We know industrialization affects the physical world, so why must we be faced with catastrophic problems--overpopulation, the loss of biodiversity, oil spills and toxic dump sites, global warming, and the like--before we act to protect the planet's ecosystem--and then most often inadequately? Why are we blind to the daily assaults we make on our environment?

With astute analysis Peter Seidel explores the complex convergence of social, economic, and political factors that keep us from acting in our own self-interest. If we are to take responsible action to save the earth and ourselves, Seidel explains, we must look at how we evolved as a species, our concepts of the world and how we fit into it, the social structures we create, and the ethical views that divide us from each other and the natural world. Seidel explains how to recognize and overcome the obstacles to responsible action we ourselves have created and he provides a strategy for change.