform

If Arne Naess was the philosophical originator of Deep Ecology, George Sessions was its primary architect and promoter in North America. A professor of philosophy at Sierra College in California, Sessions was, like Naess, an avid outdoorsman and climber with a deep, personal connection to wild nature. He was a tireless intellectual warrior for the cause, editing the influential  

Ecophilosophy Newsletter starting in 1976, which helped nurture the nascent academic field, and co-authoring or editing the movement’s cornerstone texts, including Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered (with Bill Devall) and the anthology Deep Ecology for the 21st Century.  

Sessions’s most enduring contribution came from his collaboration with Naess. In April 1984, the two men went on a camping trip in Death Valley, California. There, amidst the stark beauty of the desert, they distilled fifteen years of thought into a concise, eight-point statement intended to serve as a unifying platform for the movement. This platform was designed not as a rigid manifesto but as a set of general principles that people from different philosophical and religious traditions could agree upon, providing a common ground for action. First published in 1985, these eight points became the definitive summary of the Deep Ecology position:  

1. Intrinsic Value: “The well-being and flourishing of human and non-human life on Earth have value in themselves (synonyms: intrinsic value, inherent worth). These values are independent of the usefulness of the non-human world for human purposes”. This principle establishes the core ecocentric foundation, rejecting human instrumentalism.  
2. Diversity: “Richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves”. This elevates biodiversity from a biological fact to an ethical good.  
3. Vital Needs: “Humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs”. This introduces the crucial—and, as discussed, highly ambiguous—ethical constraint on human action.  
4. Population: “The flourishing of human life and cultures is compatible with a substantial decrease of the human population. The flourishing of non-human life requires such a decrease”. This is arguably the most controversial tenet, directly addressing human overpopulation as a primary driver of ecological destruction and opening the movement to charges of misanthropy.  
5. Excessive Interference: “Present human interference with the non-human world is excessive, and the situation is rapidly worsening”. This is a factual assertion about the severity of the current crisis.  
6. Policy Change: “Policies must therefore be changed. These policies affect basic economic, technological, and ideological structures. The resulting state of affairs will be deeply different from the present”. This is a call for radical, systemic transformation, not mere reform.  
7. Ideological Change (Quality of Life): “The ideological change is mainly that of appreciating life quality (dwelling in situations of inherent worth) rather than adhering to an increasingly higher standard of living. There will be a profound awareness of the difference between bigness and greatness”. This principle mounts a direct critique of consumerism and the equation of well-being with material accumulation.  
8. Obligation to Act: “Those who subscribe to the foregoing points have an obligation directly or indirectly to participate in the attempt to implement the necessary changes”. This final point is a moral imperative, transforming philosophical agreement into a commitment to action.  

2.3 The Experiential Turn: Spiritual and Practical Applications

While Naess and Sessions provided the philosophical “what” and “why” of Deep Ecology, a crucial evolution of the movement involved developing the practical “how.” The abstract concept of an “ecological self” could remain a purely intellectual construct unless there were methods to help people actually experience it. Arne Naess himself recognized this need, calling for “community therapies” to heal the broken relationship between humans and the natural world. This call was answered most powerfully by figures like Joanna Macy and John Seed, who developed experiential group processes that translated the ontology of the ecological self into repeatable, transformative practices. Their work marks a significant branching of the movement from academic philosophy into the realms of spiritual practice, psychology, and community ritual, a development largely responsible for its enduring grassroots appeal.  

Joanna Macy and The Work That Reconnects (WTR)

Joanna Macy, a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology, developed a powerful form of applied Deep Ecology known as “The Work That Reconnects” (WTR). Initially called “Despair and Empowerment Work,” WTR is a structured group process designed to help individuals move through the psychological paralysis caused by awareness of global crises—ecological collapse, social injustice, and the threat of war—and to find the solidarity and courage to act.  

