Vol. 18 No. 2 (2010)

Nature” now enjoys center stage in popular media, politics and academia. It is almost commonplace, for example, to entertain the idea of global government to solve problems in global climate change. Addressing the same problem in a different way, there is a rising interest among scholars of religion and philosophers to explore new concepts of nature; it is argued that ecological problems cannot be reversed or even adequately addressed until we revaluate our understanding of nature and our attitude towards it. Although an atheist and reactor to Abrahamic conceptions of God, Lord Robert May, once the Chief Science Advisor to the U.K. Government, has said that religion might engender just the sorts of attitudes towards nature and conceptions of nature we need right now to reverse climate change (Alleyne 2009). Some have proposed that by giving nature attributes like mind or soul we might foster a more respectful attitude towards it (e.g. Callicott 2009). This is a bold direction, one with which scholars of Hinduism might find resonances.