Another crucial shift in thinking came courtesy of space programs. Earthbound mortals now have a new perspective from which to interpret their obligations to the biosphere. It would be hard to overestimate the importance of the transcendent experience of being able to see the earth for what it is--a beautiful, shimmering, vulnerable vessel of life in the dead void of space. In practical terms the view from space enables scientists to see earth as an entire system. Images of vast planetary circulatory patterns that rule the atmosphere and oceans gave a push to the notion that earth itself functions like an organism--an idea dubbed the Gaia hypothesis by the British thinker James Lovelock--and that we tamper with it at our peril.

Lofty images of the home planet, a growing awareness of our power to undermine vital systems and concern about pollution and endangered wildlands have combined to make safeguarding natural resources a broadly shared value. In the U.S., voters have consistently supported paying the 2% or so of gross domestic product that is devoted to protecting the environment. That mystifies classical economists, who see such expenditures as a drag on consumption, and therefore on a society's well-being. What more and more people are telling economists and politicians is that they realize their well-being is something more than mere consumption and that it is connected to the health of the land, water and skies.

This value surfaces in ways that would be dumbfounding to some environmentally oriented Austin Powers who suddenly awoke after being frozen for 30 years. He would encounter poor peasants in the Amazon who want to work with the rain forest rather than cut it. He would note the emergence of a permanent environmental establishment, true believers who have in some respects assumed the role of clerics as the arbiters of appropriate behavior, holding to account consumers, corporations and even governments when their activities threaten Mother Earth.

Such changes notwithstanding, the overall decline of the biosphere goes on. It is questionable whether governments have the political will to deal with ecological problems in a world twice as crowded as it was when the current pulse of environmental awareness began. Still, the movement of environment toward the top of the agenda continues--if only because the mounting pressure on earth's life-support systems will not let the international community's attention wander for long. And when it does, an increasingly aroused public is there to stiffen the politicians' resolve.