The Work is grounded in the core assumptions of Deep Ecology: that the Earth is a living system, that our true nature is interconnected with the web of life, and that our pain for the world is a sign of this connection, not a pathology. Macy’s great contribution was to create a practical methodology for navigating this pain. The process unfolds as a spiral journey through four distinct but flowing stages :  

1. Coming from Gratitude: The journey begins by grounding participants in gratitude. This practice quiets the mind, fosters presence, and builds a foundation of resilience and appreciation for life, which provides the strength to face the world’s suffering.  
2. Honoring Our Pain for the World: This is the critical hinge of the process. Instead of repressing feelings of fear, grief, and rage, participants are given a safe space to acknowledge and express them. Macy reframes this pain not as a private burden but as compassion—literally “suffering with”—which is a testament to our profound interconnectedness.  
3. Seeing with New/Ancient Eyes: Having moved through their pain, participants are able to perceive the world from a wider, systemic perspective. This stage involves exercises that help them experience their deep-time connections to past and future generations and their deep-ecology connections to the entire web of life, seeing how social and ecological justice are intertwined.  
4. Going Forth: The spiral culminates in action. Participants are empowered to identify their unique gifts and roles in the “Great Turning”—the transition to a life-sustaining society—and to plan concrete, collaborative steps they can take in their communities.  

The WTR is a therapeutic technology for overcoming the “psychic numbing” that modern society encourages, allowing individuals to experience the reality of inter-existence that Deep Ecology posits as our true nature.  

John Seed and The Council of All Beings

Another powerful, practical application of deep ecological principles is the “Council of All Beings,” a communal ritual co-developed by Australian rainforest activist John Seed and Joanna Macy. The Council is a direct, imaginative method for breaking down the human-nature dualism and fostering an ecological self. It is a structured role-play that allows participants to “step aside from their human identity and speak on behalf of other life-forms”.  

The ritual typically unfolds in several stages :  

1. The Mourning: The process often begins with a ritual of mourning, acknowledging the pain and loss being inflicted upon the world. This can involve reciting the names of endangered species or creating a “cairn of mourning” where participants share stories of ecological loss. This step connects directly to Macy’s principle of “honoring our pain.”  
2. Being Chosen: Participants go into a quiet, meditative state, often in a natural setting, and allow themselves to be “chosen” by a non-human being—an animal, a plant, a river, a mountain—for whom they will speak in the council.
3. Mask-Making: Participants create masks to represent their chosen being, a non-verbal process that helps deepen their identification with the life-form.
4. The Council: The masked beings gather in a circle. In the first stage, each being speaks of its life, its strengths, and the suffering it is experiencing at the hands of humans. In the second stage, a few participants remove their masks to represent humanity, and the other beings address them directly, calling them to account for the destruction they have caused. In the final stage, the beings offer their gifts and powers to the now-frightened and overwhelmed humans, to help them awaken to their place in the web of life and find the strength to change.

The Council of All Beings is a potent technology for embodying the principle of biocentric equality. It facilitates a visceral, emotional shift in perspective, moving participants from an intellectual understanding of interconnectedness to a deeply felt experience of solidarity with all life. Together, the work of Macy and Seed represents the vital experiential dimension of the Deep Ecology movement, providing the tools necessary to cultivate the very consciousness that its philosophy describes.

Part III: A Contested Terrain: Deep Ecology in Dialogue and Debate

Deep Ecology did not emerge in a philosophical vacuum. Its radical claims immediately placed it in a dynamic and often contentious relationship with other emerging environmental philosophies. These dialogues and debates were not merely academic squabbles; they exposed fundamental differences in how to diagnose the root causes of the ecological crisis and, consequently, how to envision a path toward a sustainable future. The critiques leveled by social ecologists, ecofeminists, and, more recently, new materialists have been instrumental in shaping the reception and evolution of Deep Ecology, highlighting its blind spots and challenging its core assumptions.

To provide a clear framework for this complex intellectual landscape, the following table summarizes the key positions of these philosophies in relation to Deep Ecology.

Comparative Framework	Deep Ecology	Social Ecology	Ecofeminism	New Materialism
Primary Diagnosis of Crisis	Anthropocentrism (human-centeredness)	Social Hierarchy & Domination	Androcentrism (male-centeredness) & Patriarchy	Human/Nature Dualism; Matter as inert
Core Positive Proposal	“Ecological Self”; Biocentric worldview; Self-realization	Rational, decentralized, ecological society; Libertarian municipalism	Care-based ethics; Relational self	Recognition of vibrant, agentic matter; Agentic assemblages
Key Locus of Change	Consciousness; Spiritual/Philosophical shift	Social & Political Structures (anti-capitalist)	Gender Relations; Overturning Patriarchy	Ontological & Epistemological Re-evaluation
Main Critique of Deep Ecology	Apolitical; Misanthropic; Mystical	Fails to analyze social roots of crisis; Blames a monolithic “humanity”	Androcentric; Ignores “otherness” in its concept of Self	Idealist; Insufficiently materialist; Vague holism

3.1 Deep Ecology vs. Social Ecology: The Bookchin Critique

The most forceful and sustained critique of Deep Ecology came from Murray Bookchin, the founder of social ecology. Drawing from anarchist and Marxist traditions, Bookchin vehemently rejected Deep Ecology’s diagnosis of the crisis. For him, the root problem was not a vague philosophical “anthropocentrism” but the concrete, historical reality of  social hierarchy. The domination of nature, he argued, is a direct extension of the domination of human by human—of men over women, old over young, and one class or ethnic group over another. The ecological crisis is therefore a social crisis.  

