To the question, "What is the world?" the answers still tend to be fuzzy. In the traditional sense, the Earth remains the supportive environment for humanity; merely the means for enhancement of the one animal "made in God's image." To physical science that has denatured reality the world is a material place of molecules and atoms, of solids, liquids and gases, of atmosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere and biosphere. For biological science it is a scene wherein mechanistic organisms compete for survival, driven by selfish genes. To the economist it is raw materials and resources, valueless until transformed by the "innovative genius of man" into marketable commodities. These are our humanistic homo-centred legacies--no longer reasonable.
In the profounder ecological sense, the world is now known as a unity. The various spheres--atmo, hydro, litho, and bio--are intertwined and related, both in the historical evolutionary sense and in the present functional sense. Organic tissues of living things are fashioned from the elements of air, water and soil which in turn bear the imprints of life. Thus, the nutrient composition of sea water is maintained by organisms which also stabilize the improbable composition of the atmosphere. Plants and animals formed the limestone in mountains whose sediments make our bones. Our blood and sea water are consanguineous. On the Earth's surface the artificial divisions that we have made between living and non-living, biotic and abiotic, organic and inorganic, are not only false but mischievous. 
The reality of the world is not people and separate "other things." Nor is the Earth a machine whose secrets lie in its fragmented parts. It is--beyond all understanding--an integrated Ecosphere of marvelous creativity.
The root meaning of "eco" is "home," and the revealed Ecosphere is the home-sphere from which all life came and in which all life exists. Thanks to NASA, ecology--which means study of the home--has had its eyes opened to the reality of the Home of all homes.
Ecospheric ethics is based on the ecological valuation of Earth as source and support of humanity. It is strengthened by the belief and faith that what has for years been thought of as mere "environment" is a reality more important than me, you, and all of us. Humans are parts of the Ecosphere, the whole that brings into being and sustains all organic creatures.
Only a strong sense of the Ecosphere's creative and sustaining values can make it the ethical object of prime importance for humanity. Confirmed as such, its maintenance will merit high-priority consideration in national and international policy matters, legislation, and global agreements.
by Stan Rowe
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Ecospheric Ethics
Threads: Wisdom