How can more than six billion people lead a peaceful existence, on a planet that has limited resources to meet their needs and wants? This question has benerated debates about water, endangered speicies, social justice, biotechnology, and militarism; in addition these debates are keeping the concept of sustainability consistently in the public eye. As a response, there are increasing global concerns about forms of economic development that have undesirable social and ecological impacts. Values and patterns of behavior from teh past are being put into question, as humanity faces challenges thatw e have never known before.

Historically the division between human beings and nature can be traced as far back to philosophers such as, Plato, Aristotle, and Augustine, who seperated experiences of the mind and body. The gap widened with the emergence of Newtonian science and the Age of Enlightenment, when nature began to be analyzed in terms of mathematics and the mechanical. These belief systems developed in parallel with rising populations and have increasingly placed stress upon our worlds eco systems. Today pressures from globalization are beginning to create opprotunities for increased human consciousness. By examining the human - nature divide, we can reevaluate our consumerism tendencies. and ultimately reconfigure our belief systems to represent a set of shared environmental values.