From this premise, Bookchin launched a multi-pronged attack on Deep Ecology. First, he condemned its tendency to blame a monolithic, undifferentiated “humanity” for environmental destruction. This, he charged, was a profound misreading of history and power that equated the exploited with their exploiters, the poor with the rich, and people of color with whites. It ignored the fact that a capitalist system, with its imperative to “grow or die,” is the primary engine of planetary destruction, and that the responsibility for this system is not shared equally. By focusing on a “gospel of a kind of ‘original sin'” inherent in the human species, Deep Ecology was fundamentally  apolitical and ahistorical, failing to provide a coherent critique of capitalism, the state, and other structures of domination.  

Second, Bookchin attacked what he saw as Deep Ecology’s mysticism, irrationalism, and quietism. He viewed the emphasis on developing a personal “ecological consciousness” and the embrace of spiritual and quasi-religious ideas as a retreat from the necessary work of political organizing and social revolution. For Bookchin, the solution was not a change in individual consciousness but the creation of a rational, decentralized, ecological society through direct democracy and libertarian municipalism. He saw Deep Ecology’s anti-humanist and biocentric rhetoric as not only politically naive but dangerous, potentially leading to misanthropic conclusions that devalue human life and ignore the unique human capacity for reason and ethical action to solve the crisis.  

3.2 Deep Ecology vs. Ecofeminism: Patriarchy and the Relational Self

Ecofeminism offered another powerful critique, arguing that the ultimate root of the twin dominations of women and nature is not simply human-centeredness, but androcentrism (male-centeredness). Ecofeminist thinkers like Karen J. Warren and Val Plumwood posited that a patriarchal “logic of domination” has historically devalued and justified the oppression of both women and nature by associating them with the emotional, the bodily, and the non-rational, while privileging the masculine-coded realm of reason and culture. The oppression of women and the exploitation of nature are therefore inextricably linked products of the same patriarchal worldview.  

From this perspective, ecofeminists leveled several key criticisms against Deep Ecology. A central point of contention was the deep ecological concept of the expanded, capital-‘S’ Self. Thinkers like Plumwood argued that this notion of Self-realization, which involves identifying with and absorbing the whole of nature, is a subtly masculine and colonizing move. It fails to respect the otherness, difference, and independence of the natural world. Instead of a genuine relationship between two distinct entities, it risks becoming a form of cosmic ego-inflation where the “other” is simply assimilated into a larger version of the self, erasing its unique identity.  

In place of this expanded Self, ecofeminists proposed a “relational self” that is constituted through relationships of care, love, and responsibility toward particular others, both human and non-human. This ethical framework values emotion and attachment, which have been traditionally devalued by masculine-coded rationalism. They argued that Deep Ecology’s call for an impartial, universal identification with the entire cosmos was an abstract and emotionally detached position that mirrored the very rationalistic frameworks it claimed to oppose. Furthermore, many ecofeminists pointed out that the Deep Ecology movement was dominated by men and that its discourse often failed to address the gendered dimensions of environmental destruction, making it, in their view, insufficiently self-critical and inadvertently androcentric.  

3.3 Deep Ecology vs. New Materialism: Consciousness vs. Agentic Matter

A more recent philosophical dialogue has emerged between Deep Ecology and the cluster of theories known as new materialism. Both schools of thought fundamentally challenge human exceptionalism and the Cartesian dualism between humanity and nature. Both share an intellectual debt to Spinoza’s monistic philosophy, which posits a single, unified substance underlying all reality. However, their approaches to de-centering the human diverge in critical ways, primarily around the concepts of consciousness and matter.  

Deep Ecology, especially in its Naessian formulation, is often interpreted as a form of idealism or spiritualism. The locus of transformation is  consciousness. The goal is for the human subject to achieve an expanded awareness, a Self-realization, that recognizes its interconnectedness with a holistic, living cosmos. Value and meaning, while intrinsic to nature, are ultimately apprehended through this subjective, experiential shift.  

New materialism, in contrast, pursues a radically materialist path. Influenced by thinkers like Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Jane Bennett, it locates agency not in human (or cosmic) consciousness but in matter itself. It posits a “vibrant matter,” arguing that all entities, organic and inorganic, possess a “thing-power” or agentic capacity. Agency is the ability to act, produce effects, and alter the course of events, and it is diffused throughout the world in “agentic assemblages” of human and non-human forces. From this perspective, a plastic bag, a virus, a weather system, or a deposit of heavy metals are not passive objects awaiting human action but are active participants that shape the world.  

New materialists would critique Deep Ecology’s biocentrism as still too restrictive, as it tends to privilege living organisms over the vast realm of inorganic matter, which is equally agentic. While Deep Ecology seeks to overcome the human/nature divide through a unifying consciousness, new materialism dissolves it by showing how humans are always already entangled in and co-constituted by a world of vibrant, non-human materialities. The focus shifts from an ethic of identification to an ontology of intra-action and material entanglement.  

3.4 Addressing the Charges: Misanthropy, Eco-fascism, and Social Injustice

Beyond these philosophical debates, Deep Ecology has faced a barrage of severe ethical and political accusations that threaten its credibility. These charges often stem from the more extreme statements of its adherents and the perceived implications of its core tenets.

The charge of misanthropy (hatred of humanity) is perhaps the most persistent. It is fueled primarily by the platform’s call for a “substantial decrease of the human population” (Point #4) and by inflammatory remarks from prominent figures in the radical wing of the movement. Dave Foreman of Earth First! notoriously commented that we should “allow Ethiopians to starve” and suggested that AIDS might be nature’s solution to overpopulation. Critics like Bookchin seized on such statements as evidence of a crude “eco-brutalism” that feeds on human misery. The defense from mainstream deep ecologists is that these are extremist misinterpretations that betray the philosophy’s core. They point to Naess’s own grounding in Gandhian non-violence and his insistence that any population reduction must be slow, voluntary, and non-coercive. However, the platform’s vagueness left it open to these more sinister interpretations.  

A related and even more serious charge is that of eco-fascism. Critics have drawn uncomfortable parallels between Deep Ecology’s holism (privileging the whole over the individual), its critique of modern humanism, and its romantic “blood and soil” undertones with the ideology of German National Socialism. The embrace of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger by some deep ecologists, given his own entanglement with the Nazi party, provided further ammunition for this critique. Michael Zimmerman, for instance, argued that Nazism itself was a form of radical “green” movement that rejected humanism and embraced a neo-pagan religion of nature. The defense against this charge is that Deep Ecology’s foundational principles of biospherical egalitarianism, non-violence, and its anti-class, anti-domination posture are fundamentally incompatible with the hierarchical, racist, and militaristic nature of fascism. Nevertheless, the perceived parallels have remained a persistent stain on the movement’s reputation.  

Finally, the critique of social injustice synthesizes many of the arguments from social ecology and ecofeminism. Deep Ecology’s early and intense focus on wilderness preservation, combined with its relative silence on issues of class, race, and colonialism, led to accusations of it being an elitist philosophy for privileged Westerners. Critics like Ramachandra Guha argued that exporting a wilderness-preservation ethic to the Global South could lead to the displacement and further marginalization of indigenous and peasant communities who depend on the land for their survival. For many years, prominent deep ecologists explicitly stated that their primary concern was not social justice, which they sometimes dismissed as another “shallow,” human-centered issue. While some later proponents have worked to bridge this gap, arguing that ecological and social justice are deeply interconnected, the movement has struggled to shake off its reputation for being, at best, apolitical and, at worst, actively harmful to the cause of human equity.  

Part IV: The Enduring Legacy and Relevance

Despite the fierce philosophical debates and damaging political critiques, the influence of Deep Ecology on environmental thought and action over the past half-century is undeniable. Its call for a radical shift in values has permeated various sectors of the environmental movement, from grassroots activism and conservation science to the formation of political parties. While the movement itself has evolved and fragmented, its core challenge to the anthropocentric paradigm remains a vital and enduring contribution to the discourse on humanity’s future in the Anthropocene.

4.1 From Philosophy to Action: Influence on Activism and Conservation

Perhaps the most visible impact of Deep Ecology has been its role as the philosophical engine for radical environmental activism. Frustrated with the perceived ineffectiveness of mainstream environmentalism, a new generation of activists in the late 1970s and 1980s found in Deep Ecology a justification for more confrontational tactics. The most famous of these groups was Earth First!, co-founded by Dave Foreman in 1979. Embracing the slogan “No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth,” Earth First! translated deep ecological principles into direct action, including civil disobedience like tree-sitting and, more controversially, acts of ecological sabotage known as “monkeywrenching”. These actions, such as driving large nails into trees to disable chainsaws and sawmill blades, were designed to directly halt the destruction of wilderness areas. While these tactics were highly polarizing and drew condemnation from many corners, this radical flank succeeded in pushing the boundaries of environmental debate and bringing national attention to issues like old-growth forest logging.  

Beyond direct action, Deep Ecology’s principles have had a more subtle but profound influence on the field of conservation biology and environmental policy. The movement’s unwavering emphasis on the intrinsic value of all life and the importance of biodiversity helped shift the focus of conservation science. It encouraged a move away from single-species preservation toward a more holistic approach centered on protecting entire habitats and ecosystems. The realization that one cannot save the northern spotted owl, for instance, without saving the old-growth forests in which it lives is a direct practical application of this ecosystem-level thinking. This perspective helped shape the development of conservation biology as a “crisis discipline” in the 1980s, one focused on action to restore threatened ecosystems.  

Furthermore, deep ecological thought provided philosophical support for international policy frameworks like the Convention on Biological Diversity, which acknowledges the intrinsic value of biodiversity. It also inspired the bioregionalism movement, which argues that human societies should be reorganized to live in harmony within the ecological boundaries of their specific bioregions, fostering local autonomy and sustainable economies. Practical conservation projects that reflect deep ecological values include large-scale rewilding initiatives, which aim to restore ecosystem integrity by reintroducing keystone species, and efforts to protect sacred natural sites, which often recognize the spiritual and intrinsic value of landscapes held by indigenous communities.  

In the political arena, Deep Ecology was a key philosophical influence on the more radical, or “fundamentalist,” wing of Green parties that emerged across the industrialized world, particularly in Europe, during the 1970s and 1980s. While many of these parties later moderated their positions, the initial deep ecological impulse provided them with a powerful, anti-systemic critique of industrial society.  

4.2 Evolution and Adaptation: A Movement in Flux

The history of Deep Ecology is not static; it is a story of a philosophy in constant flux, shaped as much by internal revision as by external critique. The very feature that gave the movement its initial strength—its intentional vagueness—also necessitated its continuous evolution. Naess and Sessions designed the eight-point platform as a “big tent,” a loose framework that could unite people from diverse backgrounds around a common cause. Naess himself encouraged this pluralism, inviting supporters to develop their own personal “ecosophies”. This openness allowed for rapid and widespread adoption, but it also led to a significant fragmentation of meaning. As one critic observed, Deep Ecology was soon “well on the way to becoming all things to all interested parties,” a conceptual ambiguity that made it a difficult target to pin down but also vulnerable to internal contradiction and co-optation.  

This inherent flexibility, however, also allowed the movement to adapt in the face of sustained criticism. One of the earliest and most significant evolutions was the softening of the hardline “biospheric egalitarianism” present in Naess’s 1973 formulation. The idea that every living thing has an “equal right to live and blossom” proved to be philosophically problematic and practically untenable, and it was gradually suppressed and replaced by the more nuanced, though still challenging, language of “intrinsic value” and “vital needs” in the 1984 platform.

Similarly, the movement has been forced to grapple with the powerful critiques from social justice and ecofeminist perspectives. The initial, stark dichotomy between “deep” (nature-focused) and “shallow” (human-focused) concerns created a significant blind spot regarding issues of human-on-human oppression. Early proponents often dismissed social justice as a secondary, anthropocentric distraction from the more fundamental work of defending nature. However, over time, and in response to relentless criticism, this position has evolved. More recent deep ecological thinking has worked to integrate social and ecological concerns, arguing that the two are inextricably linked and that a true “ecological self” must also be a just and compassionate self. Some scholars have even re-framed the expansion of the self as a basis for “deep allyship” with oppressed human communities, arguing that the same logic that connects one to nature can connect the privileged to the marginalized.  

The history of Deep Ecology can thus be seen as a case study in the lifecycle of a social movement philosophy. It began with a pure, radical, and somewhat philosophically naive set of principles. Faced with the complexities of the real world and the sharp critiques from competing radical philosophies, it was forced to evolve. A rigid dogma would likely have shattered under such pressure, but a loose, adaptable movement was able to bend and incorporate new ideas, even if this process led to a dilution of its original coherence and a loss of its initial, uncompromising clarity.

4.3 Conclusion: The Value of Deep Questioning in the Anthropocene

To assess the legacy of Deep Ecology is to confront a profound duality. On one hand, it is a philosophy marked by significant and, in some cases, disqualifying flaws. Its historical tendency toward an apolitical stance, its failure to adequately theorize social power, its vulnerability to misanthropic and even quasi-fascistic interpretations, and its initial dismissal of social justice concerns represent serious failings. The deliberate vagueness that was meant to be a source of unity often became a source of confusion and allowed for the accommodation of reactionary and dangerous ideas under its banner. For its staunchest critics, like Murray Bookchin, Deep Ecology was not just flawed but an active impediment to genuine social and ecological transformation.

On the other hand, to dismiss Deep Ecology entirely is to overlook its essential and enduring contribution. Its core challenge to the foundational assumptions of modern industrial civilization is more relevant today than ever. In an era now widely defined as the Anthropocene—an age characterized by humanity’s overwhelming impact on planetary systems—the deep ecological critique of anthropocentrism is not merely a philosophical exercise but a matter of survival. The movement’s insistence on the intrinsic value of the non-human world provides a powerful ethical counter-narrative to the relentless commodification of nature that drives the global economy. It forces a moral reckoning with the mass extinction of species and the destruction of ecosystems, asking us to consider them not as collateral damage in the pursuit of human progress but as profound ethical tragedies in their own right.

Ultimately, the greatest legacy of Deep Ecology may not lie in the specific answers it provided, many of which were incomplete or problematic. Rather, its lasting importance is found in its unwavering commitment to “asking deeper questions”. It pushed the environmental conversation beyond the “shallow” realm of technological fixes and resource management to the “deep” terrain of fundamental values, worldviews, and what it means to be human on a living planet. It demands a shift from seeing the ecological crisis as a technical problem to be solved to understanding it as a spiritual and philosophical crisis to be faced. While other philosophies like social ecology and ecofeminism offer more robust analyses of the social drivers of this crisis, Deep Ecology’s unique power lies in its simple, radical, and deeply uncomfortable assertion that the world is not here just for us. In a time of unprecedented ecological peril, that deep questioning remains an indispensable starting point for any meaningful path forward.  

References

1. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.  
2. Sessions, George, ed. Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism. Boston: Shambhala, 1995.  
3. Drengson, Alan, and Yuichi Inoue, eds. The Deep Ecology Movement: An Introductory Anthology. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1995.  
4. Leopold, Aldo. A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford University Press, 1949.  
5. Naess, Arne. “The Shallow and the Deep, Long-Range Ecology Movement. A Summary.” Inquiry 16, no. 1 (1973): 95–100.  
6. Naess, Arne. “The Deep Ecology Movement: Some Philosophical Aspects.” Philosophical Inquiry 8, no. 1/2 (1986): 10–31.  
7. Devall, Bill, and George Sessions. Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered. Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, 1985.  
8. Naess, Arne. “A Defence of the Deep Ecology Movement.” Environmental Ethics 6, no. 3 (1984): 265–70.  
9. Zimmerman, Michael E. Contesting Earth’s Future: Radical Ecology and Postmodernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.  
10. Devall, Bill. “The Deep Ecology Movement.” Natural Resources Journal 20, no. 2 (1980): 299–322.  
11. Naess, Arne, and George Sessions. “Platform of Deep Ecology.” In Clearing the Ground: A Tiller Publication, edited by Bill Devall, 19–20. San Francisco: Tiller, 1986.  
12. Sylvan, Richard. “A Critique of Deep Ecology.” Radical Philosophy, no. 40 (1985): 2–12.  
13. Naess, Arne. Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy. Translated and edited by David Rothenberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.  
14. Fox, Warwick. Toward a Transpersonal Ecology: Developing New Foundations for Environmentalism. Boston: Shambhala, 1990.  
15. Naess, Arne. “Ecosophy T: ‘Deep’ versus ‘Shallow’ Ecology.” In Ecophilosophy: A Field Guide to the Literature, edited by Donald Edward Davis, 12–30. San Anselmo, CA: Ecosphere Press, 1998.  
16. Guha, Ramachandra. “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation: A Third World Critique.” Environmental Ethics 11, no. 1 (1989): 71–83.  
17. Sciberras, Colette. “Deep Ecology and Ecofeminism: A Contribution to the Dialogue.” Ethics and the Environment 4, no. 2 (1999): 185–96.  
18. Naess, Arne. “The Three Great Movements.” The Trumpeter 9, no. 2 (1992).  
19. Zimmerman, Michael E. “Rethinking the Heidegger-Deep Ecology Relationship.” Environmental Ethics 15, no. 3 (1993): 195–224.  
20. Naess, Arne, and George Sessions. “The Deep Ecology Platform.” The Trumpeter 2, no. 4 (1985).  
21. Naess, Arne, and George Sessions. “Basic Principles of Deep Ecology.” 1984. Accessed July 14, 2025.  
22. Marshall, Peter. Nature’s Web: Rethinking Our Place on Earth. London: Simon & Schuster, 1992.  
23. Naess, Arne. “Intrinsic Value: Wonder and Joy.” The Trumpeter 12, no. 2 (1995).  
24. Naess, Arne. “Self-Realization: An Ecological Approach to Being in the World.” The Trumpeter 4, no. 3 (1987): 35–42.  
25. Naess, Arne. “The Basics of Deep Ecology.” Resurgence, no. 126 (1988): 4–6.  
26. Bookchin, Murray. “Will Ecology Become ‘the Dismal Science’?” The Progressive 55, no. 12 (1991): 18–21.  
27. Seed, John, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess. Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1988.  
28. Macy, Joanna. “The Greening of the Self.” In Context, no. 22 (1989): 34.  
29. Naess, Arne. “Self-Realisation in Mixed Communities of Humans, Bears, Sheep, and Wolves.” Inquiry 22, no. 1-4 (1979): 231–41.  
30. Drengson, Alan. “The Sacred and the Limits of the Ecological Self.” The Trumpeter 10, no. 4 (1993).  
31. de Jonge, Eccy. Spinoza and Deep Ecology: Challenging Traditional Approaches to Environmentalism. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004.  
32. Sessions, George. “Ecophilosophy, Utopias, and Education.” The Journal of Environmental Education 15, no. 1 (1983): 27–42.  
33. Sessions, George. “The Deep Ecology Movement: A Review.” Environmental Review: ER 11, no. 2 (1987): 105–25.  
34. Walker, Casey. “Remembering George Sessions.” Rewilding, 2016.  
35. McLaughlin, Andrew. “The Heart of Deep Ecology.” The Trumpeter 5, no. 2 (1988).  
36. Macy, Joanna. “The Work That Reconnects.” Yes! Magazine, Fall 2000.  
37. Macy, Joanna, and Molly Young Brown. Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 1998.  
38. Macy, Joanna. “World as Lover, World as Self.” Parabola 16, no. 3 (1991): 64–71.  
39. Work That Reconnects Network. “The Spiral of the Work That Reconnects.” Accessed July 14, 2025. https://workthatreconnects.org/what-is-the-work-that-reconnects/.  
40. Macy, Joanna. “Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age.” New Age Journal, September 1982.  
41. Seed, John. “The Council of All Beings.” In Context, no. 22 (1989): 40.  
42. Work That Reconnects Network. “Council of All Beings.” Accessed July 14, 2025. https://workthatreconnects.org/resources/council-of-all-beings/.  
43. Seed, John. “Anthropocentrism.” Appendix E in Thinking Like a Mountain, by John Seed, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1988.  
44. Bookchin, Murray, and Dave Foreman. “Theses on Social Ecology and Deep Ecology.” Social Ecology Project, August 1, 1995.  
45. Macy, Joanna. Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1983.  
46. Macy, Joanna. “The Work That Reconnects.” Accessed July 14, 2025. https://www.joannamacy.net/work.  
47. Work That Reconnects South Africa. “The Work That Reconnects.” Accessed July 14, 2025. https://theworkthatreconnectssa.wordpress.com/the-work-that-reconnects/.  
48. Seed, John. “Council of All Beings.” The Shalom Center. Accessed July 14, 2025. https://www.neohasid.org/stoptheflood/council/.  
49. Bookchin, Murray. “Social Ecology versus Deep Ecology: A Challenge for the Ecology Movement.” Socialist Review 88, no. 3 (1988).  
50. Warren, Karen J. “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism.” Environmental Ethics 12, no. 2 (1990): 125–46.  
51. Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge, 1993.  
52. Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.  
53. Tokay, Ela. “Deep Ecology and ‘New Materialism’: Problems and Potential.” Ethics and the Environment 29, no. 2 (2024): 89–112.  
54. Coole, Diana, and Samantha Frost, eds. New Materialisms: Ontology, Agency, and Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.  
55. Bookchin, Murray. The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy. London: Verso, 2015.  
56. Plumwood, Val. “Nature, Self, and Gender: Feminism, Environmental Philosophy, and the Critique of Rationalism.” Hypatia 6, no. 1 (1991): 3–27.  
57. Alaimo, Stacy, and Susan Hekman, eds. Material Feminisms. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.  
58. Naess, Arne. “The World of Concrete Contents.” Inquiry 28, no. 4 (1985): 417–28.  
59. Bookchin, Murray. The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays on Dialectical Naturalism. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1990.  
60. Clark, John, ed. Renewing the Earth: The Promise of Social Ecology. London: Green Print, 1990.  
61. Mies, Maria, and Vandana Shiva. Ecofeminism. London: Zed Books, 1993.  
62. Smith, Mick. “Deep Ecology: What is Said and (to be) Done?” The Trumpeter 19, no. 2 (2003).  
63. Salleh, Ariel. “The Ecofeminism/Deep Ecology Debate: A Reply to Patriarchal Reason.” Environmental Ethics 14, no. 3 (1992): 195–216.  
64. Luke, Timothy W. Ecocritique: Contesting the Politics of Nature, Economy, and Culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.  
65. Naess, Arne. “Deepness of Questions and the Deep Ecology Movement.” In The Paradox of Environmentalism, edited by Lorna Salzman, 200–21. London: Routledge, 1991.  
66. Warren, Karen J., ed. Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.  
67. Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Translated by Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.  
68. Bennett, Jane. “The Force of Things: Steps toward an Ecology of Matter.” Political Theory 32, no. 3 (2004): 347–72.  
69. Witoszek, Nina. “The Eco-Fascist Temptation.” World-Ecology, May 20, 2016.  
70. Ferry, Luc. The New Ecological Order. Translated by Carol Volk. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.  
71. Eckersley, Robyn. Environmentalism and Political Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.  
72. Sessions, George. “Deep Ecology and the New Age.” The Trumpeter 5, no. 2 (1988).  
73. Taylor, Bron. Dark Green Religion: Nature Spirituality and the Planetary Future. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.  
74. Reynolds, Joel Michael. “Deep Ecology/Deep Allyship: Imbricated Oppressions, Amassing Allies, and Social Justice Change.” Journal of Philosophy of Disability 1 (2021): 1–25.  
75. Soulé, Michael E., and Reed F. Noss. “Rewilding and Biodiversity: Complementary Goals for Continental Conservation.” Wild Earth 8, no. 3 (1998): 18–28.  
76. Bradford, George. “How Deep Is Deep Ecology?” Fifth Estate, no. 328 (Fall 1987).  
77. Naess, Arne. “Simple in Means, Rich in Ends: A Conversation with Arne Naess.” The Ten Directions, Summer/Fall 1995.  

Bibliography

Bookchin, Murray. The Ecology of Freedom: The Emergence and Dissolution of Hierarchy. Palo Alto, CA: Cheshire Books, 1982.

Bookchin, Murray. The Philosophy of Social Ecology: Essays on Dialectical Naturalism. 2nd ed. Montreal: Black Rose Books, 1995.

Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962.

Devall, Bill, and George Sessions. Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered. Salt Lake City: Gibbs M. Smith, 1985.

Macy, Joanna, and Molly Young Brown. Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 1998.

Naess, Arne. Ecology, Community and Lifestyle: Outline of an Ecosophy. Translated and edited by David Rothenberg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. London: Routledge, 1993.

Seed, John, Joanna Macy, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess. Thinking Like a Mountain: Towards a Council of All Beings. Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1988.

Sessions, George, ed. Deep Ecology for the 21st Century: Readings on the Philosophy and Practice of the New Environmentalism. Boston: Shambhala, 1995.

Warren, Karen J., ed. Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

Zimmerman, Michael E. Contesting Earth’s Future: Radical Ecology and Postmodernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.